Plan May Lure More to Enter U.S. Illegally, Experts Say:
"The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 offered amnesty and legal status to illegal immigrants already in the United States, or most of them. Having cleared the decks with this provision, the law sought to discourage future illegal entry by imposing penalties on employers who knowingly hired illegal immigrants.
But foreigners saw in the 1986 act an invitation, not a deterrent, said Stephen Trejo, a labor economist and immigration expert at the University of Texas. 'The biggest long-term impact of the 1986 law was the idea that maybe there will be periodic amnesties, and even if I come to the United States illegally, there is a good chance I'll be able to legalize my status while I am there,' Mr. Trejo said."
The 1986 law offered green cards to illegal immigrants who had entered the country before 1982. Over the next four years, 2.7 million green cards went to illegal immigrants already in the country and in some cases to spouses and children still abroad, according to data from the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
But the chief deterrents, employer penalties and stepped-up border patrol, failed to stem illegal immigration, and today illegal immigrants number 7 million or more, according to most estimates. By 1990, the proportion of foreign-born adults in the work force, legal and illegal, had risen to 9.3 percent from 7 percent in 1980 and by 2000, this group represented 12.3 percent of the nation's workers, the Labor Department reports.
The employer penalties were hard to enforce. Employers could be fined up to $10,000 for multiple offenses, and even imprisoned. But to avoid punishment, an employer needed only to check a job candidate's documents, not the authenticity of the documents. Soon, on the streets of Chicago, for example, a forged Social Security card could be purchased for less than $100.
"The employer sanctions, introduced for the first time in that bill, were a joke," said George Borjas, an economist and immigration expert at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
What helped to doom the Reagan approach in 1986 was the failure to create a legal avenue for unskilled immigrants to enter the United States and take low-wage jobs. Various visa programs brought in skilled workers, but not the unskilled, despite strong demand to fill openings at hotels and restaurants, in nursing homes and home health care, and in landscaping, child care, housekeeping and light manufacturing.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/09/national/09ECON.html
Friday, January 09, 2004
Rotation: U.S. in Huge Troop Movement With New Unit to Find Bombs:
"'It has started,' the officer said of the redeployment. 'This is the biggest move that we've done, I think, since World War II. We are moving 240,000-plus soldiers and their equipment.'"
Equipment of the First Cavalry Division, based at Fort Hood, Tex., and of the 25th Infantry Division, based in Hawaii, is at sea en route to Iraq. Troops of the 82nd Airborne Division, from Fort Bragg, N.C., left Wednesday and Thursday, the officer said.
No new deployment orders or call-ups were announced Thursday as the officer gave a status report on what he called "a major muscle movement" — bringing home about 123,000 personnel in Iraq and Kuwait, to be replaced by about 110,000. Most of the fresh troops are Army, with the Marine Corps sending 25,000, and smaller numbers from the Air Force and Navy.…
In addition to the Iraq redeployments, the military is rotating about 11,000 troops to Afghanistan to replace those there now, officials said.
Officers acknowledge that the Iraq rotation, to be completed by May, presents a risk for troops traveling across unfamiliar territory before reaching more secure bases, and in numbers presenting a target for insurgents. But commanders are planning to capitalize on the overlap, which offers a natural, if temporary, increase in troop strength.
The new force flowing into Iraq will be more heavily weighted toward reserve forces; 38 percent of those heading home from Iraq are reservists, while 46 percent of the fresh force is drawn from the reserves. Units sent to Iraq are also designed to be more mobile than those that captured Baghdad.
To counter the threat of home-made bombs, known as "improvised explosive devices," or I.E.D.'s, the Army devised a new unit called Task Force I.E.D. to find and destroy the weapons, and to train conventional units in specialized techniques. The task force, already on the ground in Iraq, will grow to about 300 soldiers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/09/politics/09MILI.html
"'It has started,' the officer said of the redeployment. 'This is the biggest move that we've done, I think, since World War II. We are moving 240,000-plus soldiers and their equipment.'"
Equipment of the First Cavalry Division, based at Fort Hood, Tex., and of the 25th Infantry Division, based in Hawaii, is at sea en route to Iraq. Troops of the 82nd Airborne Division, from Fort Bragg, N.C., left Wednesday and Thursday, the officer said.
No new deployment orders or call-ups were announced Thursday as the officer gave a status report on what he called "a major muscle movement" — bringing home about 123,000 personnel in Iraq and Kuwait, to be replaced by about 110,000. Most of the fresh troops are Army, with the Marine Corps sending 25,000, and smaller numbers from the Air Force and Navy.…
In addition to the Iraq redeployments, the military is rotating about 11,000 troops to Afghanistan to replace those there now, officials said.
Officers acknowledge that the Iraq rotation, to be completed by May, presents a risk for troops traveling across unfamiliar territory before reaching more secure bases, and in numbers presenting a target for insurgents. But commanders are planning to capitalize on the overlap, which offers a natural, if temporary, increase in troop strength.
The new force flowing into Iraq will be more heavily weighted toward reserve forces; 38 percent of those heading home from Iraq are reservists, while 46 percent of the fresh force is drawn from the reserves. Units sent to Iraq are also designed to be more mobile than those that captured Baghdad.
To counter the threat of home-made bombs, known as "improvised explosive devices," or I.E.D.'s, the Army devised a new unit called Task Force I.E.D. to find and destroy the weapons, and to train conventional units in specialized techniques. The task force, already on the ground in Iraq, will grow to about 300 soldiers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/09/politics/09MILI.html
U.S. Moves to Get Anan's Backing for Iraq Transition Plan:
"The United States is eager for the international imprimatur a United Nations presence in Iraq would give the coalition forces there but has resisted Mr. Annan's repeated demands for 'clarity' over exactly what its workers would be asked to do and how safe they would be from the attacks that drove the organization out of Iraq this fall.
In actions that have alarmed Washington, individual Iraqi leaders have been seeking United Nations intervention in the current transition plan, an agreement reached on Nov. 15 that called for regional caucuses leading to the naming of a provisional Iraqi government by June 30."
His rejection of these freelance pleas came in a response to a Dec. 28 letter from Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, a leading Shiite Muslim who served as last month's rotating president of the Iraqi Governing Council.
The United States was pleased with Mr. Annan's action because of its worry over complaints in Iraq from the powerful Shiite leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, that Washington's plans for the transitional government did not insure the broad representation of Iraqis that direct elections would.…
The council has agreed to send three members — Mr. Hakim, the December president, Adnan Pachachi, the current one, and Massoud Barzani, next month's designee — but there has been no response yet from the Coalition Provisional Authority.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/09/international/middleeast/09CND-NATI.html
"The United States is eager for the international imprimatur a United Nations presence in Iraq would give the coalition forces there but has resisted Mr. Annan's repeated demands for 'clarity' over exactly what its workers would be asked to do and how safe they would be from the attacks that drove the organization out of Iraq this fall.
In actions that have alarmed Washington, individual Iraqi leaders have been seeking United Nations intervention in the current transition plan, an agreement reached on Nov. 15 that called for regional caucuses leading to the naming of a provisional Iraqi government by June 30."
His rejection of these freelance pleas came in a response to a Dec. 28 letter from Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, a leading Shiite Muslim who served as last month's rotating president of the Iraqi Governing Council.
The United States was pleased with Mr. Annan's action because of its worry over complaints in Iraq from the powerful Shiite leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, that Washington's plans for the transitional government did not insure the broad representation of Iraqis that direct elections would.…
The council has agreed to send three members — Mr. Hakim, the December president, Adnan Pachachi, the current one, and Massoud Barzani, next month's designee — but there has been no response yet from the Coalition Provisional Authority.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/09/international/middleeast/09CND-NATI.html
Insurgents: 9 Soldiers Dead in Crash in Iraq:
"An American Black Hawk helicopter crashed Thursday in this tiny village near the restive town of Falluja, killing all nine soldiers aboard. Less than a week ago, another American helicopter was shot down in the area.
The United States military said the cause of the crash was still under investigation, but witnesses near the mangled wreckage said the helicopter had been downed by a missile."
The crash was the most deadly incident in a 24-hour span that clearly illustrated the continuing risk to American soldiers and other foreigners in occupied Iraq. One soldier died Thursday of wounds sustained in a mortar attack on Wednesday evening that wounded 30 other soldiers and a civilian at Logistical Base Seitz, west of Baghdad.
A spokesman for the Air Mobility Command, which oversees military transport, said a C-5 transport plane with 63 people on board was struck Thursday by ground fire but returned safely to Baghdad airport.
Six months from now, the American-led occupation authority plans to hand political power to a transitional Iraqi government, but the shape of that administration remains unclear and its ability to guarantee the safety of more than 100,000 American and other troops highly uncertain.
Since the capture of Saddam Hussein on Dec. 13, attacks on Iraqis and occupation soldiers have continued with deadly efficacy.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/09/international/middleeast/09IRAQ.html
"An American Black Hawk helicopter crashed Thursday in this tiny village near the restive town of Falluja, killing all nine soldiers aboard. Less than a week ago, another American helicopter was shot down in the area.
