I suppose we do need these extra security measures, seeing as how Bushco and his band of merry republithugs have more than quadrupled the ire of terrorists. But people, it’s gonna cost us BIG in the long run!

Senate OKs security bill linked to 9/11 panel

Provisions include more cash to high-risk states, tighter cargo screening

A cargo truck goes through a new radiation’scanning machine during a demonstration at the Long Beach Port in Long Beach, Calif., on July 20.

WASHINGTON - The Senate on Thursday night approved a package of security measures recommended by the 9/11 Commission, shifting more federal money to high-risk states and cities and requiring more stringent screening of air and sea cargo.

The measure passed by a 85-8 vote.

The House was expected to pass the bill as early as Friday, sending it to the president and giving Democrats a much-needed legislative victory just a week before Congress adjourns for its August recess.

Along with a boost in the minimum wage, which went into effect on Tuesday, the 9/11 Commission bill would be at the top of the Democratic majority’s achievement list if President Bush signs it into law.

The White House has expressed opposition to several provisions in the bill, [...] but it has not issued a veto threat.

More at MSNBC.com

Then would someone mind telling me WHY this is being treated as 9/11 - part II? (Just kidding. I think I know why…)

TSA: Terrorists may be conducting dry runs

Security officers alerted to possibility of airport attack after seizures

July 25: Airport security officers have been alerted to watch for terrorists doing dry runs for possible attacks.

WASHINGTON - Airport security officers around the nation have been alerted by federal officials to look out for terrorists practicing to carry explosive components onto aircraft, based on four curious seizures at airports since last September.
[...]

It [bulletin] cited various types of rehearsals conducted by terrorists before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon; the July 7, 2005, London subway bombings; the Aug. 2, 2006, London-based plot to blow up trans-Atlantic flights using liquid explosives and the 1994 Bojinka plot in the Philippines to blow up multiple airliners over the Pacific Ocean.
[...]

The four seizures were described this way:

   * San Diego, July 7. A U.S. person - either a citizen or a foreigner legally here - checked baggage containing two ice packs covered in duct tape. The ice packs had clay inside them rather than the normal blue gel.
   * Milwaukee, June 4. A U.S. person’s carryon baggage contained wire coil wrapped around a possible initiator, an electrical switch, batteries, three tubes and two blocks of cheese. The bulletin said block cheese has a consistency similar to some explosives.
   * Houston, Nov. 8, 2006. A U.S. person’s checked baggage contained a plastic bag with a 9-volt battery, wires, a block of brown clay-like minerals and pipes.
   * Baltimore, Sept. 16, 2006. A couple’s checked baggage contained a plastic bag with a block of processed cheese taped to another plastic bag holding a cellular phone charger.

Read the TSA government advisory (.pdf)
Full article at MSNBC.com

By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN

WASHINGTON - Airport security officers around the nation have been alerted by federal officials to look out for terrorists practicing to carry explosive components onto aircraft, based on four curious seizures at airports since last September.

The unclassified alert was distributed on July 20 by the Transportation Security Administration to federal air marshals, its own transportation security officers and other law enforcement agencies.

The seizures at airports in San Diego, Milwaukee, Houston and Baltimore included “wires, switches, pipes or tubes, cell phone components and dense clay-like substances,” including block cheese, the bulletin said. “The unusual nature and increase in number of these improvised items raise concern.”

Security officers were urged to keep an eye out for “ordinary items that look like improvised explosive device components.”

The 13-paragraph bulletin was posted on the Internet by NBC Nightly News, which first reported the story.

A federal official familiar with the document confirmed the authenticity of the NBC posting but declined to be identified by name because it has not been officially released.

read more HERE

An Arabic translator testifying Monday as the first defense witness in the Miami terror trial of Jose Padilla and two other men attacked charges the defendants used a code on the telephone to secretly discuss their support for radical Islamic groups.

Kamal Yunis, who owns a small translation business in Orlando, said words and phrases characterized as code by prosecutors were Arabic expressions with meanings that could be lost in translation.

“Arabic is a more flowery language. They use figures of speech,” Yunis said. “In English we tend to be more direct.”

Padilla, 36; Adham Amin Hassoun, 45; and Kifah Wael Jayyousi, 45, are charged with taking part in a South Florida terror cell that sent money, equipment and human recruits to support Islamic fighters, known as mujahideen, operating in regions like Kosovo and Chechnya.

