buckthesystem

The operative part of the article is bolded, the rest is just utter rubbish. We should know by now not to believe anything that a politician says about "terrorism". ________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...in_page_id=1770 Al Qaeda wouldn't hesitate to blow away a city: That's why we need 42-day detention, says ex MI6 boss By JASON LEWIS The former head of MI6 is backing controversial Government plans to hold terror suspects for 42 days without charge, saying it might prevent a dirty-bomb attack on Britain. MI6 prides itself on avoiding political debates but former chief Sir Richard Dearlove warns that the UK would "regret" not bringing in longer detention for terror suspects. Sir Richard, 63, who retired from MI6 in 2004, says that in some serious cases the current 28-day limit is not enough to build a case or to gather intelligence on the scale of the threat faced by Britain. He says of Al Qaeda: "Should it ever obtain the means to blow away a complete city, I fear, with good intelligence that supports my fears, that it would not hesitate to try." His intervention comes after Director of Public Prosecution Sir Ken Macdonald warned MPs on the Home Affairs Committee on Wednesday that any move to extend the period suspects can be held is unnecessary. He said he had "managed quite comfortably" within the 28-day limit � and no suspect had been held longer than 14 days in the past nine months. But writing in Contingency Today, a magazine for security professionals, Sir Richard says the increased complexity of terrorism cases, especially the need for help from spy agencies abroad, means investigators need more time. "In some states simply establishing identity is a major investigative challenge," he says. "When we do need that extension, we will need it badly." Al Qaeda "does not fight for a claim to territory, nor for a political agenda. It seeks to destroy our values and our way of life" � and it is "already pressing against the limits of our capabilities to contain it". He adds: "It knows well how to exploit the vulnerability of the global village � how to pass unnoticed, cover its tracks, ride on our technology. ?"In a recent prosecution, the investigation involved 270 computers, 2,000 disks and 8,224 exhibits spread across eight national jurisdictions." He is "instinctively against the erosion of the basic liberties" but adds: "When I know that a few of my fellow citizens feel they are justified in the name of some greater purpose to attempt to kill their neighbours, then I want them, where and when necessary, to be effectively constrained. "If 42 days is not adopted, regret it we will � and who in our blame culture will the media turn on when the uncharged terrorist, released after a month, turns out to have held the key to preventing the next major attack, and what bad law might we then, in haste, enact during the crisis-driven enquiry that would ensue?" And EU plans a travel ban on 'troublemakers' EU security chiefs, including Home Office officials, are secretly planning a Europewide database of 'troublemakers' to stop them travelling to protests. People on the register � the brainchild of Germany � would not need to have been convicted of any offence and could include sit-down protesters. Britain would send 'alerts' to other European countries on people campaigning against the expansion of Heathrow or the war in Iraq. According to EU documents obtained by The Mail on Sunday, the list is designed to stop the 'troublemakers' travelling to further demos abroad. Germany wants a crackdown after clashes at last year's G8 summit there. Tony Bunyan, of human rights group Statewatch, said: 'A pattern is emerging where people who exercise their democratic right to attend cross-border protests are confronted by aggressive paramilitary policing, ________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________ Well, I guess there goes Habeas Corpus in Europe too.

Sure we can stop it. Here a lot of shops still don't have EFTPOS machines and can't afford to deal in credit cards, so I still use mostly cash. In my job we get paid by direct credit, in my case the money goes into our joint account, but I can always withdraw it and just use cash - it wouldn't really cost me anything to do that. I know quite a few people round here who get paid in cash, and there are no shops as yet here that have done away with checkout people or cash registers. There was going to be a supermarket in Wellington that was to go almost exclusively "unmanned" but "due to demand" they assurred everyone that they would still have checkouts for people who couldn't or didn't want to, use this system. I don't know how it turned out but I suspect that it didn't even get off the ground. Sure, in "the main centres" of the world, but when you look at it relatively few people live in "main centres".

