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    GORGworld conspiracy // 911 // new world order ... part 4 :: The War on Error
    GORG
    GORG --- ---
    Canadian paper apologises for anti-Iran story

    Wed May 24, 2006 5:12 PM BST

    OTTAWA (Reuters) - A Canadian newspaper apologised on Wednesday for a story that said Iran planned to force Jews and other religious minorities to wear distinctive clothing to distinguish themselves from Muslims.

    The conservative National Post ran the story on its front page last Friday along with a large photo from 1944 which showed a Hungarian couple wearing the yellow stars that the Nazis forced Jews to sew to their clothing.

    The story, which included tough anti-Iran comments from prominent Jewish groups, was picked up widely by Web sites and by other media.

    "Is Iran turning into the new Nazi Germany? Share your opinion online," the paper asked readers last Friday.

    But the National Post, a long-time supporter of Israel and critic of Tehran, admitted on Wednesday it had not checked the piece thoroughly enough before running it.

    "It is now clear the story is not true," National Post editor-in-chief Douglas Kelly wrote in a long editorial on page 2. "We apologise for the mistake and for the consternation it has caused not just National Post readers, but the broader public who read the story."


    The story was based on a column by Iranian expatriate writer Amir Taheri, who said a law being debated by Iran's parliament would force Jews to sew a yellow strip of cloth to their clothes. Christians would wear a red strip while Zoroastrians would wear a blue one.

    Iranian legislators dismissed the story.

    The story and the column appeared at a time when the international community is pressuring Tehran over its nuclear program. Iran is also under fire for comments by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in which he doubted the scale of the Holocaust.

    Asked about the Post story last Friday, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Iran "is very capable of this kind of action". He added: "It boggles the mind that any regime on the face of the Earth would want to do anything that could remind people of Nazi Germany."

    A spokesman for Harper said the prime minister had started off his comments with the words "If this is true".

    http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyid=2006-05-24T161115Z_01_N24288458_RTRUKOT_0_TEXT0.xml
    OMRI
    OMRI --- ---
    Exiles: Iran Jews to wear yellow ribbons

    Iranian expatriates said Friday that the "National Uniform Law" authorized by the Iranian parliament a few days ago, which is aimed at getting “Western” style clothing off the streets and advancing more traditional “Islamic” attire, also includes a clause obligating Iranian Jews to wear a yellow ribbon.

    Members of the country’s Christian minority will be forces to wear a red ribbon, while those practicing the ancient Persian religion will be obligated to place a blue ribbon on their clothes.

    The new law is expected to go into effect within the next few months after it is authorized by Iran's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

    Shortly after the report was published in Canada’s National Post, however, the newspaper printed a second article expressing reservations about its legitimacy, saying that many experts doubt the existence of the supposed Iranian law. The Iranian Embassy in Canada also denied the reports, the newspaper said.

    Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter said Friday in response to reports that a new Iranian law may require Jews to wear a yellow armband, that ““he who will force Jews, wherever they may be, to wear yellow badges will eventually find himself in a casket covered in black cloth.”

    Although the report is unconfirmed, Iranian expatriates in Canada told the National Post that a new “National Uniform Law” will require members of minority groups to wear identifying armbands: Jews would wear yellow ones, while Christians would don red bands and Persians – blue. According to the report, the new law which was approved in the Iranian parliament, would be applied in the upcoming months if it is okayed by Iran’s spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

    Minister Ophir Pines, a member of the Political-Security Cabinet requested of the Cabinet Secretary that the issue be brought up on the agenda of the next government meeting. Pines said, “The state of Israel was established after the Holocaust, to prevent its recurrence. The yellow badge in Iran is a red light that obligates us to enlist the whole world in light of what is going on there.” Pines suggested that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert put the matter as a top priority during his upcoming diplomatic visit to Washington.

    Opposition parties slammed the report as well. Meretz Chairman Dr. Yossi Beilin said that “the moment Iranian Jews are told to wear a yellow ribbon, Israel will have to prove that there is a significance to the existence of a Jewish state after the Holocaust.”