More at the Sun Sentinel

MIAMI, Florida (AP) — For a star defendant whose name is known around the world, Jose Padilla has become almost a bit player in his terrorism support trial — and some observers say the federal government may not have proved its case against him.

Former Chicago gang member Jose Padilla is accused of providing material support to al Qaeda.

Prosecutors rested their case Friday after nine weeks, 22 witnesses and dozens of FBI wiretap intercepts played at trial, most of them in Arabic with written translations for jurors.

Defense lawyers for Padilla and his two co-defendants begin presenting their case next week.

Much is at stake for the government, which once heralded Padilla’s arrest as a success in the country’s war on terror, accused him in an al Qaeda “dirty bomb” plot, and held him for 3½ years as an enemy combatant.

Padilla’s voice was heard on only seven intercepts, a tiny fraction of the 300,000 collected by the FBI during the nearly decade-long investigation.

Padilla was never linked to any specific acts of terrorism or murder and, unlike his co-defendants, he was not accused of using purported code words like “tourism” for “jihad” or “eggplant” for “rocket-propelled grenade.”

“Although everyone has been referring to this case as the Padilla trial, the government’s case against Padilla has been pretty thin,” said David O. Markus, a Miami defense attorney who has frequently written about the case on his legal blog. “I’m sure the government lawyers are sweating quite a bit right now.”

More at CNN

By Michael Holden
from YAHOO! NEWS

LONDON (Reuters) - Four men were jailed for 40 years each on Wednesday for attempting to carry out suicide bombings on London’s transport system, a plot said to be part of an al Qaeda planned series of attacks on the British capital.

Judge Adrian Fulford told the four he had no doubt their botched attempt to bomb three underground trains and a bus on July 21, 2005, two weeks after 52 people were killed in similar attacks, had been directed by Osama bin Laden’s group.

The second wave of attacks only failed because, although the detonators fired, the bombs did not explode.

“This was a viable, indeed a very nearly successful, attempt at mass murder,” Fulford told the court. “These were not truly isolated events but … coordinated and connected in that I have no doubt they were part of an al Qaeda inspired and controlled sequence of attacks.”

The men, Muktah Said Ibrahim, Yassin Hassan Omar, Ramzi Mohammed and Hussein Osman, all Muslims of African origin, were found guilty on Monday of conspiracy to murder.

Sentencing them, Fulford ruled they should stay in jail for a minimum of 40 years, the maximum sentence he said he could impose in light of other terrorism cases.

The men looked impassive as the sentences were handed down. As they left the courtroom, Osman clutched a Koran to his chest.

Earlier, two other suspects on whom the jury failed to reach verdicts, were told they would face a retrial.

read more at YAHOO! NEWS

By KATHERINE SHRADER
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - U.S. counterterror officials are warning of an increased risk of an attack this summer, given al-Qaida’s apparent interest in summertime strikes and increased al-Qaida training in the Afghan-Pakistani border region.

On Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told the editorial board of The Chicago Tribune that he had a “gut feeling” about a new period of increased risk.

He based his assessment on earlier patterns of terrorists in Europe and intelligence he would not disclose.

“Summertime seems to be appealing to them,” Chertoff said in his discussion with the newspaper about terrorists. “We worry that they are rebuilding their activities.”

Other U.S. counterterrorism officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, shared Chertoff’s concern and said that al-Qaida and like-minded groups have been able to plot and train more freely in the tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistani border in recent months. Osama bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, are believed to be hiding in the rugged region.

“The threat coming out of there is very real, even if there aren’t a lot of specifics attached to it,” one of the officials said.

Chertoff’s department has not made any move to increase the nation’s color-coded terror alert system. Now, airlines are under orange - or high - alert, which is the second most serious level on a five-point scale. The rest of the country remains a step below at yellow, or elevated.

Chertoff said he is convinced that terrorists are regrouping. “Our edge is technology and the vigilance of the ordinary citizen,” he said.

read more at YAHOO! NEWS

By Dean Yates
Reuters

It seems the violence gets more intense and tragic with every passing day. Unfortunately, we’re stuck in the sandy hell-hole called Iraq until that oil sharing “legislation” (read: theft) is passed. I feel so sorry for those poor Iraqis. All this money thrown at the no-bid contractors and STILL no electricity or decent, safe drinking water. The Euphrates is so polluted from dead bodies floating in it, they can’t even eat the fish. Minor rant? Yes, but I’m sure many others who read here feel the same way. - JS

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A huge truck bomb killed more than 100 people and wounded 250 in a crowded market in northern Iraq on Saturday, one of the deadliest attacks in the country this year, police said.

