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The substance of the arms control provisions is in Article IV. This article restricts activities in two ways:

First, it contains an undertaking not to place in orbit around the Earth, install on the moon or any other celestial body, or otherwise station in outer space, nuclear or any other weapons of mass destruction.

Second, it limits the use of the moon and other celestial bodies exclusively to peaceful purposes and expressly prohibits their use for establishing military bases, installation, or fortifications; testing weapons of any kind; or conducting military maneuvers.

in 1992, when Ross Perot was invited. He showed both mainstream candiates up. Because of this both the NDC and the GOP came to gether and formed the Commision for Presidential Debates. Which controlls who are allowed on the debates. And since they are a partnership of both parties they will not allow their candiates on any debate they don't have absolute say on. ANd of course they won't allow third party cadnidates on thier debates. So if the networks want to have a presidental debate that include either the rebuplican or democratic canidate, they have to follow the rules of the CPD. Which means no one else can come. Its sick its twisted and its one of the reasons i haven't voted in a presdential election except the one in 1992. I am with George Washington on this one.. I'm against the party system. In his farewell address he warned aginst the dangers of a party system.

I was mistaken, the term 'criminal combatant' is not used officially by the Bush Administration, but your refutation is disingenuous, and even more error ridden than my misstatement.

Instead of 'criminal combatant' the Bush Administration seems to prefer "unlawful enemy combatant", which also carries the implication that these humans are held as criminal actors, does it not? They are certainly defined by more than your truncated "enemy combatant", because that would not in any way distinguish them from POWs, and the Administration created an unconstitutional third class, attempting to place these humans outside the reach of the rule of law.

On November 29, 2001, Mr. Bush, speaking at the U.S. Attorneys Conference, clearly stated that these individuals are criminal actors, and then posits that he, of and by himself, has the ability to abrogate their natural rights:

"They are unlawful combatants who seek to destroy our country and our way of life. And if I determine that it is in the national security interest of our great land to try by military commission those who make war on America, then we will do so."

Mr. Bush's sole legitimising force is the US Constitution, and he has now twice solemnly sworn to uphold and protect it, yet works to destroy it by claiming a President can lawfully act outside of its constraints. The American President is not above the Supreme Law of the land. Bush engages in tyranny when claiming this.

Ari Fleischer danced a situationalist jig during a White House Press Briefing on January 28, 2002:

"...the Geneva Convention was written in a very different era, following world war -- to apply to the war on terrorism, where people don't wear uniforms, they are unlawful combatants and they come from 30 different nations, not any one recognized nation with whom the United States is fighting a war."

It still does not matter if this is indeed a different era, or just a time of an incompetent executive, The US Constitution Article VI; clause 2 guides:

"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."

Clearly the Geneva Conventions are the Supreme Law of the Land, and since under the Conventions a High Contracting Party is restrained from withdrawing from them during a time of war, Bush violated the Constitution in his detainee determination. I will address that issue later.

The US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, Pierre-Richard Prosper, speaking at Chatham House in London on February 20, 2002, clearly defined them as criminal actors, then went on to claim that Due Process of Law does not apply to them:

"The members of al Qaida fail to meet the criteria to be lawful combatants under the law of war. In choosing to violate these laws and customs of war and engage in hostilities, they become unlawful combatants. And their conduct, in intentionally targeting and killing civilians in a time of international armed conflict, constitute war crimes. As we have repeatedly stated, these were not ordinary domestic crimes, and the perpetrators cannot and should not be deemed to be ordinary 'common criminals.'

Unlawful combatants by their nature forfeit special benefits and privileges accorded by the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War. If captured, they are apprehended for their criminal activity and not as prisoners of war as envisioned by the Geneva Convention."

Metallic anti-skimming material incorporated into the front cover and spine of the e-passport book prevents the chip from being skimmed, or read, when the book is fully closed

It already has a cover

Metallic anti-skimming material incorporated into the front cover and spine of the e-passport book prevents the chip from being skimmed, or read, when the book is fully closed;

We can have nukes, but North Korea and Iran can't.

