The violence began after two immigrants were wounded by local youths

Riots involving hundreds of immigrants have broken out in southern Italy, in protest against an attack on African farm workers by a gang of local youths, police said.

Dozens of immigrants, mostly from African nations, smashed car windows and set cars and rubbish bins of fire in the town of Rosarno in the Calabria region on Thursday night.

The rioters, shouting “we are not animals” and holding signs accusing Italians of racism, clashed with riot police, leading to seven arrests.

The Italian interior ministry said 14 people, including officers, protesters and residents, were injured in the riots.

The violence started after two immigrants were wounded when a number of white youths fired air rifles at them as they returned home from work.

‘Strongly provoked’

Immigrants work in the area as day labourers picking fruit and vegetables, with some 1,500 living in squalid conditions in abandoned factories with no running water or electricity

Human rights activists say they are exploited by organised crime groups.

Agazio Loiero, governor of the Calabria region, told Sky TV that the violence was “unacceptable” but the migrants have been “strongly provoked”.

Calabria is also the base of the international crime syndicate called ‘ndrangheta.

The combination of ethnic strife and organised crime activity has sparked violence before among immigrant communities in southern Italy.

In 2008, migrants rioted in the Naples area after six Ghanians were murdered in a gangland-style shooting blamed on the local Camorra crime syndicate.

London witnesses anti-Egypt protest

At least 200 protestors gathered Friday outside the Egyptian Embassy in London after news spread that Gaza peace activists had been beaten by Egyptian police in Cairo.

The protest was organized by the British Muslim Initiative in association with the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign.

The demonstrators called on the Egyptian president to allow the international aid convoy “Viva Palestina” to enter Gaza through the Egyptian border.

More than 200 vehicles packed with food and medicines left London on December 6 for Gaza. But they are now stranded at the Syrian port of Lattakia as the Egyptian authorities do not issue permits for the convoy to enter Gaza through the port city of El-Arish in Egypt.

The demonstrators in London chanted slogans such as “Mubarak Siege Must End”, “Mubarak Wall Must Fall”, “Free Free Palestine,” and “Mubarak Zionist.”

They also urged the ban on the entry of “Viva Palestina” convoy to be lifted.

The Egyptian government is building a steel wall along its border with Gaza to prevent the traffic of any goods to the blockaded strip. It is also avoiding opening of the Rafah crossing for international aid convoys to pass through Gaza.

Peace activists and human rights campaigners have called on Cairo to lift the ban and allow the flow of international aid into Gaza to avoid a humanitarian crisis.

15 year-old Andreas Grigoropoulos was killed in December 2008 by Greek police in Exarhia

Clashes between police and several hundred youths have taken place in Athens, the Greek capital, as demonstrators staged a second day of protests to mark a teenager’s fatal shooting by police a year ago.

Police fired tear gas and arrested nine people after a group of youths hurled stones at a security cordon deployed to prevent further trouble after demonstrations around the country turned violent at the weekend.

Last year’s fatal shooting of Alexis Grigoropoulos, 15, led to Greece’s worst unrest in decades.

Several high schools and universities in the country were under occupation by students on Monday as part of the protest.

Running battles

On Sunday, riot police, hoping to avoid the lengthy riots of last year, fired tear gas at thousands of demonstrators as they marched through Athens and other Greek cities.

About 277 people were detained in the capital and 26 arrested, while 26 police officers, 4 people, and the dean of Athens university were injured.

Greece’s government had deployed more than 6,000 police officers onto the streets of the capital to avert a repeat of last year’s riots which caused millions of dollars of damage.

Sporadic scuffles between stone-throwing protesters and riot police broke out around Athens, with police in full riot gear firing tear gas to disperse small groups of hooded youths.

On Saturday, Greek police had arrested more than 150 people in Athens in an attempt to head off trouble.

Zero tolerance

Greece’s government has said it will not tolerate a repeat of last year’s violence. Karolos Papoulias, the president of Greece, had pleaded for calm ahead of the planned protests.

