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The 2008 messages were a precursor to legislation that year to kill litigation against the nation’s carriers for funneling Americans’ communications to the National Security Agency without warrants.

The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reverses a California judge who ordered disclosure of those e-mails and the names of telco company lobbyists who pushed for the legislation. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil rights group in San Francisco, sought the e-mail and lobbyist information under a Freedom of Information Act claim.

The EFF wanted the data, which could shed light on the behind-the-scenes machinations of how the legislation was passed that nullified its lawsuit. The suit accused the carriers of being complicit in providing Americans’ electronic communications to the NSA.

The San Francisco-based appeals court, hearing the FOIA case at the request of the Obama administration, ruled U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White failed to determine whether the information should be kept secret for national security reasons.

Greeks aren’t very welcome in the Rue Alphones Weicker in Luxembourg. It’s home to Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical office. The number crunchers there are deeply annoyed with Athens. Investigative reports state that important data “cannot be confirmed” or has been requested but “not received.”

Creative accounting took priority when it came to totting up government debt.Since 1999, the Maastricht rules threaten to slap hefty fines on euro member countries that exceed the budget deficit limit of three percent of gross domestic product. Total government debt mustn’t exceed 60 percent.

The Greeks have never managed to stick to the 60 percent debt limit, and they only adhered to the three percent deficit ceiling with the help of blatant balance sheet cosmetics. One time, gigantic military expenditures were left out, and another time billions in hospital debt. After recalculating the figures, the experts at Eurostat consistently came up with the same results: In truth, the deficit each year has been far greater than the three percent limit. In 2009, it exploded to over 12 percent.

Now, though, it looks like the Greek figure jugglers have been even more brazen than was previously thought. “Around 2002 in particular, various investment banks offered complex financial products with which governments could push part of their liabilities into the future,” one insider recalled, adding that Mediterranean countries had snapped up such products.

Surveillance is only the start, however. Military drones quickly moved from reconnaissance to strike, and if the British police follow suit, their drones could be armed — but with non-lethal weapons rather than Hellfire missiles.

The flying robot fleet will range from miniature tactical craft such as the miniature AirRobot being tested by Essex police, to BAE System’s new HERTI drone as flown in Afghanistan. The drones are cheaper than police helicopters — some of which will be retired — and are as wide as 12m in the case of HERTI.

Watching events on the ground without being able to act is frustrating. Targets often got away before an unarmed drone could summon assistance. In fact, in 2000 it was reported that an airborne drone spotted Osama bin Laden but could do nothing but watch him escape. So the RAF has been carrying out missions in Afghanistan with missile-armed Reapers since 2007. From the ground these just look like regular aircraft.

The police have already had a similar experience with CCTV. As well as observing, some of these are now equipped with speakers. Pioneered in Middleborough, the talking CCTV allows an operator to tell off anyone engaging in vandalism, graffiti or littering.

Unmanned aircraft can also be fitted with speakers, such as the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD), which could not only warn fly tippers that they were breaking the law but also be loud enough to drive them away.

The LRAD is a highly directional speaker made of a flat array of piezoelectric transducers, producing intense beam of sound in a 30-degree cone. It can be used as a loudhailer, or deafen the target with a jarring, discordant noise. Some ships now carry LRAD as an anti-pirate measure: It was used to drive off an attack on the Seabourn Spirit off Somalia in 2005.

LRAD makers American Technology prefer to call its product a device rather than a weapon, and use terms such as “deterrent tones” and “influencing behaviour.” Police in the US have already adopted a vehicle-mounted LRAD for crowd control, breaking up protests at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh last year, although there have been warnings about the risk of hearing damage.

The LRAD has been tested on the Austrian S-100 unmanned helicopter, and the technology is ready if there is a police requirement.

But rather than just driving them away, a police drone should be able to stop fleeing criminals in their tracks. Helicopters already mount powerful searchlights, and strobe lighting capabilities can turn such systems into effective nonlethal weapons. High-intensity strobes can cause dizziness, disorientation and loss of balance making it virtually impossible to run away.

This effect was first harnessed in the “Photic Driver” made by British company Allen International in 1973. However, it has taken improvement in lighting technology (such as fast-switching Xenon lights) and an understanding of the physiology involved to make such weapons practical.

A “light based personnel immobilisation device” developed by Peak Beam Systems Inc has been successfully tested by the US military, and work to mount it on an unmanned helicopter in the States is under way.

Mr Semendinger took the pictures as his co-pilot James Ciccone handled the controls.

Mr Semendinger, who still lives in New York state, told the Daily Telegraph: “We were first responders and we were already getting our helicopter ready when the call came that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center. We were 11 miles away and we could see it and already tell it was really bad.

“We jumped in the helicopter and we were the there within six or seven minutes and started scouring the roof to see if anyone had made it up there and could be rescued. I had landed on the roof before when a bomb went off in the basement in 1993.

“When the second plane came in we were flying at 1,300ft, to the north of the north tower. We were less than a quarter of a mile away. When it struck my partner said ‘holy crow!’

“I looked up and I could see the tower going up in a huge fireball. The amount of papers that blew out was unbelievable. That’s when we knew it was a terrorist attack. Before, we thought it was an accident.”

Mr Semendinger, 60, was in the air for three hours, during which time he saw objects falling from the windows.

He said: “I saw things falling but I didn’t realise they were people. I thought it was debris and then it came over the radio that there were people jumping.

