Bush Administration is Spying on TENS OF MILLIONS of Americans

The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans � most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews.

It's the largest database ever assembled in the world, said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA's activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency's goal is to create a database of every call ever made within the nation's borders, this person added.

For the customers of these companies, it means that the government has detailed records of calls they made � across town or across the country � to family members, co-workers, business contacts and others.

The three telecommunications companies are working under contract with the NSA, which launched the program in 2001 shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the sources said. The program is aimed at identifying and tracking suspected terrorists, they said.

The sources would talk only under a guarantee of anonymity because the NSA program is secret.

Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, nominated Monday by President Bush to become the director of the CIA, headed the NSA from March 1999 to April 2005. In that post, Hayden would have overseen the agency's domestic call-tracking program. Hayden declined to comment about the program.

The NSA's domestic program, as described by sources, is far more expansive than what the White House has acknowledged. Last year, Bush said he had authorized the NSA to eavesdrop � without warrants � on international calls and international e-mails of people suspected of having links to terrorists when one party to the communication is in the USA. Warrants have also not been used in the NSA's efforts to create a national call database.

In defending the previously disclosed program, Bush insisted that the NSA was focused exclusively on international calls. In other words, Bush explained, one end of the communication must be outside the United States.

As a result, domestic call records � those of calls that originate and terminate within U.S. borders � were believed to be private.

Sources, however, say that is not the case. With access to records of billions of domestic calls, the NSA has gained a secret window into the communications habits of millions of Americans. Customers' names, street addresses and other personal information are not being handed over as part of NSA's domestic program, the sources said. But the phone numbers the NSA collects can easily be cross-checked with other databases to obtain that information.

Don Weber, a senior spokesman for the NSA, declined to discuss the agency's operations. Given the nature of the work we do, it would be irresponsible to comment on actual or alleged operational issues; therefore, we have no information to provide, he said. However, it is important to note that NSA takes its legal responsibilities seriously and operates within the law.

The White House would not discuss the domestic call-tracking program. There is no domestic surveillance without court approval, said Dana Perino, deputy press secretary, referring to actual eavesdropping.

She added that all national intelligence activities undertaken by the federal government are lawful, necessary and required for the pursuit of al-Qaeda and affiliated terrorists. All government-sponsored intelligence activities are carefully reviewed and monitored, Perino said. She also noted that all appropriate members of Congress have been briefed on the intelligence efforts of the United States.

The government is collecting external data on domestic phone calls but is not intercepting internals, a term for the actual content of the communication, according to a U.S. intelligence official familiar with the program. This kind of data collection from phone companies is not uncommon; it's been done before, though never on this large a scale, the official said. The data are used for social network analysis, the official said, meaning to study how terrorist networks contact each other and how they are tied together.

AT&T recently merged with SBC and kept the AT&T name. Verizon, BellSouth and AT&T are the nation's three biggest telecommunications companies; they provide local and wireless phone service to more than 200 million customers.

The three carriers control vast networks with the latest communications technologies. They provide an array of services: local and long-distance calling, wireless and high-speed broadband, including video. Their direct access to millions of homes and businesses has them uniquely positioned to help the government keep tabs on the calling habits of Americans.

Among the big telecommunications companies, only Qwest has refused to help the NSA, the sources said. According to multiple sources, Qwest declined to participate because it was uneasy about the legal implications of handing over customer information to the government without warrants.

Qwest's refusal to participate has left the NSA with a hole in its database. Based in Denver, Qwest provides local phone service to 14 million customers in 14 states in the West and Northwest. But AT&T and Verizon also provide some services � primarily long-distance and wireless � to people who live in Qwest's region. Therefore, they can provide the NSA with at least some access in that area.

Created by President Truman in 1952, during the Korean War, the NSA is charged with protecting the United States from foreign security threats. The agency was considered so secret that for years the government refused to even confirm its existence. Government insiders used to joke that NSA stood for No Such Agency.

In 1975, a congressional investigation revealed that the NSA had been intercepting, without warrants, international communications for more than 20 years at the behest of the CIA and other agencies. The spy campaign, code-named Shamrock, led to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which was designed to protect Americans from illegal eavesdropping.

Enacted in 1978, FISA lays out procedures that the U.S. government must follow to conduct electronic surveillance and physical searches of people believed to be engaged in espionage or international terrorism against the United States. A special court, which has 11 members, is responsible for adjudicating requests under FISA.

Over the years, NSA code-cracking techniques have continued to improve along with technology. The agency today is considered expert in the practice of data mining � sifting through reams of information in search of patterns. Data mining is just one of many tools NSA analysts and mathematicians use to crack codes and track international communications.

Paul Butler, a former U.S. prosecutor who specialized in terrorism crimes, said FISA approval generally isn't necessary for government data-mining operations. FISA does not prohibit the government from doing data mining, said Butler, now a partner with the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld in Washington, D.C.

The caveat, he said, is that personal identifiers � such as names, Social Security numbers and street addresses � can't be included as part of the search. That requires an additional level of probable cause, he said.

The usefulness of the NSA's domestic phone-call database as a counterterrorism tool is unclear. Also unclear is whether the database has been used for other purposes.

The NSA's domestic program raises legal questions. Historically, AT&T and the regional phone companies have required law enforcement agencies to present a court order before they would even consider turning over a customer's calling data. Part of that owed to the personality of the old Bell Telephone System, out of which those companies grew.

Ma Bell's bedrock principle � protection of the customer � guided the company for decades, said Gene Kimmelman, senior public policy director of Consumers Union. No court order, no customer information � period. That's how it was for decades, he said.

The concern for the customer was also based on law: Under Section 222 of the Communications Act, first passed in 1934, telephone companies are prohibited from giving out information regarding their customers' calling habits: whom a person calls, how often and what routes those calls take to reach their final destination. Inbound calls, as well as wireless calls, also are covered.

The financial penalties for violating Section 222, one of many privacy reinforcements that have been added to the law over the years, can be stiff. The Federal Communications Commission, the nation's top telecommunications regulatory agency, can levy fines of up to $130,000 per day per violation, with a cap of $1.325 million per violation. The FCC has no hard definition of violation. In practice, that means a single violation could cover one customer or 1 million.