“The murder of Alexis Grigoropoulos was not only a heinous act, it was a lesson for us all … an obligation to try and ensure a fairer society for our younger generation,” he said.

Theodoros Pangalos, the Greek deputy prime minister, said: “We will not tolerate lawlessness and attacks on innocent citizens.”

Grigoropoulos was shot dead by a police officer who claimed he fired into the air whilst under attack by youths.

Two police officers have been charged with murder and attempted murder for the teenager’s death and are scheduled to stand trial on January 20.

Fears of violence have been heightened by reports that groups of anarchists from other European countries are planning to join the protests in Athens.

Reported By: Al Jazeera

We turned it on the web interface for law enforcement about one year ago last month, and we just passed 8 million requests.

This October, Chris Soghoian — computer security researcher, oft-times journalist, and current technical consultant for the FTC’s privacy protection office — attended a closed-door conference called “ISS World”. ISS World — the “ISS” is for “Intelligence Support Systems for Lawful Interception, Criminal Investigations and Intelligence Gathering” — is where law enforcement and intelligence agencies consult with telco representatives and surveillance equipment manufacturers about the state of electronic surveillance technology and practice. Armed with a tape recorder, Soghoian went to the conference looking for information about the scope of the government’s surveillance practices in the US. What Soghoian uncovered, as he reported on his blog this morning, is more shocking and frightening than anyone could have ever expected

At the ISS conference, Soghoian taped astonishing comments by Paul Taylor, Sprint/Nextel’s Manager of Electronic Surveillance. In complaining about the volume of requests that Sprint receives from law enforcement, Taylor noted a shocking number of requests that Sprint had received in the past year for precise GPS (Global Positioning System) location data revealing the location and movements of Sprint’s customers. That number?

EIGHT MILLION.

Sprint received over 8 million requests for its customers’ information in the past 13 months. That doesn’t count requests for basic identification and billing information, or wiretapping requests, or requests to monitor who is calling who, or even requests for less-precise location data based on which cell phone towers a cell phone was in contact with. That’s just GPS. And, that’s not including legal requests from civil litigants, or from foreign intelligence investigators. That’s just law enforcement. And, that’s not counting the few other major cell phone carriers like AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. That’s just Sprint.

Here’s what Taylor had to say; the audio clip is here and we are also mirroring a zip file from Soghoian containing other related mp3 recordings and documents.

[M]y major concern is the volume of requests. We have a lot of things that are automated but that’s just scratching the surface. One of the things, like with our GPS tool. We turned it on the web interface for law enforcement about one year ago last month, and we just passed 8 million requests. So there is no way on earth my team could have handled 8 million requests from law enforcement, just for GPS alone. So the tool has just really caught on fire with law enforcement. They also love that it is extremely inexpensive to operate and easy, so, just the sheer volume of requests they anticipate us automating other features, and I just don’t know how we’ll handle the millions and millions of requests that are going to come in.

Eight million would have been a shocking number even if it had included every single legal request to every single carrier for every single type of customer information; that Sprint alone received eight million requests just from law enforcement only for GPS data is absolutely mind-boggling. We have long warned that cell phone tracking poses a threat to locational privacy, and EFF has been fighting in the courts for years to ensure that the government only tracks a cell phone’s location when it has a search warrant based on probable case. EFF has also complained before that a dangerous level of secrecy surrounds law enforcement’s communications surveillance practices like a dense fog, and that without stronger laws requiring detailed reporting about how the government is using its surveillance powers, the lack of accountability when it comes to the government’s access to information through third-party phone and Internet service providers will necessarily breed abuse. But we never expected such huge numbers to be lurking in that fog.