The United States military said the cause of the crash was still under investigation, but witnesses near the mangled wreckage said the helicopter had been downed by a missile."
The crash was the most deadly incident in a 24-hour span that clearly illustrated the continuing risk to American soldiers and other foreigners in occupied Iraq. One soldier died Thursday of wounds sustained in a mortar attack on Wednesday evening that wounded 30 other soldiers and a civilian at Logistical Base Seitz, west of Baghdad.
A spokesman for the Air Mobility Command, which oversees military transport, said a C-5 transport plane with 63 people on board was struck Thursday by ground fire but returned safely to Baghdad airport.
Six months from now, the American-led occupation authority plans to hand political power to a transitional Iraqi government, but the shape of that administration remains unclear and its ability to guarantee the safety of more than 100,000 American and other troops highly uncertain.
Since the capture of Saddam Hussein on Dec. 13, attacks on Iraqis and occupation soldiers have continued with deadly efficacy.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/09/international/middleeast/09IRAQ.html
Thursday, January 08, 2004
New Clues Are Detected About Planets of Other Stars:
"For the first time, astronomers have detected a magnetic field around a planet around a distant star, offering one of the first clues to the properties of any planet outside the solar system.…"
Over the past decade, astronomers have found 119 planets around other stars. But because the planets are detected indirectly — by their gravitational tug on the stars — almost nothing is known about any of them beyond a lower limit of their masses.
Using the Canada France Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, Evgenya Shkolnik, a graduate student at the University of British Columbia, looked at the star HD179949, 88 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. Its planet, nearly the size of Jupiter, falls in the class of "roasters," a large planet that orbits very close to its star, in this case 4 million miles. (The Earth, by contrast, is 93 million miles from the Sun.)
Ms. Shkolnik detected a spot on HD179949 that was 700 degrees warmer than the surrounding areas and circled the star at the same pace as the planet's orbit, once every three days. First seen in 2001, it also appeared in two sets of observations in 2002. It is probably not an intrinsic feature of the star, which takes nine days to rotate.
Instead, the planet appears to possess a magnetic field that interacts with the star's magnetic field.
"The hot spot is slightly ahead of the planet and appears to be moving across the surface of the star," Ms. Shkolnik said. "The best explanation for this is that it's an interaction between the planet of the star.…"
The presence of a magnetic field implies metal at the core of the planet. Jupiter, which possesses a strong magnetic field, is believed to contain a core of metallic hydrogen. HD179949's planet may be inducing a hot spot on the star similar to how the magnetic fields of Io and Europa, two moons of Jupiter, induce hot spots on Jupiter.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/08/science/08PLAN.html
"For the first time, astronomers have detected a magnetic field around a planet around a distant star, offering one of the first clues to the properties of any planet outside the solar system.…"
Over the past decade, astronomers have found 119 planets around other stars. But because the planets are detected indirectly — by their gravitational tug on the stars — almost nothing is known about any of them beyond a lower limit of their masses.
Using the Canada France Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, Evgenya Shkolnik, a graduate student at the University of British Columbia, looked at the star HD179949, 88 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. Its planet, nearly the size of Jupiter, falls in the class of "roasters," a large planet that orbits very close to its star, in this case 4 million miles. (The Earth, by contrast, is 93 million miles from the Sun.)
Ms. Shkolnik detected a spot on HD179949 that was 700 degrees warmer than the surrounding areas and circled the star at the same pace as the planet's orbit, once every three days. First seen in 2001, it also appeared in two sets of observations in 2002. It is probably not an intrinsic feature of the star, which takes nine days to rotate.
Instead, the planet appears to possess a magnetic field that interacts with the star's magnetic field.
"The hot spot is slightly ahead of the planet and appears to be moving across the surface of the star," Ms. Shkolnik said. "The best explanation for this is that it's an interaction between the planet of the star.…"
The presence of a magnetic field implies metal at the core of the planet. Jupiter, which possesses a strong magnetic field, is believed to contain a core of metallic hydrogen. HD179949's planet may be inducing a hot spot on the star similar to how the magnetic fields of Io and Europa, two moons of Jupiter, induce hot spots on Jupiter.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/08/science/08PLAN.html
U.S. Reasserts Right to Declare Citizens to Be Enemy Combatants:
"The Bush administration on Wednesday reasserted its broad authority to declare American citizens to be enemy combatants, and it suggested that the Supreme Court consider two prominent cases at the same time.
The Justice Department, in a brief filed with the court, said it would seek an expedited appeal of a federal appeals court decision last month in the case of Jose Padilla, jailed as an enemy combatant in 2002.… "
The divided Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, ruled on Dec. 18 that President Bush lacked the authority to indefinitely detain an American citizen like Mr. Padilla who was arrested on American soil simply by declaring him an enemy combatant. Mr. Padilla has been held incommunicado at a military brig in South Carolina. American authorities say he plotted with operatives of Al Qaeda overseas to detonate a "dirty" radiological bomb in the United States.
But the Justice Department said in its brief that the ruling was "fundamentally at odds" with court precedent on presidential powers.
The decision "undermines the president's constitutional authority to protect the nation," Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson wrote.
The Justice Department said it hoped the Supreme Court would consider an appeal in April.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/08/politics/08COMB.html
"The Bush administration on Wednesday reasserted its broad authority to declare American citizens to be enemy combatants, and it suggested that the Supreme Court consider two prominent cases at the same time.
The Justice Department, in a brief filed with the court, said it would seek an expedited appeal of a federal appeals court decision last month in the case of Jose Padilla, jailed as an enemy combatant in 2002.… "
The divided Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, ruled on Dec. 18 that President Bush lacked the authority to indefinitely detain an American citizen like Mr. Padilla who was arrested on American soil simply by declaring him an enemy combatant. Mr. Padilla has been held incommunicado at a military brig in South Carolina. American authorities say he plotted with operatives of Al Qaeda overseas to detonate a "dirty" radiological bomb in the United States.
But the Justice Department said in its brief that the ruling was "fundamentally at odds" with court precedent on presidential powers.
The decision "undermines the president's constitutional authority to protect the nation," Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson wrote.
The Justice Department said it hoped the Supreme Court would consider an appeal in April.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/08/politics/08COMB.html
Arms Search: U.S. Withdraws a Team of Weapons Hunters From Iraq:
"The Bush administration has quietly withdrawn from Iraq a 400-member military team whose job was to scour the country for military equipment, according to senior government officials.
The step was described by some military officials as a sign that the administration might have lowered its sights and no longer expected to uncover the caches of chemical and biological weapons that the White House cited as a principal reason for going to war last March.… "
A report published Wednesday in The Washington Post cited a previously undisclosed document that suggested that Iraq might have destroyed its biological weapons as early as 1991. The report said investigators had otherwise found no evidence to support American beliefs that Iraq had maintained illicit weapons dating from the Persian Gulf war of 1991 or that it had advanced programs to build new ones.
The report also documented a pattern of deceit that was found in every field of special weaponry. It said that according to Iraqi designers and foreign investigators, program managers exaggerated the results they could achieve, or even promised results they knew they could not accomplish — all in an effort to appease Saddam Hussein. In some cases, though, they simply did it to advance their careers, the report said, or preserve jobs or even conduct intrigues against their rivals.
Senior intelligence officials acknowledged in recent days that the weapons hunters still had not found weapons or active programs, but in interviews, they said the search must continue to ensure that no hidden Iraqi weapons surfaced in a future attack.…
David Kay, the head of the survey group, made it known last month that he might leave his post. Government officials said Wednesday that he had not reached a decision but that both he and his top deputy, Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton of the Defense Intelligence Agency, were in Washington, in part to discuss what direction the hunt should take.
"I am sure that if they had found important evidence, we would know about it," said Representative Jane Harman of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who has said the administration exaggerated the Iraqi threat.
Bill Harlow, the top spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency, said Wednesday that "the team needs to compete its work, and no one should jump to any conclusions before it has an opportunity to examine all of the circumstances."
American intelligence officials who described the seized documents said they hoped the documents might eventually help to unravel the mystery of whether Iraqi weapons remained hidden or whether they were destroyed long before what the Bush administration initially portrayed as a mission "to disarm Iraq."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/08/international/middleeast/08WEAP.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"The Bush administration has quietly withdrawn from Iraq a 400-member military team whose job was to scour the country for military equipment, according to senior government officials.
The step was described by some military officials as a sign that the administration might have lowered its sights and no longer expected to uncover the caches of chemical and biological weapons that the White House cited as a principal reason for going to war last March.… "
A report published Wednesday in The Washington Post cited a previously undisclosed document that suggested that Iraq might have destroyed its biological weapons as early as 1991. The report said investigators had otherwise found no evidence to support American beliefs that Iraq had maintained illicit weapons dating from the Persian Gulf war of 1991 or that it had advanced programs to build new ones.
The report also documented a pattern of deceit that was found in every field of special weaponry. It said that according to Iraqi designers and foreign investigators, program managers exaggerated the results they could achieve, or even promised results they knew they could not accomplish — all in an effort to appease Saddam Hussein. In some cases, though, they simply did it to advance their careers, the report said, or preserve jobs or even conduct intrigues against their rivals.