In the case of the NSA's international call-tracking program, Bush signed an executive order allowing the NSA to engage in eavesdropping without a warrant. The president and his representatives have since argued that an executive order was sufficient for the agency to proceed. Some civil liberties groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, disagree.

The NSA's domestic program began soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, according to the sources. Right around that time, they said, NSA representatives approached the nation's biggest telecommunications companies. The agency made an urgent pitch: National security is at risk, and we need your help to protect the country from attacks.

The agency told the companies that it wanted them to turn over their call-detail records, a complete listing of the calling histories of their millions of customers. In addition, the NSA wanted the carriers to provide updates, which would enable the agency to keep tabs on the nation's calling habits.

The sources said the NSA made clear that it was willing to pay for the cooperation. AT&T, which at the time was headed by C. Michael Armstrong, agreed to help the NSA. So did BellSouth, headed by F. Duane Ackerman; SBC, headed by Ed Whitacre; and Verizon, headed by Ivan Seidenberg.

AT&T, when asked about the program, replied with a comment prepared for USA TODAY: We do not comment on matters of national security, except to say that we only assist law enforcement and government agencies charged with protecting national security in strict accordance with the law.

In another prepared comment, BellSouth said: BellSouth does not provide any confidential customer information to the NSA or any governmental agency without proper legal authority.

Verizon, the USA's No. 2 telecommunications company behind AT&T, gave this statement: We do not comment on national security matters, we act in full compliance with the law and we are committed to safeguarding our customers' privacy.

Qwest spokesman Robert Charlton said: We can't talk about this. It's a classified situation.

In December, The New York Times revealed that Bush had authorized the NSA to wiretap, without warrants, international phone calls and e-mails that travel to or from the USA. The following month, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group, filed a class-action lawsuit against AT&T. The lawsuit accuses the company of helping the NSA spy on U.S. phone customers.

Last month, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales alluded to that possibility. Appearing at a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Gonzales was asked whether he thought the White House has the legal authority to monitor domestic traffic without a warrant. Gonzales' reply: I wouldn't rule it out. His comment marked the first time a Bush appointee publicly asserted that the White House might have that authority.

The domestic and international call-tracking programs have things in common, according to the sources. Both are being conducted without warrants and without the approval of the FISA court. The Bush administration has argued that FISA's procedures are too slow in some cases. Officials, including Gonzales, also make the case that the USA Patriot Act gives them broad authority to protect the safety of the nation's citizens.

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., would not confirm the existence of the program. In a statement, he said, I can say generally, however, that our subcommittee has been fully briefed on all aspects of the Terrorist Surveillance Program. ... I remain convinced that the program authorized by the president is lawful and absolutely necessary to protect this nation from future attacks.

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., declined to comment.

One major telecommunications company declined to participate in the program: Qwest.

According to sources familiar with the events, Qwest's CEO at the time, Joe Nacchio, was deeply troubled by the NSA's assertion that Qwest didn't need a court order � or approval under FISA � to proceed. Adding to the tension, Qwest was unclear about who, exactly, would have access to its customers' information and how that information might be used.

Financial implications were also a concern, the sources said. Carriers that illegally divulge calling information can be subjected to heavy fines. The NSA was asking Qwest to turn over millions of records. The fines, in the aggregate, could have been substantial.

The NSA told Qwest that other government agencies, including the FBI, CIA and DEA, also might have access to the database, the sources said. As a matter of practice, the NSA regularly shares its information � known as product in intelligence circles � with other intelligence groups. Even so, Qwest's lawyers were troubled by the expansiveness of the NSA request, the sources said.

The NSA, which needed Qwest's participation to completely cover the country, pushed back hard.

Trying to put pressure on Qwest, NSA representatives pointedly told Qwest that it was the lone holdout among the big telecommunications companies. It also tried appealing to Qwest's patriotic side: In one meeting, an NSA representative suggested that Qwest's refusal to contribute to the database could compromise national security, one person recalled.

In addition, the agency suggested that Qwest's foot-dragging might affect its ability to get future classified work with the government. Like other big telecommunications companies, Qwest already had classified contracts and hoped to get more.

Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was proposing, Qwest's lawyers asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA court. According to the sources, the agency refused.

The NSA's explanation did little to satisfy Qwest's lawyers. They told (Qwest) they didn't want to do that because FISA might not agree with them, one person recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA rejected Qwest's suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general's office. A second person confirmed this version of events.

In June 2002, Nacchio resigned amid allegations that he had misled investors about Qwest's financial health. But Qwest's legal questions about the NSA request remained.

Unable to reach agreement, Nacchio's successor, Richard Notebaert, finally pulled the plug on the NSA talks in late 2004, the sources said.

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are calling Obama and saying NO to his stimulus package. I guess all his fearmongering didn't get to them! Where are all those people who are so helpless that only Obama and his stooges can help them? White House phone lines don't seem to correlate with his thoughts. Interesting!

You're right Obama, they didn't send you there to do the same thing OR to screw them over, both of which you are doing......over worse!

The National Security Agency's Internet site has been placing files on
visitors' computers that can track their Web surfing activity despite strict
federal rules banning most of them.

These files, known as cookies, disappeared after a privacy activist
complained and The Associated Press made inquiries this week, and agency
officials acknowledged Wednesday they had made a mistake. Nonetheless, the issue
raises questions about privacy at a spy agency already on the defensive amid
reports of a secretive eavesdropping program in the United States.

Considering the surveillance power the NSA has, cookies are not exactly a
major concern, said Ari Schwartz, associate director at the Center for Democracy
and Technology, a privacy advocacy group in Washington, D.C. But it does show a
general lack of understanding about privacy rules when they are not even
following the government's very basic rules for Web privacy.

Until Tuesday, the NSA site created two cookie files that do not expire until
2035 � likely beyond the life of any computer in use today.

