2010416

A former high-ranking National Security Agency (NSA) official was indicted on Thursday for retaining classified information, obstruction of justice, and making false statements, the Department of Justice said.

Thomas A. Drake, 52, worked as an NSA contractor from 1991 through about 2001, at which point he was hired by the agency as an employee, the indictment says. His security clearance was withdrawn around November 2007 and he resigned from the agency in April 2008.

The indictment alleges that in late 2005 or early 2006, Drake signed up for an account with Hushmail, which provides encrypted e-mail for secure online communication, and contacted a reporter for a national newspaper.

The reporter also signed up for Hushmail and the two allegedly proceeded to exchange information about secret government documents.

As a result of this collaboration, the reporter published a series of reports about the NSA that contained Signals Intelligence information, which involves the collection and analysis of foreign communications. Much of this work at the NSA is classified.

The indictment states that Drake "researched future stories [on behalf of the reporter] by e-mailing unwitting NSA employees and accessing classified and unclassified documents on classified NSA networks" and that he "copied and pasted classified and unclassified information from NSA documents into an untitled Word document, which, when printed, removed the classification markings," among other violations of the law.

Drake is alleged to have brought classified and unclassified documents home, scanned them, and e-mailed them without authorization.

"As alleged, this defendant used a secret, non-government e-mail account to transmit classified and unclassified information that he was not authorized to possess or disclose," said Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer, in a statement. "As if those allegations are not serious enough, he also allegedly later shredded documents and lied about his conduct to federal agents in order to obstruct their investigation."

Breuer said that such violation of the government's trust must be prosecuted vigorously.

The maximum penalties for the charges are: 10 years in prison for retention of classified documents, 20 years in prison for obstruction of justice, and five years in prison for making false statements. Each of the ten charged counts carries a maximum fine of $250,000.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/us/politics/16clinton.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

WASHINGTON — With the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing approaching, former President Bill Clinton on Thursday drew parallels between the antigovernment tone that preceded that devastating attack and the political tumult of today, saying government critics must be mindful that angry
words can stir violent actions.

In advance of a symposium on Friday about the attack on the Oklahoma City federal building and its current relevance, Mr. Clinton, who was in his first term at the time of the bombing, warned that attempts to incite opposition by demonizing the government can provoke responses beyond what political figures intend.

"There can be real consequences when what you say animates people who do things you would never do," Mr. Clinton said in an interview, saying that Timothy McVeigh, who carried out the Oklahoma City bombing, and those who assisted him, "were profoundly alienated, disconnected people who bought into this militant antigovernment line."

The former president said the potential for stirring a violent response might be even greater now with the reach of the Internet and other common ways of communication that did not exist on April 19, 1995, when the building was struck.

"Because of the Internet, there is this vast echo chamber and our advocacy reaches into corners that never would have been possible before," said Mr. Clinton, who said political messages are now able to reach those who are both "serious and seriously disturbed." He will be delivering the keynote address Friday at an event about the Oklahoma City attack being sponsored by the Center for American Progress Action Fund and the Democratic Leadership Council.

Mr. Clinton pointed to remarks like those made Thursday by Representative Michele Bachmann, the Minnesota Republican, who when speaking at a Tea Party rally in Washington characterized the Obama administration and Democratic Congress as "the gangster government."

"They are not gangsters," Mr. Clinton said. "They were elected. They are not doing anything they were not elected to do."

The pitched attacks by some Republicans and conservatives during the health care fight have drawn criticism as incendiary as have the use of terms and imagery like the placing of target cross hairs over the districts of vulnerable Democrats who backed health care.

Over the weekend of the health care vote, Congressional Democrats reported being subjected to racial and sexual slurs as they walked to the Capitol to vote. Recently, at least three people have been arrested on charges of making threats of violence against members of Congress of both parties, and Congressional offices have been vandalized.

In response to the criticism, several conservative leaders say reports of threats, intimidation and violence are being overblown or were not true and were instead part of an effort to vilify and silence critics of the Democratic Congress and Obama administration.

In her remarks Thursday, Ms. Bachmann made light of the suggestion that antigovernment activists were angry.

"You look happy to me, you don’t look angry," she told the crowd. "That’s because you get it. You are smart enough to get off your couch and do something."

