Louisville Courier-Journal | May 31, 2006

By Darla Carter

A ceremony to honor veterans became a call to action yesterday as a retired Air Force general urged the crowd not to let freedoms that he treasures slip away.

"There's two wars going on: There's a war in Iraq and there's a war right here at home, and we may have our eye on the wrong place," retired Maj. Gen. Carl D. Black told a crowd at Highland Memory Gardens in Bullitt County.

"Today, we're trying to remove God from everything," Black said. "We're trying to do away with the Pledge of Allegiance, remove prayer from schools, remove prayer from the Armed Forces. … I say there's something wrong with where we are today, and we better wake up and start looking and see just exactly what it is." Black, a Vietnam veteran, was the featured speaker at the annual Memorial Day weekend service sponsored by Chapter 454 of the Vietnam Veterans of America.

The ceremony, which is in its 14th year, honors veterans of all wars. Myrtle Martin of Louisville attended the ceremony in memory of her son Clayborn W. Ashby Jr., who died in the Vietnam War in 1968, when he was 21.  She said Vietnam veterans have not always been given their due, so being able to have a ceremony like yesterday's meant a lot.

The service included a 21-gun salute and the laying of several wreaths in front of The Final LZ (landing zone), a memorial to Vietnam veterans.

If people want to maintain the ideas and ideals that veterans fought for and that continue to make this country great, Black said, "you and I and the younger generations coming on must get involved."

"Today we have come to pay respects to our fallen heroes and our fallen comrades -- but not that alone," Black said. "… Today, we've come to receive the torch, to hold it high, to keep the faith and to pass it from generation to generation," as has been done since the nation was founded.

Only then can "Rest in peace" truly be uttered, Black said. After the speech, Black said in an interview that many parents, schools and churches seem to have become apathetic about passing certain values on to young people.

"They just take for granted all of the freedoms that we have and think, 'Aw, they were just given to us.' "
Instead, they should be teaching youths "the basics," he said. "Teach them respect for the flag. Teach them respect for themselves. Tell them the history."

Lisa Goad, a Louisville parent who attended the ceremony, thought he had a point.

There are "a lot of kids nowadays that are not respectful, and I just think it's something important for me to give to my children," said Goad, whose sons Eric, 10, and Brandon, 13, were at the ceremony.

Brandon is a member of Boy Scout Troop 262, which took part in the event. He said he believes, "If you're going to live in this country, you need to learn what it (the flag) stands for and respect that."

Matt Davis, who is 14 and a fellow Boy Scout from Louisville, said that attending the event and teaching younger children to have reverence for the flag "shows respect to all the veterans that have passed away."

...................................................................

Halt Pentagon Payoffs To Iraqi Journos, DoD Report Recommends - The Department of Defense investigation into revelations the U.S. military was paying for favorable Iraqi press concludes the propaganda effort could harm American credibility -- and the payments should stop, according to a portion of the report disclosed in a New York Times article Wednesday.

How do you tell a book club from a terrorist cell?

Brian Bergsten / AP | May 25 2006

BOSTON - There's a lot we still don't know -- and may never know -- about the National Security Agency's surveillance of Americans' phone calls. But one striking tidbit has emerged: that the agency is mining phone records for patterns of terrorist activity.

USA Today reported May 11 that the NSA was performing "social network analysis" to detect patterns of terrorist activity in its database of U.S. call records. In defending the program, Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., confirmed that the White House had told him the NSA was probing calling patterns to "detect and track suspected terrorist activity."

But is that really possible?

The "tracking" part makes sense. Assuming that intelligence had identified suspected terrorists, certainly the vast database could be used to track whom those people had called.

The "detecting" part, however, is another story. Can terrorists be spotted simply by analyzing who calls whom and when -- without any other leads? There's reason to be sceptical.

That's because diverse kinds of human organizations share certain traits. If you and I and 17 other people are in a book club, we're likely to call each other often. Sometimes almost all of us would ring up just one person on the same day to ask, "Can I bring dessert to tonight's meeting?"

Viewed in silhouette, in the cold analysis of a computer, it might indeed be apparent from our phone records that the 19 of us frequently communicate to plan something. But further investigation would be necessary to determine just what we were up to.

Can the government dig deeper into all of these groups? Fortunately for the stability of society, but somewhat unfortunately for intelligence analysts, there are vastly more groups of 19 people organizing soccer games and bake sales than there are teams like the 19 hijackers of Sept. 11.