Massorite, re. your tattooed SS number: A tattoo of your SSN must be voluntary. Even the most "compliant" (or obsequious, or maybe just plain gullible) person would realise how dangerous that is. Anyway, surely masses of people would outright refuse to have this. Blackmail or no blackmail, "benefits" or no benefits, sometimes we have to be prepared to pay a price for our principles.

Friday, April 25 CT by Bob Sullivan Rhonda Payne went to an AT&T Wireless store in Calhoun, Ga., recently to pay her phone bill in cash. She'd been hit by ID theft and was forced to close her checking account, so she was worried she wouldn

PATNA, India (Reuters) - Hundreds of villagers have flocked to a remote Indian village to see a baby girl who was saved by stray dogs after she was abandoned in a mound of mud by her mother, officials said on Tuesday. Villagers in the eastern state of Bihar saved the newborn on the weekend after they saw three dogs barking near a baby covered with mud. "The dogs removed the soil around and began to bark and the baby started crying which drew attention of the local villagers," Ram Narayan Sahani, a senior government official, said on Tuesday from Bihar's Samastipur district. "The girl is crying but is safe in the lap of a childless couple who have adopted her." Police said they were looking for the girl's mother, who they think had left the girl to die. Female foeticide, though illegal in India, is widespread as boys are traditionally preferred to girls as breadwinners, and families have to pay huge dowries to marry off their daughters. The United Nations says an estimated 2,000 unborn girls are illegally aborted every day in India. (Writing by Bappa Majumdar; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Roger That. It's a Man on a Lawn Mower http://ap.google.com

Man mowing his lawn discovers 7-10 foot hole CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP)

Tag may return to Va. school playground MCLEAN, Va., April 24 (UPI) -- A McLean, Va., elementary school principal who banned children from playing tag said the game may soon return to the school playground. Kent Gardens Elementary School Principal Robyn Hooker, who three weeks ago barred children from playing tag after she said the game was becoming too aggressive, said students have received a week of "reorientation lessons on playground safety" in gym classes as well as lessons on safe recess behavior in their classrooms, The Washington Post reported Thursday. She said in an e-mail to parents that due to the completion of the program, "full recess schedule of activities should be able to resume by Friday ... in honor of the national Playground Safety Week." Hooker said she declared a moratorium on the popular chasing game after students were observed being knocked down and piled upon while playing. She said some students complained of being forced into the game against their will. Parents applauded the game's imminent return. Chris Delta, mother of two Kent Gardens students, said she was pleased that the school is taking a "more reasonable approach to dealing with aggressive behavior on the playground."

Police: Woman lived with dead sister DETROIT, April 24 (UPI) -- Detroit police said they believe an elderly woman has been living with the corpse of her dead sister on her kitchen floor -- possibly for the last three years. Investigators said the corpse was partially mummified and portions of the body appeared to have been eaten by a dog and cat living at the residence, the Detroit Free Press reported Thursday. Police said the woman -- who appeared to be suffering from mental problems -- was taken to a crisis center for treatment. They said they made a visit to the home after a neighbor phoned police to report she had not seen the deceased woman for a long time.

Firefighters rescue cat trapped in pipe AUSTIN, Texas, April 24 (UPI) -- Firefighters in Austin, Texas, rescued a cat Thursday that had been stuck inside an 18-inch drainage pipe for two days. The cat, Angel, appeared to be none the worse for its ordeal, the Austin American-Statesman reported. Owner Ellen Gold took it to the vet for a check-up after its release. The cat was 70 or 80 feet down the pipe. One firefighter, Jose Jaramillo, used a skateboard to get into the pipe and retrieve 6-month-old Angel and was then pulled out by other firefighters. The operation took most of the day. Gold offered to donate the skateboard to the Fire Department in case it is needed for another cat rescue.

