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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/15/AR2006091500923_pf.html
The ID Chip You Don't Want in Your Passport
By Bruce Schneier
Saturday, September 16, 2006; A21
If you have a passport, now is the time to renew it -- even if it's not set to expire anytime soon. If you don't have a passport and think you might need one, now is the time to get it. In many countries, including the United States, passports will soon be equipped with RFID chips. And you don't want one of these chips in your passport.
RFID stands for "radio-frequency identification." Passports with RFID chips store an electronic copy of the passport information: your name, a digitized picture, etc. And in the future, the chip might store fingerprints or digital visas from various countries.
By itself, this is no problem. But RFID chips don't have to be plugged in to a reader to operate. Like the chips used for automatic toll collection on roads or automatic fare collection on subways, these chips operate via proximity. The risk to you is the possibility of surreptitious access: Your passport information might be read without your knowledge or consent by a government trying to track your movements, a criminal trying to steal your identity or someone just curious about your citizenship.
At first the State Department belittled those risks, but in response to criticism from experts it has implemented some security features. Passports will come with a shielded cover, making it much harder to read the chip when the passport is closed. And there are now access-control and encryption mechanisms, making it much harder for an unauthorized reader to collect, understand and alter the data.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/16/business/16auto.html?hp&ex=1158465600&en=609b1e69fb73a348&ei=5094&partner=homepage
September 16, 2006
Detroit Flails in Latest Effort to Reinvent Itself
By MICHELINE MAYNARD
DETROIT, Sept. 15 - Detroit is running low on optimism.
Despite insisting all this year that they had solutions to their financial struggles well in hand, both the Ford Motor Company and the Chrysler Group conceded Friday that the steps they had taken were not working and that more bad news was coming in one of the deepest auto industry crises in Detroit's history.
Ford, which has held second place behind G.M. for 70 years, admitted for the first time that it would inevitably be ceding that spot to Toyota because of slumping sales and its decision Friday to close more factories and cut thousands of additional jobs. It also said it did not expect to make a profit in North America until 2009.
At the same time, the Chrysler Group, also pummeled by the decline in sales of big sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks, said it would report a loss for this summer of $1.5 billion, more than double what it had originally anticipated.
Its parent, DaimlerChrysler, also signaled that it did not see how to build a subcompact car profitably in North America, forcing it to turn to China or another Asian carmaker to help build one overseas. [Page B4.]
For its part, G.M., which is cutting 30,000 jobs and closing nearly a dozen plants, is set to decide within a month whether it wanted to link with a Japanese and a French auto company, a prospect that has rattled union members as well as state officials where G.M. employees live and work.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/15/AR2006091501157_pf.html
For Darfur Women, Survival Means Leaving Camp, Risking Rape
By Craig Timberg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, September 16, 2006; A12
GRAIDA, Sudan, Sept. 15 -- The tall, light-skinned man reeking of sweat and cigarettes often gallops his horse right into the nightmares of Darelsalam Ahmed Eisa, 18. Each time, she said, he throws her to the ground, pushes up her skirt and forces himself inside her while muttering: " Abdah. Abdah. Abdah ."
Slave woman. Slave woman. Slave woman.
He was in her dreams just last night, she recalled, as real and horrifying in his green camouflage uniform as he was the day he raped her two months ago. But when Eisa awoke this morning, there was no time for terror, no time for tears. She covered herself in an orange and blue cloth, grabbed the family's ax and departed for the perilous Darfur countryside, out of the relative safety of a sprawling camp for people displaced by the violence in this region of western Sudan.
In the wilderness, Eisa can find grass for the donkeys and firewood for cooking. But it is also where government-backed militias known as the Janjaweed roam, terrorizing villagers. Violence and disease in Darfur have killed as many as 450,000 people since 2003, and an estimated 2 million have been forced to flee their homes.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-religion-pope-islam.html?ei=5094&en=f6d5c36719c9cf3a&hp=&ex=1158465600&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print
September 16, 2006
Pope Expresses Regret for Remarks
By REUTERS
Filed at 7:57 a.m. ET
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict told Muslims on Saturday he was sorry they had found his speech on Islam offensive, expressing his respect for their faith and hoping they would understand the ``true sense'' of his words.
``The Holy Father is very sorry that some passages of his speech may have sounded offensive to the sensibilities of Muslim believers,'' Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said in a statement.
The statement came amid mounting anger from Muslims over remarks by the Pope in a speech in his native Germany on Tuesday that was seen as critical of their faith. Calls for him to apologize had spread beyond the Islamic world.