"Those patterns that we leave out there when we do things are going to look the same no matter what we're doing, and 99 percent of the time we're not going to be doing anything illegal," said Valdis Krebs, who consults with companies on the organizational insights they can glean from social network analysis. "There probably isn't a pattern that's different from doing something bad vs. doing something good or something neutral."

The Pentagon apparently isn't certain of that. It has funded research into a field known as "scalable social network analysis" that aims to identify whether terrorist plotting indeed leaves different organizational patterns from planning a bake sale. But Krebs doubts that enough terrorist cells have been mapped to provide a statistically significant sample of what those patterns are.

The main point of social network analysis is to produce a map of how people in an organization tend to interact.

By analyzing e-mail traffic or interviewing members of a group, for example, network analysts can reveal the strength of ties between people in an organization, and who the key hubs are. Sometimes that can explain who really deserves a raise. Or companies can buy social networking software that trolls through e-mail to determine who has the best contacts for a particular customer call.

Of course, these kinds of analyses benefit tremendously from the fact that organizational boundaries are openly available. Analysts know a company exists. Its employees will fill out surveys to say whether that guy in marketing is a quiet leader or a quiet malingerer.

"It helps you understand trends, but I don't know of companies that are using social network analysis to discover bad guys without an entry point, just looking at the network structure," said Jeff Jonas, founder of Systems Research and Development, a company whose software analyzed records to tip Las Vegas casinos when people barred from gambling had associates working on staff. The company attracted investment from the CIA's venture unit even before Sept. 11 and last year was acquired by IBM Corp.

"If you're trying to root out a few bad apples using data-mining to look for anomalies, it's not clear to me that this would be productive without a starting point," said Jonas, who is now chief scientist in IBM's "entity analytics" unit.

To put Jonas' point in other words: Merely mapping who Americans call likely wouldn't uncloak a terrorist cell. The necessary "entry point" would have to be if someone in the United States called or received a call from a number already suspected of being affiliated with U.S. enemies.

(Jonas cites a chilling example of the process in action. In the '90s, reports emerged from Cal’, Colombia, that a drug ring had identified and executed informants by getting Cal’'s phone records, then using a mainframe computer to compare the numbers dialed with those held by narcotics agents. It wouldn't have worked without the entry point of knowing which numbers belonged to the drug cops.)

Following this chain of reasoning, another entry point could come if a group had been infiltrated somehow -- whether through a spy or by a tap providing the content of phone calls or e-mails.

The New York Times reported in December that the NSA was indeed eavesdropping, without warrants, on communications between suspected al-Qaida members overseas and associates in the U.S. And a federal lawsuit in San Francisco claims the NSA gained access to AT&T Inc. communications traffic through a secret switching room.

But while Bush administration officials haven't discussed details of the NSA database described by USA Today, they have insisted that conversations themselves aren't being broadly monitored.

......................................................

MP to investigate Dr Kelly's death A backbench MP is to investigate the "unanswered questions" from the official inquiry into the death of weapons scientist Dr David Kelly.

Sarandon: 'This is 1984' Movie star Susan Sarandon is terrified US society is mirroring George Orwell's chilling book 1984 - because individual rights are being trampled on.

America's war on the web

Scotland Herald / Neil Mackay | April 3 2006

While the US remains committed to hunting down al-Qaeda operatives, it is now taking the battle to new fronts. Deep within the Pentagon, technologies are being deployed to wage the war on terror on the internet, in newspapers and even through mobile phones.

IMAGINE a world where wars are fought over the internet; where TV broadcasts and newspaper reports are designed by the military to confuse the population; and where a foreign armed power can shut down your computer, phone, radio or TV at will.
In 2006, we are just about to enter such a world. This is the age of information warfare, and details of how this new military doctrine will affect everyone on the planet are contained in a report, entitled The Information Operations Roadmap, commissioned and approved by US secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld and seen by the Sunday Herald.