    “Israel cannot suffice with criticisms, and it will have to act to move all Jews that want to leave Iran, and stand at the forefront of isolating the insane and Hitlerian Iranian leadership from the government,” Beilin said.
    'Closer and closer to Nazi ideology'

    Chairman of the Leonid Nevzlin, chairman of the Diaspora Museum Board of Governors, called on Jews around the world to wear a yellow ribbon. Nevzlin said: “Iran is using Hitler’s methods of exterminating the Jewish people, and the whole world must unite against the threat to the free world.”

    Rabbi Marvin Hier, who heads the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, said that Iran is getting "closer and closer to the Nazi ideology," adding that only an international outcry can prevent the law from going into effect.
    Heir demanded that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan address the matter at once."The world ignored Hitler for many years; he was dismissed as a demagogue, they said he'd never come to power - and we were all wrong," he said.

    Efraim Zuroff, the director of the Wiesenthal Center in Israel, said in response, “This is simply a catastrophe; it automatically brings one back to the Holocaust, and we do not need to remind the Israeli public that the yellow badges came just before the expulsion and extermination.

    “There is no consolation in the fact that Christians are being labeled as well. The Iranian regime has completely lost its mind. The world cannot stand idly by, and I’m sure this development will place the Iranian issue at the top of the agenda during Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s visit to Washington,” he said.



    OMRI
    OMRI --- ---
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Swukpgmuqr0
    paranoid or realistic point of view?
    OMRI
    OMRI --- ---
    JAXXE: If there will be a war in Iran Im realy in doubt if Israel has anything to benefit from it.. except thousents or milions of deads..
    JAXXE
    JAXXE --- ---
    Report: Israel warns of World Cup terror

    Saudi newspaper says Israel warned US, European intelligence service of possible attempts by Hizbullah cells to carry out attacks during upcoming soccer tournament in Germany in bid to prove to international community that Tehran is capable of retaliation if attacked
    Roee Nahmias



    Israel has warned European and American intelligence bodies of possible attempts by Hizbullah cells, led by Imad Mugniyah, to carry out terror attacks during the upcoming World Cup tournament in Germany, the Saudi Al-Watan newspaper reported on Friday.


    According to the report, the terror plot is aimed at proving to the international community that Tehran is capable of retaliation if attacked.


    Sources in Washington said a joint US-European operations room has been set up to deal with such a scenario; to this end, two American
    aircraft carriers, along with a French ship are making their way to the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf.

    ...

    http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3255447,00.html

    WRH comment: Israel has an uncanny ability to issue warnings before major terrorist attacks ahead of time, but although the warnings are always enough for Israel to deny involvement after-the-fact, they are never detailed enough to prevent the attack in the first place.

    Now, stop and think for a moment. Why would Iran carry out such a terror attack when such an attack gives the US the very excuse it needs to invade? Obviously, Iran has no motive for such an attack. Israel and the US, on the other hand, have every reason for such an attack, to be framed on Iran, in order to kick off the war that USreal clearly wants, but cannot build public support for.

    If there is a "Munich II", who benefits? Who gets what they want?
    GORG
    GORG --- ---
    S: Please comment on “hooker-gate” that was reported on a CNN news program.

    MATTHEW: The term “hooker-gate” is much more frivolous than the reality, which is nothing less than a vast web of darkness that for years has been pervasive within the US government and extends to visiting foreign dignitaries, multinational corporate lobbyists and other Illuminati figures. With the intention of creating blackmail situations much more than offering entertainment, a “harem” to satisfy heterosexual, homosexual and pedophilia interests is available “24/7,” and satanic rituals are part of it. Films of the unimaginable depravity along with proof of widespread bribery have resulted in congressional votes that fly in the face of obvious national needs and deny the constitutional rights of citizens. Even though the people of the United States are clearly showing their growing disapproval of Bush, his cabinet and the Congress, and Internet reports abound with sound information that justifies the people’s shaken faith, still the country will be reeling in shock when the revelations about these politicians come forth.

    S: Why did Porter Goss abruptly resign as CIA chief for no apparent reason?