Mr. Clinton said his intent was not to stifle debate or muzzle critics of the government but to encourage them to consider what repercussions could follow. He acknowledged that drawing the line between acceptable discourse and that which goes too far is difficult but that lawmakers and other officials should try.

"Have at it," he said. "You can attack the politics. Criticize their policies. Don’t demonize them, and don’t say things that will encourage violent opposition."

In the period before the Oklahoma City bombing, there was a growing antigovernment sentiment being expressed through a militia movement and anger at government officials, some of it in the wake of the assault on the Branch Davidian Compound in Waco, Tex., on April 19, 1993. Mr. Clinton recalls that he and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, were characterized by Newt Gingrich, then the Republican Congressional leader, as the enemies of ordinary Americans.

In a May 1995 commencement speech at Michigan State University, Mr. Clinton talked about the bombing and the role he believed efforts to portray the government and its workers as a threat played in the attack.

"It is one thing to believe we are over-regulated and to work to lessen the burden of regulation," he said at the time. "It is quite another to slander our dedicated public servants, our brave police officers, even our rescue workers, who have been called a hostile army of occupation."

After the bombing, Mr. Clinton said he chose to no longer even use the term federal bureaucrat because he believed it had become a term used to demean and dehumanize federal workers.

Mr. Clinton said the impact of political attacks could be dangerously amplified at the moment because of the economic upheaval that had left many Americans frightened and suffering. "A lot of people are just raw," he said.

He called America a nation born out of protests, and said that he had no interest in reducing productive civic dialogue.

"This is about holding our country together and having these debates," he said. "The Republicans will have their chance in November."

As the Tea Party held its April 15 tax day protest against government spending, related groups were planning an April 19 protest at Fort Hunt National Park near Alexandria, Virginia. The purpose of the latter, the groups say, is to "restore the Constitution," and the location was chosen because it is the nearest point to Washington where firearms can be carried openly.

Outside a few rogue comments from visitors, Tea Party Web sites focus on education, news and organizing protests of a government the group sees as out of control. Peruse fringe Web sites, though, and you'll hear a darker, conspiratorial tone: President Obama isn't American; the U.S. and/or Israel perpetrated 9/11; the government is constructing concentration camps; or foreign troops will populate U.S. soil when an amorphous New World Order takes over.

A recent report from the Southern Poverty Law Center says Patriot groups -- which the center defines as "militias and other extremist organizations that see the federal government as their enemy" -- are on the rise, and it loosely lumps in Tea Party organizations with the hate groups.

"The 'tea parties' and similar groups that have sprung up in recent months cannot fairly be considered extremist groups, but they are shot through with rich veins of radical ideas, conspiracy theories and racism," it said.

Carol Swain, a Vanderbilt University law and political science professor, derided the report as another attempt to draw spurious links between the Tea Party and radical elements of the right. Those committing violent acts against congressmen no more represent the Tea Party than suicide bombers represent Islam, she said.

"We are seeing the beginning of a social movement that's coming about because of widespread grievances with government," she said. "I believe that these are just ordinary people that are fed up with the Democratic and Republican parties."

It's a familiar scene on the political landscape: Christians, Muslims, unions, gun owners, environmentalists, seniors, conservatives and liberals help compose the gamut of voices clamoring to be heard in Washington. Experts say it's best to let everyone have their say.

"When you drive dissent underground, it's bound to bubble up somewhere, usually with violence," said Robert Richards, a founding director for Penn State University's Pennsylvania Center for the First Amendment.

The 1950s brought us McCarthyism, the 1960s brought civil rights, and the 1970s delivered the Vietnam War -- all issues that stoked anger and protest in the United States. During those same eras, Richards said, the Supreme Court was tackling a slew of cases that defended the rights of people and the press to criticize the government.

Today, after decades of relatively unfettered free speech, you still see anger and demonstrations, but the violent element is not nearly as constant.

Rallies in the capital

Tax Day Tea Party -- The Tea Party Express kicked off in Searchlight, Nevada, hometown of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, whom Tea Party members accuse of corruption and lying. Forty-six stops later, the express pulled into Washington, D.C., on April 15 for its Tax Day Tea Party. With "Regroup. Rebuild. Reclaim." as their mantra, group members gathered at the Capitol and on the National Mall to protest what they say is an overgrown government with a penchant for rampant spending.