Don Weber, an NSA spokesman, said in a statement Wednesday that the cookie
use resulted from a recent software upgrade. Normally, the site uses temporary,
permissible cookies that are automatically deleted when users close their Web
browsers, he said, but the software in use shipped with persistent cookies
already on.

Cookies are widely used at commercial Web sites and can make Internet
browsing more convenient by letting sites remember user preferences. For
instance, visitors would not have to repeatedly enter passwords at sites that
require them.

But privacy advocates complain that cookies can also track Web surfing, even
if no personal information is actually collected.

In a 2003 memo, the White House's Office of Management and Budget prohibits
federal agencies from using persistent cookies � those that aren't automatically
deleted right away � unless there is a compelling need.

A senior official must sign off on any such use, and an agency that uses them
must disclose and detail their use in its privacy policy.

Peter Swire, a Clinton administration official who had drafted an earlier
version of the cookie guidelines, said clear notice is a must, and `vague
assertions of national security, such as exist in the NSA policy, are not
sufficient.

Daniel Brandt, a privacy activist who discovered the NSA cookies, said
mistakes happen, but in any case, it's illegal. The (guideline) doesn't say
anything about doing it accidentally.

The Bush administration has come under fire recently over reports it
authorized NSA to secretly spy on e-mail and phone calls without court
orders.

Since The New York Times disclosed the domestic spying program earlier this
month, President Bush has stressed that his executive order allowing the
eavesdropping was limited to people with known links to al-Qaida.

But on its Web site Friday, the Times reported that the NSA, with help from
American telecommunications companies, obtained broader access to streams of
domestic and international communications.

The NSA's cookie use is unrelated, and Weber said it was strictly to improve
the surfing experience and not to collect personal user data.

Richard M. Smith, a security consultant in Cambridge, Mass., questions
whether persistent cookies would even be of much use to the NSA. They are great
for news and other sites with repeat visitors, he said, but the NSA's site does
not appear to have enough fresh content to warrant more than occasional
visits.

The government first issued strict rules on cookies in 2000 after disclosures
that the White House drug policy office had used the technology to track
computer users viewing its online anti-drug advertising. Even a year later, a
congressional study found 300 cookies still on the Web sites of 23 agencies.

In 2002, the CIA removed cookies it had inadvertently placed at one of its
sites after Brandt called it to the agency's attention.

There will be ZERO help for the average Americans who need it. It's like a reverse "Robin Hood." Take from the less fortunate and give to the wealthy.

This is Bush's policy (more like fascism than socialism), and we don't hear a whimper of protest, yet when Obama even hints at helping struggling Americans, everyone yells and screams SOCIALISM.

Bush can still do a lot of damage in the weeks he has remaining. That's what worries me more than anything.

it handled *Plan A* (Iraq War). Manipulate the evidence until it fits your own agenda and then impose it on America. One doctor's personal religious views now control the FDA and every woman in America.

Nov. 27, 2005

(CBS) When the �morning after pill,� also known as �Plan B,� was put on the market in 1999, it was described as an emergency contraceptive that prevents a pregnancy in cases of rape or accidents like condom breaks.

It is only available by prescription. But because women need to take it within 72 hours, the drug's manufacturer applied to the Food and Drug Administration two years ago for permission to sell Plan B over the counter.

The drug is considered totally safe, so the request was seen as a slam dunk. But then Plan B became the target of anti-abortion rights groups, and part of the wider controversy over whether religious beliefs are encroaching on scientific decision-making.
60 Minutes Correspondent Lesley Stahl reports.

Until last August, Dr. Susan Wood headed the FDA�s Office of Women�s Health and was one of the scientists inside the agency arguing that Plan B should be available without a prescription. �If it's safe, and it is, and effective, it's more effective the quicker you have it. This is why it needs to be over-the-counter,� she says.

�If you need it on Saturday morning, Monday morning is too late. Getting to a physician to get a prescription, getting that prescription to a pharmacy and getting it filled takes time, as we all know. Then what are you going to do?� says Wood.

That�s a question that a woman named Evelyn faced last year, when she was raped at a New York nightclub.

Evelyn, age 22 at the time, was rushed to St. Vincent�s hospital, the nearest emergency room.

She says the hospital did not offer her an emergency contraceptive.

�It was something that they were supposed to offer,� says Evelyn�s mother, Sandi. �In the situation as my daughter�s, as Evelyn�s situation, they were supposed to offer, you know, and let the person make the decision as to whether or not they wanted it. I didn�t know that it was optional.�

Sandi says she knew about a New York law that says all hospitals must offer rape victims emergency contraception like Plan B.

Sandi called the nurse who had treated Evelyn at St. Vincent�s. �I said, �Why did you not give it to her?� And she very rudely said to me, �Well, we're a Catholic hospital. We don't do birth control.� At which point, I told them what they could do with being a Catholic hospital and their views on birth control � I'd rather not say that on the air,� she recalls. �I was absolutely livid.�

Because of Evelyn's case, St. Vincent�s is under investigation by the state of New York. The hospital told 60 Minutes it is now complying with the law.

Evelyn finally got a prescription for Plan B, and took it 10 hours after the rape. Had she not gotten Plan B and had gotten pregnant, Evelyn says she would have had an abortion. �I'm glad that that didn't have to happen, I never had to experience that, she says.

The Catholic Church opposes Plan B not just because it�s birth control, but because it considers use of Plan B to be, in Cardinal Egan of New York�s words, �a chemical abortion.�

But Wood says this is not an abortion pill. �There is an abortion pill called RU-486, and this is not it,� she says. �An abortion pill interrupts an established pregnancy. This product is contraception. It does not interrupt an established pregnancy.�

She says even if you took it and were already pregnant, it would not end the pregnancy. �The only connection this product has with abortion is that it can prevent them by preventing an unintended pregnancy,� says Wood.

There is some debate about that interpretation. Most of the time, Plan B works by stopping ovulation so that a pregnancy cannot occur. In a small percentage of cases, when a woman is ovulating on the day she has unprotected sex, a fertilized egg could form. In that case, Plan B might prevent the egg from implanting in her uterus.