Beaver rampages through Russian store CHELYABINSK, Russia, April 26 (UPI) -- A large beaver smashed into a grocery store in Russia, breaking several bottles of vodka inside the shop. The store was in Chelyabinsk in the southern Ural Mountains, an area that has been experiencing bad forest fires recently, the Novosti news agency said. "The saleswoman saw a large animal near a storeroom and called the local emergencies service," a spokesman for the local government said. "The animal was apparently frightened by nearby forest fires, and decided to get assistance from people." Animal control officers were able to capture the beaver and remove it from the store, releasing it in an area of forest away from the fires. Thousands of acres of forest have burned this year in Siberia and the Urals in what officials say is the worst forest-fire season in 30 years.

Sat Apr 26, 1:44 PM ET PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. - Police say a 7-year-old Florida boy faces grand theft auto charges after taking his grandmother's sport utility vehicle for a joyride. The eight minute trek left a swath of damage in his Palm Beach Gardens neighborhood Friday. The boy smashed mailboxes, hit parked cars and signposts. He was unhurt. Police say he literally drove until a wheel fell off. The right front wheel, to be exact, which broke off after the boy hit a sign. Police spokeswoman Ellen Lovejoy says the boy is unlikely to be prosecuted. They arrested him so he can get some help, noting the excursion was "unusual behavior for a 7-year-old."

The article you're thinking of is here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/ap...ustry.transport And the relevant part is: Phil Booth of the No2Id Campaign said: "Someone is extremely optimistic. The technology is just not there. The last time I spoke to anyone in the facial recognition field they said the best systems were only operating at about a 40% success rate in a real time situation. I am flabbergasted they consider doing this at a time when there are so many measures making it difficult for passengers." Gus Hosein, a specialist at the London School of Economics in the interplay between technology and society, said: "It's a laughable technology. US police at the SuperBowl had to turn it off within three days because it was throwing up so many false positives. The computer couldn't even recognise gender. It's not that it could wrongly match someone as a terrorist, but that it won't match them with their image. A human can make assumptions, a computer can't." And as for "legal", I cannot find where any legislation has been passed making the use of face recognition technology legal, and bearing in mind that as little time ago as 2000 its use was described as "highly illegal" everywhere I looked, government workers may see themselves as unaccountable, but they only get away with things like this if the people let them. They are relying on the fact that they will never be challenged. That people will just assume that its legality must have been legislated for at some time, and never bother to find out the facts.