Tell that to Bill Clinton. It was his Administration who first claimed they were connected.

You are really good at ignoring facts, aren't you?

No, I just ignore "facts" from right-wing websites with as much credibility as Baghdad Bob. Which is about all that turns up if you Google for "saddam hussein terrorism".

• The UN Security Council ("Deploring threats made by Iraq during the recent conflict to make use of terrorism against targets outside Iraq" and "Requires Iraq to inform the Security Council that it will not commit or support any act of international terrorism or allow any organization directed towards commission of such acts to operate within its territory")
  
• President Clinton ("In the next century, the community of nations may see more and more the very kind of threat Iraq poses now- a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction ready to use them or provide them to terrorists")
  
• President Clinton's State Department ("Iraq continued to plan and sponsor international terrorism in 1999").
  
• The Council on Foreign Relations ("Saddam Hussein's dictatorship provided headquarters, operating bases, training camps, and other support to terrorist groups...")
  
• President Jimmy Carter, who placed Iraq on the State Department list of State Sponsors of Terrorism in 1979
  
• Vladimir Putin, who warned us in 2002 that Iraq was plotting terrorist attacks against the United States

You are stupid on so many levels you're hardly worth correcting at all, let alone on the most minor of your idiotic notions.

This is meant partially serious, and for the most part sarcastic. Let's look at a couple of numbers:

I'm unable to find a reliable source on terrorist-attack related deaths, but I think guestimating it at a couple thousand a year is (2001 excepted) more than high enough.

Each year 1.2M people get killed in automobile accidents, generally because either party isn't paying enough attention. A fair number of these deaths are caused by driving under influence. What do we need to wage war on? Alcohol? Carmanufacturers? Causes for sleep deprevation? (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_accident)

Why aren't we waging war against certain factions in Sudan? And estimated 70K+ people have been killed there in the 'recent' (read 3 years) past of genocidal behaviour. Nothing gets done about that, either. (Source: http://www.state.gov/s/inr/rls/fs/2005/45105.htm)

In 2005 due to natural disasters, more than 70,000 people lost their lives, so where is our War on Nature! (Oh hang on... We've already been doing that for centuries haven't we?) (Source: http://www.unisdr.org/disaster-statistics/introduc tion.htm)

The War on Terror doesn't exist. What does exist is random reactions to events that seem to shock people. What does exist is the ability to find excuses to spend more money. What does exist is the instillment of fear amongst a population (what you should really be scared of is crossing the road).

The War on Terror is played out in the media, not on a battlefield, and so far, as far as I'm concerned, the terrorists are winning. Even if it were just for the fact they've managed to seriously disturb people's lives (gotten into a plane recently?), managed to give politicians a way to curtail even more of 'our' freedom and cause considerable economic damages. Compare this to the actual amount of people directly impacted by terrorist attacks, and they've managed to score great result with fairly minimal use of force.

Splut.

Actually, *all* corporations pay taxes. Some may not income taxes, but they certainly pay other taxes (or their members do). In fact, corporate taxes account for around 7% of the US's GDP. While that's somewhat concerning because as late as the 1960's, corporate taxation accounted for 25% of the GPD, it certainly isn't "no taxes".

Also keep in mind that the vast majority of corporations are small businesses (can't find a citation ATM). That's important because small businesses employ 52% of the workers in the US and create 65% of the net new jobs. But even if you qualify your hating to "big corporations" (however you define that line), it doesn't really advance the argument. The computer you're now using wouldn't exist without corporations. Neither would many of the other benefits modern society offers that are taken advantage of daily by the same people who criticize capitalism.

I'm not saying much of corporate America doesn't suck. I'm a former refugee myself, who's since left to run his own company. But the mindless corporate bashing that is a regular mantra here at Slashdot is just plain mental laziness.