While most doctors do not consider that an abortion, anti-abortion-rights doctors do, such as David Hager, a gynecologist from Lexington, Ky., who won�t prescribe Plan B for his own patients.

�One of the mechanisms of action can be to inhibit implantation, which means that it may act as an abortifacient,� says Dr. Hager. He says abortifacient means it causes an abortion and that this medication may act to inhibit implantation.

In 2002, Dr. Hager got a call from the Bush White House asking him to serve on the FDA advisory committee charged with reviewing Plan B�s over-the-counter application along with two other anti-abortion-rights physicians. But when Hager argued against Plan B at committee meetings, he didn�t talk about abortion.

�I was concerned about 10, 11, 12-year-old girls buying this product,� says Hager.

He raised moral questions. �I�m not in favor of promotion of a product that would increase sexual activity among teenagers,� he says.

Hager speculated about an increase in sexually-transmitted diseases. �I�m saying that it is possible that with the use of Plan B the individual may put herself at greater risk,� he says.

But the advisory panel reviewed 40 studies that refuted his objections and showed that Plan B does not lead to more cases of sexually transmitted disease, or more risky sexual behavior.

Even Dr. Hager admits Plan B is totally safe. The FDA says there have been no deaths, no heart attacks, no strokes and no evidence of misuse or abuse.

But, he says, one of his major concerns is that young women wouldn�t go to their doctors if such a drug were readily available.

�If we approve this for over-the-counter sale, then what is that going to do as far as what I call access to medical care for younger adolescent women?� Hager asks.

Wood disputes that view. �Is this cutting the doctor out? Would it cut out their relationship? Well, in fact, I think there�s strong argument that the physicians themselves want this product to be over the counter.�

Wood says the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Medical Association have all endorsed making this product available over the counter. That includes pediatrics, meaning younger girls.

If Plan B is sold over the counter anyone � any age � could buy it easily in a drugstore, like cough syrup or bubble bath. A big part of this issue is whether pharmacies will stock it. What if they refuse to carry Plan B?

In a survey of drugstores in Kentucky, Dr. Hager�s home state, the American Civil Liberties Union found that most pharmacies didn�t carry Plan B; 83 of them said they would even refuse to order it for women with prescriptions. These include Wal-Mart, which has a nationwide policy against dispensing Plan B.

The American Civil Liberties Union got a prescription for a woman named Fran, and sent her to five pharmacies undercover. 60 Minutes went along with a hidden camera to see what would happen.

Only one pharmacy, Kmart, had Plan B in stock; another drug store offered to order it, but the pharmacist told Fran it would take several days before they could possibly get it.

Remember, it has to be taken within 72 hours.

At another store, Fran was turned down by a pharmacist who explained that she believes it�s an abortion pill. �The morning after pill is after you have that fertilized egg, and that is a baby. You are not allowing it to implant. So it is considered abortive,� the pharmacist said.

The next day, Fran and 60 Minutes went back to that pharmacy together and found the same pharmacist.

�Anyone can walk in off the street and we can refuse to fill a prescription,� the pharmacists said. Asked whether a prescription could be refused on religious grounds, the pharmacists said, �On any grounds. Personal preference. Any reason, we can refuse to fill a prescription.�

But the Kentucky state pharmacy board told 60 Minutes that pharmacists must have a professional medical reason, not simply a personal preference, to turn away a prescription for Plan B or anything else.

The pharmacy did offer birth control but the pharmacist did not consider Plan B birth control.

So, with Plan B mired in the abortion debate, the FDA advisory committee took its vote on recommending whether it should be sold over the counter.

Dr. Hager voted �no.� But his colleagues on the committee rejected his arguments, voting 23 to four in favor of offering the drug over the counter.

Such a lop-sided vote should have meant the application would sail through. But then the saga of Plan B took a strange turn.

Dr. Hager says someone at the FDA � he won�t say who � asked him to write a �minority report� in which he asked for more studies and more data on the use of Plan B by young girls.

A few months later something totally unexpected happened: The FDA ignored the committee�s overwhelming vote and rejected the proposal to sell Plan B over the counter, citing the very concerns in Hager�s report.

Some people believe Hager raised these objections because of his religious beliefs, but that�s something he denies. �The religious aspect did not enter into that decision for me,� he says.

But in to a speech he gave to a Christian college, he seemed to admit his role was all about religion. �God has used me to stand in the breach for the cause of the kingdom,� Hager said at the time.

He was talking about Plan B.

�I argued it from a scientific perspective. And God took that information and He used it through this minority report to influence a decision. You don't have to wave your bible to have an effect as a Christian in the public arena,� says Hager.

Hager says he did not mean to suggest that God wanted Plan B to fail, and that he was His instrument. �I thought that God used me, He'd used my individual gifts of, whatever, in an individual way to be able to express my opinion.�

But with the speech, Hager may have fueled the fire of those who say that all he did was try to cloak religious beliefs in scientific language.

�If the idea in the population of this country is that a person can�t be a person of faith and also be a person of science, I strongly disagree with that,� says Hager.

Should agencies like the FDA be completely divorced from the debates that go on in society?

�Again, the question the agency has to deal with is, is it safe? And is it safe for teens? Yes, it is,� says Wood. �Have we asked that question about other contraceptive methods? Are we going to label, take condoms behind the counter? Make them prescription? I don't think we should.

�I think most Americans would like to leave those decisions as private decisions, and decisions within the family.�

Plan B�s manufacturer, Barr Pharmaceuticals, submitted a new application to the FDA with an age cut-off, so that girls 16 and younger would still need a prescription to get the drug. This seemed to address Hager�s objections and those of the anti-abortion rights lobby.

But last August, then-FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford surprised just about everyone when he announced that the agency had postponed a decision on the new application for what could be months or years. He took the unprecedented step of overruling his own scientific staff.

�I think the Plan B decision to cut the scientists out is sort of a poster child of this concern about science and politics,� says Wood.

She�s talking about fears that religious forces are hijacking government decision-making. Wood was so outraged by the FDA postponement that she promptly resigned as director of the Office of Women�s Health in protest.

�What I saw was the science being ignored. That the scientific and medical staff (was) being cut out of decision making,� says Wood.

