Inmates got hold of the computers at the asylum again...nm

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Wonder who the farmers are? Corporate, I bet. They will get 60 cents a day. Something else comes to mind - slaves.

I received an intrusion alarm when I booted mine up this morning. Don't know if a hacker is after some personal information or if it's my friendly government stalking me because I disagree with Bush's policies.

FBI Examines Computers in Cheney's Office

(10-06) 23:36 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) --

FBI agents examined computers in Vice President Dick Cheney's office and talked to former and current White House aides Thursday as they investigated an FBI intelligence analyst accused of passing classified information to Filipino officials.

Meantime, former Philippine President Joseph Estrada acknowledged receiving an internal U.S. government report on the Philippines from the analyst, Leandro Aragoncillo, but played down the importance of the information, comparing it to material aired in his country's media.

The FBI is looking at whether Aragoncillo, a former Marine, took classified information about the Philippines from the White House when he worked for Vice Presidents Al Gore and Cheney from 1999 to 2002.

The type of information has not been disclosed. Though Aragoncillo had top-secret clearance, that status would not have made him privy to highly sensitive intelligence.

Aragoncillo, a U.S. citizen originally from the Philippines, was charged last month with providing classified information from his FBI posting at Fort Monmouth, N.J., to former and current Philippine officials who oppose President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Philippine Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales said the criminal complaint against Aragoncillo suggests the information could have been intended to destabilize the Philippine government.

Michael Ray Aquino, a former top Philippine police official who acted as Aragoncillo's alleged go-between, was indicted by a Newark, N.J., federal grand jury Thursday on charges of conspiracy and acting as an unregistered foreign agent. Aragoncillo, 46, of Woodbury, N.J., and Aquino, 39, living in Queens, N.Y., have been jailed since their arrests last month.

Federal prosecutors in Newark did not seek an indictment against Aragoncillo because he is negotiating a plea, court records show.

Aquino lawyer Mark A. Berman said his client rejected a plea deal.

There's a fundamental difference between Aragoncillo and Aquino, Berman said. Aquino is not an FBI agent and had no reason to know that the information the government laid out in the indictment was classified.

While the criminal complaint is limited to Aragoncillo's time at Fort Monmouth the investigation has widened to include his stint, while a Marine, in the vice president's office. Agents examined computers and interviewed current and former vice presidential aides Thursday, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

FBI spokesman Rich Kolko would not confirm details of the investigation, but he said, In the course of a logical investigation, the FBI will research the subject's entire career for whenever he had access to classified or sensitive information to see whether any illegal or improper activity took place.

Meantime, Estrada said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press in the Philippines that he received documents from Aragoncillo but that he did not think they contained classified information.

He was just describing how America sees the Philippines, Estrada said. I don't think that is classified. It pertains to graft and corruption, the first gentleman (Arroyo's husband).

Estrada said he met Aragoncillo during his state visit to Washington in 2000 and received about six reports from him.

He compared what Aragoncillo did with reports diplomats send back home. I don't think that's espionage, he said.

He's a kind person, the former president said of Aragoncillo. He's a good family man. He has two children.

Estrada said Aragoncillo communicated with him by mail and also spoke with him on his birthday, but he didn't say when. Estrada was toppled in massive street protests in 2001 on charges of corruption and is under house arrests while on trial.

A Philippine opposition senator has acknowledged receiving information from Aquino. Sen. Panfilo Lacson, a former national police chief under whom Aquino served, said he and many others received information passed by Aquino, but he played down the value of the reports, describing them as shallow information.

White House and Justice Department officials declined to comment on the investigation.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a former federal prosecutor who handled an FBI spy case, said the Aragoncillo case raises questions about easy access to classified materials and how long the naturalized U.S. citizen was able to pass on sensitive information before he was stopped.

If the complaint is accurate, there is a wealth of evidence which makes it all the more surprising he went undiscovered as long as he did, because it was not a very sophisticated operation, Schiff said.

Aragoncillo was hired to work at Fort Monmouth in July 2004 and began sending classified information and documents in January, often via e-mail, according to an FBI complaint made public last month. The documents' contents have not been made public.

From May to Aug. 15 of this year, he printed or downloaded 101 classified documents relating to the Philippines, of which 37 were classified secret, according to the criminal complaint.

He sent some of the material to Aquino, the complaint said.

Aragoncillo's public defender, Chester M. Keller, declined to say if his client was cooperating with investigators. It's just too sensitive right now, Keller said.

___

Associated Press reporter Jim Gomez in Manila and Jeffrey Gold in Newark, N.J., contributed to this report.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article5105027.ece

My husband heard on the news this morning that Obama is asking again for 900 Billon to add to our deficit for his tax plan. I want to see more jobs like McCain wanted, not more unemployment and more deficit.

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.

This is/was a good board with some good folks. PERHAPS she just hadn't seen these posts.....maybe....hope that's the case.

Otherwise, I agree that it's probably time to boycott this board. I have long been aware of the definite bias of the powers that be. But I still hold out hope for fairness in the long run. And I was banned on the conservative board for calling someone stupid!!!! (which I shouldn't have, I admit).

The bottom is starting to drop out of this thing. I am positive the media (who are angry already about the phony "bias" attack by McCain) will NOT let SP's silence go unnoted.