Colonel Abbas Mohammed Amin, the police chief in Tuz Khurmato, said he feared the toll would rise after the bomb leveled dozens of shops and small houses.

“There are still bodies under rubble. We are trying to dig them out,” Amin told Reuters, putting the death toll at more than 100. Other police in the town said 105 people were killed.

There had earlier been conflicting reports about the toll in Tuz Khurmato, a largely Shi’ite town, with other police and local officials saying 30 people had been killed.

The bombing was a blow to a U.S.-backed security crackdown in Iraq, and underscored the ability of militants to stage large’scale attacks despite the arrival of nearly 30,000 additional U.S. troops.

U.S. officials blame most major car bombings on Sunni Islamist al Qaeda, which they say is trying to spark full’scale civil war between majority Shi’ites and minority Sunni Arabs.

Jasim Ali, 30, said he looked frantically for his wife when he heard the explosion in Tuz Khurmato.

“I ran to the market and saw burned cars along with dead and wounded people everywhere. I screamed until I found my wife. She was wounded in the head and her hand,” said Ali, his clothes stained with his wife’s blood.

In other violence, the U.S. military reported eight of its soldiers were killed in the past two days, mostly in and around Baghdad.

read more at Reuters

By Mark Trevelyan, Security Correspondent
from YAHOO! NEWS

LONDON (Reuters) - British police on Friday charged a first suspect in connection with failed car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow.

Police said Bilal Abdullah is to appear in a London court on Saturday charged with conspiracy to cause explosions. Other suspects remain in custody pending a charging decision, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said in a statement.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said earlier on Friday that investigations stretching from Britain to Australia are “getting to the bottom” of a cell behind the failed car bombings in London and Scotland.

Brown said he had spoken to Australian Prime Minister John Howard about the probe into the suspected al Qaeda-linked plot, in which eight Middle Eastern and Indian medics have been arrested.

Australian police, already holding one Indian doctor since Monday, extended their probe to at least five others and searched two hospitals.

“This is an international investigation now,” Brown said of the hunt for those behind two failed car bombs in London and a botched but fiery attack on Glasgow airport in Scotland by two men who smashed a jeep into a terminal building.

“I believe that, from what I know, we’re getting to the bottom of this cell that has been responsible for what is happening,” he told the BBC.

In a separate case, a court in Manchester sentenced a man described by police as a terrorist “sleeper” to nine years’ jail for possessing a trove of al Qaeda-related computer material.

That followed the conviction of three other men this week for inciting terrorism over the Internet. Verdicts are due shortly in other trials — part of a slew of cases that have highlighted Britain’s appeal as a target for militant Islamists.

read more at YAHOO! NEWS

By THOMAS WAGNER and MARYCLAIRE DALE,
Associated Press Writers

LONDON - Two suspects in the failed car bombings in Britain had contacted a clearinghouse for foreign doctors about working in the United States, the FBI said Friday, and British officials probed links between the attacks and al-Qaida in Iraq.

An FBI spokeswoman said Mohammed Asha and another suspect had contacted the Philadelphia-based Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates, as first reported in The Philadelphia Inquirer. Asha, a Jordanian physician of Palestinian heritage, contacted the agency within the last year, but apparently did not take the test for foreign medical school graduates, said the spokeswoman, Nancy O’Dowd.

“He was applying, (but) we don’t believe he took the test,” she said.

O’Dowd could not immediately confirm the name of the second suspect.

The FBI visited the organization’s office in West Philadelphia this week, O’Dowd said.

On June 29, authorities defused two car bombs that had been set to explode near packed nightclubs and pubs in central London. The following day, two people rammed a car loaded with gas canisters into the airport terminal in Glasgow, Scotland. The car ignited, seriously injuring one of the suspects. Both men in the car have been arrested.

“From what I know, we are getting to the bottom of this cell that has been responsible for what is happening,” Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. television.

Asha was arrested on the M6 highway Saturday night along with his wife. In Jordan, security officials said Asha had no criminal record, and friends and family said they found it hard to believe either he or his wife were connected with terrorism.

read more at YAHOO! NEWS

Many good posts have already dissected the recent comments by Justice Antonin Scalia at a panel discussion:

Senior judges from North America and Europe were in the midst of a panel discussion about torture and terrorism law, when a Canadian judge’s passing remark - “Thankfully, security agencies in all our countries do not subscribe to the mantra A-What would Jack Bauer do?- ” - got the legal bulldog in [Justice Antonin Scalia] barking.