Senior intelligence officials acknowledged in recent days that the weapons hunters still had not found weapons or active programs, but in interviews, they said the search must continue to ensure that no hidden Iraqi weapons surfaced in a future attack.…
David Kay, the head of the survey group, made it known last month that he might leave his post. Government officials said Wednesday that he had not reached a decision but that both he and his top deputy, Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton of the Defense Intelligence Agency, were in Washington, in part to discuss what direction the hunt should take.
"I am sure that if they had found important evidence, we would know about it," said Representative Jane Harman of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who has said the administration exaggerated the Iraqi threat.
Bill Harlow, the top spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency, said Wednesday that "the team needs to compete its work, and no one should jump to any conclusions before it has an opportunity to examine all of the circumstances."
American intelligence officials who described the seized documents said they hoped the documents might eventually help to unravel the mystery of whether Iraqi weapons remained hidden or whether they were destroyed long before what the Bush administration initially portrayed as a mission "to disarm Iraq."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/08/international/middleeast/08WEAP.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Tuesday, January 06, 2004
Mars Exploration Rover Mission: Multimedia:
"All Raw Images"
View the Mars Exploration Rover images. This image gallery will expand as the mission progresses.
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/images.html
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/spirit.html
"All Raw Images"
View the Mars Exploration Rover images. This image gallery will expand as the mission progresses.
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/images.html
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/spirit.html
Monday, January 05, 2004
Chicago Tribune | Man Sues Firm Over Unsolicited E-Mails:
"A man from Washington state has accused a western Pennsylvania telemarketer of sending him hundreds of unsolicited e-mails and has sued the company under his state's anti-spam law.
In a complaint filed in his home state court last month, Jim Gordon of Richland, Wash., said he wants Commonwealth Marketing Group Inc. of Hopwood, Fayette County, to pay him $500 for each piece of spam the company allegedly sent him. According to Gordon, that adds up to more than $600,000 for more than 1,200 messages. "
"My motivation is to get this spam stopped," Gordon told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for a story in Sunday editions. "I sent them a letter saying stop. And they didn't."
Gordon's lawsuit focuses on a Washington law that prohibits the sending of deceptive or misleading e-mails. Gordon's suit also was filed under two other Washington laws governing unfair business practices and harassment.
CMG's e-mails were "designed to entice" him to believe he was applying for a major credit card, such as a VISA or MasterCard, Gordon said. But CMG was really offering its own products and credit.
In his lawsuit, Gordon also accused CMG of using invalid addresses in violation of state law. He received messages from 551 different senders, which he eventually traced to the company, Gordon said.…
Gordon said he sent a letter to CMG in August, saying he had received 27 unsolicited e-mails from the company and demanding a check for $10,800, or $400 for each message. The letter threatened that Gordon would bump up the fee up to $500 per e-mail and would contact the Washington attorney general if he didn't hear from CMG officials in a few weeks.
"If payment has not been received by 5 p.m. on Sept. 12, 2003, I will conclude that an out-of-court settlement is not possible," the letter said.
Gordon has also demanded money from three other companies that he said spammed him.…
http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/sns-ap-spam-suit.story
"A man from Washington state has accused a western Pennsylvania telemarketer of sending him hundreds of unsolicited e-mails and has sued the company under his state's anti-spam law.
In a complaint filed in his home state court last month, Jim Gordon of Richland, Wash., said he wants Commonwealth Marketing Group Inc. of Hopwood, Fayette County, to pay him $500 for each piece of spam the company allegedly sent him. According to Gordon, that adds up to more than $600,000 for more than 1,200 messages. "
"My motivation is to get this spam stopped," Gordon told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for a story in Sunday editions. "I sent them a letter saying stop. And they didn't."
Gordon's lawsuit focuses on a Washington law that prohibits the sending of deceptive or misleading e-mails. Gordon's suit also was filed under two other Washington laws governing unfair business practices and harassment.
CMG's e-mails were "designed to entice" him to believe he was applying for a major credit card, such as a VISA or MasterCard, Gordon said. But CMG was really offering its own products and credit.
In his lawsuit, Gordon also accused CMG of using invalid addresses in violation of state law. He received messages from 551 different senders, which he eventually traced to the company, Gordon said.…
Gordon said he sent a letter to CMG in August, saying he had received 27 unsolicited e-mails from the company and demanding a check for $10,800, or $400 for each message. The letter threatened that Gordon would bump up the fee up to $500 per e-mail and would contact the Washington attorney general if he didn't hear from CMG officials in a few weeks.
"If payment has not been received by 5 p.m. on Sept. 12, 2003, I will conclude that an out-of-court settlement is not possible," the letter said.
Gordon has also demanded money from three other companies that he said spammed him.…
http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/sns-ap-spam-suit.story
Sunday, January 04, 2004
The Things They Carry:
"In October, the Center for American Progress, a new liberal policy institute, held a two-day conference in Washington designed to lay out the foundations of an alternative, and politically viable, national security policy. The panels at the symposium (which was also sponsored by the Century Foundation and The American Prospect magazine) featured, in the main, nonideological figures offering sober and pragmatic counsel: reserve the right to act pre-emptively but don't make a doctrine of it; do peacekeeping right; focus on ''failed'' states like Afghanistan and Sudan; devise carrots as well as sticks to deal with state sponsors of terrorism; forge a global strategy to deal with the proliferation of nuclear weapons. "
For the keynote speaker, the sponsors invited not a conventional liberal but Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's hawkish national security adviser, a fervently anti-Soviet Polish emigre reviled during the cold war by the Democratic Party's left wing. I expected Brzezinski to be at least mildly sympathetic to the Bush administration. I was wrong. ''American power worldwide is at its historic zenith,'' he told his audience, which consisted largely of technocrats and midlevel Clinton administration officials. And yet, he noted: ''American global political standing is at its nadir. Why?'' First, Brzezinski said, because of the ''paranoiac view of the world'' summed up in the expression -- a paraphrase of President Bush -- ''He who is not with us is against us.'' Second, because of ''a fear'' -- of terrorism -- ''that periodically verges on panic'' and is stoked by ''extremist demagogy.'' To Brzezinski, the Bush administration's unilateralism, and its militarism, constituted a radical break with a consensus that stretched across several generations and presumably included not only cold warriors like himself but also the liberals he once opposed, like Cyrus Vance, Carter's secretary of state.…
Brzezinski's question -- Why is so much of the world against us? -- is, in fact, the starting point for the Democratic critique of the Bush administration. The sheer velocity of the change from worldwide sympathy to worldwide antipathy is almost incredible, and while much of the new anger comes from the very nature of our superpower status, the conduct of the Bush administration has plainly had a lot to do with it as well. In an article in Newsweek on the eve of the war in Iraq, Fareed Zakaria, that magazine's foreign-policy analyst, pointed out that some nations offered America only quiet support on Iraq ''not because they fear Saddam Hussein but because they fear their own people.'' The Bush administration had asked a very great deal and offered less than nothing. Zakaria noted that ''with the exception of Britain and Israel, every country the administration has dealt with feels humiliated by it.'' And of course the United States is now paying a price for that in Iraq, where it cannot find either enough foreign troops or funds to supplement its own.
Conservatives have a longstanding answer to the argument for multilateralism. As Condoleezza Rice, now Bush's national security adviser, wrote in a much discussed essay in Foreign Affairs during the 2000 campaign, ''The belief that the support of many states -- or even better, of institutions like the United Nations -- is essential to the legitimate exercise of power'' proceeds from a deep discomfort with the fact of America's power. This discomfort is, in turn, the residuum of Vietnam. There's some truth to that claim. One Democratic policy figure I spoke to said, ''If you listen to the Democrats in Iowa, you sometimes get the impression that the U.N. is going to save us from the situation.'' And yet, at least when they're not preaching to the Iowan choir, Democrats generally use hardheaded, looking-out-for-No.-1 language that Rice herself would have trouble taking exception to. They forswear ''mushy multilateralism,'' in John Kerry's phrase, for what Senator Joe Lieberman calls ''muscular multilateralism'' -- multilateralism not as a source of legitimacy but as an instrument to advance our own interests.