Restore the Constitution Open-Carry Rally -- Several organizations, including some the Southern Poverty Law Center says are hate groups, will gather at Fort Hunt National Park on April 19, the anniversary of the first battles of the American Revolution, of the end of the Branch Davidian siege in Waco, Texas, and of the Oklahoma City bombing. The organizations say they are fed up with corrupt politicians and want to "unite as many as will come to the edge of Washington, D.C., to rally in support and defense of the Constitution ... and to stand, armed and united, with our brothers and sisters delivering the same basic message to our servant politicians in D.C. and in the state capitals."

Dr. Jerrold Post, a George Washington University political psychology professor who spent 21 years with the CIA, said that in nations where free speech is snuffed, such as Yemen and Pakistan, domestic terrorism is more prevalent.

"Free speech relieves the pressure of discontent in some ways," said Post, who founded the CIA's Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior.

Post said he is concerned, however, about messages coming from the conservative base. Last month, GOP chief Michael Steele called for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to be put on "the firing line," and House Minority Leader John Boehner said that a congressman "might be a dead man" because of his health care vote.

"I find some of this rhetoric recently -- 'reload' -- quite scary," Post said of a Twitter post by Sarah Palin directing followers to her Facebook page, which had crosshairs on the districts of 20 congressmen who voted for the controversial health care bill. "Some people are going to hear that as, 'Take up your arms.' "

"The righteous rage then becomes not just a rationalization for threatening rhetoric, but it has the potential of moving people to action," he said.

Therein lies the paradox for a country like the United States, where free speech is guaranteed. It's healthy to allow groups to vent, experts say, but not to the point that they incite violence.

Despite dozens of reported threatening letters and phone calls, few constitute "true threats," which Richards defined as "advocating imminent lawless action and likely to produce that action."

The FBI says letters sent to 30 governors, cryptically demanding they step down or be removed, don't appear to pose threats. And of all the threats against congressmen, authorities have arrested only three men, whom they charged with threatening Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Virginia, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, and Pelosi.

Political speech, Richards explained, commands extra protection because it is often bitter and inexact, he said.

"We don't need the First Amendment to protect popular or majority viewpoints," he said.

The ongoing case against Internet shock jock Hal Turner demonstrates the complications of regulating speech, Richards said. No stranger to charges of advocating violence, Turner was arrested after writing that three federal judges "deserve to die" and that "their blood will replenish the tree of liberty." No harm came to the judges.

Hung juries twice yielded mistrials. Charged with threatening to murder the judges, Turner is scheduled to face another trial this month.

Turner's is one of many cases demonstrating that while it's illegal to incite or exact violence, it's often OK to talk about it, Richards said.

Steven Best, a philosophy professor at the University of Texas-El Paso, is accustomed to straddling the line between talk and action. As press officer for the Animal Liberation Front, which the U.S. considers a terrorist outfit, Best disseminates the leftist group's news releases, but he has never engaged in criminal activity, he said.

Liberals and Obamatrons, led by MSNBC’s attack dog Chris Matthews, like to claim people who support the Tea Party are racist. But if the Tea Party was indeed racist why would any self respecting black person join it? Do black people join the Ku Klux Klan and throwback white supremacists?

In fact, as the video above demonstrates, the Tea Party movement is open to all Americans regardless of race. On April 15, Kelly O’Donnell of NBC tried to get a black man at the D.C. Tea Party Tax Day protest to admit he was uncomfortable surrounded by mostly white people.

NBC and Ms. O’Donnell played the race card and it failed. Kelly O’Donnell and NBC are cognizant of race. But the man in the video is not. The Tea Party does not care about race.

Keep selling your divide and conquer snake oil, Chris Matthews. It really does not matter and it certainly does not work.

From first quarter of 2009 to the first quarter of 2010, Matthews Hardball drew a scant 96,000 viewers. AM talk radio shows in medium-sized cities draw more listeners on an average day.

