What Else Has Dick Lied About???

Although Vice President Dick Cheney did admit he was wrong about the Iraq insurgency being "in its last throes" he has been wrong on pretty much on all accounts when it comes to the war in Iraq.

On an interview with CNN's "Larry King Cheney defended President George W. Bush's Iraq policy.

Cheney, known for his secretive ways and rarely one to admit mistakes publicly, said:

"My estimate at the time - and it was wrong, it turned out to be incorrect - was the fact that we were in the midst of holding three elections in Iraq, elected an interim government, then ratifying a constitution, then electing a permanent government, that they had had significant success, we'd rounded up Saddam Hussein.

"I thought there were a series of these milestones that would in fact undermine the insurgency and make it less than it was at that point. That clearly didn't happen. I think the insurgency turned out to be more robust."

In a further blow to Bush's strategy, Iraq's parliament went into summer recess for a month on Monday after political leaders failed to agree on a series of laws that Washington sees as crucial to stabilizing the country.

"It's better than taking two months off, which was their original plan," Cheney said. "I made it clear, for example, when I was there in May that we didn't appreciate the notion that they were going to take a big part of the summer off and they did cut that in half."

It's Nice To Have Friends In Low Places

US President George W Bush has ordered close adviser Karl Rove not to testify before a Senate hearing on the sacking of eight federal prosecutors.

Mr Bush used the executive privilege he has as president to exempt Mr Rove from having to appear.

This is freaking unbelievable!!! Is there no shame? This is the true version of High Crimes & Misdemeanors!

In Honor of Army Ranger Corporal Pat Tillman

Specialist Tillman was killed near Manah, Afghanistan on April 22, 2004

4063 U.S. Soldiers have died in the Afghan and Iraq wars as of today.

There have been 7 investigations leading into Tillman's death

The Army announced that it had 6 sanctions against 6 officers

Although the Defense Department reported that he had been killed by enemy combatants, it was later disclosed that Tillman’s death was the result of friendly fire.

Now we have conflict on the way this story is to be reported by our deceptive administration.

Chairman Waxman and Ranking Minority Member Davis sent a letter to the White House objecting to the withholding of documents related to the death of U.S. Army Corporal Patrick Tillman.

Following the Committee’s April 24, 2007, hearing on the Tillman fratricide, the Committee wrote to White House Counsel Fred Fielding seeking “all documents received or generated by any official in the Executive Office of the President” relating to Corporal Tillman’s death. The White House Counsel’s office responded that it would not provide the Committee with documents that “implicate Executive Branch confidentiality interests” and produced only two communications with the officials in the Defense Department, one of which was a package of news clippings. The response of the Defense Department to the Committee’s inquiry was also deficient.

Further more Secretary Rumsfeld testifies that the Department of Defense (DOD) does nothing but uphold the truth to "some three million military, civilian, and contract employees who dedicate their careers to defending our nation, to the military families who endure the extended absences of their fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, sons and daughters, and to the American people, for whom all connected to the Department go to work each day to protect."

Yet how can we take these talking heads seriously when it was proven that the DOD lied about Jessica Lynch. Private Lynch was captured when her convoy became lost in An Nasariyah, Iraq, on March 23, 2003. Following her release, the Defense Department disseminated an account of her capture and rescue that turned out to be inaccurate and misleading. However, Jessica Lynch told a different story during the Oversight Committee Hearings to expose what really happened that fateful day.

We need to stop these liars in command right now and take back our administration.

Administration looks to push through surveillance changes

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The Bush administration is looking to speed through a “significantly narrowed” group of changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act before Congress leaves Washington for its August recess.

You Deserve Neither Liberty or Security

Surveillance Cameras Win Broad Support. Does not anyone remember the quote from Ben Franklin???

ANALYSIS by MICHELLE LIRTZMAN
July 29, 2007

Whoops, you got punk'ed by Apple...

I just love when there is such mass media hysteria for a gadget that has not been fully tested within the public domain and the suckers that buy into this frenzy and spend $600.00 for a device that can be hacked in a matter of minutes.

Ofcource Apple claims no security breach has been detected, but are you willing to be the first kid on the block to lose all your personal info in a matter of seconds to a would be crook of identity?

Apple’s iPhone Has Serious Security Flaw

by Max Brenn 13:08, July 23rd 2007

A computer experts group including a former NSA employee has warned Apple of a serious security flaw that affects the company’s latest gadget, which could totally compromise the data contained inside the phone.