In fact, according to a government investigation, top FDA officials had decided to reject Plan B�s over the counter application months before the scientific staff completed its review.

Was there pressure from the White House? The investigators said they couldn�t find out because e-mails and documents relating to the matter were destroyed.

As for Plan B as an over-the-counter drug, nobody knows when a decision on that will be made.

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan writes in a surprisingly scathing memoir to be published next week that President Bush "veered terribly off course," was not "open and forthright on Iraq," and took a "permanent campaign approach" to governing at the expense of candor and competence.
Among the most explosive revelations in the 341-page book, titled What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception (Public Affairs, $27.95):

� He says the White House press corps was too easy on the administration during the run-up to the war.

� He admits that some of his own assertions from the briefing room podium turned out to be "badly misguided."

� The longtime Bush loyalist also suggests that two top aides held a secret West Wing meeting to get their story straight about the CIA leak case at a time when federal prosecutors were after them � and McClellan was continuing to defend them despite mounting evidence they had not given him all the facts.

� McClellan asserts that the aides � Karl Rove, the president's senior adviser, and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the vice president's chief of staff � "had at best misled" him about their role in the disclosure of former CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.

A few reporters were offered advance copies of the book, with the restriction that their stories not appear until Sunday, the day before the official publication date. Politico declined and purchased What Happened at a Washington bookstore.

The eagerly awaited book, while recounting many fond memories of Bush and describing him as "authentic" and "sincere," is harsher than reporters and White House officials had expected.

McClellan was one of the president's earliest and most loyal political aides, and most of his friends had expected him to take a few swipes at his former colleague in order to sell books but also to paint a largely affectionate portrait.

Instead, McClellan's tone is often harsh. He writes, for example, that after Hurricane Katrina, the White House "spent most of the first week in a state of denial," and he blames Rove for suggesting the photo of the president comfortably observing the disaster during an Air Force One flyover. McClellan says he and counselor to the president Dan Bartlett had opposed the idea and thought it had been scrapped.

But he writes that he later was told that "Karl was convinced we needed to do it � and the president agreed."

"One of the worst disasters in our nation's history became one of the biggest disasters in Bush's presidency. Katrina and the botched federal response to it would largely come to define Bush's second term," he writes. "And the perception of this catastrophe was made worse by previous decisions President Bush had made, including, first and foremost, the failure to be open and forthright on Iraq and rushing to war with inadequate planning and preparation for its aftermath."

McClellan, who turned 40 in February, was press secretary from July 2003 to April 2006. An Austin native from a political family, he began working as a gubernatorial spokesman for then-Gov. Bush in early 1999, was traveling press secretary for the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign and was chief deputy to Press Secretary Ari Fleischer at the beginning of Bush's first term.

"I still like and admire President Bush," McClellan writes. "But he and his advisers confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candor and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and then sustain public support during a time of war. � In this regard, he was terribly ill-served by his top advisers, especially those involved directly in national security."

In a small sign of how thoroughly McClellan has adopted the outsider's role, he refers at times to his former boss as "Bush," when he is universally referred to by insiders as "the president."

McClellan lost some of his former friends in the administration last November when his publisher released an excerpt from the book that appeared to accuse Bush of participating in the cover-up of the Plame leak. The book, however, makes clear that McClellan believes Bush was also a victim of misinformation.

The book begins with McClellan's statement to the press that he had talked with Rove and Libby and that they had assured him they "were not involved in � the leaking of classified information."

At Libby's trial, testimony showed the two had talked with reporters about the officer, however elliptically.

"I had allowed myself to be deceived into unknowingly passing along a falsehood," McClellan writes. "It would ultimately prove fatal to my ability to serve the president effectively. I didn't learn that what I'd said was untrue until the media began to figure it out almost two years later.

"Neither, I believe, did President Bush. He, too, had been deceived and therefore became unwittingly involved in deceiving me. But the top White House officials who knew the truth � including Rove, Libby and possibly Vice President Cheney � allowed me, even encouraged me, to repeat a lie."

McClellan also suggests that Libby and Rove secretly colluded to get their stories straight at a time when federal investigators were hot on the Plame case.

"There is only one moment during the leak episode that I am reluctant to discuss," he writes. "It was in 2005, during a time when attention was focusing on Rove and Libby, and it sticks vividly in my mind. � Following (a meeting in Chief of Staff Andy Card's office) � Scooter Libby was walking to the entryway as he prepared to depart when Karl turned to get his attention. 'You have time to visit?' Karl asked. 'Yeah,' replied Libby.

"I have no idea what they discussed, but it seemed suspicious for these two, whom I had never noticed spending any one-on-one time together, to go behind closed doors and visit privately. � At least one of them, Rove, it was publicly known at the time, had at best misled me by not sharing relevant information, and credible rumors were spreading that the other, Libby, had done at least as much. �

"The confidential meeting also occurred at a moment when I was being battered by the press for publicly vouching for the two by claiming they were not involved in leaking Plame's identity, when recently revealed information was now indicating otherwise. � I don't know what they discussed, but what would any knowledgeable person reasonably and logically conclude was the topic? Like the whole truth of people's involvement, we will likely never know with any degree of confidence."

McClellan repeatedly embraces the rhetoric of Bush's liberal critics and even charges: "If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq.

"The collapse of the administration's rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. � In this case, the 'liberal media' didn't live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served."

Decrying the Bush administration's "excessive embrace of the permanent campaign approach to governance," McClellan recommends that future presidents appoint a "deputy chief of staff for governing" who "would be responsible for making sure the president is continually and consistently committed to a high level of openness and forthrightness and transcending partisanship to achieve unity.

"I frequently stumbled along the way," McClellan acknowledges in the book's preface. "My own story, however, is of small importance in the broad historical picture. More significant is the larger story in which I played a minor role: the story of how the presidency of George W. Bush veered terribly off course."

Even some of the chapter titles are brutal: "The Permanent Campaign," "Deniability," "Triumph and Illusion," "Revelation and Humiliation" and "Out of Touch."