    MATTHEW: However valuable Goss’s involvement in Illuminati’s terrorist activities, which furthered that aspect of their insidious agenda, his abrupt departure was ordered by the topmost members of that dark group. Investigations into the various criminal dealings of the government tied Goss to a number of areas that would expose the Illuminati-controlled CIA faction, and they couldn’t allow that to happen to a “sitting” chief. Although their efforts to keep this from surfacing will be futile, there can be the official statement that when Goss’s betrayal of national interests was discovered, he was immediately asked to resign and once again “faulty intelligence,” this time linked to him, can be blamed. Since all official statements are only assertions with nothing substantive to back them, that would be no different.

    I need to digress a moment for some clarification. First, many within the CIA are loyal public servants dedicated to their mission of protecting the United States from potential aggressor nations. With highly specialized jobs and information divulged on a need-to-know basis, those in lower ranking positions don’t know what happens in the higher levels of authority, much less that some of their colleagues are rogue agents carrying out “black ops” missions for the Illuminati and are not the covert patriots as contended.

    An example of both CIA factions in action and their opposing purposes is the collusion between the White House and select members of the media that “leaked” Valerie Plame as a CIA agent. The consensus that it was “payback” for her husband’s intelligence-gathering trip and his findings that disagreed with the official line about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction is not correct. But it was “payback.” It was the Illuminati’s retaliation for the actions of Ms. Plame and her staff of operatives that prevented the “black ops” from hiding WMD in Iraq, where inspectors would easily find them and prove that Bush’s repetitious assertion was right. Although that prevention effort did not deter the ones determined to invade and control Iraq, it does not lessen one iota the true patriotism of Plame and her operatives who acted to uphold the Constitution and defend their country.

    Another point of clarification is this: The most powerful of the Illuminati are not public figures such as presidents, premiers, ambassadors, members of Congress or Parliaments, or corporate CEOs, board chairs or head of the Federal Reserve. On the contrary, the peak Illuminati work in secrecy and silence out of public sight as they control those prominent figures.

    S: What about Queen Elizabeth?

    MATTHEW: She is a rare exception insofar as being in the public eye. However, she is portrayed as a ceremonial figurehead who serves England’s enjoyment of the pomp and romance of royal traditions, whereas she actually is among the most powerful of the Illuminati due to the Crown’s vast holdings. Still greater influence, though, is centered in the Vatican, with its pernicious outreach of virtual mind control over its religious adherents and ruthlessness in preserving its internal secret societies and untold wealth.

    http://www.mayanmajix.com/art2477.html
    GORG
    GORG --- ---
    As Bush admits making mistakes over Iraq, Blair offers a new world vision
    By Alec Russell in Washington
    (Filed: 27/05/2006)
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=SWBLI2HRT5X1PQFIQMFSFFWAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2006/05/27/wblair27.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/05/27/ixuknews.html

    Tony Blair last night challenged the world to unite around a policy of "progressive pre-emption" as he sought to shore up his legacy by linking the invasion of Iraq to a range of problems, from global warming and poverty to immigration.
    GORG
    GORG --- ---
    The Illuminati

    One hopes that, if there is a looming New World Order of Orwellian proportions that stems back hundreds of years, we are much further along with evidence than the broad speculation of The Illuminati. But at least it proves that it helps to be dogmatic when you’re zealous.

    Leaps of faith. That’s what you need to be a serious conspiracy theorist. The problem with a lot of high-level conspiracies is proof. Despite secret organizations working at ruling the world since the sixteenth century, there seems to be a lack of evidence pointing to an attempt at the so-called New World Order. The phrase was first used by Woodrow Wilson when he referred to the League of Nations, the predecessor to the U.N. Strangely The Illuminati, a documentary talking about the sinister forces that are in charge of the world, doesn’t touch on the United Nations. Nor does it look at the Vatican, another fertile ground for conspiracy theory. In fact, there are a few things the documentary doesn’t bring light to, such as the belief that Communism was a creation of a shadow organization.