Sources:
http://www.cbpp.org/10-16-03tax.htm
http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/oecon/chap4. htm
http://www.fedex.com/us/about/news/speeches/greate raccess.html

>The two-party system exists because it is implicit to our Constitution. Period. If you don't get past this fact we are lost.

That's not a fact, that's not even mistaken, it is diametrically opposite to the truth.

The people who wrote our Constitution had watched party politics in England and hated it. They thought political parties were dangerous. They wanted people to vote for candidates, not parties. George Washington warned against "party spirit" in his farewell address.

Well, first of all, I said that Iraq was one of the largest state sponsors of terror, not one of the largest state sponsors of Al Qaeda. If you haven't seen a "shred of proof" about this, I have no idea where you were looking. Iraq was on the State Department's "State Sponsors of Terrorism" list for the better part of two decades. Iraq and Hussein provided open support for many internationally recognized terrorist organizations, including Abu Nadal, Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, Carlos the Jackal, PKK, Ansar al-Islam, and Hamas to name a few. The Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) was also implicated in several terrorism plots, including the attempted bombing of a radio tower in Prague, and the attempted assassination of a former US President. This is why the legislature passed a resolution in 1998 stating that "It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime", which happens to be exactly what George Bush is doing right now.

However, there are still concrete links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. The Clinton State Department issued an Indictment of Al Qaeda and Bin Laden in 1998, charging that "al Qaeda reached an understanding with the Government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq". This came after Saddam Hussein offered political asylum to Bin Laden after he was expelled from Saudi Arabia and left Afghanistan.

Not to mention the fact that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other Al Qaeda fighters were allowed to set up and operate Ansar al-Islam within Iraqi borders following Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan in December 2001, and that Mohammed Atta had allegedly met with ISS officials in Prague in April 2001.

- A generation ago is NOT 1994. A generation ago would have been more like 1976, so...WRONG

- According to a 2001 article published by a Doctorate in Psychology on behalf of another branch of the government you so choose to blindly believe in(Außenministerium); and I quote, "There are more than 70 million children in the United States under the age of 18, comprising 26 percent of the population. Violent crime against children was relatively high in the 1980s and early 1990s -- " AGAIN, whether you choose to use the date of the article or the date of the statistical analysis, this is NOT a generation ago, THEREFORE your claim that we(in which you included, or at least implied in the inclusion, children) are safer now than we were a GENERATION ago is...WRONG.

- Here's another fun filled quote from our completely objective and accurate "trusted" Minitrue website: "Sources: Rape (excluding sexual assault), robbery, and assault data are from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). Ongoing since 1972, this survey of households interviews about 134,000 persons age 12 and older in 77,200 households twice each year about their victimizations from crime."

Firstly, they DIDN'T include crimes against children UNDER the age of 12, which makes their sources questionable at best with regards to the decline of violent crime against all children.

Secondly, Ohhhhhhhhhh look at that....They interviewed a whole 134,000 people, out of the current population(according to another branch of Minitrue) of 298+ MILLION U.S. Comrades, a purported 26%, or 7,7595,496, of which they say are children. I'd hardly call it conclusive truth AT BEST.

Now let's take a look at the source of their "facts":

"BJS criminal victimization data collections
National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is the Nation's primary source of information on criminal victimization. Each year, data are obtained from a nationally representative sample of 77,200 households comprising nearly 134,000 persons on the frequency, characteristics and consequences of criminal victimization in the United States. The survey enables BJS to estimate the likelihood of victimization by rape, sexual assault, robbery, assault, theft, household burglary, and motor vehicle theft for the population as a whole as well as for segments of the population such as women, the elderly, members of various racial groups, city dwellers, or other groups. The NCVS provides the largest national forum for victims to describe the impact of crime and characteristics of violent offenders.
Ongoing from 1973; Redesign 1992."

And who designed and owns the NCVS? The Bureau of Justice Statistics.

And what Minitrue arm is the BJS a part of...well looky here, the DOJ.