The conservative jurist stuck up for Agent Bauer, arguing that fictional or not, federal agents require latitude in times of great crisis. “Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. … He saved hundreds of thousands of lives,” Judge Scalia said. Then, recalling Season 2, where the agent’s rough interrogation tactics saved California from a terrorist nuke, the Supreme Court judge etched a line in the sand.

“Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?” Judge Scalia challenged his fellow judges. “Say that criminal law is against him? A-You have the right to a jury trial?- Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don-t think so.”

Without discussing the merits or flaws of 24 as entertainment, it’s striking how so many conservatives view issues of national security and torture through its lens. It’s disturbing that people possessing a great deal of power, or seeking it, seem to be basing their policy decisions and legal judgments almost entirely on a work of fiction. Citing Jack Bauer isn’t as big a problem as invoking him as the Alpha and Omega of all “serious” discussion on important issues. Fine, mention Jack Bauer. But what about Maher Arar, the Canadian who the U.S. rendered to Syria to be tortured? What about David Hicks, the Australian whose arrest could be justified but whose treatment was abhorrent? What about all the horrible stories out of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo?
Read more »

My guess is they leaked the information intentionally only to deny it….but in the meantime they plant that seed of fear in the American people, while all along having their talking heads (Lieberman) telling us that only the Republicans can save us from the terrorists. Oh, and supposedly the U.S. had intel about the airport incident two weeks prior to it happened, but oddly enough, the Brits never heard anything about it from the U.S. 17 more months of this crap……….

By John O’Callaghan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Monday played down a report al Qaeda was planning a big attack on the United States, saying there was no credible information about an imminent threat.

As British police investigated two failed car bombs in London and a fiery attack on Glasgow’s airport by a fuel-filled vehicle, U.S. officials tightened security at transport hubs without raising the country’s overall alert level.

“We do not currently have any specific threat information that is credible about a particular attack on the United States,” Chertoff told Fox News.

ABC News, quoting a senior U.S. official, said on Sunday a secret law enforcement report prepared for the Department of Homeland Security warned that al Qaeda planned to carry out a “spectacular” attack this summer.

More at Reuters

from CNN

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The car bomb scare in London and the attack Saturday at the Glasgow airport underscore the need for a strong immigration policy in the United States, Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani said Saturday.

Border security is critical to knowing who is entering the United States and who is at the borders, said Giuliani, who was mayor of New York at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror
attacks.

Giuliani, who toured work to repair one of the canals where floodwalls broke during Hurricane Katrina, said government at all levels failed after that storm. He said he is accustomed to making government run more efficiently and believes he could do that as
president.

Giuliani was on his first trip to New Orleans as a presidential contender. He was last here in April 2006, for a tour of areas like the hard-hit Lower 9th Ward and a briefing on levee protection and coastal wetland restoration, campaign spokesman Elliott Bundy said.

Virtually no major Republican candidates have visited New Orleans, or Louisiana, in recent months. Sen. John McCain did, in August, before announcing his run for president. His was a
fundraising appearance in Baton Rouge for GOP state candidates.

Several major Democratic candidates, including Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and former Sen. John Edwards, have visited- in some cases, repeatedly. Edwards announced his candidacy in a still-devastated New Orleans neighborhood in December.

After Saturday’s briefing, Giuliani planned to attend a private fundraiser in suburban Metairie, Bundy said.

By IAN STEWART, Associated Press Writer
from YAHOO! NEWS

GLASGOW, Scotland - Two men rammed a flaming Jeep Cherokee into the main terminal of Glasgow airport Saturday, crashing into the glass doors at the entrance in what appeared to be the third attempted terror attack on Britain in two days, witnesses said.

Hours later, Britain raised its security alert to “critical” - the highest level possible and an indication that terrorist attacks are imminent. U.S. airports increased safety precautions.

Both suspects were arrested at the Glasgow airport, Scotland’s largest. One, his body engulfed in flames as police pulled him from the vehicle, was hospitalized.

There were no reports of injuries but the airport was evacuated and all flights suspended, a day after British police thwarted a plot to bomb central London, discovering two cars abandoned with loads of gasoline, gas canisters and nails. Hundreds fled screaming from the terminal as one of the men poured gasoline over the Jeep and tried to force it further inside the terminal, one witness said.

“One has to conclude … these are linked,” Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, former head of Britain’s joint intelligence committee, told Sky News. “This is a very young government, and we may yet see further attacks.”

read more at YAHOO! NEWS