    But it doesn’t need to. The Illuminati has more than enough of its own theories to why the world has gone wrong. It all starts with a fascinating montage of news events from over the decades, most of which focus on the U.S.’ gulf war campaigns in the Nineties and now. To save a viewer a lot of time, The Illuminati concerns a huge amount of its time with anti-Bush sentiment. Now there’s nothing wrong with complaining about Bush, but in that case your top interviewee should be Noam Chomsky, not David Icke. Yes, the man who thinks that the world is being ruled by a sinister race of reptiles is the top authority that appears in this documentary.

    http://www.agoravox.com/article.php3?id_article=4838
    MARSHUS
    MARSHUS --- ---
    Pentagon sources: Civilians likely killed without provocation
    http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/05/26/marines.haditha/index.html

    An ongoing military investigation supports allegations that U.S. Marines in November killed 24 innocent Iraqi civilians without being provoked, senior Pentagon sources said Friday.
    MARSHUS
    MARSHUS --- ---
    GORG
    GORG --- ---
    Blair outlines his world vision
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/05/26/ublair.xml

    Mr Blair today conceded that the war in Iraq had "split the world" but said that now was the time for the world to come together and support the emerging democracy.
    GORG
    GORG --- ---
    Peter Daou: CIA Director Resigns Abruptly, Bloggers 2 Steps Ahead of the Kennedy-Obsessed Media
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20060505/cm_huffpost/020441
    GORG
    GORG --- ---
    Mainstream Media Treatment of CIA Chief Resignation Is Astounding and Pathetic
    http://www.buzzflash.com/analysis/06/05/ana06029.html
    GORG
    GORG --- ---
    New scandals to rock Wash. D.C.
    Geplaatst op 10.05.2006 om 16:27:52 uur | 818 bekeken | Het complot | WWW.NIBURU.NL | print
    TOM HENEGHAN & STEW WEBB REVEAL NEW SCANDALS ABOUT TO ROCK WASHINGTON, DC

    Major government officials and media about to be caught up in numerous sex scandals.
    Lou Dobbs says "this government is not working."

    by Scott Mowry
    5.8.06

    The news emanating from our nation's capital continues to grow worse and worse by the week. While an unprecedented number of highly questionable policy decisions, misconducts and outright lies have already emerged from the Bush administration and Congress this year, yet another major scandal is set to rock Washington, DC to its very core.

    In what could well be the most explosive scandal to date, a whole host of sordid and sensationalistic charges are about to be leveled against members of Congress, the administration, the Pentagon and the media involving prostitution, pedophilia, homosexual and bi-sexual indiscretions.

    On Thursday, May 4, 2006, Tom Heneghan and Stew Webb came to their "US Intel" radio show with inside information on some of the major players that are about to be caught up in this scandal that is fast becoming known as "hooker-gate."

    According to Heneghan and Webb, this latest powder keg about to explode will involve, not only prominent members of Congress, but also foreign dignitaries such as British Prime Minister Tony Blair and high profile members of the American media, such as Fox News.

    Reports are that various hotels in Washington, DC were set up as prostitution houses by convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Benjamin Netanyahu, Marc Rich, the American/Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC) along with British Minister Doug Alexander, to ensnare U.S. government officials and media types, in sexual blackmail, some even involving children. (http://www.tomflocco.com/fs/AbramoffSexSpyRing.htm)

    "Let's remind everybody, that the greatest use of blackmail, by these lobbyist and control-box freaks, is sexual blackmail," said Heneghan. "It has been used for years. The box media is scared to death of 'whorehouse-gate,' because at least half of the extortion friendly U.S. media has frequented the whorehouses," he added.

    "This has already been testified (before Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald)," said Webb. "There is going to be a lot of indictments, and from what I understand, there are somewhere between 40 and 250 Congressmen and Senators that visited these whorehouses. Which means they are blackmail able."

    ...

    Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-California) is one member of Congress that has already been charged with involvement with prostitutes as supplied by CIA contractor Brent Wilkes, who Heneghan has reported has ties all the way back to Iran/Contra. Wilkes remains an un-indicted co-conspirator in the Cunningham investigation. Cunningham and Wilkes, in turn, are linked to the #3 man at the CIA, executive director Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, who has just announced his resignation from that agency. (http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=681322006)

    ...
    http://www.niburu.nl/index.php?showarticle.php?articleID=13204
    GORG
    GORG --- ---
    CIA chief quits after 'Hookergate'
    Sarah Baxter, Washington

    ALL the ingredients for a spy thriller involving prostitutes, poker, a congressman called Randy and parties at the legendary Watergate complex may lie behind the sudden resignation of Porter Goss as director of the CIA last Friday.
    The saga has already been named “Hookergate” and the CIA is buzzing with rumours that there is more to Goss’s departure than meets the eye.