If only all government employees would use this common sense! ______________________________________________________ http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/...0,4246150.story Judge tosses thousands of citations, fumes at toll 'injustice' Rene Stutzman Sentinel Staff Writer April 23, 2008 SANFORD An irate judge wiped the books Tuesday of several thousand citations handed out to drivers accused of skipping tolls because their dashboard transponders malfunctioned. Circuit Judge John Galluzzo accused the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority and Florida Turnpike Authority of making traffic offenders out of innocent E-Pass and SunPass customers whose tolls fail to record as they pass through the electronic plazas. He took the unprecedented step of barring both agencies from issuing toll citations in Seminole and Brevard counties to drivers who have prepaid or credit-card accounts. "In this technology age, it is hard to believe it would take more than a few computer keystrokes to rectify the problem of matching alleged violators to account holder's vehicles," Galluzzo wrote. In a blistering opinion, he said the agencies had subjected customers to a needless "bureaucratic morass," one that left an Osceola County firefighter, through no fault of his own, with a suspended drivers license. Christopher M. Baird, 34, who lives in Seminole County near Winter Park, had an E-Pass transponder from the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority and cash in his account to pay tolls. But when the battery of the transponder in his wife's SUV failed last year, he was slapped with 16 citations -- failure to pay tolls -- in Seminole by the Florida Department of Transportation. Because the family moved, notice of the citations went to the wrong address, and the state suspended Baird's drivers license. He learned about that only in late December, when he tried to renew his vehicle tags and couldn't. Although he considered it unfair, Baird paid about $3,000 in fines in January and then went to court in Sanford, trying to straighten out his driving record. His employer threatened to fire him at one point because he lost his license. Galluzzo's decision Tuesday threw out all 16 of Baird's citations in Seminole, ordered the government to refund his money and cleared the firefighter's driving record in Seminole. "It would be a manifest injustice to the Appellant [baird] to subject him to the penalties that have been imposed," the judge wrote. "I was very, very happy," Baird said Tuesday. "It's just not only for me. . . . It's an epidemic that's happening. It's going to help hundreds of people that are in the same boat." Baird had an E-Pass from the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority, which operates toll roads only in Orange County. But the device also is recognized by the Florida Turnpike Authority, which operates the toll plazas on State Road 417 in Seminole where Baird was cited for violations. The turnpike authority, part of Florida's DOT, was the agency that issued the citations Galluzzo threw out Tuesday. SunPass was mentioned in the ruling because that is the transponder device issued by the agency. Christa Deason, a spokeswoman for the turnpike authority, said her agency would study Galluzzo's decision. She said once the problem came to light, her agency tried to help clear Baird's record. It was not clear late Tuesday how many drivers would be affected, but Galluzzo ordered the clerks of court in Seminole and Brevard to stop accepting traffic citations from those two toll-road agencies unless they include affidavits swearing the offender has no money in an existing account. Seminole Clerk of Courts Maryanne Morse estimated Tuesday that the ruling would affect 7,000 to 8,000 tickets pending in her county. She said she would mail back every unpaid citation her office had received from those toll-road agencies, although some may involve people not covered by Galluzzo's ruling -- drivers without transponders. Morse said she hoped her employees will have a computer program in place in the next day or two to sort out the situation. According to numbers provided by Deason, the turnpike authority records about 24,000 transponder errors statewide every month -- an error rate of 0.04 percent. Lindsay Hodges, a spokeswoman for the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority, said her agency's transponder failure rate is 0.03 percent. That totals about 180 errors a month. In cases such as Baird's, Galluzzo wrote -- when a customer's money is already in the agency's possession -- failing to pay a toll is no crime. It's a contractual dispute, and toll-road agencies should not have the authority to issue a ticket, he wrote. Hodges, with the Orlando-Orange County toll agency, said that because her agency did not operate toll booths in Seminole or Brevard counties, the ruling would not affect it. Sarah Lundy and Dan Tracy of the Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