In fact, MSNBC’s news shows have consistently lost viewership over the last year, which is a good thing because it means that a very small number of people are actually buying into Matthews’ divisive race-baiting.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_iceland_volcano

An aerial handout photo from the Icelandic Coast Guard shows a plume of steam rising 22,000 feet (6700 meters) from a crater under about 656 feet (200

Reuters – An aerial handout photo from the Icelandic Coast Guard shows a plume of steam rising 22,000 feet (6700 …

REYKJAVIK (Reuters) – An Icelandic volcano is still spewing ash into the air in a massive plume that has disrupted air traffic across Europe and shows little sign of letting up, officials said on Friday.

One expert said the eruption at the volcano, about 120 km (75 miles) southeast of capital Reykjavik, could abate in the coming days, but a government spokesman said ash would keep drifting into the skies of Europe.

The thick, dark brown ash cloud that shot several kilometers (miles) into the air and has drifted away from the north Atlantic island has shut down air traffic across northern Europe and restrictions remained in place in many areas.

Norway and Sweden said they would resume limited flights in their northern areas, but Poland and the Czech Republic joined the list of countries with closed airports.

"It is more or less the same situation as yesterday, it is still erupting, still exploding, still producing gas," University of Iceland professor Armann Hoskuldsson told Reuters.

"We expect it to last for two days or more or something. It cannot continue at this rate for many days. There is a limited amount of magma that can spew out," he added, saying it was the magma, or molten rock beneath the Earth's surface, coming out of the volcano that turned into ash.

Environment Ministry spokesman Gudmundur Gudmundsson said no variation was expected in the outflow of ash.

"The eruption is ongoing and we are not expecting any change in the production of ash...High level winds will keep dispersing the plume over Europe," he said.

The eruption has taken place under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier, normally a popular hiking ground in southern Iceland.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Urdur Gudmundsdottir said there was some damage to roads and barriers protecting farms.

"There is still an evacuation of around 20 farms, which is 40 to 50 people," she added, noting this was less than the 800 people who had been evacuated earlier this week.

People living close to the eruption said the main impact on their lives was the flood waters running off the glacier, which have closed roads.

"Obviously it's all been a bit unreal. One is just managing from day to day and doing one's best," said Hanna Lara Andrews, a resident of a farm at the foot of the mountain, who had traveled to Reykjavijk with her one-year-old son.

Speaking by telephone, she said she and her family had felt a big earthquake last week. When the eruption came this week they could see a big white cloud and then ash forming behind it.

Another professor said on Thursday that the heat had melted up to a third of the glacial ice covering the crater, causing a nearby river to burst its banks.

Icelandic radio said part of the ring road that goes around the small north Atlantic island had been swept away.

To the east of the volcano, thousands of hectares of land are covered by a thick layer of ash.

The cloud of ash from the eruption has hit air travel all over northern Europe, with flights grounded or diverted due to the risk of engine damage from sucking in particles of ash from the volcanic cloud.

The volcano under the Ejfjallajokull glacier, Iceland's fifth largest glacier, has erupted five times since Iceland was settled in the ninth century.

Iceland sits on a volcanic hotspot in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and has relatively frequent eruptions, although most occur in sparsely populated areas and pose little danger to people or property. Before March, the last eruption took place in 2004.

(Reporting by Omar Valdimarsson in Reykkavik and Patrick Lannin in Stockholm; writing by Patrick Lannin; Editing by William Maclean)

By John P. Martin

The system that Lower Merion school officials used to track lost and stolen laptops wound up secretly capturing thousands of images, including photographs of students in their homes, Web sites they visited, and excerpts of their online chats, says a new motion filed in a suit against the district.

More than once, the motion asserts, the camera on Robbins' school-issued laptop took photos of Robbins as he slept in his bed. Each time, it fired the images off to network servers at the school district.

Back at district offices, the Robbins motion says, employees with access to the images marveled at the tracking software. It was like a window into "a little LMSD soap opera," a staffer is quoted as saying in an e-mail to Carol Cafiero, the administrator running the program.

"I know, I love it," she is quoted as having replied.

Those details, disclosed in the motion filed late Thursday in federal court by Robbins' attorney, offer a wider glimpse into the now-disabled program that spawned Robbins' lawsuit and has shined an international spotlight on the district.