So, based on the inadvertant admissions of your Minitrue's sites, they summarize an ENTIRE NATION'S crime statistics based on interviews with less than 1% of that same population, using their own methodologies which cannot be verified by an outside independent source, and you take that at face value.

Way to lack critical thinking skills, comrade.

Seriously, if you can't see how this can easily be abused, you've problems:

                -- undermine China's national unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity;

Taiwan is part of China, don't report otherwise
Tibet is fine

                -- endanger China's national security, reputation and interests;

You only need to look at the US to see how far you can stretch national security.
(ie: anything that puts the government into a bad light)

                -- violate China's religious policies or preach evil cults or superstition;

ie: Falun Gong doesn't exist, is evil and it's members are not mistreated in any way.

You'd have to be a complete idiot to not see why this is bad, China doesn't have a good record on religious freedoms:
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2002/13870.htm

                -- incite hatred and discrimination ... ...

How is this defined exactly? Just because it sounds good doesn't mean that is the way it is implemented. See claims of anti-seminism (and thereby doing a huge injustice to jews seriously suffering from this) every time someone's view differs from that of the Israeli government. Even going to the stupidity of calling dissenting jews "self-hating jews".

Christianity has nothing to do with these organizations, the same with Islam. Most are secular anyway, like the PKK. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a much more violent group than Arafat's Fateh, was led by Christian George Habash.

Christianity has nothing to do with these organizations, the same with Islam. Most are secular anyway, like the PKK. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a much more violent group than Arafat's Fateh, was led by Christian George Habash.

Actually, the United States is not a member to any international, multilateral, or bilateral treaties on the recognition of foreign judgments (it is on recognition of arbitral awards - the Geneva Convention). That isn't to say you can't enforce foreign awards, but it will be based upon domestic law and not treaty law. See http://travel.state.gov/law/info/judicial/judicial _691.html/ [state.gov]. What the domestic law is, I am not sure and don't have time to research.

It may not be the law you're thinking of but foreign entities can use the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789 to sue US companies in US courts for actions taken in other countries. There are now or were recently lawsuits filed in the US based on the act against Chevron, Coca Cola, and Exxon amoung others.

Actually, the United States is not a member to any international, multilateral, or bilateral treaties on the recognition of foreign judgments (it is on recognition of arbitral awards - the Geneva Convention). That isn't to say you can't enforce foreign awards, but it will be based upon domestic law and not treaty law. See http://travel.state.gov/law/info/judicial/judicial _691.html/. What the domestic law is, I am not sure and don't have time to research.

I wonder how this fit in with USA's ABC strategy against HIV/AIDS?

Microsoft: DON'T SURF!!! If you must, use IE. And buy this shiny new product.

OSS crowd: Join the fun! Take a firefox.

The vast majority of all terrorist acts (over 80%) are domestic in nature. This is another thing you don't learn if your only source of information is Ann Coulter on FOX, like the poster I was replying to.

Those who spout statements like "all terrorists are Muslim" deserve to get ridiculed by everyone with an elementary school education.

OK, but I think it's safe to say that the VAST MAJORITY of terrorist attacks in the past five years have been committed by Muslims. You are free to go here and see for yourself. (and that source is neither Ann Coulter nor Fox News since you seem to have a bias against both)

So, before you put your elementary school education to good use, you should do a little research.

Airliner Hijacking in Istanbul, March 15, 2001: Three Chechens hijacked a Russian airliner during a flight from Istanbul to Moscow and forced it to fly to Medina, Saudi Arabia. The plane carried 162 passengers and a crew of 12. After a 22-hour siege during which more than 40 passengers were released, Saudi security forces stormed the plane, killing a hijacker, a passenger, and a flight attendant.

Bus Stop Bombing, April 22, 2001: A member of HAMAS detonated a bomb he was carrying near a bus stop in Kfar Siva, Israel, killing one person and injuring 60.