I am just wondering when this suddenly became legal? Let alone acceptable? ______________________________________________________________________ http://www.fox16.com/news/state/story.aspx...c24&rss=316 LITTLE ROCK (AP) - The state of Arkansas is using a facial-recognition program on every image recently captured for driver's licenses and identification cards to check for matches, a step they say will ferret out fraud while raising privacy fears among others. The program, funded by a federal grant, already allowed state employees to scan through 2.6 million images, said Michael Munns, an assistant commissioner with the state Department of Finance and Administration. The funding initially went toward halting fraud among commercial driver's licenses, but quickly expanded. "The intent there was to make sure people didn't have multiple licenses and CDLs and regular licenses where they could spread tickets or driving offenses," Munns said. "But it also just helps us just find other fraudulent folks too that are doing it not for those reasons." The program uses a computer algorithm to scan the image of a person's face, creating a string of numbers based on distances between facial features. The program then screens for images matching that number within a small percentage. Workers personally examine each match, then send out letters to identification holders suspected of having cards under more than one name, Munns said. The letter asks for them to come before a driver's license employee to discuss the issue. However, the response hasn't been that great. "Most of them that have been asked have not come," Munns said. "I think some of them might not be in the country any longer, that they were possibly illegal to start with and probably if we sent two letters to two people and they got both of them, they realized there was a problem." Munns said he did not know how many letters had been sent out, but said the program has flagged more than 3,700 images as suspicious so far. He said the state has more than 6 million images stored within its database, maintained by the state Department of Information Systems. Holly Dickson, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas, said she only learned about the program after a telephone call from a reporter. Dickson said two studies of such programs found they often had little luck in identifying suspected lawbreakers. "When an issue comes up with a new government database, we bring up 'mission creep' - that it's created for one thing that it may become another. This is a prime example," Dickson said. "This was implemented for checking commercial driver's licenses and it's become scanning all the people who have an Arkansas license or ID card." Dickson said the concern comes from the system snaring those who haven't committed identity fraud. She said the ACLU would continue to examine the state's program. Munns said the program comes from Viisage, a Billerica, Mass.-based company that holds the state contract to supply equipment used to create state driver's licenses and identification cards. Doni Fordyce, a spokeswoman for L-1 Identity Solutions, which owns Viisage, said the company offers the facial-recognition program to more than 10 other states. Munns said only a few legislators knew about the program before he mentioned it during a joint meeting Tuesday of the advanced communications and information technology committee. Munns downplayed any privacy concerns. "We're basically having no-shows ... which to us is an indication which there was a good and real problem there, or they would come in wanting to know what the issue was and trying to get it resolved," he said. "We're looking real close at those photos. And they've got to really look like the same person for us to call them in." Making driver's license images able to be analyzed by facial-recognition programs fulfills a requirement of the federal Real ID Act. The law sets nationwide standards for driver's licenses across the country, standards Arkansas cannot currently meet, Munns said. The state's database for driver's license data, built more than 20 years ago, may need to be replaced to meet the requirements, something Munns said could cost $15 million on its own. The state may need to purchase expensive printers and special stock for identification cards as well, meaning driver's licenses may need to be printed at a central office and later mailed. "That would be a big change to our public," Munns said. "We're an over-the-counter state now. You come, you get instant gratification and you walk out with your license." Munns said the state Legislature, as well as Gov. Mike Beebe, soon needs to decide whether to follow the Real ID provisions. The state has until January 2010 to meet at least some of the requirements. Otherwise, state IDs couldn't be used to board airplanes or enter federal buildings.