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2168449,00.html
    GORG
    GORG --- ---
    But keep in mind that Hookergate isn't even about government officials paying for sex with prostitutes. That would be an honest transaction. But the officials weren't paying! The defense contractors were paying. In turn, the defense contractors were getting paid, ever-so-much-much more, by We the American People. We are the johns in this affair, and we don't even get our buns warmed. We the People have been jacked, big-time. And - smoking pork bellies, that stinks!

    Of course, people are comparing Hookergate to Zippergate or Monicagate or Clinton's Folly or Ken Starr's Porn (one name never really stuck, just like the charges didn't amount to much more than a dirty blue dress). True, Clinton was risking the public trust by playing naughty games with chatty interns whilst surrounded by Republican vultures ready to swoop down at the slightest smell of blood - or semen. But Clinton wasn't spending the public's money for his personal pleasure. Monica wasn't representing any interest groups or contractors.

    Hookergate is different. It's the sex scandal burning at the center of a pork-stuffed $500 billion annual defense budget monster that keeps growing and killing with greater, more devastating incompetence and profligacy. The hooker sex is irrelevant to the real festering obscenity, which is how both our elected and appointed officials keep giving away American tax dollars to their cronies, most of whom seem to have something to do with defense (that's where the fattiest pork is). Whether or not Halliburton services Dick Cheney's dick is irrelevant. The important - and truly obscene - thing is that, thanks to Cheney's firm guidance of Horse-Milking Clueless George, Halliburton is making big bucks on America's disasters in Iraq, Afghanistan and New Orleans.

    http://www.counterpunch.org/block05132006.html
    KERRAY
    KERRAY --- ---
    http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,70980-0.html?tw=rss.index

    What If They Gave a War...?
    By Tony Long
    02:00 AM May, 25, 2006

    1968. It was the height of the Vietnam War, the year of My Lai and the Tet offensive. Student riots in Paris nearly brought down the French government. Soviet tanks put a premature end to Czechoslovakia's Prague Spring.

    In the United States, the streets were teeming with antiwar protesters and civil rights demonstrators. Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated within two months of each other. The Democratic convention in Chicago dissolved into chaos. And by the summer, America's cities were in flames.

    The world was seething, and for good reason. There was a lot to be angry about. It was a lousy year, 1968.

    I was in high school then. I quit the baseball team because, frankly, sports seemed frivolous. In 1968, there were more important things to worry about than perfecting a curveball. All very high-minded and, in retrospect, more than a little pompous. But nearly 40 years down the road I don't regret having done it. My political consciousness was awakened and I was actively engaged in the world around me.

    But as bad as things were then, they seem infinitely worse now.

    So why aren't the streets clogged with angry Americans demanding to know why their president lied and deceived them so he could attack a country that had absolutely nothing to do with his so-called war on terror? To an extent, we got suckered into Vietnam. We can't make that claim about Iraq. Iraq was the premeditated, willful invasion of a sovereign nation that was threatening nobody. "Saddam Hussein is a prick who treats the Kurds miserably" is no justification. By the principles established by the Nuremberg Tribunal and international law, our president is a war criminal.

    Why aren't we marching to demand an end to the illegal surveillance of American citizens by their own government, again under the pretext of waging war on terror? Why do we so blithely surrender our civil liberties -- the very thing that supposedly separates us from other societies -- to the illusion of security? All the high-tech snooping in the world won't stop a determined terrorist from striking. If it could, Israel would be the safest country on earth.

    Why aren't irate Americans camping out in the lobby of every newspaper and TV station from coast to coast, demanding that the press reassert the right to perform its single most important function, that of government watchdog? The ghost of Richard Nixon, and a very corporeal Bill Clinton, must be cursing their rotten luck.

    Why aren't enraged college students occupying their campus administration buildings, demanding that the United States sign the Kyoto Protocol? Hell, it might already be too late, but is the luxury of driving your mom's SUV really worth the coming dystopian world that you, more than I, will inherit?

    Why aren't we storming the battlements of every filthy oil company in America, demanding that their executives be tossed into fetid dungeons for cynically manipulating gas prices while raking in obscene profits?