Philippines Hostage Incident, May 27, 2001: Muslim Abu Sayyaf guerrillas seized 13 tourists and 3 staff members at a resort on Palawan Island and took their captives to Basilan Island. The captives included three U.S. citizens: Guellermo Sobero and missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham. Philippine troops fought a series of battles with the guerrillas between June 1 and June 3 during which 9 hostages escaped and two were found dead. The guerrillas took additional hostages when they seized the hospital in the town of Lamitan. On June 12, Abu Sayyaf spokesman Abu Sabaya claimed that Sobero had been killed and beheaded; his body was found in October. The Burnhams remained in captivity until June 2002.

Tel-Aviv Nightclub Bombing, June 1, 2001: HAMAS claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing of a popular Israeli nightclub that caused over 140 casualties.

HAMAS Restaurant Bombing, August 9, 2001: A HAMAS-planted bomb detonated in a Jerusalem pizza restaurant, killing 15 people and wounding more than 90. The Israeli response included occupation of Orient House, the Palestine Liberation Organization's political headquarters in East Jerusalem.

Suicide Bombing in Israel, September 9, 2001: The first suicide bombing carried out by an Israeli Arab killed 3 persons in Nahariya. HAMAS claimed responsibility.

Death of "the Lion of the Panjshir", September 9, 2001: Two suicide bombers fatally wounded Ahmed Shah Massoud, a leader of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance, which had opposed both the Soviet occupation and the post-Soviet Taliban government. The bombers posed as journalists and were apparently linked to al-Qaida. The Northern Alliance did not confirm Massoud's death until September 15.

Terrorist Attacks on U.S. Homeland, September 11, 2001: Two hijacked airliners crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Soon thereafter, the Pentagon was struck by

Go to here and a little past halfway down the page there's the logo for e-passports. If your passport has that logo on the front, you have the chip. If the logo isn't there, you're chip-free.

Huh? I don't recall this option. When I renewed mine, they sent me new passport and also returned the old, invalidated, one.

The Department of State has employed a multi-layered approach to protect the privacy of the information and to mitigate the chances of the electronic data being skimmed (unauthorized reading) or eavesdropped (intercepting communication of the transmission of data between the chip and the reader by unintended recipients). Metallic anti-skimming material incorporated into the front cover and spine of the e-passport book prevents the chip from being skimmed, or read, when the book is fully closed; Basic Access Control (BAC) technology, which requires that the data page be read electronically to generate a key that unlocks the chip, will prevent skimming and eavesdropping; and a randomized unique identification (RUID) feature will mitigate the risk that an e-passport holder could be tracked. To prevent alteration or modification of the data on the chip, and to allow authorities to validate and authenticate the data, the information on the chip will include an electronic signature (PKI).

Guess I will need to get me one of these sooner than expected

The Department of State has employed a multi-layered approach to protect the privacy of the information and to mitigate the chances of the electronic data being skimmed (unauthorized reading) or eavesdropped (intercepting communication of the transmission of data between the chip and the reader by unintended recipients).

"It'll be this way until He declares the war over."
ummm, didnt that happen over 3 years aog?

How about if those who would render Tor ineffective have the capability to record traffic passed by an isp to any node in the USA? How about if that same adversary has intelligence-sharing agreements with foreign intelligence agencies? It's not just hostile nodes you have to worry about, but also the possibility of the insfrastructure on which Tor is built being hostile.

http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/CALEA/
http://usinfo.state.gov/dhr/Archive/2003/Oct/15-98 5918.html

What does it matter if businessmen use Apple solutions or not? Why hold them up as paragons of taste and class?

I think the parent was simply referring to the fact that people use computers every day in their workplaces, but we don't see Apple ads featuring Macs in the workplace.