The Pentagon has already signed off $383 million to force through the document’s recommendations by 2009. Military and intelligence sources in the US talk of “a revolution in the concept of warfare”. The report orders three new developments in America’s approach to warfare:

lFirstly, the Pentagon says it will wage war against the internet in order to dominate the realm of communications, prevent digital attacks on the US and its allies, and to have the upper hand when launching cyber-attacks against enemies.

lSecondly, psychological military operations, known as psyops, will be at the heart of future military action. Psyops involve using any media – from newspapers, books and posters to the internet, music, Blackberrys and personal digital assistants (PDAs) – to put out black propaganda to assist government and military strategy. Psyops involve the dissemination of lies and fake stories and releasing information to wrong-foot the enemy.

lThirdly, the US wants to take control of the Earth’s electromagnetic spectrum, allowing US war planners to dominate mobile phones, PDAs, the web, radio, TV and other forms of modern communication. That could see entire countries denied access to telecommunications at the flick of a switch by America.

Freedom of speech advocates are horrified at this new doctrine, but military planners and members of the intelligence community embrace the idea as a necessary development in modern combat.

Human rights lawyer John Scott, who chairs the Scottish Centre for Human Rights, said: “This is an unwelcome but natural development of what we have seen. I find what is said in this document to be frightening, and it needs serious parliamentary scrutiny.”

Crispin Black – who has worked for the Joint Intelligence Committee, and has been an Army lieutenant colonel, a military intelligence officer, a member of the Defence Intelligence Staff and a Cabinet Office intelligence analyst who briefed Number 10 – said he broadly supported the report as it tallied with the Pentagon’s over-arching vision for “full spectrum dominance” in all military matters.

“I’m all for taking down al-Qaeda websites. Shutting down enemy propaganda is a reasonable course of action. Al-Qaeda is very good at [information warfare on the internet], so we need to catch up. The US needs to lift its game,” he said.

This revolution in information warfare is merely an extension of the politics of the “neoconservative” Bush White House. Even before getting into power, key players in Team Bush were planning total military and political domination of the globe. In September 2000, the now notorious document Rebuilding America’s Defences – written by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a think-tank staffed by some of the Bush presidency’s leading lights – said that America needed a “blueprint for maintaining US global pre-eminence, precluding the rise of a great power-rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests”.

The PNAC was founded by Dick Cheney, the vice-president; Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary; Bush’s younger brother, Jeb; Paul Wolfowitz, once Rumsfeld’s deputy and now head of the World Bank; and Lewis Libby, Cheney’s former chief of staff, now indicted for perjury in America.

Rebuilding America’s Defences also spoke of taking control of the internet. A heavily censored version of the document was released under Freedom of Information legislation to the National Security Archive at George Washington University in the US.

The report admits the US is vulnerable to electronic warfare. “Networks are growing faster than we can defend them,” the report notes. “The sophistication and capability of … nation states to degrade system and network operations are rapidly increasing.”

T he report says the US military’s first priority is that the “department [of defence] must be prepared to ‘fight the net’”. The internet is seen in much the same way as an enemy state by the Pentagon because of the way it can be used to propagandise, organise and mount electronic attacks on crucial US targets. Under the heading “offensive cyber operations”, two pages outlining possible operations are blacked out.

Next, the Pentagon focuses on electronic warfare, saying it must be elevated to the heart of US military war planning. It will “provide maximum control of the electromagnetic spectrum, denying, degrading, disrupting or destroying the full spectrum of communications equipment … it is increasingly important that our forces dominate the electromagnetic spectrum with attack capabilities”. Put simply, this means US forces having the power to knock out any or all forms of telecommunications on the planet.

After electronic warfare, the US war planners turn their attention to psychological operations: “Military forces must be better prepared to use psyops in support of military operations.” The State Department, which carries out US diplomatic functions, is known to be worried that the rise of such operations could undermine American diplomacy if uncovered by foreign states. Other examples of information war listed in the report include the creation of “Truth Squads” to provide public information when negative publicity, such as the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, hits US operations, and the establishment of “Humanitarian Road Shows”, which will talk up American support for democracy and freedom.

The Pentagon also wants to target a “broader set of select foreign media and audiences”, with $161m set aside to help place pro-US articles in overseas media.

Justice Department Subpoenas Reach Far Beyond Google In its effort to uphold the Child Online Protection Act, the U.S. Department of Justice is leaving no stone unturned. In addition to America Online, MSN, and Google, the government has demanded information from at least 34 Internet service providers, search companies, and security software firms, InformationWeek learned through a Freedom of Information Act request.