The consequences of unilateralism in Iraq dominate the debate. Yet if you talk to Democratic policy experts, Iraq rarely appears as the country's top national security priority. In ''An American Security Policy,'' a study ordered by Tom Daschle, the Senate minority leader, and written by a group that included top former Clinton aides like William Perry, the former defense secretary; Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of state; and Sandy Berger, the former national security adviser, Iraq appears as only the fourth of six major areas of concern. The first is ''The Loose Nukes Crisis in North Korea,'' and the second is the overall problem of weapons of mass destruction in Russia, Pakistan, Iran and elsewhere.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/magazine/04DEMOCRATS.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"In October, the Center for American Progress, a new liberal policy institute, held a two-day conference in Washington designed to lay out the foundations of an alternative, and politically viable, national security policy. The panels at the symposium (which was also sponsored by the Century Foundation and The American Prospect magazine) featured, in the main, nonideological figures offering sober and pragmatic counsel: reserve the right to act pre-emptively but don't make a doctrine of it; do peacekeeping right; focus on ''failed'' states like Afghanistan and Sudan; devise carrots as well as sticks to deal with state sponsors of terrorism; forge a global strategy to deal with the proliferation of nuclear weapons. "
For the keynote speaker, the sponsors invited not a conventional liberal but Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's hawkish national security adviser, a fervently anti-Soviet Polish emigre reviled during the cold war by the Democratic Party's left wing. I expected Brzezinski to be at least mildly sympathetic to the Bush administration. I was wrong. ''American power worldwide is at its historic zenith,'' he told his audience, which consisted largely of technocrats and midlevel Clinton administration officials. And yet, he noted: ''American global political standing is at its nadir. Why?'' First, Brzezinski said, because of the ''paranoiac view of the world'' summed up in the expression -- a paraphrase of President Bush -- ''He who is not with us is against us.'' Second, because of ''a fear'' -- of terrorism -- ''that periodically verges on panic'' and is stoked by ''extremist demagogy.'' To Brzezinski, the Bush administration's unilateralism, and its militarism, constituted a radical break with a consensus that stretched across several generations and presumably included not only cold warriors like himself but also the liberals he once opposed, like Cyrus Vance, Carter's secretary of state.…
Brzezinski's question -- Why is so much of the world against us? -- is, in fact, the starting point for the Democratic critique of the Bush administration. The sheer velocity of the change from worldwide sympathy to worldwide antipathy is almost incredible, and while much of the new anger comes from the very nature of our superpower status, the conduct of the Bush administration has plainly had a lot to do with it as well. In an article in Newsweek on the eve of the war in Iraq, Fareed Zakaria, that magazine's foreign-policy analyst, pointed out that some nations offered America only quiet support on Iraq ''not because they fear Saddam Hussein but because they fear their own people.'' The Bush administration had asked a very great deal and offered less than nothing. Zakaria noted that ''with the exception of Britain and Israel, every country the administration has dealt with feels humiliated by it.'' And of course the United States is now paying a price for that in Iraq, where it cannot find either enough foreign troops or funds to supplement its own.
Conservatives have a longstanding answer to the argument for multilateralism. As Condoleezza Rice, now Bush's national security adviser, wrote in a much discussed essay in Foreign Affairs during the 2000 campaign, ''The belief that the support of many states -- or even better, of institutions like the United Nations -- is essential to the legitimate exercise of power'' proceeds from a deep discomfort with the fact of America's power. This discomfort is, in turn, the residuum of Vietnam. There's some truth to that claim. One Democratic policy figure I spoke to said, ''If you listen to the Democrats in Iowa, you sometimes get the impression that the U.N. is going to save us from the situation.'' And yet, at least when they're not preaching to the Iowan choir, Democrats generally use hardheaded, looking-out-for-No.-1 language that Rice herself would have trouble taking exception to. They forswear ''mushy multilateralism,'' in John Kerry's phrase, for what Senator Joe Lieberman calls ''muscular multilateralism'' -- multilateralism not as a source of legitimacy but as an instrument to advance our own interests.
The consequences of unilateralism in Iraq dominate the debate. Yet if you talk to Democratic policy experts, Iraq rarely appears as the country's top national security priority. In ''An American Security Policy,'' a study ordered by Tom Daschle, the Senate minority leader, and written by a group that included top former Clinton aides like William Perry, the former defense secretary; Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of state; and Sandy Berger, the former national security adviser, Iraq appears as only the fourth of six major areas of concern. The first is ''The Loose Nukes Crisis in North Korea,'' and the second is the overall problem of weapons of mass destruction in Russia, Pakistan, Iran and elsewhere.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/magazine/04DEMOCRATS.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Lessons of the Pentagon's Favorite Training Film:
"THERE are no bad reasons for watching 'The Battle of Algiers'— the legendary epic about terrorism and counterterrorism in colonial Algeria by the Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo and the screenwriter Franco Solinas — but some may be worse than others."
Among the most obvious of good reasons: a fresh print is going into theaters on Friday, opening at Film Forum in New York and at art houses in Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington. Some viewers might seek out the film just for Marcello Gatti's cinematography, which has been restored to the newsreel-like immediacy that first startled viewers in 1966. But when a rerelease combines great artistic power with lasting political interest, celluloid junkies are not the only ones who ought to be excited. Architects could spend a happy two hours concentrating on "The Battle of Algiers" just for the winding staircases, inner courtyards and rooftop lookouts of the Casbah, the city's old Muslim section, where the events that Mr. Pontecorvo dramatized had actually taken place. Musicians could be content to take in the insistent, percussive score by Ennio Morricone and Mr. Pontecorvo, which is legendary in its own right.
Military strategists and revolutionaries, on the other hand, may have flimsier reasons for watching the film. The Black Panthers studied it in the late 60's as a textbook of urban warfare, even though it's more of a how-not-to manual. The movie does conclude with the Algerians' successful uprising against French rule in 1962, shown through one of the grandest crowd scenes ever devised, but "The Battle of Algiers" is mostly concerned with revolutionary defeat.
It recreates the events of 1954-7, when the French military systematically crushed a terror campaign and general strike organized by the F.L.N., the National Liberation Front. The Panthers were mistaken in their enthusiasm; and I think that Pentagon planners may have been misguided in their own way this summer when they organized a special screening to encourage fresh thinking about Iraq.
"How to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas," read the flier for the event. "Children shoot soldiers at point-blank range. Women plant bombs in cafes. Soon the entire Arab population builds to a mad fervor. Sound familiar?"
Apart from noting the inaccuracies that can bedevil any synopsis — in the film, children shoot policemen point-blank, not soldiers, and the Arab population builds to a state of sullen withdrawal
— I think the flier was too coy in implying that "The Battle of Algiers" could illuminate today's Baghdad. In fact, I'm not even sure the film works as a guide to contemporary Algiers. Its lessons ought to be applied to other situations cautiously, precisely because of the film's principal strength: its deep roots in a specific time and place.…
Not that any of this would interest moviegoers at the Pentagon. Their sudden fascination with "The Battle of Algiers" has to do with Mr. Pontecorvo's acute analysis of terrorism and counterterrorism, which he presented almost like a demonstration of Newtonian physics. Action: the F.L.N. (a small and ragtag organization, working without popular support) carries out terror attacks against fellow Arabs and the French police. Reaction: the police blow up a house. Counter-reaction: people from the Casbah support the F.L.N. in increasing numbers and carry out even more horrifying attacks.
The French, in turn, escalate hostilities; they send in paratroopers, whose leader, Colonel Mathieu, destroys the entire F.L.N. network by means of torture and extra-judicial killings. That apparently is the end of the chain reaction — except that the French have now outraged the whole Arab population. In the movie's coda, set after a long period of apparent quiescence, the Casbah suddenly rises up again as one.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/movies/04KLAW.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"THERE are no bad reasons for watching 'The Battle of Algiers'— the legendary epic about terrorism and counterterrorism in colonial Algeria by the Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo and the screenwriter Franco Solinas — but some may be worse than others."
Among the most obvious of good reasons: a fresh print is going into theaters on Friday, opening at Film Forum in New York and at art houses in Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington. Some viewers might seek out the film just for Marcello Gatti's cinematography, which has been restored to the newsreel-like immediacy that first startled viewers in 1966. But when a rerelease combines great artistic power with lasting political interest, celluloid junkies are not the only ones who ought to be excited. Architects could spend a happy two hours concentrating on "The Battle of Algiers" just for the winding staircases, inner courtyards and rooftop lookouts of the Casbah, the city's old Muslim section, where the events that Mr. Pontecorvo dramatized had actually taken place. Musicians could be content to take in the insistent, percussive score by Ennio Morricone and Mr. Pontecorvo, which is legendary in its own right.
Military strategists and revolutionaries, on the other hand, may have flimsier reasons for watching the film. The Black Panthers studied it in the late 60's as a textbook of urban warfare, even though it's more of a how-not-to manual. The movie does conclude with the Algerians' successful uprising against French rule in 1962, shown through one of the grandest crowd scenes ever devised, but "The Battle of Algiers" is mostly concerned with revolutionary defeat.
It recreates the events of 1954-7, when the French military systematically crushed a terror campaign and general strike organized by the F.L.N., the National Liberation Front. The Panthers were mistaken in their enthusiasm; and I think that Pentagon planners may have been misguided in their own way this summer when they organized a special screening to encourage fresh thinking about Iraq.
"How to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas," read the flier for the event. "Children shoot soldiers at point-blank range. Women plant bombs in cafes. Soon the entire Arab population builds to a mad fervor. Sound familiar?"
Apart from noting the inaccuracies that can bedevil any synopsis — in the film, children shoot policemen point-blank, not soldiers, and the Arab population builds to a state of sullen withdrawal
— I think the flier was too coy in implying that "The Battle of Algiers" could illuminate today's Baghdad. In fact, I'm not even sure the film works as a guide to contemporary Algiers. Its lessons ought to be applied to other situations cautiously, precisely because of the film's principal strength: its deep roots in a specific time and place.…
Not that any of this would interest moviegoers at the Pentagon. Their sudden fascination with "The Battle of Algiers" has to do with Mr. Pontecorvo's acute analysis of terrorism and counterterrorism, which he presented almost like a demonstration of Newtonian physics. Action: the F.L.N. (a small and ragtag organization, working without popular support) carries out terror attacks against fellow Arabs and the French police. Reaction: the police blow up a house. Counter-reaction: people from the Casbah support the F.L.N. in increasing numbers and carry out even more horrifying attacks.