Burgeoning bureaucracy reached its logical conclusion, and seeking to "justify its existance" to a pernicious extent? Well, at least they didn't get police to go round and knock on her door at 3am. ******************************************************************************** *************** http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...in_page_id=1770 I dropped a morsel of my girl's sausage roll and the litter police fined me

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/ap...ustry.transport Airline passengers are to be screened with facial recognition technology rather than checks by passport officers, in an attempt to improve security and ease congestion, the Guardian can reveal. From summer, unmanned clearance gates will be phased in to scan passengers' faces and match the image to the record on the computer chip in their biometric passports. Border security officials believe the machines can do a better job than humans of screening passports and preventing identity fraud. The pilot project will be open to UK and EU citizens holding new biometric passports. But there is concern that passengers will react badly to being rejected by an automated gate. To ensure no one on a police watch list is incorrectly let through, the technology will err on the side of caution and is likely to generate a small number of "false negatives" - innocent passengers rejected because the machines cannot match their appearance to the records. They may be redirected into conventional passport queues, or officers may be authorised to override automatic gates following additional checks. Ministers are eager to set up trials in time for the summer holiday rush, but have yet to decide how many airports will take part. If successful, the technology will be extended to all UK airports. The automated clearance gates introduce the new technology to the UK mass market for the first time and may transform the public's experience of airports. Existing biometric, fast-track travel schemes - iris and miSense - operate at several UK airports, but are aimed at business travellers who enroll in advance. The rejection rate in trials of iris recognition, by means of the unique images of each traveller's eye, is 3% to 5%, although some were passengers who were not enrolled but jumped into the queue. The trials emerged at a conference in London this week of the international biometrics industry, top civil servants in border control, and police technology experts. Gary Murphy, head of operational design and development for the UK Border Agency, told one session: "We think a machine can do a better job [than manned passport inspections]. What will the public reaction be? Will they use it? We need to test and see how people react and how they deal with rejection. We hope to get the trial up and running by the summer. Some conference participants feared passengers would only be fast-tracked to the next bottleneck in overcrowded airports. Automated gates are intended to help the government's progress to establishing a comprehensive advance passenger information (API) security system that will eventually enable flight details and identities of all passengers to be checked against a security watch list. Phil Booth of the No2Id Campaign said: "Someone is extremely optimistic. The technology is just not there. The last time I spoke to anyone in the facial recognition field they said the best systems were only operating at about a 40% success rate in a real time situation. I am flabbergasted they consider doing this at a time when there are so many measures making it difficult for passengers." Gus Hosein, a specialist at the London School of Economics in the interplay between technology and society, said: "It's a laughable technology. US police at the SuperBowl had to turn it off within three days because it was throwing up so many false positives. The computer couldn't even recognise gender. It's not that it could wrongly match someone as a terrorist, but that it won't match them with their image. A human can make assumptions, a computer can't." Project Semaphore, the first stage in the government's e-borders programme, monitors 30m passenger movements a year through the UK. By December 2009, API will track 60% of all passengers and crew movements. The Home Office aim is that by December 2010 the system will be monitoring 95%. Total coverage is not expected to be achieved until 2014 after similar checks have been introduced for travel on "small yachts and private flights". So far around 8m to 10m UK biometric passports, containing a computer chip holding the carrier's facial details, have been issued since they were introduced in 2006. The last non-biometric passports will cease to be valid after 2016. Home Office minister Liam Byrne said: "Britain's border security is now among the toughest in the world and tougher checks do take time, but we don't want long waits. So the UK Border Agency will soon be testing new automatic gates for British and European Economic Area [EEA] citizens. We will test them this year and if they work put them at all key ports [and airports]." The EEA includes all EU states as well as Norway, Switzerland and Iceland. Note: the face recognition technology experiment at the superbowl in 2000 was illegal, I don't know why they don't just say that.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...in_page_id=1770 Charity worker dragged from bed at 3am and locked up for 11 hours after police bungle over plasma TV stolen from Tesco By ANDY LEVY A charity worker was hauled from his house by police at 3am and thrown in a cell for 11 hours after Tesco staff wrongly identified him as a shoplifter. Simon Brasch, 42, had been visiting his local store when another shopper managed to walk out with a 37in plasma television. His vehicle registration was handed to police by mistake and he was arrested in front of his terrified family despite protesting his innocence. Officers searched his home, including his two young sons' bedrooms, before he was marched away. It was not until the following afternoon that it was realised there had been a case of mistaken identity and he was released. "It was like a terrible, surreal dream," said Mr Brasch, a database manager for the national charity Help the Hospices. "It was my birthday and I should have been spending the day with my sons. Instead, I was left traumatised and feeling like a criminal. "My elder son saw me being taken away by police and it had a shocking effect on him. He still asks if I am going to have to go away again." The nightmare began on April 16 when Mr Brasch visited the Tesco near his home in Chelmsford, Essex. He heard the registration number of his Ford Mondeo being called out over the Tannoy system and went to the customer services desk. He was told his vehicle had been involved in a minor scrape in the car park and went outside to swap details with the other driver. Scroll down for more... At the same time, security staff had been alerted about a man who had stolen a TV. In the early hours, police began banging on a sleeping Mr Brasch's front door and he hurriedly pulled on some tracksuit bottoms while his wife, Joanna, 44, comforted their sons Callum, nine, and Jake, six. "I was told I had stolen a TV from Tesco and I was arrested," he said. "When I told them I didn't have the television they just laughed. "I realised security staff at the store had made a mistake but even though I explained what had happened I was led out to a police car." Mr Brasch was booked into Chelmsford police station where he refused to allow his fingerprints, DNA or photograph to be taken. He was ordered to hand over his shoelaces in case he used them to harm himself, then left for the rest of the night in a cell. "I kept saying I was innocent but the police just laughed at me and said, "Everyone says that". Scroll down for more... Mr Brasch, who was freed at 1.45pm, said Essex police had since told him a security guard mixed up his details with those of the suspected shoplifter. He is considering legal action against Tesco for his wrongful arrest. Essex police said they had apologised to Mr Brasch and "sympathised with what must have been a truly upsetting experience". He was arrested at the "earliest opportunity" - 3am. A spokesman said: "Officers had previously been tasked with effecting the arrest but were called away for another job." The alleged shoplifter has not yet been found. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Go to this link and hear Montana's governor talk about real id: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p...toryId=87991791