North Korea has no people with physical disabilities because they are killed almost as soon as they are born, a physician who defected from the communist state said on Wednesday. Ri Kwang-chol, who fled to the South last year, told a forum of rights activists that the practice of killing newborns was widespread but denied he himself took part in it. "There are no people with physical defects in North Korea," Ri told members of the New Right Union, which groups local activists and North Korean refugees. He said babies born with physical disabilities were killed in infancy in hospitals or in homes and were quickly buried.  - Full story

Government terrorism

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/march2006/160306myspace.htm

MySpace Is The Trojan Horse Of Internet Censorship - Media elite's last gasp effort to save crumbling empire

Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones/Prison Planet.com | March 16 2006

MySpace isn't cool, it isn't hip and it isn't trendy. It represents a cyber trojan horse and the media elite's last gasp effort to reclaim control of the Internet and sink it with a stranglehold of regulation, control and censorship.

Since Rupert Murdoch's $580 Million acquisition of MySpace in July 2005, it has come from total obscurity to now being the 8th most visited website in the world, receiving half as many page hits as Google, despite the fact that on first appearance it looks like a 5-year-old's picture scrap and scribble book.

MySpace is the new mobile phone. If you don't have a MySpace account then you belong to some kind of culturally shunned underclass.

What most of the trendy wendy's remain blissfully unaware of is the fact that MySpace is Rupert Murdoch's battle axe for shaping a future Internet environment whereby electronic dissent, whether it be against corporations or government, will not tolerated and freedom of e-speech will cease to exist.

MySpace has been caught shutting down blogs critical of itself and other Murdoch owned companies. They even had the audacity to censor links to completely different websites when clicking through for MySpace. When 600 MySpace users complained, MySpace deleted the blog forum that the complaints were posted on. Taking their inspiration from Communist China, MySpace regularly uses blanket censorship to block out words like 'God'.

Earlier this week Rupert Murdoch sounded the death knell for conventional forms of media in stating that the media elite were losing their monopoly to the rapid and free spread of new communication technologies. Murdoch stressed the need to regain control of these outlets in order to prevent the establishment media empire from crumbling.

MySpace is Rupert Murdoch's trojan horse for destroying free speech on the Internet. It is a foundational keystone of the first wave of the state's backlash to the damage that a free and open Internet has done to their organs of propaganda. By firstly making it cool, trendy and culturally elite for millions to flock to establishment controlled Internet backbones like MySpace, Murdoch is preparing the groundwork for the day when it will stop being voluntary and become mandatory to use government and corporate monopoly controlled Internet hubs.

The end game is a system similar to or worse than China, whereby no websites even mildly critical of the government will be authorized.

The Pentagon admitted that they would engage in psychological warfare and cyber attacks on 'enemy' Internet websites in an attempt to shut them down. The fact that the NSA surveillance program spied on 5,000 Americans tells us that the enemy is the alternative media and that it will be targeted for elimination. Google has been ordered to turn over information about its users by a judge to the US government.

The second wave of destroying freedom of speech online will simply attempt to price people out of using the conventional Internet and force people over to Internet 2, a state regulated hub where permission will need to be obtained directly from an FCC or government bureau to set up a website.

The original Internet will then be turned into a mass surveillance database and marketing tool. The Nation magazine reported, "Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency. According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets--corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers--would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out."

The original Internet will deliberately be subject to crash upon crash until it becomes a useless carcass of overpriced trash and its reputation will be defiled by the TV and media barons cashing in on the perfectly streamlined Internet 2, the free for all network that just requires you to thumbscan in order to log on! Those with a security grading below yellow on their national ID card will unfortunately be refused access. Websites that carry hate speech (ones that talk about government corruption) will be censored for the betterment of society.

For the aspiring dictator, the Internet is a dangerous tool that has been seized by the enemy. We have come a long way since 1969, when the ARPANET was created solely for US government use. The Internet is freedom's best friend and the bane of control freaks. Its eradication is one of the short term goals of those that seek to centralize power and subjugate the world under a global surveillance panopticon prison.

Rupert Murdoch's MySpace and its ceaseless promotion by the establishment media as the best thing since sliced bread is part of this movement. In saying all this we do encourage everyone to set up a MySpace account, but only if you're going to use it to bash MySpace, Rupert Murdoch and copy and paste this article right at the top of the page! See how long it is before your account is terminated.