The French, in turn, escalate hostilities; they send in paratroopers, whose leader, Colonel Mathieu, destroys the entire F.L.N. network by means of torture and extra-judicial killings. That apparently is the end of the chain reaction — except that the French have now outraged the whole Arab population. In the movie's coda, set after a long period of apparent quiescence, the Casbah suddenly rises up again as one.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/movies/04KLAW.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Missteps Seen in Muslim Chaplain's Spy Case:
"As the Muslim chaplain at the military base at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, Capt. James J. Yee often invited some of the Islamic members of the garrison to his quarters for dinner on Friday after he conducted weekly services.
On at least two occasions, his guest was Senior Airman Ahmad I. al- Halabi, an Air Force translator at the camp, where hundreds of captives from the Afghan war have been held and interrogated for the last two years.
Airman al-Halabi was later arrested on several charges, including suspicion of trying to pass secrets to Syria or some other foreign government, a charge that has since been dropped."
First held on suspicion of being part of an espionage ring, Captain Yee, 35, was in the end charged with the far less serious crime of mishandling classified information. He was also eventually charged with adultery and keeping pornography on his government computer, both violations of military law.
As arguments over the merits of those charges play out at a preliminary hearing in Fort Benning, Ga., some military officials continue to defend the prosecution, saying that even technical violations of regulations that fall short of espionage should not be ignored. Senior commanders in charge of the case have declined to discuss it, saying that doing so might jeopardize the prosecution.
But others have come to shake their heads over the case.…
General Fugh said the case ought to be brought to a speedy end when a preliminary hearing resumes on Jan. 19. At the hearing's conclusion, Col. Dan Trimble, the presiding officer, is supposed to make a recommendation to Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, the commander of the Joint Task Force that runs the Guantánamo camp, on whether to convene a court-martial, dismiss the case or impose some administrative penalty like a reprimand or discharge.
"It certainly seems like they couldn't get him on what they first thought they had," General Fugh said, "so they said, `Let's get the son of a gun on something.' "
General Fugh, who has played no role in the prosecution or the defense of Captain Yee, said, "Adding these Mickey Mouse charges just makes them look dumb, in my mind."
According to a senior Justice Department official, even the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which was involved in reviewing the documents that were seized from Captain Yee, never thought much of the evidence against him.
A series of interviews over the last few weeks suggests a number of factors that led the military ever deeper into its prosecution:
¶Reservists serving as counterintelligence officers at the camp were apprehensive that they might miss some sign of infiltration of the base but were relatively inexperienced in how to handle such matters.
¶There was confusion over which documents might be classified and which were not. For example, defense lawyers have questioned whether documents in the chaplain's baggage were truly classified, and that is now being formally reviewed.
¶Some senior officers at Guantánamo were skeptical about the wisdom of having Muslims and Arab-Americans involved in the interrogations of prisoners and other camp operations, and there was smoldering suspicion over what they were doing when they met with one another, according to military officials.
¶An investigation intended to strengthen the initial charges led instead into unrelated areas, and to the new charges of adultery and of keeping pornography on government computers.…
It became evident that his arrest was part of a broader crackdown at Guantánamo when the military announced that it had previously arrested Airman al-Halabi, also on suspicion of espionage. Airman al- Halabi had not only dined with Captain Yee, once alone, but was a volunteer aide in the chapel, a spare wooden building outside the prison facility. The airman is from Syria.
On Sept. 29, the military arrested another translator, Ahmed F. Mehalba, on similar charges of possessing classified information about Guantánamo. Mr. Mehalba, a civilian who had also dined at Captain Yee's quarters at least once, was indicted in November on charges of improperly gathering military information and lying to the F.B.I.
Unnamed officials were quoted in news accounts suggesting that they might have broken up an espionage ring trying to infiltrate the base on behalf of hostile foreign powers.
But that theory has not borne out so far, most notably in the Yee case. The military also recently dropped the most serious charges against Airman al-Halabi, including aiding the enemy, which carried a possible death sentence. Of the original 30 charges, he still faces 17, including some of attempted espionage. But his lawyer, Donald G. Rehkopf, said the "guts of the case" were gone — the charges of aiding the enemy and of using computers to transmit information abroad.…
An officer who served at Guantánamo at the same time as Captain Yee said in an interview that one likely cause of his troubles was the relative inexperience of the officers in charge of security at the base.
"They were all reservists and were completely afraid of missing something and were quite jumpy," said this officer, who is still in the service.
Indeed, one of these reservists ended up himself being charged with the same offenses that were initially lodged against Captain Yee, specifically "wrongfully transporting classified material without the proper security container." But the officer, Col. Jack Farr, a reservist in Army intelligence, was not arrested or detained like Captain Yee.
Colonel Farr was also charged with making a false statement about his handling of classified documents when the matter was being investigated.
A military spokesman would say only that each case is different.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/national/04YEE.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"As the Muslim chaplain at the military base at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, Capt. James J. Yee often invited some of the Islamic members of the garrison to his quarters for dinner on Friday after he conducted weekly services.
On at least two occasions, his guest was Senior Airman Ahmad I. al- Halabi, an Air Force translator at the camp, where hundreds of captives from the Afghan war have been held and interrogated for the last two years.
Airman al-Halabi was later arrested on several charges, including suspicion of trying to pass secrets to Syria or some other foreign government, a charge that has since been dropped."
First held on suspicion of being part of an espionage ring, Captain Yee, 35, was in the end charged with the far less serious crime of mishandling classified information. He was also eventually charged with adultery and keeping pornography on his government computer, both violations of military law.
As arguments over the merits of those charges play out at a preliminary hearing in Fort Benning, Ga., some military officials continue to defend the prosecution, saying that even technical violations of regulations that fall short of espionage should not be ignored. Senior commanders in charge of the case have declined to discuss it, saying that doing so might jeopardize the prosecution.
But others have come to shake their heads over the case.…
General Fugh said the case ought to be brought to a speedy end when a preliminary hearing resumes on Jan. 19. At the hearing's conclusion, Col. Dan Trimble, the presiding officer, is supposed to make a recommendation to Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, the commander of the Joint Task Force that runs the Guantánamo camp, on whether to convene a court-martial, dismiss the case or impose some administrative penalty like a reprimand or discharge.
"It certainly seems like they couldn't get him on what they first thought they had," General Fugh said, "so they said, `Let's get the son of a gun on something.' "
General Fugh, who has played no role in the prosecution or the defense of Captain Yee, said, "Adding these Mickey Mouse charges just makes them look dumb, in my mind."
According to a senior Justice Department official, even the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which was involved in reviewing the documents that were seized from Captain Yee, never thought much of the evidence against him.
A series of interviews over the last few weeks suggests a number of factors that led the military ever deeper into its prosecution:
¶Reservists serving as counterintelligence officers at the camp were apprehensive that they might miss some sign of infiltration of the base but were relatively inexperienced in how to handle such matters.
¶There was confusion over which documents might be classified and which were not. For example, defense lawyers have questioned whether documents in the chaplain's baggage were truly classified, and that is now being formally reviewed.
¶Some senior officers at Guantánamo were skeptical about the wisdom of having Muslims and Arab-Americans involved in the interrogations of prisoners and other camp operations, and there was smoldering suspicion over what they were doing when they met with one another, according to military officials.
¶An investigation intended to strengthen the initial charges led instead into unrelated areas, and to the new charges of adultery and of keeping pornography on government computers.…
It became evident that his arrest was part of a broader crackdown at Guantánamo when the military announced that it had previously arrested Airman al-Halabi, also on suspicion of espionage. Airman al- Halabi had not only dined with Captain Yee, once alone, but was a volunteer aide in the chapel, a spare wooden building outside the prison facility. The airman is from Syria.
On Sept. 29, the military arrested another translator, Ahmed F. Mehalba, on similar charges of possessing classified information about Guantánamo. Mr. Mehalba, a civilian who had also dined at Captain Yee's quarters at least once, was indicted in November on charges of improperly gathering military information and lying to the F.B.I.
Unnamed officials were quoted in news accounts suggesting that they might have broken up an espionage ring trying to infiltrate the base on behalf of hostile foreign powers.
But that theory has not borne out so far, most notably in the Yee case. The military also recently dropped the most serious charges against Airman al-Halabi, including aiding the enemy, which carried a possible death sentence. Of the original 30 charges, he still faces 17, including some of attempted espionage. But his lawyer, Donald G. Rehkopf, said the "guts of the case" were gone — the charges of aiding the enemy and of using computers to transmit information abroad.…
An officer who served at Guantánamo at the same time as Captain Yee said in an interview that one likely cause of his troubles was the relative inexperience of the officers in charge of security at the base.
"They were all reservists and were completely afraid of missing something and were quite jumpy," said this officer, who is still in the service.