Independent Security Evaluators, a security research firm from Baltimore founded by Johns Hopkins University professor Avi Rubin (but not associated with the University), includes several Ph.D.s in Computer Science and in Math, as well as Masters degrees in computer science and security informatics. ISE security analysts have backgrounds that include academia, industry, as well as former employees of the National Security Agency.

With such outstanding academic background it’s no wonder that ISE experts have managed to bypass iPhone’s thoroughly tested security modules. They were able to gain control over the Apple iPhone, using a connection to a Wi-Fi network, by luring a user to access a bogus Web page that contained malware.

Charles Miller, the principal security analyst for the firm, admitted though that Apple’s efforts to make the iPhone a secure environment are quite impressive, but "once you did manage to find a hole, you were in complete control."

ISE has warned the Cupertino, CA-based giant of the vulnerability and also proposed a software patch that could prevent further attacks.

Apple found no evidence that the glitch has been exploited by other people than those at ISE and also informed that no similar vulnerabilities have been signaled until now.

Miller is a former National Security Agency employee with a doctorate in computer science. To demonstrate the hack in front of a NY Times reporter he used a fake Web page of his own creation, which, when accessed through the iPhone, infected the gadget with malicious code that later allowed full control over it.

The phone promptly followed instructions to transmit text message files, telephone contacts and e-mail addresses to the attacking computer.

They're Watching

If you read this piece we'll have to kill you.

If you've traveled abroad recently, you've been investigated. You've been assigned a score indicating what kind of terrorist threat you pose. That score is used by the government to determine the treatment you receive when you return to the U.S. and for other purposes as well.

Curious about your score? You can't see it. Interested in what information was used? You can't know that. Want to clear your name if you've been wrongly categorized? You can't challenge it. Want to know what kind of rules the computer is using to judge you? That's secret, too. So is when and how the score will be used.

U.S. customs agencies have been quietly operating this system for several years. Called Automated Targeting System, it assigns a "risk assessment" score to people entering or leaving the country, or engaging in import or export activity. This score, and the information used to derive it, can be shared with federal, state, local and even foreign governments. It can be used if you apply for a government job, grant, license, contract or other benefit. It can be shared with nongovernmental organizations and individuals in the course of an investigation. In some circumstances private contractors can get it, even those outside the country. And it will be saved for 40 years.

Little is known about this program. Its bare outlines were disclosed in the Federal Register in October. We do know that the score is partially based on details of your flight record--where you're from, how you bought your ticket, where you're sitting, any special meal requests--or on motor vehicle records, as well as on information from crime, watch-list and other databases.

Civil liberties groups have called the program Kafkaesque. But I have an even bigger problem with it. It's a waste of money.

The idea of feeding a limited set of characteristics into a computer, which then somehow divines a person's terrorist leanings, is farcical. Uncovering terrorist plots requires intelligence and investigation, not large-scale processing of everyone.

Additionally, any system like this will generate so many false alarms as to be completely unusable. In 2005 Customs & Border Protection processed 431 million people. Assuming an unrealistic model that identifies terrorists (and innocents) with 99.9% accuracy, that's still 431,000 false alarms annually.

The number of false alarms will be much higher than that. The no-fly list is filled with inaccuracies; we've all read about innocent people named David Nelson who can't fly without hours-long harassment. Airline data, too, are riddled with errors.

The odds of this program's being implemented securely, with adequate privacy protections, are not good. Last year I participated in a government working group to assess the security and privacy of a similar program developed by the Transportation Security Administration, called Secure Flight. After five years and $100 million spent, the program still can't achieve the simple task of matching airline passengers against terrorist watch lists.

In 2002 we learned about yet another program, called Total Information Awareness, for which the government would collect information on every American and assign him or her a terrorist risk score. Congress found the idea so abhorrent that it halted funding for the program. Two years ago, and again this year, Secure Flight was also banned by Congress until it could pass a series of tests for accuracy and privacy protection.

In fact, the Automated Targeting System is arguably illegal, as well (a point several congressmen have made recently); all recent Department of Homeland Security appropriations bills specifically prohibit the department from using profiling systems against persons not on a watch list.

There is something un-American about a government program that uses secret criteria to collect dossiers on innocent people and shares that information with various agencies, all without any oversight. It's the sort of thing you'd expect from the former Soviet Union or East Germany or China. And it doesn't make us any safer from terrorism.

Bruce Schneier, Chief Technology Officer of BT Counterpane, which manages security for corporate clients.