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4494033a12.html US police have praised a blind man who used wrestling skills learned 30 years ago to overpower an intruder and hold the man at knife-point until help arrived. "I've wrestled all my life. My dad's a Marine. He taught me some stuff. You're thinking in your head all this survival stuff," Allan Kieta told TheStarPress.com. Indianapolis police called it one of the most incredible tales of citizen self-defence they had encountered. "It's pretty remarkable for anyone that's blind to be able to defend themselves, let alone make an apprehension," Lieutenant Jeff Duhamell said. "To be able to grab this guy and hold him down until police got there is pretty remarkable." Kieta, 49, was sleeping in on his day off yesterday when his dog woke him around 9am, letting him know something was wrong. "We have a little poodle-like dog. It was barking and barking," he said. Kieta lost sight in his left eye at age two when he was hit with a stick. Then, 20 years ago, a gunman firing at cars from an overpass in Kentucky took out his other eye. He was a Kentucky high school wrestling champ in 1976 and used his skills and other self-defence tactics learned from his father to subdue the intruder. "I had him pinned in the laundry room and just kept pummelling," Kieta said, describing the pounding he gave 25-year-old Alvaro Castro. Kieta punched, kicked and grappled until Castro became disoriented. Kieta said he grabbed him by the belt and dragged him into the kitchen. I was asking, 'Why my house?'," Kieta recalled. "He said he was looking for his cat. I go, 'Your cat? You're in my house!"' He then found a kitchen knife and held it at Castro's throat. Kieta fumbled to dial 911 with his other hand. "He was begging, like, 'Don't kill me. I'll dial it for you'," Kieta said. "I was, like, 'You are not touching the phone'. "Being visually impaired, I couldn't get the buttons because I was using my left hand. It took me about 20 tries." Police quickly arrived at Kieta's house to arrest Castro, who was hospitalised following the incident and faces a string of charges. Police say Castro denied trying to rob the home. He said he was the ex-boyfriend of Kieta's 18-year-old daughter and was trying to visit her when he ran into her father. Kieta said he suffered swollen hands and a sore back, but no serious injuries. "When my wife was cleaning the blood off, she said, 'I think it's all his'," Kieta said.

Well so much for "a secure id system". Oh, I know, how about we go back to the system that has been tried and true for ages ......................... the system of common sense!? ***************************************************************** http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/...icle1066028.ece ID scam is a gift to UK terrorists By OLIVER HARVEY Chief Feature Writer Published: 21 Apr 2008 THE Sun bought a fake identity for just

This article is not about America at all, loving it or hating it, or what ever. It is about how silly and obsequious the UK government has become over the last few years and the damage that is being caused world-wide because of this ridiculous "terrorist round every corner" obsession that people seem to have developed. It shows that the UK government is very willing to give away the right to privacy (amongst just about every other right) of its citizens for ...... well I'm still not sure what the real reason is! If this is a sign of "end times", "with the world's population running round like chickens with their heads cut off" for reasons of "national security", then things like this sure fit the bill.

http://www.landlinemag.com/todays_news/Dai...8/042108-03.htm TWIC enrollment rolls on; card holders approach 250,000 The Transportation Security Administration has opened nearly two-thirds of its planned permanent enrollment centers for the Transportation Worker Identification Credential program. More than 1.5 million port employees, longshoremen, mariners, truckers and others who require unescorted access to secure areas of ports to have background checks before being issued cards with their biometric data and residency documentation. Enrollment will open on Wednesday, April 23, at the Port of Chattanooga in Tennessee, the Port of LaPorte, TX, and in Portsmouth, NH, which is the 95th enrollment center of 147 fixed enrollment centers TSA plans to open. While the agency has opened nearly 100 enrollment centers, the number of workers actually enrolling has lagged behind TSA