Indeed, one of these reservists ended up himself being charged with the same offenses that were initially lodged against Captain Yee, specifically "wrongfully transporting classified material without the proper security container." But the officer, Col. Jack Farr, a reservist in Army intelligence, was not arrested or detained like Captain Yee.
Colonel Farr was also charged with making a false statement about his handling of classified documents when the matter was being investigated.
A military spokesman would say only that each case is different.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/national/04YEE.html?pagewanted=all&position=
New Wars in Iraq: Making Compromises to Keep a Country Whole:
"As the countdown to the handover of power in Iraq enters its final six months, American officials are focusing on how to create a working democracy. They are trying to walk a fine line between giving ethnic and religious groups the territory, resources and autonomy they demand, and ensuring that such power does not give rise to dangerous nationalisms."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/weekinreview/04wong.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"As the countdown to the handover of power in Iraq enters its final six months, American officials are focusing on how to create a working democracy. They are trying to walk a fine line between giving ethnic and religious groups the territory, resources and autonomy they demand, and ensuring that such power does not give rise to dangerous nationalisms."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/weekinreview/04wong.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Keeping the Faith: In Government We Trust (as Far as We Can Throw It):
"TO listen to pollsters, politicians and pundits, you might think 'the public trust' in government has been urgently threatened at every juncture since the Enron scandal broke in 2001 - or, in the view of the Democratic presidential candidates, since the inauguration of George W. Bush.
The year just ended provided its own fodder for distrust. If the herbal supplement ephedra is so bad for you, why wasn't it banned years ago rather than just last week? What about mad cow disease? They said it couldn't happen here. Remember the budget surplus? Where did it go? Don't forget those weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. ('Nothing could be a more serious violation of public trust than to consciously make a case for war based on false claims,' Gen. Wesley K. Clark said last fall.) "
In the fall it was revealed that some mutual fund hotshots, apparently immune to regulation, were favoring fat cats and not ordinary investors. And yes, Parmalat is a foreign company, but its name is on American milk cartons. Nobody knew that a $5 billion - $5 billion - account was just a figment of the company's imagination?
Finally, wasn't the nation just put on Orange Alert? Tell that to the pilot of a private plane who went joy riding around the Statue of Liberty last week, or to the guy who managed to hijack a bus from the Port Authority terminal in Manhattan and drive it to Kennedy Airport. No alarm was raised for seven hours that the bus was even missing.
For all of this, it might not be surprising that public faith in government, in big business and in institutions in general appears to be dwindling.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/weekinreview/04robe.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"TO listen to pollsters, politicians and pundits, you might think 'the public trust' in government has been urgently threatened at every juncture since the Enron scandal broke in 2001 - or, in the view of the Democratic presidential candidates, since the inauguration of George W. Bush.
The year just ended provided its own fodder for distrust. If the herbal supplement ephedra is so bad for you, why wasn't it banned years ago rather than just last week? What about mad cow disease? They said it couldn't happen here. Remember the budget surplus? Where did it go? Don't forget those weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. ('Nothing could be a more serious violation of public trust than to consciously make a case for war based on false claims,' Gen. Wesley K. Clark said last fall.) "
In the fall it was revealed that some mutual fund hotshots, apparently immune to regulation, were favoring fat cats and not ordinary investors. And yes, Parmalat is a foreign company, but its name is on American milk cartons. Nobody knew that a $5 billion - $5 billion - account was just a figment of the company's imagination?
Finally, wasn't the nation just put on Orange Alert? Tell that to the pilot of a private plane who went joy riding around the Statue of Liberty last week, or to the guy who managed to hijack a bus from the Port Authority terminal in Manhattan and drive it to Kennedy Airport. No alarm was raised for seven hours that the bus was even missing.
For all of this, it might not be surprising that public faith in government, in big business and in institutions in general appears to be dwindling.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/weekinreview/04robe.html?pagewanted=all&position=
If the Bomb Is So Easy to Make, Why Don't More Nations Have It?:
"LIBYA has pledged to dismantle its atomic weapons program. That is obviously good news, in addition to being a victory for George W. Bush's aggressive foreign policy. But what, exactly, is Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi giving up? Not much.
'Libya was in no position to obtain access to nuclear weapons in the foreseeable future,' says a statement by the Federation of American Scientists, an independent group that tracks arms control issues. After visiting Libya last week, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, declared the country's program at 'very much at an early stage.' Libya may be closing down its nuclear program because it wasn't working anyway."
This points to an important reality about nuclear weapons: they are extremely difficult to make. Claims that bomb plans can be downloaded from the Internet, or that fissile material is easily obtained on the black market and slapped together into an ultimate weapon, seem little more than talk-radio jabber. Nations like Libya that have made determined attempts to obtain atomic munitions have not even come close.
Saddam Hussein, while leader of Iraq, spent billions of dollars and many years pursuing atomic weapons, without success. It now appears his nuclear program was put into limbo sometime during the 1990's, perhaps for the pragmatic reason that it wasn't working. Pakistan, which may have played a role in various other bomb efforts in the developing world, had hundreds of engineers working for decades to devise its atomic device. North Korea devoted a high percentage of national resources to decades' worth of research before, probably, it acquired an atomic bomb. Iran's nuclear program, which dates to the last shah, has been working on a weapon for a quarter century so far.
In Libya's case, beginning in the 1970's the government sought assistance of various kinds from Pakistan, China and the former Soviet Union. Soviet technicians helped Libya build a small research reactor at a place called Tajura. The Qaddafi regime later tried, unsuccessfully, to buy a large power-generation reactor from a Belgian company, possibly hoping it could be refitted for production of weapons material.
Last week The Wall Street Journal reported that American forces recently seized a shipload of centrifuge equipment bound for Libya. The seizure might have been a factor in Colonel Qaddafi's decision to abandon his pursuit of nuclear weapons - though Washington officials said that before the ship was seized, American intelligence agents had already quietly visited Libya, at Colonel Qaddafi's invitation, to inspect the sites that the country proposed to shutter.
Atomic bombs have proved difficult for countries like Libya to make for several reasons. The "enrichment" of uranium or plutonium to weapons-grade concentrations is a fantastically complex undertaking, involving reactors that cost billions of dollars or centrifuge facilities that are also costly and complicated. Atomic bomb engineering and fabrication involve extremely precise calculations, exotic materials and unusual specialized components that even enormous cost-is-no-object government programs in the United States and the old Soviet Union found hard to manufacture.
Attempts by developing nations to make an ultimate weapon have gone slowly even though they have concentrated on atomic bombs - the kind dropped on Japan in 1945 - rather than the far more powerful thermonuclear or hydrogen bomb, which have never been used, except in tests.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/weekinreview/04east.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"LIBYA has pledged to dismantle its atomic weapons program. That is obviously good news, in addition to being a victory for George W. Bush's aggressive foreign policy. But what, exactly, is Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi giving up? Not much.
'Libya was in no position to obtain access to nuclear weapons in the foreseeable future,' says a statement by the Federation of American Scientists, an independent group that tracks arms control issues. After visiting Libya last week, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, declared the country's program at 'very much at an early stage.' Libya may be closing down its nuclear program because it wasn't working anyway."
This points to an important reality about nuclear weapons: they are extremely difficult to make. Claims that bomb plans can be downloaded from the Internet, or that fissile material is easily obtained on the black market and slapped together into an ultimate weapon, seem little more than talk-radio jabber. Nations like Libya that have made determined attempts to obtain atomic munitions have not even come close.
Saddam Hussein, while leader of Iraq, spent billions of dollars and many years pursuing atomic weapons, without success. It now appears his nuclear program was put into limbo sometime during the 1990's, perhaps for the pragmatic reason that it wasn't working. Pakistan, which may have played a role in various other bomb efforts in the developing world, had hundreds of engineers working for decades to devise its atomic device. North Korea devoted a high percentage of national resources to decades' worth of research before, probably, it acquired an atomic bomb. Iran's nuclear program, which dates to the last shah, has been working on a weapon for a quarter century so far.
In Libya's case, beginning in the 1970's the government sought assistance of various kinds from Pakistan, China and the former Soviet Union. Soviet technicians helped Libya build a small research reactor at a place called Tajura. The Qaddafi regime later tried, unsuccessfully, to buy a large power-generation reactor from a Belgian company, possibly hoping it could be refitted for production of weapons material.
Last week The Wall Street Journal reported that American forces recently seized a shipload of centrifuge equipment bound for Libya. The seizure might have been a factor in Colonel Qaddafi's decision to abandon his pursuit of nuclear weapons - though Washington officials said that before the ship was seized, American intelligence agents had already quietly visited Libya, at Colonel Qaddafi's invitation, to inspect the sites that the country proposed to shutter.
Atomic bombs have proved difficult for countries like Libya to make for several reasons. The "enrichment" of uranium or plutonium to weapons-grade concentrations is a fantastically complex undertaking, involving reactors that cost billions of dollars or centrifuge facilities that are also costly and complicated. Atomic bomb engineering and fabrication involve extremely precise calculations, exotic materials and unusual specialized components that even enormous cost-is-no-object government programs in the United States and the old Soviet Union found hard to manufacture.
