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Below
are one-paragraph excerpts of important news articles you may have missed.
These news articles include revealing information on the newly authorized
expansion of domestic spying by the U.S. government, 9/11-related suits
brought against the CIA and FBI by U.S. airlines, new scientific findings
on the risks of chemicals from plastic, and more. Each excerpt is taken
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Same Agencies to Run, Oversee Surveillance
Program

August 7, 2007, Washington
Post


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/06/AR2007080601303.html

The
Bush administration plans to leave oversight of its expanded foreign
eavesdropping program to the same government officials who supervise the
surveillance activities and to the intelligence personnel who carry them
out, senior government officials said yesterday. The law, which
permits intercepting Americans' calls and e-mails without a warrant if the
communications involve overseas transmission, gives Director of National
Intelligence Mike McConnell and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales
responsibility for creating the broad procedures determining whose
telephone calls and e-mails are collected. It also gives McConnell and
Gonzales the role of assessing compliance with those procedures. The law
... does not contain provisions for outside oversight -- unlike an earlier
House measure that called for audits every 60 days by the Justice
Department's inspector general. The controversial changes to the 1978
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act were approved by both chambers of
the Democratic-controlled Congress despite privacy concerns raised by
Democratic leaders and civil liberties advocacy groups. Central to the new
program is the collection of foreign intelligence from "communication
service providers," which the officials declined to identify, citing
secrecy concerns. Under the new law, the attorney general is required to
draw up the governing procedures for surveillance activity, for approval
by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Once the procedures are
established, the attorney general and director of national intelligence
will formally certify that the collection of data is authorized. But the
certification will be placed under seal "unless the certification is
necessary to determine the legality of the acquisition," according to the
law signed by Bush.


Bush administration defends spy
law

August 7, 2007, Los Angeles
Times


http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-intel7aug07,0,1631228.story

The Bush
administration rushed to defend new espionage legislation Monday amid
growing concern that the changes could lead to increased spying by U.S.
intelligence agencies on American citizens. But officials declined to
provide details about how the new capabilities might be used by the
National Security Agency and other spy services. And in many cases, they
could point only to internal monitoring mechanisms to prevent abuse of the
new rules that appear to give the government greater authority to tap into
the traffic flowing across U.S. telecommunications networks. Officials
rejected assertions that the new capabilities would enable the government
to cast electronic "drift nets" that might ensnare U.S. citizens [and]
that the new legislation would amount to the expansion of a controversial
— and critics contend unconstitutional — warrantless wiretapping program
that President Bush authorized after the 9/11 attacks. Intelligence
experts said there were an array of provisions in the new legislation that
appeared to make it possible for the government to engage in
intelligence-collection activities that the Bush administration officials
were discounting. "They are trying to shift the terms of the
debate to their intentions and away from the meaning of the new law,"
said Steven Aftergood, an intelligence policy analyst at the
Federation of American Scientists. "The new law gives them
authority to do far more than simply surveil foreign communications
abroad," he said. "It expands the surveillance program beyond
terrorism to encompass foreign intelligence. It permits the monitoring of
communications of a U.S. person as long as he or she is not the primary
target. And it effectively removes judicial supervision of the
surveillance process."


Airlines Sue FBI, CIA Over Sept.
11

August 7, 2007, Associated
Press


http://money.aol.com/news/articles/_a/airlines-sue-fbi-cia-over-sept-11/n20070807194509990001

Airlines
and aviation-related companies sued the CIA and the FBI on Tuesday to
force terrorism investigators to tell whether the aviation industry was to
blame for the Sept. 11 attacks. The two lawsuits in U.S. District Court in
Manhattan sought court orders for depositions as the aviation entities
build their defenses against lawsuits seeking billions of dollars in
damages for injuries, fatalities, property damage and business losses
related to Sept. 11, 2001. The aviation companies said the
agencies in a series of boilerplate letters had refused to let them depose
two secret agents, including the 2001 head of the CIA's special
Osama bin Laden unit, and six FBI agents with key information about
al-Qaida and bin Laden. The [plaintiffs] said they were entitled
to present evidence to show the terrorist attacks did not depend upon
negligence by any aviation defendants and that there were other causes of
the attacks. In the CIA lawsuit, companies ... asked to interview
the deputy chief of the CIA's bin Laden unit in 2001 and an FBI agent
assigned to the unit at that time. The names of both are secret. In the
FBI lawsuit, the companies asked to interview five former and current FBI
employees who had participated in investigations of al-Qaida and al-Qaida
operatives before and after Sept. 11. Those individuals included Coleen M.
Rowley, the former top FBI lawyer in its Minneapolis office, who sent a
scathing letter to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller in May 2002 complaining
that a supervisor in Washington interfered with the Minnesota
investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Requests to interview the agents were rejected as not sufficiently
explained, burdensome or protected by investigative or attorney-client
privilege, the lawsuits said.

Note:
For a concise summary of reliable, verifiable information on the 9/11
coverup, click
here.