"I think the concern about liberal bias helps to explain the tendency of the Bush team to build walls against the media," McClellan writes in a chapter in which he says he dealt "happily enough" with liberal reporters. "Unfortunately, the press secretary at times found himself outside those walls as well."

The book's center has eight slick pages with 19 photos, eight of them depicting McClellan with the president. Those making cameos include Cheney, Rove, Bartlett, Mark Knoller of CBS News, former Assistant Press Secretary Reed Dickens and, aboard Air Force One, former press office official Peter Watkins and former White House stenographer Greg North.

In the acknowledgments, McClellan thanks each member of his former staff by name.

� Steve Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser, said about the erroneous assertion about Saddam Hussein seeking uranium, included in the State of the Union address of 2003: "Signing off on these facts is my responsibility. � And in this case, I blew it. I think the only solution is for me to resign." The offer "was rejected almost out of hand by others present," McClellan writes.

� Bush was "clearly irritated, � steamed," when McClellan informed him that chief economic adviser Larry Lindsey had told The Wall Street Journal that a possible war in Iraq could cost from $100 billion to $200 billion: "'It's unacceptable,' Bush continued, his voice rising. 'He shouldn't be talking about that.'"

� "As press secretary, I spent countless hours defending the administration from the podium in the White House briefing room. Although the things I said then were sincere, I have since come to realize that some of them were badly misguided."

� "History appears poised to confirm what most Americans today have decided: that the decision to invade Iraq was a serious strategic blunder. No one, including me, can know with absolute certainty how the war will be viewed decades from now when we can more fully understand its impact. What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary."

� McClellan describes his preparation for briefing reporters during the Plame frenzy: "I could feel the adrenaline flowing as I gave the go-ahead for Josh Deckard, one of my hard-working, underpaid press office staff, � to give the two-minute warning so the networks could prepare to switch to live coverage the moment I stepped into the briefing room."

� "'Matrix' was the code name the Secret Service used for the White House press secretary."

McClellan is on the lecture circuit and remains in the Washington area with his wife, Jill.

I remember way back when Bush and his people lied to the world about Saddam and uranium. They purposely leaked the story to the NYT, who made it public just before they all hit the Sunday talk show circuit so they could refer to their own leaked story in the NYT as part of their propaganda.

This is an old story. Ron Suskind has a book that just came out that describes this known practice and says in his book that Al Qaeda has known for some time now what the US is doing and that it hasn't been working very well for some time now and the US need to develop a new strategy. I'm guessing they already developed that new strategy and are already implementing it, rendering this a NON story. There is no doubt in my mind that the White House leaked this story to the NYT so they could then come back and smear the press. An added bonus is that the left and the right are now battling more than ever. That's what the *Uniter/Decider* likes to see happen. And, as usual, the dimwits of his base are buying it hook, line and sinker.

Below is what I talked about above regarding their leak and appearances on the talk shows.

On September 8, the Miller/Gordon story about the aluminum tubes appeared on page one of the New York Times. The information was attributed to unnamed administration sources. That same morning, Vice President Dick Cheney was interviewed by Tim Russert on NBC's Meet the Press. Cheney mentioned, vaguely at first, Saddam's efforts to acquire the equipment he needs to be able to enrich uranium to make the bombs. Russert, familiar with the Times story, prompted his guest: Aluminum tubes.

Cheney replied: Specifically aluminum tubes. There's a story in the New York Times this morning--this is--I don't--and I want to attribute the Times. I don't want to talk about, obviously, specific intelligence sources, but it's now public that, in fact, he has been seeking to acquire...the kind of tubes that are necessary to build a centrifuge.

When Bob Simon heard about this interview, he told me, he smelled a rat. You leak a story to the New York Times, he says, and the New York Times prints it, and then you go on the Sunday shows quoting the New York Times and corroborating your own information. You've got to hand it to them. That takes, as we say here in New York, chutzpah.

DAVID SWANSON is a co-founder of After Downing Street, a writer and activist, and the Washington Director of Democrats.com. He is a board member of Progressive Democrats of America, and serves on the Executive Council of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, TNG-CWA. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and as a communications director, with jobs including Press Secretary for Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential campaign, Media Coordinator for the International Labor Communications Association, and three years as Communications Coordinator for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Swanson obtained a Master's degree in philosophy from the University of Virginia in 1997.

It's working, too!! So far, American citizens have donated a whopping $39.00!!

By Cam Simpson Washington BureauSun Sep 18, 9:40 AM ET

From the Indian Ocean tsunami to the church around the corner, Americans have shown time and again they are willing to open their pocketbooks for charity, for a total of about $250 billion last year alone.

But now, amid pleas for aid after Hurricane Katrina, the Bush administration has launched an unusual effort to raise charitable contributions for another cause: the government's attempt to rebuild Iraq.

Although more than $30 billion in taxpayer funds have been appropriated for Iraqi reconstruction, the administration earlier this month launched an Internet-based fundraising effort that it says is aimed at giving Americans a further stake in building a free and prosperous Iraq.

Contributors have no way of knowing who's getting the money or precisely where it's headed because the government says it must keep the details secret for security reasons.

But taxpayers already finance the projects for which the administration is seeking charitable donations, such as providing water pumps for farmers. And officials say any contributions they receive will increase the scope of those efforts rather than relieve existing taxpayer burdens.

The campaign is raising eyebrows in the international development and not-for-profit communities, where there are questions about its timing--given needs at home--and whether it will set the government in competition with international not-for-profits.

On a more basic level, experts wonder whether Americans will make charitable donations to a government foreign aid program and whether the contentious environment surrounding Iraq will make a tough pitch even tougher.

I'm a little skeptical, and the timing certainly isn't the best, said James Ferris, director of the Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy at the University of Southern California. It's going to be a hard sell.

Cost of rebuilding skyrockets

The U.S. Agency for International Development, the federal government's primary distributor of foreign aid, said Friday, Charitable contributions play an important role in enriching and extending U.S. government efforts.