Attempts by developing nations to make an ultimate weapon have gone slowly even though they have concentrated on atomic bombs - the kind dropped on Japan in 1945 - rather than the far more powerful thermonuclear or hydrogen bomb, which have never been used, except in tests.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/weekinreview/04east.html?pagewanted=all&position=
From Rogue Nuclear Programs, Web of Trails Leads to Pakistan:
"As investigators unravel the mysteries of the North Korean, Iranian and now the Libyan nuclear projects, Pakistan — and those it empowered with knowledge and technology they are now selling on their own — has emerged as the intellectual and trading hub of a loose network of hidden nuclear proliferators.
That network is global, stretching from Germany to Dubai and from China to South Asia, and involves many middlemen and suppliers. But what is striking about a string of recent disclosures, experts say, is how many roads appear ultimately to lead back to the Khan Research Laboratories in Kahuta, where Pakistan's own bomb was developed."
In 2002 the United States was surprised to discover how North Korea had turned to the Khan laboratory for an alternative way to manufacture nuclear fuel, after the reactors and reprocessing facilities it had relied on for years were "frozen" under a now shattered agreement with the Clinton administration. Last year, international inspectors and Western intelligence agencies were surprised again, this time by the central role Pakistan played in the initial technology that enabled Iran to pursue a secret uranium enrichment program for 18 years.
The sources of Libya's enrichment program are still under investigation, but those who have had an early glance say they see "interconnections" with both Pakistan and Iran's programs — and Libyan financial support for the Pakistani program that stretches back three decades.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/international/04NUKE.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"As investigators unravel the mysteries of the North Korean, Iranian and now the Libyan nuclear projects, Pakistan — and those it empowered with knowledge and technology they are now selling on their own — has emerged as the intellectual and trading hub of a loose network of hidden nuclear proliferators.
That network is global, stretching from Germany to Dubai and from China to South Asia, and involves many middlemen and suppliers. But what is striking about a string of recent disclosures, experts say, is how many roads appear ultimately to lead back to the Khan Research Laboratories in Kahuta, where Pakistan's own bomb was developed."
In 2002 the United States was surprised to discover how North Korea had turned to the Khan laboratory for an alternative way to manufacture nuclear fuel, after the reactors and reprocessing facilities it had relied on for years were "frozen" under a now shattered agreement with the Clinton administration. Last year, international inspectors and Western intelligence agencies were surprised again, this time by the central role Pakistan played in the initial technology that enabled Iran to pursue a secret uranium enrichment program for 18 years.
The sources of Libya's enrichment program are still under investigation, but those who have had an early glance say they see "interconnections" with both Pakistan and Iran's programs — and Libyan financial support for the Pakistani program that stretches back three decades.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/international/04NUKE.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Saturday, January 03, 2004
Probability, Luck and One Mad Cow:
"IN recent years, the Department of Agriculture has been warned numerous times that its testing system was not going to be able to stop mad cow disease from getting into American beef.
And if the disease was already in the United States - which it was, since a cow that was probably infected shortly after birth four and a half years ago has now been found with it - the chances of spotting it quickly were low."
In fact, the lone case was caught largely by luck. It involved a "downer" cow - that is one unable to walk. Though the inability to walk can be a symptom of mad cow disease, in this case it was attributed to her having ruptured while giving birth. In the end, it was not clear why the animal's brain was sent to the department's lab in Ames, Iowa.
But it was clear, several experts say, that the United States was vulnerable to mad cow disease. Dr. Stanley Prusiner, who won the 1997 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work on prions, the misfolded proteins that cause the disease, said that six weeks ago he met with Ann M. Veneman, the secretary of agriculture, and warned her that the country was vulnerable to an outbreak.
The 1997 book "Mad Cow U.S.A.," by Sheldon Rampton and John C. Stauber, made the case that the disease could enter the United States from Europe in contaminated feed.
Since 1997, Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports, has sent numerous letters to Agriculture Department officials warning that the American testing was "flawed in both design and execution," and that native brain disease, not necessarily caused by feed imported from Britain in the 1980's, "may be hiding among the 'downer cow' population."
It also warned that studies suggested that some pigs suffered from encephalopathy, particularly dangerous because it is still legal to feed rendered pigs - pig parts boiled, ground and dried into a powder - to cows.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/28/weekinreview/28madd.html
"IN recent years, the Department of Agriculture has been warned numerous times that its testing system was not going to be able to stop mad cow disease from getting into American beef.
And if the disease was already in the United States - which it was, since a cow that was probably infected shortly after birth four and a half years ago has now been found with it - the chances of spotting it quickly were low."
In fact, the lone case was caught largely by luck. It involved a "downer" cow - that is one unable to walk. Though the inability to walk can be a symptom of mad cow disease, in this case it was attributed to her having ruptured while giving birth. In the end, it was not clear why the animal's brain was sent to the department's lab in Ames, Iowa.
But it was clear, several experts say, that the United States was vulnerable to mad cow disease. Dr. Stanley Prusiner, who won the 1997 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work on prions, the misfolded proteins that cause the disease, said that six weeks ago he met with Ann M. Veneman, the secretary of agriculture, and warned her that the country was vulnerable to an outbreak.
The 1997 book "Mad Cow U.S.A.," by Sheldon Rampton and John C. Stauber, made the case that the disease could enter the United States from Europe in contaminated feed.
Since 1997, Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports, has sent numerous letters to Agriculture Department officials warning that the American testing was "flawed in both design and execution," and that native brain disease, not necessarily caused by feed imported from Britain in the 1980's, "may be hiding among the 'downer cow' population."
It also warned that studies suggested that some pigs suffered from encephalopathy, particularly dangerous because it is still legal to feed rendered pigs - pig parts boiled, ground and dried into a powder - to cows.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/28/weekinreview/28madd.html
Flight Groundings Lead Allies to Query Washington:
"British Airways canceled another flight to the United States on Friday as the Bush administration faced questions from American allies about the reliability of the intelligence information that has led to the recent rash of flight cancellations."
The British airline grounded a flight from London to Washington — the third cancellation over all in 24 hours — and canceled a flight scheduled for Saturday from London to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Seven international flights have now been canceled since last Saturday after the Bush administration began an aggressive approach to defending American airspace when the nation was put on orange or "high" alert on Dec. 21. Administration officials said no arrests had been made in connection with any of the more than a dozen international flights subjected to rigorous scrutiny. And officials have acknowledged that even now, they are uncertain whether they have succeeded in foiling a terrorist plot.
"I don't think we know yet, and we may never know," a senior administration official said.
The latest concern over the tighter security — perhaps unparalleled in commercial aviation history — was raised by Mexico on Friday. A spokesman for President Vicente Fox questioned decisions by the United States on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day to cancel Aeromexico's Flight 490 from Mexico City to Los Angeles. The spokesman, Agustin Gutiérrez Canet, said that armed Mexican agents had been scheduled to fly aboard the flights and that the authorities made special efforts to interrogate passengers closely and inspect luggage.
"Those revisions have found nothing suspicious," Mr. Gutiérrez said. "Where was the risk?"
In another indication of the turmoil resulting from the increased security measures, an American official said that the cancellation of the British Airways flights was not in response to United States safety concerns, but rather was prompted by the refusal of British pilots to fly with armed marshals on board. The United States put other nations on notice earlier this week that it would not allow certain suspicious flights into its airspace without armed marshals on board.
In addition to the flight cancellations, foreign airliners have been escorted into American airspace by F-16 military fighters, and a Mexican flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles was turned around in mid-air.
The events have left both domestic security officials and international travelers on edge over the prospect of another attack by Al Qaeda. American officials said they were determined to avoid the kind of missed warning signs that preceded the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, even if it meant inconveniencing travelers.
Government officials refuse to talk about key details of their decisions to ground the flights because they are classified, but they say that the anxieties are driven by a confluence of factors indicating that another attack on the scale of the Sept. 11 hijackings might be in the works. And the White House's approach, the result of both cold analytical intelligence and gut-level emotion, helped set in motion the extraordinary security measures seen over the last 10 days.
Two days before an Air France flight to Los Angeles was to depart from Paris on Christmas Eve, President Bush's top national security advisers briefed him at the White House on their growing worries about the route, administration officials said.
American officials were picking up intelligence indicating terrorists might be on board that flight or others from Paris to Los Angeles. They had persuaded the French, despite initial resistance, to post armed marshals on board. But the Americans remained nervous and were considering urging the French to cancel the flight.
President Bush had one threshold question for Tom Ridge, his secretary for homeland security, as they met at the White House situation room on Dec. 22. "Would you let your son or daughter fly on that plane?" he asked Mr. Ridge, according to a senior administration official privy to the conversation.
"Absolutely not," the secretary responded. "Well," Mr. Bush said, "neither would I."
The two men and Mr. Bush's other advisers then agreed that if the threat remained, the French should be urged to cancel the Paris-to-Los Angeles flights over the Christmas holiday. Two days later, the French did just that.