_________________________________________________________________________

Toledo Terrorists and Government Entrapment - News that a federal grand jury has indicted three Toledo-area men for terrorist activities has stoked alarmist headlines warning of Al-Qaeda cells waiting to strike inside America. It is no surprise that the indictment names an informant called "The Trainer," who has U.S. military background in security, and bodyguard training.

Technology keeps track of kids, pets
Tech options growing, evolving to keep children safe from dogs and other predators

Fredericksberg Free Lance Star / MICHAEL ZITZ | January 13 2006

Tuesday's dog mauling of a Spotsylvania County 3-year-old is likely to send area parents scrambling for ways to make sure young children don't get out of the house without Mom and Dad's knowledge.

It's probably causing many dog owners to become more concerned about keeping track of their pets, too.

Applied Digital Solutions Inc. of Palm Beach, Fla., has come up with the VeriChip, a subdermal microchip the size of a grain of rice that can be comfortably implanted just beneath the skin of a child, adult or pet. The chips can be removed without scarring.

That science will soon be combined with satellite Global Positioning System technology to produce a system that can locate anyone, anywhere, anytime.

The "Big Brother" implications are troubling to some, but parents--as well as the adult children of elderly people suffering from dementia--may jump at the chance for increased peace of mind.

The Global PetFiner, available for $400 and a $18 per month service fee that will do the same thing if snapped onto a dog's collar. There's a $35 activation fee.

The device weighs about 5 ounces--most of that from three AAA batteries.

It combines satellite and wireless technology. And allows users to access information via cell phones, computers and other mobile devices. Concerns about safety are causing more parents to look into this kind of technology.

Shannon Gotthelf of GlobalPetFinder LLC in Jericho, N.Y., told The Free Lance-Star yesterday pet owners can set boundaries through a Web site.

When the pet leaves the preset boundaries, the user is alerted on his or her cell phone, PDA or pager.

The cell phone, pager or computer will ring or beep and provide the pet's location, updated every few seconds.

GPS Track's Jennifer Durst, a mother of two, invented the GlobalPetFinder. It spurred interest among parents when she talked about it on television.

Boundaries may be set for five locations. Settings can be established for home, school, the park and other locations.

Users may check on the location of their child or pet with the device at any time from their mobile device or computer.

It can set for "Walk" so that it doesn't go off when children or pets are allowed to leave set areas.

Digital Angel Corp. of St. Paul, Minn., offers a similar system involving a wristwatch and a pocket GPS locator device for $400 and a $30 monthly fee.

ADT Security Services, Inc., has a simpler option. Kelli Blankenberg of ADT in Jacksonville, Fla., said Safewatch 3000 ($249 and up)--a talking system or tone system--announces, "Front door open," and "Back door open" or beeps when it has been turned on.

And tiny, simple new children's cell phones like the Cingular Wireless Firefly and Verizon Wireless Migo allow toddlers in trouble to call their parents with the push of a single key--and call 911 for help with a panic button. The panic button allows authorities to pinpoint the child's location within 150 feet.

Staff librarian Craig Schulin contributed to this story.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/news_alert_011303_general.html

'I Hate You': Vancouver family finds surprising message in baby's toy

The Columbian 01/13/03: Margaret Ellis

Original Link: http://www.columbian.com/01112003/front_pa/1253.html

Blanche Skelton was feeding her baby when she heard something besides the soothing sound of ocean waves coming from a toy attached to the crib.

It was saying, "I hate you."

After asking her husband, her parents-in-law, and everyone else in the home east of Hazel Dell, they were convinced. The toy was definitely, albeit quietly, saying "I hate you." Blanche's 6-month-old son, Alex, got the toy as a Christmas present. It makes soothing sounds and music for baby to fall asleep to, with an illuminated picture of a cartoon-style aquarium on the front.

But in between the white noise of ocean waves, a tiny babyish voice pipes up with childhood angst. Made in China, the toy was sold by Wal-Mart and carries the Kid Connection brand, which is a store brand.

Blanche and her husband, Steve, said they went to the Wal-Mart store Thursday and listened to two other aquarium toys like theirs. Sure enough, there was that creepy voice. The couple talked to a manager, who scoffed until another employee blurted out that he heard it, too. Then the manager pledged to get the toy off the shelves, and offered the family a refund, Blanche said. By Friday, the toys were gone from the shelves at the Hazel Dell store.