The effort is just the newest twist in the administration's struggle to rebuild Iraq. Andrew Natsios, head of USAID, first predicted it would cost taxpayers no more than $1.7 billion. The tab has since risen to more than $30 billion, with congressional Republicans and Democrats sharply critical of the high cost and slow pace of progress.

In addition, the new campaign comes amid increasing concerns that some of the administration's major projects in Iraq will be scrapped or only partially completed because of rising costs, especially for security. Some officials fear money may run out before key projects are completed.

Natsios announced the campaign in a speech Sept. 9. In a press release issued the same day, USAID said its new Web site will help American citizens learn more about official U.S. assistance for Iraq and make contributions to high-impact development projects.

Although USAID has received private donations from corporations in the past, this might be the first time it has geared a charity pitch for U.S. foreign aid dollars to citizens.

Initially, the Web site, called Iraqpartnership.org, is offering potential contributors a choice of eight projects, each seeking $10,000 or less. They include purchasing computers for centers designed to assist Iraqi entrepreneurs, buying furniture and supplies for Iraqi elementary and high schools, paying for the production of posters to promote awareness of disabilities and rights issues, and buying water pumps for farmers.

There is also a general Iraq country fund, offering donors another high-impact giving opportunity without making them have to specify a project.

All of the projects are from USAID's existing portfolio of reconstruction programs in Iraq, according to the agency.

Security issues obscure details

Heather Layman, a USAID spokeswoman, said the efforts are being carried out by five private organizations working on Iraq reconstruction with USAID funding. The site does not provide details about the groups involved or the project locations because of security issues in Iraq.

The government says all contributions are tax-deductible.

William Reese, the president and CEO of the International Youth Foundation, said USAID officials did not discuss the campaign with a special advisory committee that he serves on and formerly headed.

That committee, made up primarily of representatives from non-profit groups working overseas, is supposed to help provide the underpinning for cooperation between the public and private sectors in U.S. foreign assistance programs, according to USAID.

Reese said some not-for-profit groups may see the effort as competition, but he predicted few would be concerned because of a more basic issue: While Americans are generous, he said, I don't think your average Joe is going to write a check to the U.S. government.

Carol Lancaster, a foreign aid expert and associate professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, also questioned the premise of the program.

Places that are seen as public agencies or clones of public agencies don't get private donations, said Lancaster, a former deputy administrator at USAID. People generally believe, `It's government, so government should pay for it.'

Nassarie Carew, a spokeswoman for InterAction, an umbrella group of more than 160 non-profits working overseas, said her organization also was not aware of the effort. Its CEO, Mohammad Akhter, serves on the USAID advisory panel. Carew declined to comment until the group had a chance to survey its members.

Layman, the USAID spokeswoman, called the Web site a passive solicitation, saying potential donors would likely find it only if they were looking for a way to support Iraq's redevelopment.

She also said some people who might have donated to projects in Iraq will now choose to put money toward Katrina relief, but that others will still want to help in Iraq.

She said Iraqi-Americans specifically had asked USAID to help them find an avenue for contributions.

Raising charitable contributions for overseas projects can be a challenge even when the U.S. government is not at the center of the pitch. And Iraq is one of the government's more controversial foreign policy ventures in decades.

DevelopmentSpace Foundation Inc., the group that set up the Web site for USAID, operates its own, separate Web site seeking charitable donations for small-scale projects in developing countries.

Since its founding in 2001, that effort has raised a total of about $2 million, said Allison Koch, a foundation spokeswoman.

The organization keeps a 10 percent commission for contributions and has received most of its operating funds through major grants from several other foundations. USAID also gave it a grant of $1.5 million.

So far, $39 donated

Although in its infancy, the Iraqpartnership.org Web site had generated contributions totaling $39 as of Friday night.

According to the Giving USA Foundation, which tracks annual charitable donations by Americans, international giving accounted for 2.1 percent of all charity in the U.S. last year.

Ferris, the director of the USC philanthropy center, said that's because people want to donate to causes closer to home.

Except for the fact that the aim of foreign aid is to bolster U.S. foreign policy objectives overseas, Ferris said the new USAID campaign seems like a natural extension of the growing trend toward public-private partnerships.

There is this blurring of the lines, he said. A lot of things once paid for by the public are now paid through private sources.

----------

csimpson@tribune.com

The Other Big Brother
The Pentagon has its own domestic spying program. Even its leaders say the outfit may have gone too far.

Jan. 30, 2006 issue - The demonstration seemed harmless enough. Late on a June afternoon in 2004, a motley group of about 10 peace activists showed up outside the Houston headquarters of Halliburton, the giant military contractor once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. They were there to protest the corporation's supposed war profiteering. The demonstrators wore papier-mache masks and handed out free peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches to Halliburton employees as they left work. The idea, according to organizer Scott Parkin, was to call attention to allegations that the company was overcharging on a food contract for troops in Iraq. It was tongue-in-street political theater, Parkin says.

But that's not how the Pentagon saw it. To U.S. Army analysts at the top-secret Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA), the peanut-butter protest was regarded as a potential threat to national security. Created three years ago by the Defense Department, CIFA's role is force protection�tracking threats and terrorist plots against military installations and personnel inside the United States. In May 2003, Paul Wolfowitz, then deputy Defense secretary, authorized a fact-gathering operation code-named TALON�short for Threat and Local Observation Notice�that would collect raw information about suspicious incidents. The data would be fed to CIFA to help the Pentagon's terrorism threat warning process, according to an internal Pentagon memo.

A Defense document shows that Army analysts wrote a report on the Halliburton protest and stored it in CIFA's database. It's not clear why the Pentagon considered the protest worthy of attention�although organizer Parkin had previously been arrested while demonstrating at ExxonMobil headquarters (the charges were dropped). But there are now questions about whether CIFA exceeded its authority and conducted unauthorized spying on innocent people and organizations. A Pentagon memo obtained by NEWSWEEK shows that the deputy Defense secretary now acknowledges that some TALON reports may have contained information on U.S. citizens and groups that never should have been retained. The number of reports with names of U.S. persons could be in the thousands, says a senior Pentagon official who asked not be named because of the sensitivity of the subject.