Now that the fact is out that law enforcement is rooting through such vast amounts of location data, it raises profoundly important questions that law enforcement and the telcos must answer:

• How many innocent Americans have had their cell phone data handed over to law enforcement?
• How can the government justify obtaining so much information on so many people, and how can the telcos justify handing it over?
• How did the number get so large? Is the government doing massive dragnet sweeps to identify every single cell phone that was in a particular area at a particular time? Is the government getting location information for entire “communities of interest” by asking not only for their target’s location, but also for the location of every person who talked to the target, and every person who talked to them?
• Does the number only include requests to track phones in real-time, or does it include requests for historical GPS data, and if so, why did the telcos have that incredibly sensitive data sitting around in the first place? Exactly when and how are they logging their users’ GPS data, and how long are they keeping that data?
• What legal process was used to obtain this information? Search warrants? Other court orders? Mere subpoenas issued by prosecutors without any court involvement? How many times was this information handed over without any legal process at all, based on government claims of an urgent emergency situation?
• Looking beyond Sprint and GPS, how many Americans have had their private communications data handed over to law enforcement by their phone and Internet service providers?
• What exactly has the government done with all of that information? Is it all sitting in an FBI database somewhere?
• Do you really think that this Orwellian level of surveillance is consistent with a free society and American values? Really?

These questions urgently need to be asked — by journalists, and civil liberties groups like EFF, and by every cell phone user and citizen concerned about privacy. Most importantly, though, they must be asked by Congress, which has failed in its duty to provide oversight and accountability when it comes to law enforcement surveillance. Congress should hold hearings as soon as possible to demand answers from the government and the telcos under oath, and clear the fog so that the American people will finally have an accurate picture of just how far the government has reached into the private particulars of their digital lives.

Even without hearings, though, the need for Congress to update the law is clear. At the very least, Congress absolutely must stem the government’s abuse of its power by:

• Requiring detailed reporting about law enforcement’s access to communications data using the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), just as it already requires for law enforcement wiretapping under the Wiretap Act, and make sure that the government actually fulfills its obligations rather than ignore the law for years on end.
• Requiring that the government “minimize” the communications data it collects under ECPA rather than keep it all forever, just like it is supposed to do with wiretaps.
• Prohibiting the government from using in a criminal trial any electronic communications content or data that it obtains in violation of ECPA, just as the government is prohibited by the Wiretap Act from using illegally acquired telephone intercepts.
• Clarifying that ECPA can only be used to get specific data about particular individuals and cannot be used for broad sweeps, whether to identify everyone in a particular geographic area or to identify every person that visits a particular web site.

It’s time for Congress to pull the curtain back on the vast, shadowy world of law enforcement surveillance and shine a light on these abuses. In the meantime, we give our thanks to those like Chris Soghoian who are doing important work to uncover the truth about government spying in America.

UPDATE: Sprint has responded to Soghoian’s report:

The comments made by a Sprint corporate security officer during a recent conference have been taken out of context by this blogger. Specifically, the “8 million” figure, which the blogger highlights in his email and blog post, has been grossly misrepresented. The figure does not represent the number of customers whose location information was provided to law enforcement, as this blogger suggests.

Instead, the figure represents the number of individual “pings” for specific location information, made to the Sprint network as part of a series of law enforcement investigations and public safety assistance requests during the past year. It’s critical to note that a single case or investigation may generate thousands of individual pings to the network as the law enforcement or public safety agency attempts to track or locate an individual.

Instances where law enforcement agencies seek customer location information include exigent or emergency circumstances such as Amber Alert events, criminal investigations, or cases where a Sprint customer consents to sharing location information.

Sprint takes our customers’ privacy extremely seriously and all law enforcement and public safety requests for customer location information are processed in accordance with applicable state and federal laws.

This response provides some important answers, while raising even more questions. First off, Sprint has confirmed that it received 8 million requests, while denying a charge that no one has made: that 8 million individual customers’ data was handed over. Sprint’s denial also begs the question: how many individual customers have been affected?

As for Sprint’s claim that in some instances a single case or investigation may generate thousands of location “pings”, that is certainly possible, but that doesn’t make the 8 million number any less of a concern, or moot any of the important questions raised by Soghoian in his report or by EFF in its post regarding the lack of effective oversight and transparency in this area.