But the Skeltons would rather get the word out to other families who may have bought the toy. "How many kids are lying in their crib listening to that?" asked Gary Skelton, Blanche's father-in-law. Still the family is more bemused than distressed by the toy. Gary Skelton pointed to a smiling Alex scooting across the carpet. If Alex could talk, Skelton joked, "He says, 'Yep, I'm the victim.'" Karen Burk, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman at the company's Arkansas headquarters, said she'd never heard anyone else complain about the toy.

"This is the first time I've heard of this problem," she said. "I have relayed this information to our merchandise team. They do not have any of the product on their shelves. As always, we are always sorry that a customer is not happy with a product they purchased at our stores and we encourage the customer to come back for a full refund." But the Skeltons don't really want to take the toy back.

"We'll keep it around for novelty, I guess," said Gary Skelton. "Just don't hang it over the crib is all."
 

_______________________________________________________________________________

Pentagon propaganda program orders soldiers to promote war while home on leave Good soldiers follow orders and hundreds of American military men and women returned to the United States on holiday leave this month with orders to sell the Iraq war to a skeptical public.

Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report

Wiretaps said to sift all overseas contacts

Florida peace group could sue over Pentagon spying

US warned not to ignore China's military advances - The report, entitled "China's New Great Leap Forward: High Technology and Military Power in the Next Half-Century," warned that the US government is too preoccupied with its "war on terror" and democratization of the Middle East and Central Asia.

Many refuse to pay 'war tax' on phone bill - Many Americans are believed to be refusing to pay the federal taxes attached to their monthly phone bills -- money that helps fund military operations overseas.

http://www.infowars.com/articles/society_destruction/sex_lessons_for_all_children.htm

Sex lessons planned for all children
Five-year-olds to get lessons on emotional life

Denis Campbell / London Observer | December 4 2005

Compulsory sex lessons for primary school children as young as five are to be backed by the government's official advisers on sexual behaviour in an unpublished report obtained by The Observer. If accepted, the proposals would be the biggest shake-up in sex education in schools in England and Wales.
The document says the current system for sex lessons, which are mostly optional, is unfair, confused, damaging to pupils' health and development and partly responsible for Britain having the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in western Europe. At present all pupils get basic biological information, but those at some schools are also given details about subjects such as contraception and sexually transmitted infections.

A joint report from the Government's independent advisors on sexual health and teenage pregnancy recommends that detailed knowledge about sex should become a routine part of all pupils' education and points out that adopting such an approach makes young people better able to handle sexual issues. The 42 advisors include senior doctors, experts in sexual behaviour, specialists in bringing up children, nurses, and leading academics in the field.

They want ministers to make Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) a statutory subject in all primary and secondary schools in England and Wales. Certain schools provide PSHE to help prepare their students to understand the adult world of sex, alcohol, drugs and bullying.

The Sex and Relationship Education (SRE) element of PSHE includes much more in-depth discussion about sexual activity than the factual reproductive biology all pupils cover in science lessons as well as tuition on how to deal with pressure from friends or partners to have sex, where to get contraception and how infections such as chlamydia and genital warts are passed on.

The report, 'Personal, Social and Health Education in schools: Time for Action', has been compiled by the Independent Advisory Groups on Sexual Health and Teenage Pregnancy, which advise the Department of Health and the Department for Education and Skills.

Labour peer Joyce Gould, who chaired the inquiry, said last night that the government should make PSHE a statutory part of the national curriculum in order to tackle the high number of teenage girls becoming pregnant, the rising levels of sexually transmitted infections and widespread ignorance among young people about sex.

Gould denied the group's proposals would encourage promiscuity. 'Some people will say that if you don't tell them about it, they won't do it. But real life shows that's not the case. More and more young people are having sex at a younger age.'

If implemented, primary school children would be taught mainly about emotional issues such as relationships and friendships, with older ones starting to learn about puberty. Only secondary students would discuss sexual activity and its potential pitfalls.

Gill Frances, the acting chairwoman of the teenage pregnancy advisors, said SRE was vital to help pupils understand complicated sexual issues. 'Young people are growing up in an increasingly sexualised society, where there are mixed messages about sex. The result is that they end up confused because they don't understand what sex is all about.'