Scientists issue warning on
chemical

August 3, 2007, Los Angeles
Times


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-plastic3aug03,0,1828523.story

In an
unusual effort targeting a single chemical, several dozen scientists on
Thursday issued a strongly worded consensus statement warning that an
estrogen-like compound in plastic is likely causing an array of serious
reproductive disorders in people. The compound, bisphenol A or
BPA, is one of the highest-volume chemicals in the world and has found its
way into the bodies of most human beings. Used to make hard plastic, BPA
can seep from beverage containers and other materials. It is used in all
polycarbonate plastic baby bottles as well as ... large water
cooler containers, sports bottles and microwave oven dishes, along with
canned food liners and some dental sealants for children. The scientists —
including four from federal health agencies — reviewed about 700 studies
before concluding that people are exposed to levels of the chemical
exceeding those that harm lab animals. Infants and fetuses are most
vulnerable, they said. The statement, published online by the journal
Reproductive Toxicology, was accompanied by a new study from
researchers from the National Institutes of Health that found uterine
damage in newborn animals exposed to BPA. That damage is a possible
predictor of reproductive diseases in women, including fibroids,
endometriosis, cystic ovaries and cancers. It is the first time BPA has
been linked to disorders of the female reproductive tract, although
earlier studies have found early-stage prostate and breast cancer and
decreased sperm counts in animals exposed to low doses. The scientists'
statement and the new study — accompanied by five scientific reviews
summarizing the 700 studies — intensify a contentious debate over whether
the plastic compound poses a public threat. So far no government agency
here or abroad has restricted its use.


Some risk linked to plastic
chemical

August 9, 2007, Los Angeles
Times


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-plastic9aug09,0,4581047.story

A federal
panel of scientists [has concluded] that an estrogen-like compound in
plastic could be posing some risk to the brain development of babies and
children. Bisphenol A, or BPA, [a component of polycarbonate plastic,] is
found in low levels in virtually every human body. The decision by the 12
advisors of the Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction
... is the first official, government action related to the chemical. The
scientists ranked their concerns about BPA, concluding they had "some
concern" about neurological and behavioral effects in fetuses, infants and
children, but "minimal" or "negligible" concern about reproductive effects.
The findings put the panel roughly in the middle -- between the chemical
industry, which has long said there is no evidence of danger to humans,
and the environmental activists and scientists who say it is probably
harming people. Environmentalists lambasted the panel, saying it had
minimized the risks and ignored important research. "Only the
chemical industry agrees with the decision that BPA has little or no human
health risks. That by itself should speak volumes about the corrupted
process endorsed by the panel today," said Dr. Anila Jacob of the
Environmental Working Group. The
panel's preliminary report on BPA was drafted by a private consulting firm
with financial ties to the chemical industry. The National
Toxicology Program fired the company but ruled that the report was
unbiased. The panel rejected several dozen animal studies that found
reproductive effects. The decision to reject the studies has been
controversial with toxicologists.


The Fear of Fear Itself

August 7, 2007, New York
Times


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/opinion/07tue1.html

It was
appalling to watch over the last few days as Congress — now led by
Democrats — caved in to yet another unnecessary and dangerous expansion of
President Bush’s powers, this time to spy on Americans in violation of
basic constitutional rights. Many of the 16 Democrats in the Senate and 41
in the House who voted for the bill said that they had acted in the name of
national security, but the only security at play was their job
security. What [do] the Democrats ... plan to do with their majority in
Congress if they are too scared of Republican campaign ads to use it to
protect the Constitution and restrain an out-of-control
president[?] The White House and its allies on Capitol Hill
railroaded Congress into voting a vast expansion of the president’s
powers. They gave the director of national intelligence and the attorney
general authority to intercept — without warrant, court supervision or
accountability — any telephone call or e-mail message that moves in, out
of or through the United States as long as there is a “reasonable belief”
that one party is not in the United States. While serving little purpose,
the new law has real dangers. It would allow the government to intercept,
without a warrant, every communication into or out of any country,
including the United States. The Democratic majority has made strides on
other issues like children’s health insurance against White House
opposition. As important as these measures are, they do not excuse the
Democrats from remedying the damage Mr. Bush has done to civil liberties
and the Bill of Rights. That is their most important duty.


In Bush we trust - or else

August 5, 2007, San Francisco
Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/08/05/EDJFRB8AF1.DTL

President
Bush's latest affront to the U.S. Constitution [is] in plain view on the
White House Web site: "Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain
Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq." This far-reaching
order ... is a frontal assault on the Fifth Amendment, which decrees that
the government cannot seize an individual's property without due process.
[The order asserts] the authority to freeze the American assets of anyone
who directly or indirectly assists someone who poses "a significant risk"
[to] the "peace and stability" of [Iraq] or the reconstruction effort.
"On its face, this is the greatest encroachment on civil liberties
since the internment of Japanese Americans in World War II," said Bruce
Fein, a constitutional lawyer who was a deputy attorney general
in the Reagan administration. Fein said the sanctions against
suspected violators would amount to "a financial death penalty. King
George III really would have been jealous of this power." The
executive order not only calls for the freezing of assets of anyone who
directly or indirectly [opposes US policy in Iraq,] it prohibits anyone
else from providing "funds, goods or services" to a blacklisted
individual. In other words, a friend or relative could have his or her
assets seized for trying to help someone whose bank account is suddenly
frozen. An attorney who offered legal help could risk losing everything he
or she owned. Then again, there's not much need for lawyers in the world of
this executive order. The blacklist would be drawn up by the "secretary of
treasury, in consultation with the secretary of state and the secretary of
defense." The Fifth Amendment was written for good reason: It's dangerous
to give the government unchecked authority to seize private property
without judicial review.