Even assuming that Sprint’s statement about “pings” is true, 8 million — or, in other words, 8,000 thousands — is still an astronomical number and more than enough to raise serious concerns that Congress should investigate and address. Moreover, the statement raises additional questions: exactly what legal process is being used to authorize the multiple-ping surveillance over time that Sprint is cooperating in? Is Sprint demanding search warrants in those cases? How secure is this automated interface that law enforcement is using to “ping” for GPS data? How does Sprint insure that only law enforcement has access to that data, and only when they have appropriate legal process? How many times has Sprint disclosed information in “exigent or emergency circumstances” without any legal process at all? And most worrisome and intriguing: what customers does Sprint think have “consent[ed] to the sharing [of] location data” with the government? Does Sprint think it is free to hand over the information of anyone who has turned on their GPS functionality and shared information with Sprint for location-based services? Or even the data of anyone who has agreed to their terms of service? What exactly are they talking about?

These questions are only the beginning, and Sprint’s statement doesn’t come close to answering all of them. Of course, we appreciate that Sprint has begun a public dialogue about this issue. But this should be only the beginning of that discussion, not the end. Ultimately, the need for Congress to investigate the true scope of law enforcement’s communications surveillance practices remains. Congress can and should dig deeper to get the hard facts for the American people, rather than forcing us to rely solely on Sprint’s public relations office for information on these critical privacy issues.

Reported By: EFF

Pakistan's president and thousands of other officials in the country could find themselves facing corruption charges

Pakistan’s president and thousands of other officials in the country could find themselves facing corruption charges as an amnesty deal exempting them from prosecution nears its deadline.

The amnesty deal was announced two years ago by Pervez Musharraf, then the country’s president, but the so-called National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) has been called into question by the supreme court, which has branded it unconstitutional.

Parliament has until Saturday to decide if the deal stands or if the corruption charges should be pursued.

The deal grants more than 8,000 government bureaucrats and politicians, including Asif Ali Zardari, the president, and many others from the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), immunity from a host of corruption and criminal charges.

Fears mounted on Wednesday over whether the deal would collapse, a development that could force Zardari from office and throw the country into political turmoil.

Media blamed

Many dismiss fears of a crisis, saying the situation has been fuelled by sensationalist politicians, army members unhappy with civilian rule and the media.

“If you look at the Pakistani media these days, if you tune into the big networks, the big word is NRO,” Kamal Hyder, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Islamabad, said.

“The demand is that if high officials can be exonerated, then it is paving the way for injustice, and other criminals should be allowed to go scot free from the jails.”There is a moral debate going on that if these people have such serious charges, then they should have the character and the moral strength to resign, clear their names and then possibly come back into office.”

A recent Gallup survey claimed that more than half of Pakistanis – 57 per cent of those polled – blame the media for stirring up political instability.

The uproar comes as Pakistan’s army battled Taliban fighters in its tribal regions and the potential crisis is a cause for concern in the US, which wants Pakistan to remain focused on its anti-Taliban campaign.

“Pakistan can hardly afford another political crisis at a time when the challenge from Taliban extremists has really increased in recent weeks,” Ishtiaq Ahmad, a professor of international relations at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying.

“What you need is relative political stability and an economy that is really marching ahead.”

‘Politically motivated’

Musharaff’s amnesty list was part of a US-backed deal to allow Zardari’s late wife, Benazir Bhutto, a former Pakistani prime minister, to return from exile in 2007 and run for office safe in the knowledge she would not be dogged by corruption allegations.

The US and other Western powers supported the bid by Bhutto, who was seen as a secular and pro-Western politician.

But Bhutto, who was forced from her post twice in the 1990s because of alleged corruption, was killed by a suicide bomber shortly after she returned to Pakistan.

Zardari took over as co-chairman of her party and was elected president in September 2008 by federal and regional lawmakers.

Over the weekend, the government released the list of some of those who had been protected by the decree, including the interior and defence ministers.

Many on the list have expressed a willingness to fight the charges in court.

“The PPP co-chairman, our ministers and our members have no issues with going forward with these cases,” said Farahnaz Ispahani, a presidential spokeswoman.

“Ninety per cent of them were politically motivated cases.”