As for businessmen as a class of humans not worthy of any respect, your examples seem to be pulling almost exclusively from the excesses of the worst Fortune 500 size companies. Small business fuels the economy:

From a two-person software start-up to a fleet of trucks helping to build cities, the small-business sector catalyzes economic expansion by:

• making up 99.7 percent of all U.S. employers, meaning that only 17,000 companies, or 0.3 percent of all employers, have 500 or more employees;
• generating half the nonfarm output of the U.S. economy, and employing about half of all Americans not working for government, while adding 60 to 80 percent of net new (nongovernmental) jobs annually;
• comprising 97 percent of exporters and producing 29 percent of all export value--key points when we consider that exports have accounted for about 25 percent of U.S. economic growth over the past decade and support an estimated 12 million jobs;
• winning nearly 24 percent of all government contracts, ranging from ship construction to printing brochures.

I have a hard time believing that the people who run most of the businesses in the United States are worthy of such scorn. Painting all businesspeople as vile creatures is akin to saying that all athletes take steroids, all programmers crack DoD systems, and all (pick an ethnic background) are criminals.

Of course, there's plenty of documentation to support the other argument (from your own search):

http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2005/Jan/24- 318760.html

And you've yet to respond to Steve Coll's book.

As Peter Bergen puts it in the above link:

"While the charges that the CIA was responsible for the rise of the Afghan Arabs [bin Laden's group being a part of these foreign Arabs] might make good copy, they don't make good history."

Read on.

The enemy is terrorism--premeditated, politically
motivated violence perpetrated against
noncombatant targets by subnational groups
or clandestine agents.

O'rly ?? And how did you come up with that great leap of logic, hummm skippy ?

British Subway bombings (2005)
Beslan massacre in Russia (2004)
Madrid train bombings (2004)

Do us a favor..do a fast google search. I did !

Here is a link for some more.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/pubs/fs/5902.htm

And today the kids would pull knives on you, tell you to fsck off, and then report you to the cops as a pedophile.

Prove it.

The idea that youths today are measurably more violent than their predecessors is a farce. To quote:

"There is no evidence that young people involved in violence during the peak years of the early 1990s were more frequent or more vicious offenders than youths in earlier years."

The reason people won't interfere with this kind of behaviour is because the potential liabilities are huge and the potential benefits are tiny. If kids were vandalising a tree in the 50s an adult would have given them a slap around the ear and sent them home to their parents, who would have taught them not to do it again. Today that's 'child abuse', so there is literally no way to stop bad behaviour on the part of kids without throwing them into the legal system.

Uhh... slapping some random kid upside the head *is* abuse. You have absolutely no right to physically attack another person's child. You didn't in the 50s. You don't now. The correct action is to interfere and send them home to their parents, and let *them* deal with punishment. I fail to see any danger of liability with such an action.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble.

Stop throwing the Constitution in my face. It's just a goddamned piece of paper!"

the Court decided that military rule could not supersede the civil courts in areas where the civil courts and government remained open and operational.

Go here for instructions on getting a passport.

I blame their hiring practices.

http://careers.state.gov/specialist/opportunities/ infomanage.html

Check out the inordinate amount of weight they place on such meaningless shit as A+/Network+ certification. Those are the most absurdly easy, and yet off-topic/useless metrics ever written by man. Also, it's a Windows shop. This was bound to happen.

Civilians have no business wandering around a war zone.

Right. And war zones *never* occur around civilian populations like, say, northern France where there's still unexploded ordnance from WWII.

http://travel.state.gov/law/citizenship/citizenshi p_776.html It's not just a quick form though you have to sign an oath in front of a diplomat.

I'm disappointed in NASA's failures, but happy to see private industry taking up the slack. It was never very likely that pure curiosity would drive space travel, since it'd always be a low priority for governments; going into space took another motivation. Profit's an enticing one.

Unfortunately, some scientists are still working to crush kids' dreams. When Stephen Hawking spoke about space colonization recently, MIT scientists came forward to say it was "very far off." Way to encourage the next generation of astronauts!