But with that aggressive approach have come questions about the quality of the intelligence information. In the case of the Air France cancellations, for instance, the discovery of a name on the passenger manifest similar to that of a Tunisian pilot with possible extremist links ratcheted up concern. But officials said it turned out to be a case of mistaken identity; the name of the passenger was that of a child, a senior official said in an interview. Other apparent "hits" from American terror watch lists turned out to be an elderly Chinese woman who owned a restaurant and a Welsh insurance agent, an F.B.I. official said.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/03/national/03TERR.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"British Airways canceled another flight to the United States on Friday as the Bush administration faced questions from American allies about the reliability of the intelligence information that has led to the recent rash of flight cancellations."
The British airline grounded a flight from London to Washington — the third cancellation over all in 24 hours — and canceled a flight scheduled for Saturday from London to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Seven international flights have now been canceled since last Saturday after the Bush administration began an aggressive approach to defending American airspace when the nation was put on orange or "high" alert on Dec. 21. Administration officials said no arrests had been made in connection with any of the more than a dozen international flights subjected to rigorous scrutiny. And officials have acknowledged that even now, they are uncertain whether they have succeeded in foiling a terrorist plot.
"I don't think we know yet, and we may never know," a senior administration official said.
The latest concern over the tighter security — perhaps unparalleled in commercial aviation history — was raised by Mexico on Friday. A spokesman for President Vicente Fox questioned decisions by the United States on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day to cancel Aeromexico's Flight 490 from Mexico City to Los Angeles. The spokesman, Agustin Gutiérrez Canet, said that armed Mexican agents had been scheduled to fly aboard the flights and that the authorities made special efforts to interrogate passengers closely and inspect luggage.
"Those revisions have found nothing suspicious," Mr. Gutiérrez said. "Where was the risk?"
In another indication of the turmoil resulting from the increased security measures, an American official said that the cancellation of the British Airways flights was not in response to United States safety concerns, but rather was prompted by the refusal of British pilots to fly with armed marshals on board. The United States put other nations on notice earlier this week that it would not allow certain suspicious flights into its airspace without armed marshals on board.
In addition to the flight cancellations, foreign airliners have been escorted into American airspace by F-16 military fighters, and a Mexican flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles was turned around in mid-air.
The events have left both domestic security officials and international travelers on edge over the prospect of another attack by Al Qaeda. American officials said they were determined to avoid the kind of missed warning signs that preceded the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, even if it meant inconveniencing travelers.
Government officials refuse to talk about key details of their decisions to ground the flights because they are classified, but they say that the anxieties are driven by a confluence of factors indicating that another attack on the scale of the Sept. 11 hijackings might be in the works. And the White House's approach, the result of both cold analytical intelligence and gut-level emotion, helped set in motion the extraordinary security measures seen over the last 10 days.
Two days before an Air France flight to Los Angeles was to depart from Paris on Christmas Eve, President Bush's top national security advisers briefed him at the White House on their growing worries about the route, administration officials said.
American officials were picking up intelligence indicating terrorists might be on board that flight or others from Paris to Los Angeles. They had persuaded the French, despite initial resistance, to post armed marshals on board. But the Americans remained nervous and were considering urging the French to cancel the flight.
President Bush had one threshold question for Tom Ridge, his secretary for homeland security, as they met at the White House situation room on Dec. 22. "Would you let your son or daughter fly on that plane?" he asked Mr. Ridge, according to a senior administration official privy to the conversation.
"Absolutely not," the secretary responded. "Well," Mr. Bush said, "neither would I."
The two men and Mr. Bush's other advisers then agreed that if the threat remained, the French should be urged to cancel the Paris-to-Los Angeles flights over the Christmas holiday. Two days later, the French did just that.
But with that aggressive approach have come questions about the quality of the intelligence information. In the case of the Air France cancellations, for instance, the discovery of a name on the passenger manifest similar to that of a Tunisian pilot with possible extremist links ratcheted up concern. But officials said it turned out to be a case of mistaken identity; the name of the passenger was that of a child, a senior official said in an interview. Other apparent "hits" from American terror watch lists turned out to be an elderly Chinese woman who owned a restaurant and a Welsh insurance agent, an F.B.I. official said.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/03/national/03TERR.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Friday, January 02, 2004
Israel Plans 25% Expansion of Its Settlements on Golan:
"Israel plans a major expansion of Jewish settlements in the Golan Heights, the government confirmed Wednesday. The announcement angered Syria, from which Israel seized the territory in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
The plan, approved two weeks ago, comes just two months after the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, called for renewed peace talks between his country and Israel."
Government officials said the expansion plan had been in the works for months and denied that its approval was intended as a response to Mr. Assad's vague proposal, made during an interview with The New York Times. Mr. Assad said in the interview that he wished to resume talks, broken off nearly three years ago, on returning the Golan Heights to Syria in exchange for security guarantees to Israel.
But the Israeli agriculture minister, Yisrael Katz, who heads the government's settlement committee, told Israeli radio and television on Wednesday that the plan was meant to send Mr. Assad the message that "the Golan is an inseparable part of the State of Israel, and we have no intention to give up our hold."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/01/international/middleeast/01MIDE.html
Isn't it interesting, how, whenever peace seems about to break out, the Sharon government finds a way to torpedo it.
"Israel plans a major expansion of Jewish settlements in the Golan Heights, the government confirmed Wednesday. The announcement angered Syria, from which Israel seized the territory in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
The plan, approved two weeks ago, comes just two months after the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, called for renewed peace talks between his country and Israel."
Government officials said the expansion plan had been in the works for months and denied that its approval was intended as a response to Mr. Assad's vague proposal, made during an interview with The New York Times. Mr. Assad said in the interview that he wished to resume talks, broken off nearly three years ago, on returning the Golan Heights to Syria in exchange for security guarantees to Israel.
But the Israeli agriculture minister, Yisrael Katz, who heads the government's settlement committee, told Israeli radio and television on Wednesday that the plan was meant to send Mr. Assad the message that "the Golan is an inseparable part of the State of Israel, and we have no intention to give up our hold."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/01/international/middleeast/01MIDE.html
Wednesday, December 31, 2003
An Unrepentant Spammer Considers the Risks:
"Alan Ralsky, according to experts in the field, has long been one of the most prolific senders of junk e-mail messages in the world. But he has not sent a single message over the Internet in the last few weeks.
He stopped sending e-mail offers for everything from debt repayment schemes to time-share vacations even before President Bush, on Dec. 16, signed the new Can Spam Act, a law meant to crack down on marketers like Mr. Ralsky.
He plans to resume in January, he said, after he overcomes some computer problems, and only after he changes his practices to include in his messages a return address and other information required by the law, the title of which stands for Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing. "
That is quite a switch for Mr. Ralsky, who has earned a reputation as a master of cyberdisguise. By his own admission, he once produced more than 70 million messages a day from domains registered with fake names, largely by way of foreign countries - or sometimes even by way of hijacked computers - so that the recipients could not trace the mail back to him.
Most experts in junk e-mail, known as spam, have dismissed the new federal law as largely ineffectual. And many high-volume e-mailers say the law may even improve the situation for them because it wipes away a handful of tougher state laws.
But Mr. Ralsky, who lives in a Detroit suburb, says the law's potential penalties - fines of up to $6 million and up to five years in jail - are making him rethink his business.
"Of course I'm worried about it," he said after the law was signed. "You would have to be stupid to try to violate this law."
No one is saying that e-mail in-boxes will be clean of spam any time soon. But the world is getting to be a much more hostile place for spammers, particularly those who send some of the most offensive messages. The biggest threat is not so much the new law, though it is expected to play a role in stepped-up enforcement, as the increased willingness of prosecutors to go after spammers.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/30/technology/30spam.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"Alan Ralsky, according to experts in the field, has long been one of the most prolific senders of junk e-mail messages in the world. But he has not sent a single message over the Internet in the last few weeks.
He stopped sending e-mail offers for everything from debt repayment schemes to time-share vacations even before President Bush, on Dec. 16, signed the new Can Spam Act, a law meant to crack down on marketers like Mr. Ralsky.
He plans to resume in January, he said, after he overcomes some computer problems, and only after he changes his practices to include in his messages a return address and other information required by the law, the title of which stands for Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing. "
That is quite a switch for Mr. Ralsky, who has earned a reputation as a master of cyberdisguise. By his own admission, he once produced more than 70 million messages a day from domains registered with fake names, largely by way of foreign countries - or sometimes even by way of hijacked computers - so that the recipients could not trace the mail back to him.
Most experts in junk e-mail, known as spam, have dismissed the new federal law as largely ineffectual. And many high-volume e-mailers say the law may even improve the situation for them because it wipes away a handful of tougher state laws.
But Mr. Ralsky, who lives in a Detroit suburb, says the law's potential penalties - fines of up to $6 million and up to five years in jail - are making him rethink his business.
"Of course I'm worried about it," he said after the law was signed. "You would have to be stupid to try to violate this law."
No one is saying that e-mail in-boxes will be clean of spam any time soon. But the world is getting to be a much more hostile place for spammers, particularly those who send some of the most offensive messages. The biggest threat is not so much the new law, though it is expected to play a role in stepped-up enforcement, as the increased willingness of prosecutors to go after spammers.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/30/technology/30spam.html?pagewanted=all&position=
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