Reported By: Al Jazeera

Thought Police Drive Lou Dobbs Off CNN

The foundation liberals have finally done it. They have managed to get Lou Dobbs removed from CNN. On November 11, Dobbs announced his resignation, effective immediately.

Dobbs is a gentleman, so he didn’t mention the gunfire directed at his home — the sort of thing you’d expect in a thugocracy like Mexico, not the United States — and he didn’t mention the concerted effort spearheaded by Presente, the National Council of La Raza, and other pro-illegal immigration groups to get him thrown off the air. Media Matters, MoveOn.org, and the Southern Poverty Law Center have consistently agitated to have Dobbs removed.

Soros and the left-cover side of the global elite have realized a victory. Dobbs kept hammering on the broken border and this irritated the elite who want open and unchecked borders in order to drive down wages and destroy the living standards of middle class Americans. Dobbs was a roadblock in the elite’s plan to turn the planet into a unified slave labor plantation.

Lou Dobbs has few options. He may retire. Or he may go over to Fox News. But that is not much of an option. Fox News is part of the controlled opposition. Rupbert Mordoch is a one-world minion who supported the political campaign of Hillary Clinton. Fox programs push the global warming agenda.

Fox News is the flipside supposedly in opposition to the “liberal bias” of CNN and MSNBC. Fox’s talking heads and newscasters — with the notable exception of Andrew Napolitano — are neocons masquerading as conservatives. Fox News operatives like Glenn Beck are tasked with destroying Libertarian and constituionalist elements in the Republican Party. Fox News is an integral part of the false right-left paradigm that controls opposition and renders it ineffective.

Napolitano operates from the basement of Fox News. On occasion he sits in for master disinfo agent Beck. His show is broadcast over the internet and is not in Fox’s television line-up. Is it possible Fox will do the same to Dobbs? We’ll see.

Here is the statement Dobbs made on his last show on CNN:

Tonight I want to turn to a personal note, if I may, and address a matter that has raised some curiosity. This will be my last broadcast here on CNN, where I’ve worked for most of the past 30 years, and where I have many friends and colleagues whom I admire deeply and respect greatly.

I’m the last of the original anchors here on CNN and I’m proud to have had the privilege to helping to build the world’s first news network. I’m grateful for the many opportunities that CNN has given me over the many years. I’ve tried to reciprocate with a full measure of my ability.

Over the past six months it’s become increasingly clear that strong winds of change have begun buffeting this country and affecting all of us. And some leaders in media, and in politics and business have been urging me to go beyond the role at CNN and to engage in constructive problem solving as well as to contribute positively to the great understanding of the issues of our day and to continue to do so in the most honest and direct language possible.

I’ve talked extensively with Jonathan Klein. John’s the president of CNN, and as a result of those talks, John and I have agreed to a release from my contract that will enable me to pursue new opportunities. At this point, I’m considering a number of options, and directions, and I assure you, I will let you know when I set my course.

I truly believe that the major issues of our time include — the growth of our middle-class, the creation of more jobs, health care, immigration policy, the environment, climate change, and our military involvement, of course, in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But each of those issues is, in my opinion, informed by our capacity to demonstrate strong resilience of our now weakened capitalist economy and demonstrate the political will to overcome the lack of true representation in Washington, D.C.

I believe these to be profoundly, critically important issues, and I will continue to strive to deal honestly and straightforwardly with those issues in the future. Unfortunately, these issues are now defined in the public arena by partisanship and ideology rather than by rigorous, empirical thought and forthright analysis and discussion.

I’ll be working diligently to change that as best I can. And as for the important work of restoring inspiration to our great free society and our market economy, I will strive as well to be a leader in that national conversation.

It’s been my great honor to work with each and every person at this wonderful network. I will be eternally grateful to CNN, to Ted Turner, and to all of my colleagues and friends and, of course, to you at home.

I thank you, and may God bless you.

Reported By: http://www.infowars.com/thought-police-drive-lou-dobbs-off-cnn/

British State to 'spy' on its own citizens.

All telecoms companies and internet service providers will be required by law to keep a record of every customer’s personal communications, showing who they have contacted, when and where, as well as the websites they have visited.