We should be doing whatever we can to promote private exploration and colonization of space, and even of other environments like the ocean surface. Unfortunately political concerns hold back both. The UN Law of the Sea Treaty is questionable for its mediocre seabed mining provisions and is delayed by Senate resistance, while the UN's Outer Space Treaty implies that no one should be allowed to claim land or resources beyond Earth. The Outer Space Treaty should be scrapped!

Colin Powell, known to us old vets as "Americal Powell," also mentioned that transfer of money to the Taliban (a k a NGOs) to stop growing the poppy [...]

No he didn't. He claimed that the food aid was to alleviate the food crisis caused by warfare and drought. I'm not saying that's what it was for, I'm just saying that's what he ``mentioned.'' He gave a press conference, so it's ``public information,'' as you put it. http://www.state.gov/secretary/former/powell/remar ks/2001/2928.htm The aid money was never ``supposed to be for opium stoppage,'' as you claimed. As I said before, it wouldn't be plausible to claim this, although I will grant you that it wouldn't be the first time that this administration made an implausible claim.

[...] they were paying them for their collusion, [...]

No, as I stated in my previous post, ``the aid was paid to NGOs, not the Taliban.'' Much of the aid was in the form of food and was distributed by the United Nations. Again, that's what was stated publicly. Why would the UN pay off the Taliban? How does the Taliban qualify as an NGO? The Taliban was the de facto (if not de jure) government of Afghanistan, while ``NGO'' stands for ``Non Governmental Organization.''

geez, what is you level of reading comprehension????

Better than yours, evidently. I didn't say anything about whether our government did or did not collude with terrorists. You claimed that (a) our government paid the Taliban $43 million, that (b) this was a payment in advance for the 9/11 attacks, and that (c) the lack of further payments (we hope!) explains the lack of further terrorism. If (a) is false, (b) and (c) must also be false. Even if (a) and (b) were true, there might be other reasons why there hasn't been any large attacks in North America, and I suggested a couple in my previous post. There is no ``cause and effect'' inference to be made here.

SEC. 105. PENALTIES AGAINST SEX TOURISM.

(a) IN GENERAL- Section 2423 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by striking subsection (b) and inserting the following:
(c) ENGAGING IN ILLICIT SEXUAL CONDUCT IN FOREIGN PLACES- Any United States citizen or alien admitted for permanent residence who travels in foreign commerce, and engages in any illicit sexual conduct with another person shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both.
(f) DEFINITION- As used in this section, the term `illicit sexual conduct' means (1) a sexual act (as defined in section 2246) with a person under 18 years of age that would be in violation of chapter 109A if the sexual act occurred in the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States; or (2) any commercial sex act (as defined in section 1591) with a person under 18 years of age.

Now the interesting part of (f)(1) is that it can be interpreted in two ways. Either the sexual act has to occur in the jurisdiction of the United States and be in violation of 109A, or it can be read that the sexual act, wherever it occurred, is illicit, if that same sexual act would be in violation of 109A if it had occured in the U.S. jurisdiction.

Which way do we think the Department of State and Department of Justice interpret it? Let's see.

Here are the DoS and DoJ's interpretation of the above sections:

Washington -- On April 30, 2003, President Bush signed into law the Protect Act aimed at strengthening U.S. law enforcement's ability to prevent, investigate, prosecute and punish violent crimes committed against children. Many of the provisions of the Protect Act focus on protecting children within the United States, but the new law also reaches well beyond U.S. borders to help protect young people and combat child sex tourism.
...
Under the Protect Act, conviction would result in a mandatory 30-year imprisonment for each offense related to the sexual exploitation of children, double the previous penalty. In addition, U.S. investigators have enhanced authority and resources to identify and prosecute U.S residents who prey on minors anywhere.
...
The Changes

The Protect Act enhances law enforcement efforts to combat child sex tourism in several new ways, according to Perry Woo, ICE senior special agent at the Cybercrimes Center in Washington, D.C.