“I saw the south tower go down and then, when the north tower went down, I was virtually on top of it. I just felt disbelief.

“Then it was like a volcano with pyroclastic plumes of smoke going down the alleyways below.

“I felt bad for all the people that were involved and we were trying to get somebody to them. It was such a tragedy.

More than 1,200 guardsmen were on duty Wednesday afternoon, but officials expected that number to rise as the snow piled up.

“We’re going to go over 2,000 guardsmen on duty to provide support for the storm,” said Maj. Cory Angell, a spokesman for the National Guard. “We’re staged at armories across the state and standing ready to help support missions.”

About 250 Humvees were being used, with an additional 549 available to support missions. Also, 28 Humvee ambulances were in use.

At the Lebanon Armory on King St. in South Lebanon Township 14 personnel, six Humvees, and one truck were standing by, but they hadn’t received any requests for support as of 4 p.m., Angell said.

The missions have actually been ongoing since the first storm hit overnight Friday and into Saturday, Angell said. So far, guardsmen have conducted more than 200 missions statewide, he said.

“Things like moving people who need to get to medical facilities but ambulances can’t get to them,” he said. “Also, Humvees are co-locating with Pennsylvania State Police to help them move around and help them respond to things.”

Guardsmen are also assisting in blocking on-ramps to interstate highways that have been shut down.

For the National Guard to get involved, municipalities must first contact their county emergency management agency. The local EMAs then contact the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, which in turn contacts the National Guard’s emergency operations center at Fort Indiantown Gap.

“That chain is important because you want to exhaust resources at the lowest level before you go higher,” Angell said.

No air missions were being conducted Wednesday, but, Angell said, there were air mission in the days in between the two storms.

Legatus, a self-described, membership organization for top-ranking Catholic business leaders, invited Bush to the summit to speak and accept the organization’s Cardinal John J. O’Connor Pro-Life Award for his anti-abortion efforts.

Protestors held signs in what amounted to a peaceful protest of Bush’s award. According to Dana Point Police Services Sgt. Lynn Koehmstedt, no citations or arrests were issued.

“Bush did not actually arrive at the hotel until later last night, after the activists had gone,” said Sgt. Koehmstedt.

The list of guest speakers also includesformer House Speaker and recent Catholic convert Newt Gingrich, actress Patricia Heaton,entrepreneur Frank J. Hanna III, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago and Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, among others.

Summit guests will also be attending a Mass, officiated by Cardinal George, at the historic Mission Basilica of San Juan Capistrano said Legatus Conference Director Laura Sacha in a Legatus Magazine article detailing the schedule of events.

There is no word as to whether Bush will be attending the Mass at Mission Basilica. Neither San Juan Capistrano Police Services nor Orange County Sheriffs Department spokesperson Jim Amormino had any information regarding a possible visit by Bush to the Mission. Legatus staff declined to give out any information regarding Mass attendees.

Now Al Jazeera has obtained exclusive footage that appears to show Nigerian security forces ordering a number of people to lie in the road and then shooting them at close range.

Human rights groups allege that many of those killed following the clashes were unarmed civilians.

The footage obtained by Al Jazeera would appear to confirm those accusations.

The main government website, www.australia.gov.au, and parliament’s www.aph.gov.au were both affected along with the sites for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Communications Minister Stephen Conroy.

Web activists had earlier warned the sites would be blocked under what they called “Operation: Titstorm”, and threatened to follow up with “porn email, fax spam, black faxes and prank phone calls to government offices”.

The campaign, by the anti-Scientology group Anonymous, follows Conroy’s announcement in December that Australia would block access to sites featuring material such as rape, drug use, bestiality and child sex abuse.

“The Australian government will learn that one does not mess with our porn,” Anonymous said in an email sent to AFP.

“No one messes with our access to perfectly legal (or illegal) content for any reason,” it said.

A spokeswoman for Conroy defended the new filter measures and denounced the cyber-attacks.

“Denial-of-service attacks on government websites are totally irresponsible and potentially deny services to the Australian public,” the official said.

“The government welcomes public debate on the merits of ISP (Internet service provider) filtering, but denial-of-service attacks are not a legitimate form of political statement.”

The attorney-general’s department said government experts were working to contain the problem.

“Australian government agencies identified as potential targets by ‘Anonymous’ were briefed in advance and were provided with suggested mitigation strategies,” a spokesman said, without giving further details.

Internet groups and the pornography industry have opposed the filter, while search engine Google says it could block harmless material on areas of legitimate debate such as euthanasia, sexuality and terrorism.

More than anything, the city was in dire need of the humvees used by the National Guard, because the vehicles are able to go straight over the snow. A high volume of calls in the snow-covered city have paralyzed paramedics and other emergency rescue crews.

The soldiers are stationed at Brashear High School in Beechview because of its large parking lot, gymnasium and close proximity to the armory a few blocks away.

“This mission was approved by the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agent, so we work hand-in-hand, several military relations there,” said Grey Berrier. “I know there’s a lot of concern, if you will, about this impending snowstorm that may be coming in on the heels.”

The 260 soldiers will be staying in Pittsburgh indefinitely until they get word they can head back.

Between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. on Monday, the National Guard helped out all six police zones and responded to nearly 30 calls of every nature.

The guardsmen are paired up with police and medics across town, turning dozens of humvees into welcome wagons.

Channel 11’s Cara Sapida tagged along with the National Guard on a few of their 300 calls on Monday, responding to calls on streets that were unplowed.