    Why aren't we demanding that religion return to the pulpit, where it belongs, and keep out of the White House and the courts?

    In short, where the hell is everybody?

    I'll tell you where they are. They're at home, tuning in to root for the next "American idol." They're plugged into their iPods, utterly self-involved and disconnected from what lies just outside their doors. They're spending 25 hours a week playing video games in virtual worlds instead of fighting to save the only world that really matters. They're surfing porn. They're text messaging and e-mailing and scheming to close that next big deal. They're flogging their useless crap on eBay.

    All that technology at their fingertips, and they're completely blind. Two terms for George W. Bush? They're deaf and dumb, too.

    Bread and circuses. The government and the corporations are giving us bread and circuses to keep us sufficiently distracted so the powers that be can pursue their agendas. Television (flat screens only, please) serves up Donald Trump and Paris Hilton as role models, and gives us the abomination of Fox News, which is more a wolf in sheep's clothing than any Vulpes vulpes you're likely to encounter.

    Hollywood only cares about blockbusters, chick flicks and inane buddy movies. Tiresome reality doesn't make for good escapism and, more importantly, it doesn't fill coffers. And George Clooney can't be expected to produce every movie.

    Whither the press? Forget it. Britney Spears gets more ink -- and better play -- than global warming does.

    The real voices of dissent and engagement are found on the internet these days, but the internet is simply too diffuse to effectively galvanize a revolution.

    And we desperately need a revolution.

    - - -
    Tony Long is copy chief at Wired News.
    PETVAL
    PETVAL --- ---
    Biometric whitewash gathers pace
    Where there's cash there's a hash

    Europe has passed the "tipping point" over which citizens fall head over heels in love with the idea of a society regulated by biometric identity scanners, according to a survey published today.

    The survey was designed, commissioned and issued by LogicaCMG, a firm with a considerable interest in promoting biometric technology. It provided evidence that European citizens were "catching up" with the US in accepting biometric security checks as a part of every day life.

    The study, however, relied on data produced in the mid-90s by Dr. Alan Westin, an academic with the Centre for Social and Legal Research, that showed how keen US citizens were on biometric controls. More recent data from Westin shows that citizens aren't quite so eager to be scanned.

    The LogicaCMG study failed to mention Westin's 2001 and 2002 surveys* which, though demonstrating "substantial support" for biometric ID and crime prevention, relied on qualified findings. People were not happy with the idea of police using automatic facial recognition technology to pick people out of sports games, for example. In fact, overall support for biometrics had declined, according to the 2001 and 2002 studies.

    "This subtle shift in attitudes appears to conform with other research which also suggests a reemergence of privacy/civil liberties concerns as the events of September 2001 recede further into memory," Westin reported.

    LogicaCMG, which set up an identity practice last September to cash in on interest in biometrics among governments, did not consider civil liberties issues. It said European consumers where "highly positive about the changes that biometric technology can have on their lives". The researchers also said citizens were "convinced" of the safety and accuracy of the sort of biometric technology being wired into identity cards, passports.

    In addition, they were in "eager anticipation" for their eyes to be scanned at borders and their fingerprints to be taken at supermarket checkouts.


    The LogicaCMG questions, on which it had input, but which were attributed to Vanson Bourne," http://www.omniboss.com/bin/aboutvb/aboutvb.htm a specialist research-based IT marketing consultancy", seem designed to retrieve positive answers.

    "Do you think your fingerprints are more secure than your signature as a method of proving who you are?" asked the survey.

    It is not a question that can be denied easily. Accordingly, around 90 per cent of respondents said, "Yes." Ergo, LogicaCMG sees a European population in support of biometric cards.

    Westin, on the other hand, asked: "Which of these two views comes closest to your own about finger-imaging: helps protect against fraud; treats people like presumed criminals; don't know".

    Of those asked, 77 per cent thought fingerprint biometrics would protect people against fraud, 20 per cent thought it treated people like presumed criminals and 4 per cent did not know.


    Westin's 133 pages of survey results showed many subtle qualifications of what LogicaCMG believes is widespread support for ID cards. Moreover, the reservations about biometrics and its incarnations, like ID cards, have grown as people learn more about them.