Frances said that mandatory PSHE would make many young people more likely to postpone their first sexual experience, and more confident at engaging with the opposite sex. The report shows that teenage pregnancy in Liverpool, Bradford and Hackney, in east London, fell after local schools introduced PSHE and SRE.

Members of the two advisory groups believe that junior ministers at the DFES and DoH, such as Beverley Hughes, the minister for children, young people and families, and public health minister Caroline Flint, are sympathetic to their plea. But education secretary Ruth Kelly, a devout Catholic, is thought likely to oppose such a dramatic extension of pupils' knowledge about sex. The growing number of faith schools could also make implementing PSHE difficult. Parents can currently remove a child from SRE if they are unhappy with the content

 ________________________________________________________________

Court Trip For Bus Rider Who Refused To 'Show Papers'

Deborah Davis

Denver Post/David Harsanyi | November 28 2005

Related: Next Stop: Big Brother

Deborah Davis doesn't consider herself a hero. Certainly not a modern-day champion of the Constitution. Yet, in her own way, she might be a little of both.

Two months ago, this 50-year-old mother of four was reading a book while riding to work on RTD's Route 100. When the bus rolled up to the gates of the Denver Federal Center in Lakewood, a guard climbed on and demanded Davis, as well as everyone else on board, produce identification.

Perhaps it was that inherent American distaste for producing papers on demand, but Davis, who had gone through this drill before, decided to pass.

"I told him that I did have identification, but I wasn't going to show it to him," Davis explains. "I knew that I wasn't required by law to show ID and that's why I decided I wasn't going to. The whole thing seemed to be more about compliance than security."

According to Davis, the guard proceeded to call on federal cops, who then dragged Davis off a public bus, handcuffed her, shoved her into the back seat of a police car and drove off to a police station within the Federal Center.

While I was unable to reach anyone at the Department of Homeland Security on Friday to comment on Davis' case, the offense/incident report corroborates her basic story.

Though, it should be noted that, according to the arresting officer, Davis became "argumentative" before she "was physically removed from the bus and placed under arrest."

Good for her.

Davis - whose middle son is risking his life in Iraq while the federal government is demanding papers from and arresting his middle-aged mom - is scheduled to be arraigned on Dec. 9 and could face up to 60 days in jail.

Gail Johnson, a volunteer ACLU lawyer who practices at a prominent Colorado criminal defense firm, will defend Davis without charge. She expects the government to arraign Davis on two federal criminal misdemeanors, if not more.

The first states that citizens must "when requested, display Government or other identifying credentials to Federal police officers or other authorized individuals." The second says that citizens must comply with "the lawful direction of Federal police officers and other authorized individuals."

As Johnson sees it, there are numerous problems with the charges and she plans to fight them "vigorously."

"She was a passenger on a public bus," explains Johnson, who believes this case is about the fundamental right to travel. "She got on the bus outside of the federal area and she wanted to get off the bus outside the federal area. It's not her fault buses run along this route."

Legal issues notwithstanding, you have to wonder what ever happened to common sense? What exactly were the guards, who merely glanced at the IDs, doing? Is there a "no-bus rider" terrorist list in Lakewood? And if there is, how would the guards be able to differentiate between real and fake IDs?

And no, we needn't be absolutists about freedom. There are potentially a whole host of justifiable reasons for enhanced security.

In this instance, however, the Federal Center houses the Department of Veterans Affairs, the U.S. Geological Survey and a section of the National Archives.

Not exactly Dick Cheney's super-secret underground bunker.

If safety at the center was a question of national security, why have a public bus route running through the facility in the first place?

"I'm just a regular, normal, everyday person," Davis says. "There is nothing really far out about me. I have been laid off. I pay my taxes. I have my problems. I am no different than anyone else. It just didn't seem right."

Ah, but here she's wrong.

She's not like anyone else. So let's hope more Americans act like Deb Davis, not another partisan hack acting the victim, but an average American who questions government intrusion into our private and public lives for freedom's sake.

Related Information:

Woman Arrested For Not Showing ID At Federal Ctr.

Let her ride without 'papers'

Papersplease.org

“The 21st century Nazis”

________________________________________________

British Mercenaries Caught Carrying Out Staged Terror In Iraq In another example of how the Iraqi quagmire is deliberately designed to degenerate into a chaotic abyss, British mercenaries were caught attempting to stage a terror attack and the media have dutifully shut up about the real questions surrounding the incident.