-- U.S. prosecutors no longer have to prove the accused traveled abroad with the intent of having sex with minors. Showing intent is no longer necessary. The accused is subject to the full force of U.S. law if they attempted to or engaged in sexual conduct with children under age 18 in foreign places.

-- Individuals legally residing in the United States as well as U.S. citizens can face federal charges under the Protect Act. This means international students, Green Card holders, trainees and other legitimate guests of the United States may be charged in U.S. federal courts for illicit sexual conduct with minors.

Now, admittedly, the specific examples they give in article linked above, are horrific and the men involved were in extreme violation of both U.S. law, and the laws of the countries they were visiting. H

Bush and the Neo-cons don't give a fuck about any facts. If they say the sky is not blue, you are expected believe it as a matter of faith, even if the Neo-cons do not believe it themselves.

And don't think for even one minute that whoever succeeds Bush will change anything about this.

After the excesses of the CIA were revealed in the Church Report, the Agency's oversight was increased radically, and its human intelligence operations were pared down to the bone. The history of U.S. government spying on citizens is filled with ups and downs like this. The fact that we're at a new low doesn't mean it will continue to get works. The polls seem to indicate that Americans are finally waking up. I wouldn't be surprised if we start to see a shift, as voters start to pressure Congress to demand more oversight over the Executive Branch's conduct of intelligence operations.

>Ungrateful gits. My parents paid many of their hard earned dollars in taxes to finance the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan
>provided nearly 267 billion postwar dollars in aid to Europe -- which equals over two trillion of today's dollars.

Don't know where you got your figures from, but they're way out. The Marshall plan provided $13 billion dollars to Europe (source: http://usinfo.state.gov/ the equivalent of $90 billion in today's money -- a figure, incidentally, nearly 100 times smaller than the current US national debt. Moreover, the money could only be used "to buy goods from the United States, and they had to be shipped across the Atlantic on American merchant vessels" (source: the US government website again).

Incidentally, you, with your "hard earned tax dollars", now contribute 100 times less to foregn aid (0.34% of GDP, the lowest out of 22 MEDCs in the ODA survey) than to defense (3.4% of GDP) - figures taken from *before* the Iraq war.

> they stopped putting out the annual report

The terrorism report has been renamed, but is current (2005 being the last reporting year), and still comes out annually:
http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/

All the statistics showed that excluding 9/11, the various power grabs were followed by more people being killed by terrorists. So they stopped putting out the annual report...

The Introduction to the Court Opinion on the New York Times Co. v. United States Case (the Pentagon Papers case) opens with:

In a democracy, there is always a tension between a free press and the government, between what the government claims ought to be kept confidential and what reporters believe the public ought to know.

There are some other choice tidbits in there... such as (emphasis added):

[The First Amendment] leaves, in my view, no room for governmental restraint on the press. There is, moreover, no statute barring the publication by the press of the material which the Times and Post seek to use... [I]t is apparent that Congress was capable of and did distinguish between publishing and communication in the various sections of the Espionage Act.

So any power that the Government possesses must come from its "inherent power." The power to wage war is "the power to wage war successfully." But the war power stems from a declaration of war. The Constitution by Article I, Section 8, gives Congress, not the President, power "to declare War." Nowhere are presidential wars authorized. We need not decide therefore what leveling effect the war power of Congress might have.

These disclosures may have a serious impact. But that is no basis for sanctioning a previous restraint on the press...The dominant purpose of the First Amendment was to prohibit the widespread practice of governmental sup-pression of embarrassing information. A debate of large proportions goes on in the Nation over our posture in Vietnam. Open debate and discussion of public issues are vital to our National Health. The stays in these cases that have been in effect for more than a week constitute a flouting of the principles of the First Amendment as interpreted in [Near v. Minnesota].

Hmm....

These are actual State Dept. Regulations as found in the Foreign Affairs Handbook regarding the purchase of ANYTHING that enters a Classified Access Area (CAA). Give it a quick read. It could shed some light on the present situation.