    Westin showed that even a few years ago when the technology was still new to the popular imagination and less well understood, support for biometrics was falling as people learned more about the implications for civil liberties.


    LogicaCMG has already won what is thought to be a £multi-billion contract to supply ID cards to an unnamed country in the Middle East. The firm will not reveal the identity of the government customer. It has its eyes on numerous £multi-billion European government contracts that rely on public support, including the British ID card scheme.

    It also installed an optional biometric fast lane at the customs in Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. That was five years ago. A mere 20,000 people have enrolled to use it, whereas 42.5m people used the airport last year. What does that say about how eager the Europeans are for biometrics?

    * Public Attitudes Toward the Uses of Biometric Identification Technologies by Government and The Private Sector, ORC International (133 page .pdf)
    http://www.search.org/files/pdf/Biometricsurveyfindings.pdf

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/22/biometric_whitewash/
    KERRAY
    KERRAY --- ---
    http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/may2006/nf20060523_2210.htm

    Intelligence Czar Can Waive SEC Rules
    Now, the White House's top spymaster can cite national security to exempt businesses from reporting requirements

    President George W. Bush has bestowed on his intelligence czar, John Negroponte, broad authority, in the name of national security, to excuse publicly traded companies from their usual accounting and securities-disclosure obligations. Notice of the development came in a brief entry in the Federal Register, dated May 5, 2006, that was opaque to the untrained eye.

    Unbeknownst to almost all of Washington and the financial world, Bush and every other President since Jimmy Carter have had the authority to exempt companies working on certain top-secret defense projects from portions of the 1934 Securities Exchange Act. Administration officials told BusinessWeek that they believe this is the first time a President has ever delegated the authority to someone outside the Oval Office. It couldn't be immediately determined whether any company has received a waiver under this provision.

    The timing of Bush's move is intriguing. On the same day the President signed the memo, Porter Goss resigned as director of the Central Intelligence Agency amid criticism of ineffectiveness and poor morale at the agency. Only six days later, on May 11, USA Today reported that the National Security Agency had obtained millions of calling records of ordinary citizens provided by three major U.S. phone companies. Negroponte oversees both the CIA and NSA in his role as the administration's top intelligence official.

    FEW ANSWERS. White House spokeswoman Dana M. Perino said the timing of the May 5 Presidential memo had no significance. "There was nothing specific that prompted this memo," Perino said.

    In addition to refusing to explain why Bush decided to delegate this authority to Negroponte, the White House declined to say whether Bush or any other President has ever exercised the authority and allowed a company to avoid standard securities disclosure and accounting requirements. The White House wouldn't comment on whether Negroponte has granted such a waiver, and BusinessWeek so far hasn't identified any companies affected by the provision. Negroponte's office did not respond to requests for comment.

    Securities-law experts said they were unfamiliar with the May 5 memo and the underlying Presidential authority at issue. John C. Coffee, a securities-law professor at Columbia University, speculated that defense contractors might want to use such an exemption to mask secret assignments for the Pentagon or CIA. "What you might hide is investments: You've spent umpteen million dollars that comes out of your working capital to build a plant in Iraq," which the government wants to keep secret. "That's the kind of scenario that would be plausible," Coffee said.

    AUTHORITY GRANTED. William McLucas, the Securities & Exchange Commission's former enforcement chief, suggested that the ability to conceal financial information in the name of national security could lead some companies "to play fast and loose with their numbers." McLucas, a partner at the law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr in Washington, added: "It could be that you have a bunch of books and records out there that no one knows about."

    The memo Bush signed on May 5, which was published seven days later in the Federal Register, had the unrevealing title "Assignment of Function Relating to Granting of Authority for Issuance of Certain Directives: Memorandum for the Director of National Intelligence." In the document, Bush addressed Negroponte, saying: "I hereby assign to you the function of the President under section 13(b)(3)(A) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended."

    A trip to the statute books showed that the amended version of the 1934 act states that "with respect to matters concerning the national security of the United States," the President or the head of an Executive Branch agency may exempt companies from certain critical legal obligations. These obligations include keeping accurate "books, records, and accounts" and maintaining "a system of internal accounting controls sufficient" to ensure the propriety of financial transactions and the preparation of financial statements in compliance with "generally accepted accounting principles."
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