In the filing, the Penn Valley family claims the district's records show that the controversial tracking system captured more than 400 photos and screen images from 15-year-old Blake Robbins' school-issued laptop during two weeks last fall, and that "thousands of webcam pictures and screen shots have been taken of numerous other students in their homes."

Robbins, a sophomore at Harriton High School, and his parents, Michael and Holly Robbins, contend e-mails turned over to them by the district suggest Cafiero "may be a voyeur" who might have viewed some of the photos on her home computer.

The motion says Cafiero, who has been placed on paid leave, has failed to turn that computer over to the plaintiffs despite a court order to do so, and asks a judge to sanction her.

Cafiero's lawyer Thursday night disputed the suggestion that his client had downloaded any such photos to her home computer. Lawyer Charles Mandracchia said Cafiero has cooperated with federal investigators and is willing to let technicians hired by the district examine her computer if the judge so orders.

He also said Robbins' attorney had never asked him for Cafiero's personal computer. "He's making this up because his case is falling apart," Mandracchia said.

Since the Robbinses sued in February, district officials have acknowledged that they activated the theft-tracking software on school-issued laptops 42 times since September, and a number of times in the previous school year - all in order to retrieve lost or stolen computers.

But they have stopped short of specifying how many students may have been photographed and monitored, or how often - information that could shed light on whether Robbins' experience was unique or common.

An attorney for the district declined to comment last night on the Robbinses' latest motion, except to say that a report due in a few weeks will spell out what the district's own investigation has found.

"To the extent there is any evidence of misuse of any images, that also will be disclosed," said the attorney, former federal prosecutor Henry E. Hockeimer Jr. "However, at this late stage of our investigation we are not aware of any such evidence."

The Robbinses' lawyer, Mark S. Haltzman, said the new details emerged in tens of thousands of pages of documents and e-mails the district turned over to him in recent weeks.

Three district employees have also given sworn depositions in the suit. A fourth, Cafiero, declined to answer Haltzman's questions, asserting her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

According to the latest filing by the Robbinses, officials first activated the tracking software on a school-issued Apple MacBook that Robbins took home on Oct. 20.

Hundreds of times in the next two weeks, the filing says, the program did its job each time it was turned on: A tiny camera atop the laptop snapped a photo, software inside copied the laptop screen image, and a locating device recorded the Internet address - something that could help district technicians pinpoint where the machine was.

The system was designed to take a new picture every 15 minutes until it was turned off.

The material disclosed by the district contains hundreds of photos of Robbins and his family members - "including pictures of Blake partially undressed and of Blake sleeping," the motion states.

Through Haltzman, the Robbinses last night gave The Inquirer a photo they said was among the Web cam images turned over by school officials. The picture shows Blake asleep in bed at 5 p.m. last Oct. 26, the lawyer said.

Robbins and his parents say they first learned of the technology on Nov. 11, when an assistant Harriton principal confronted the teen with an image collected by the tracking software.

Robbins has said one image showed him with a handful of Mike and Ike candies - which the administrator thought were illegal pills.

The family's lawyers have argued that neither Blake nor many of the other students whose laptop cameras were activated had reported those laptops missing or stolen. According to the motion, an unspecified number of laptops were being tracked because students had failed to return computers or pay a required insurance fee.

The district has said it turned on the camera in Robbins' computer because his family had not paid the $55 insurance fee and he was not authorized to take the laptop home.

U.S. District Judge Jan E. DuBois has ordered all parties in the case to meet by Tuesday, the latest step toward a settlement. Meanwhile, federal and county investigators are examining whether the laptop security program violated any laws.

Also Thursday, Sen. Arlen Specter (D., Pa.) introduced legislation to close what he said was a loophole in federal wiretap laws and prevent unauthorized monitoring. Specter recently held a hearing in Philadelphia on the issue.

"Many of us expect to be subject to certain kinds of video surveillance when we leave our homes and go out each day - at the ATM, at traffic lights, or in stores, for example," Specter, who is running for reelection, said on the floor of the Senate. "What we do not expect is to be under visual surveillance in our homes, in our bedrooms and, most especially, we do not expect it for our children in our homes."

Paul Buck/European Pressphoto Agency