CIFA's activities are the latest in a series of disclosures about secret government programs that spy on Americans in the name of national security. In December, the ACLU obtained documents showing the FBI had investigated several activist groups, including People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and Greenpeace, supposedly in an effort to discover possible ecoterror connections. At the same time, the White House has spent weeks in damage-control mode, defending the controversial program that allowed the National Security Agency to monitor the telephone conversations of U.S. persons suspected of terror links, without obtaining warrants.

Last Thursday, Cheney called the program vital to the country's defense against Al Qaeda. Either we are serious about fighting this war on terror or not, he said in a speech to the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. But as the new information about CIFA shows, the scope of the U.S. government's spying on Americans may be far more extensive than the public realizes.

It isn't clear how many groups and individuals were snagged by CIFA's dragnet. Details about the program, including its size and budget, are classified. In December, NBC News obtained a 400-page compilation of reports that detailed a portion of TALON's surveillance efforts. It showed the unit had collected information on nearly four dozen antiwar meetings or protests, including one at a Quaker meetinghouse in Lake Worth, Fla., and a Students Against War demonstration at a military recruiting fair at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A Pentagon spokesman declined to say why a private company like Halliburton would be deserving of CIFA's protection. But in the past, Defense Department officials have said that the force protection mission includes military contractors since soldiers and Defense employees work closely with them and therefore could be in danger.

CIFA researchers apparently cast a wide net and had a number of surveillance methods�both secretive and mundane�at their disposal. An internal CIFA PowerPoint slide presentation recently obtained by William Arkin, a former U.S. Army intelligence analyst who writes widely about military affairs, gives some idea how the group operated. The presentation, which Arkin provided to NEWSWEEK, shows that CIFA analysts had access to law-enforcement reports and sensitive military and U.S. intelligence documents. (The group's motto appears at the bottom of each PowerPoint slide: Counterintelligence 'to the Edge'.) But the organization also gleaned data from open source Internet monitoring. In other words, they surfed the Web.

That may have been how the Pentagon came to be so interested in a small gathering outside Halliburton. On June 23, 2004, a few days before the Halliburton protest, an ad for the event appeared on houston.indymedia.org, a Web site for lefty Texas activists. Stop the war profiteers, read the posting. Bring out the kids, relatives, Dick Cheney, and your favorite corporate pigs at the trough as we will provide food for free.

Four months later, on Oct. 25, the TALON team reported another possible threat to national security. The source: a Miami antiwar Web page. Website advertises protest planned at local military recruitment facility, the internal report warns. The database entry refers to plans by a south Florida group called the Broward Anti-War Coalition to protest outside a strip-mall recruiting office in Lauderhill, Fla. The TALON entry lists the upcoming protest as a credible threat. As it turned out, the entire event consisted of 15 to 20 activists waving a giant bush lied sign. No one was arrested. It's very interesting that the U.S. military sees a domestic peace group as a threat, says Paul Lefrak, a librarian who organized the protest.

Arkin says a close reading of internal CIFA documents suggests the agency may be expanding its Internet monitoring, and wants to be as surreptitious as possible. CIFA has contracted to buy identity masking software that would allow the agency to create phony Web identities and let them appear to be located in foreign countries, according to a copy of the contract with Computer Sciences Corp. (The firm declined to comment.)

Pentagon officials have broadly defended CIFA as a legitimate response to the domestic terror threat. But at the same time, they acknowledge that an internal Pentagon review has found that CIFA's database contained some information that may have violated regulations. The department is not allowed to retain information about U.S. citizens for more than 90 days�unless they are reasonably believed to have some link to terrorism, criminal wrongdoing or foreign intelligence. There was information that was improperly stored, says a Pentagon spokesman who was authorized to talk about the program (but not to give his name). It was an oversight. In a memo last week, obtained by NEWSWEEK, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England ordered CIFA to purge such information from its files�and directed that all Defense Department intelligence personnel receive refresher training on department policies.

That's not likely to stop the questions. Last week Democrats on the Senate intelligence committee pushed for an inquiry into CIFA's activities and who it's watching. This is a significant Pandora's box [Pentagon officials] don't want opened, says Arkin. What we're looking at is hints of what they're doing. As far as the Pentagon is concerned, that means we've already seen too much.

I don't understand why you condone corporate welfare/tax cheaters. Not surprised -- just don't understand.

Next time you make some colossal blunder at work, here's your excuse: "I was rushed". Apparently, that's good enough for the feds, who have sent around 10,000 checks to dead people...some of whom were never even in the Social Security system. Wonder where they're getting the names?

Of course, we knew that the fraud, abuse and waste would be gargantuan since the government has never been able to handle our money without fraud, waste and abuse.

http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/your_money/consumer/090514_Dead_People_Get_Stimulus_Checks

Bush supporter, but you can't blame Bush for this economic mess. Perhaps you should do a little more research before you go off like a screaming meemie. It was Bill Clinton who proposed everyone should have a mortgage in every pot, whether they could afford it or not, especially minorities, and the chickens came home to roost. Do a little research, kiddo.

LOL, you can't blame Bush for everything. I think the time is coming when all Americans will realize what a decent man he is, the last decent one we will have as a president. If Americans can vote in an illegal ursurper and think he is the Messiah, they sure won't vote for an honorable, Constitution-abiding successor, assuming we even have another election in this country with Comrade Obama in charge along with his Marxist cabinet.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

I was taught in school if the economy is doing bad now, it was due to the president 6-8 years ago. If the economy is doing well, it is also due to the president who was in office 6-8 years ago.

Since it's almost Income Tax time, here's some interesting facts about the Democrat and Republican tax policies. Just compare - and, while you're at it, use these facts the next time you hear that President Bush only "cut taxes for the rich". Looks to me like someone single and making $30K, or a couple making $60K, got a 46% tax break under the Republicans. That's what I would call taking care of the "middle class".

And remember, the truth only comes out when we refuse to be silent....
Source: www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html

I knew it was a mistake to pick Clinton for SOS. The person who said she had no problems obliterating Iran if they didn't do what she wants (or something like that). How do you think the current administration to include Hillary will handle this one.