First and foremost, please express my personal appreciation to your husband for his service to this country. By no means would I EVER ridicule a military person. They have served and DIED for the freedom we have and they continue to do so. I say the war in Iraq is ridiculous and that is my personal opinion. I think it was wrong from the getgo and I think it is WRONG to put our service men and woman in harm's way with many of them sacrificing their lives needlessly. There has never been peace in the middle east and there never will be (IMO) all the way back to biblical times.

Bush's "excuse" for the war was to capture or kill bin Laden wasn't it? So why has that not been done? Because, again in my opinion, the war is not against terrorism but about the wealthy oil barons.

AND, I pray for you and your husband. You too are making a great sacrifice and, again, your husband is serving his country and for that he deserves and gets from me the utmost respect whether or not I happen to agree with the politicians who sent him to war. May he be safe and soon return to you.

CLINTON put a lot of those people in government spots. I think he called it Affirmative Action.

I worked for a patent attorney back then and after Clinton got in, half the patent office were, (how can I say it without being branded a racist?) Indian, Pakistani, and a mix of other races. My attorney would be furious when they would return a patent for an error, and he would have to do a 15 page brief on why there was NO error.

Why are all the gas stations and motels now owned, or mostly owned, by other races? Where does the money come from?

There is a large VRAJ temple (sic) a few miles from my house. No one could afford to buy the property when it went up for sale because they wanted close to $1M for it. People from all over the world come there, yet a white person is not allowed to step 1 foot on their property or they will be arrested.

responsible for this mess including the last administration as well as this one. I do not like what President Obama is doing. This stimulus package is a joke. It is full of earmarks and pork. I can smell the bacon being fried in D.C. all the way over here in Indiana.

I want to see jobs created. I want more focus on alternative fuels. I want to tap the resources we have now and create jobs. I'm tired of giving money to banks. I'm tired of giving money to people who were irresponsible while harding working people suffer and try to stay afloat because of their bad decisions as well as the bad decisions made by crooks in government.

I didn't totally agree with the bailout Bush pushed for either, but you know what....I believe Barry Obama voted yes to that. He was in the senate and therefore I hold the senate responsible for things too. Bush couldn't do everything himself and there were plenty of dems in congress during the last 4 years that could have stopped a bailout during Bush's term.

I'm tired of the blaming game. There are too many people involved to try and blame everyone and it isn't fair to blame just one person since so many were involved.

I'm generally a middle of the road kind of person and in saying that.....I just do not feel that this stimulus package will stimulate the economy and I don't believe it will create and sustain jobs either.

I also wish our current administration would take some time and make an effort to stop all of this offshoring as there are many Americans who would benefit from this as well.

as I can remember. DH had a friend who worked for GAO back in the 70s. He told us about it then. It's probably been going on earlier than that. So don't blame just one elected official.

who sat and crunched the numbers and decided that it would be cheaper for their business to take American jobs and outsource them. Cheaper for who? If they would think this process out, and do the old school math instead of this fancy new math, they may have come up with a different answer.

Factor in hundreds to thousands of Americans losing their jobs to India, the newest craze in Transcriptionist outsourcing.

Factor in the loss of revenue from how much each of those transcriptionists can no longer spend and help keep the economy balanced, ESPECIALLY in such a recession now.

Factor in how little the government is going to issue out to these people who cannot find work so they can at least feed their family while they try to find something comparable to what they were doing. Factor in the few government grants that people can qualify for because they are now low income. Compare that to the millions they lost and are no longer contributing to the economy.

Factor in the cut backs because people have lost their jobs and can no longer afford health care, and now the hospitals can no longer afford the MTSOs and have to bring what work they do have back in-house.

Factor in now the MTSO that outsourced the work in the first place no longer has work available to outsource, thereby breeching contract, therefore having to pay huge fines, losing contracts left and right, and whoop, there goes another business under.

Oh who am I kidding, what do they care? They will just pay themselves a big bonus as they watch the company Titanic sink, and then AHDI and the lawyers will jump in and bail them out using the money that was skimmed from the employees who worked so hard for many years, just like the taxpayers!!??!! Man this country is messed up!

I try to have decent conversations, but there are others that only want to get everyone fired up. Just keep having decent conversations. They'll go away sooner or later.

BTW, I'm a pub but usually always vote for "the best man". Of course, we all know there are any of those guys left in D.C.

the democrats are going to put on a medial blitz regarding the stimulus package. They supposedly are going to blame the republicans for not wanting to pass this package, stating they don't care about the American people. (Serously, I think the pubs care more than the dems-but that's just me.)

I kept hearing about "honey bees" in this package but couldn't find it. I was listening to CSpan today. The senators are debating the package. McCain stated we don't need to spend %150M on "honey bee insurance." What?

Also, he feels we should lower the income taxes immediately by 5%; i.e., if you pay 15%, you'd be paying 10%; if you pay 10%, you'd be paying 5%. It would only cost $275B to do this, but would get things moving again. I didn't see anything in the stimulus package about that either but, of course, I didn't finish reading it yet. Senator DeMint also wants the taxes lowered on individuals.

They expect to vote on this package by Friday. Hopefully, they'll get all the crap taken out....which will probably take it back to 4 pages.