Despite widespread opposition to the increasing amount of surveillance in Britain, 653 public bodies will be given access to the information, including police, local councils, the Financial Services Authority, the ambulance service, fire authorities and even prison governors.

They will not require the permission of a judge or a magistrate to obtain the information, but simply the authorisation of a senior police officer or the equivalent of a deputy head of department at a local authority.

Ministers had originally wanted to store the information on a single government-run database, but chose not to because of privacy concerns.

However the Government announced yesterday it was pressing ahead with privately held “Big Brother” databases that opposition leaders said amounted to “state-spying” and a form of “covert surveillance” on the public.

It is doing so despite its own consultation showing that it has little public support.

The Home Office admitted that only one third of respondents to its six-month consultation on the issue supported its proposals, with 50 per cent fearing that the scheme lacked sufficient safeguards to protect the highly personal data from abuse.

The new law will increase the amount of personal data that can be obtained by officials through the controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), which is supposed to be used for fighting terrorism.

Although most private firms already hold details of every customer’s private calls and emails for their own business purposes, most only do so on an ad hoc basis and only for a period of several months.

The new rules, known as the Intercept Modernisation Programme, will not only force communications companies to keep their records for longer, but to expand the type of data they keep to include details of every website their customers visit, effectively registering every online click.

While public authorities will not be able to view the contents of these emails or phone calls, they can see the internet addresses, dates, times and identify recipients of calls.

Firms involved in storing the data, including Orange, BT and Vodafone, will be reimbursed at a cost to the taxpayer of £2 billion over 10 years.

Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary, said he had fears about the abuse of the data. He said: “The big danger in all of this is ‘mission creep’. This government keeps on introducing new powers to tackle terrorism and organised crime which end up being used for completely different purposes. We have to stop that from happening”.

David Davis, the former shadow home secretary, added: “Whilst this is no doubt necessary in pursuing terrorist suspects, the proposals are so intrusive that they should be subject to legal approval, and should not be available except in pursuit of the most serious crimes.”

The Information Commissioner’s Office also opposed the moves.

“The Information Commissioner believes that the case has yet to be made for the collection and processing of additional communications data for the population as a whole being relevant and not excessive,” a spokesman said.

Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, has criticised the amount the scheme will cost for what he said is effectively “state spying”.

He added yesterday: “It is simply not that easy to separate the bare details of a call from its content. What if a leading business person is ringing Alcoholics Anonymous?”

Ministers said that they still have to work with the communications industry to find the correct way of framing the proposal in law — meaning it will not come before Parliament until after the general election. But the Home Office yesterday insisted it would push the legislation through. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, originally released a consultation paper in April.

Only 29 per cent of respondents supported the Government approach. Meanwhile the communications providers themselves questioned the cost of the scheme and whether it was even technically feasible.

John Yates, Britain’s head of anti-terrorism, has argued that the legislation is vital for his investigators.

David Hanson, the Home Office minister, said: “The consultation showed widespread recognition of the importance of communications data in protecting the public .. we will now work with communications service providers and others to develop these proposals, and aim to introduce necessary legislation as soon as possible.”

Reported By: Telegraph UK

Coun. Bob Monette believes doctors and nurses from the Armed Forces could be deployed in cities to help with H1N1 vaccinations.

An Ottawa city councillor wants to call in the Armed Forces to help conduct swine flu vaccinations.

Coun. Bob Monette said Thursday he has written to federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq asking if doctors, nurses and medics from the Canadian Forces could be deployed in cities across Canada to help with the H1N1 vaccinations.

Monette said the idea came to him after speaking with a constituent who’s a member of the Forces.

“Why not think of all the possibilities?” Monette said.

Reported By: CBC

“This was one more possibility that I found was worthwhile looking into, and let’s see if anything comes from it. If we can get one or two doctors, a nurse, to help out, then it’s worthwhile,” he said.

Ottawa-Orleans MP Royal Galipeau has endorsed Monette’s idea. He said he’s also written to the health minister and to the minister of defence.