In that speech, the Pope appeared to endorse a Christian view, contested by most Muslims, that the early Muslims spread their religion by violence. Islamic fury erupted on Thursday and has cast doubt on a visit the Pope plans to Turkey in November.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-religion-pope-iraq.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
September 16, 2006
Iraq Calls for Calm After Pope's Remarks
By REUTERS
Filed at 8:39 a.m. ET
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's government called for calm on Saturday in response to remarks by Pope Benedict that have angered Muslims, saying those offended should not take out their anger on the country's small Christian minority.
The door of a church in Basra was attacked overnight, in what appeared to be the first strike in Iraq since the comments.``We call on all those who love God's prophets not to carry out actions that will harm our Christian brothers here,'' Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in an interview with Iraqiya state television.
``The Pope's remarks reflect his misunderstanding of the principles of Islam and its teachings that call for forgiveness, compassion and mercy,'' he added.
``There were kings that carried the cross and committed crimes under the cross. But we do not hold Christianity or its followers responsible for these actions because they are the action of individuals.''
The Vatican said on Saturday the Pope was sorry if Muslims were offended by the speech he gave on Tuesday, in which he quoted a medieval scholar who said Islam's Prophet Mohammad had brought no good, and Muslims spread their faith by force. A guard at the church in Basra said unidentified assailants struck the door with either knives or an axe.
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The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/16/us/16bush.html?pagewanted=print
September 16, 2006
The President
Bush Says G.O.P. Rebels Are Putting Nation at Risk
Link to chart showing differences in proposals:
<http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2006/09/15/washington/16bush_graphic.gif>
By JIM RUTENBERG and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 - President Bush made an impassioned defense on Friday of his proposed rules for the interrogation and prosecution of terrorism suspects, warning that the nation's ability to defend itself would be undermined if rebellious Republicans in the Senate did not come around to his position.
Speaking at a late-morning news conference in the Rose Garden, Mr. Bush said he would have no choice but to end a C.I.A. program for the interrogation of high-level terrorism suspects if Congress passed an alternate set of rules supported by a group of Senate Republicans.
Those alternate rules were adopted Thursday by the Senate Armed Services Committee in defiance of Mr. Bush. Setting out what he suggested could be dire consequences if that bill became law, Mr. Bush said intelligence officers - he referred to them repeatedly as "professionals" - would no longer be willing and able to conduct interrogations out of concern that the vague standard for acceptable techniques could leave them vulnerable to legal action.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/14/AR2006091401649_pf.html
Senate Candidate Speaks of Life, Faith
Pa.'s Casey, Hoping to Oust Santorum, Defends Role of Religion in Politics
By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 15, 2006; A03
Robert P. Casey Jr., the Democratic candidate seeking to unseat Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) in one of the country's hottest election campaigns, told a largely Roman Catholic audience yesterday that in his view, "neither party has gotten it right when it comes to life issues."
Casey, a lifelong Catholic who opposes abortion, is the second high-profile
Democrat who has recently given a major address defending the place of religion in politics. In June, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) criticized "liberals who dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant."
Since the 2004 presidential election, in which voters who attend church weekly voted 2 to 1 for President Bush over Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), Democrats have sought to close what some call the "God gap" in U.S. politics.
Casey's candidacy is viewed by Democratic strategists not only as one of the party's best opportunities to pick up a Senate seat, but also as an illustration of its growing inclusion of politicians who oppose abortion and of its desire to reach out to religiously motivated voters.
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The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/15/AR2006091501252.html
Behind the Debate, Controversial CIA Techniques
Interrogation Options Seen as Vital
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 16, 2006; A03
President Bush's push this week for legislation that narrowly defines U.S. obligations under the Geneva Conventions is motivated by his aides' conviction that the CIA must continue using a small number of highly controversial interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists, according to current and former U.S. officials. These methods include some that cause extreme discomfort and have been repudiated by other federal agencies.
The nature and legitimacy of these coercive techniques is the largely unpublicized subtext of the legislative dispute that has erupted between the administration and its opponents on Capitol Hill, including lawmakers from both parties who have said privately that they find some of the CIA's past interrogation methods abhorrent.
On the surface, Bush's proposal requires that interrogations in the previously secret CIA prison system comply with legal rules written by Congress last year. Privately, the administration has concluded that doing so would allow the CIA to keep using virtually all the interrogation methods it has employed for the past five years, the officials said.
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http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/custom/consumer/sfl-hlpsvekis16sep16,0,2512674.column?coll=sfl-consumer-helpteam
Wipe those hard-drives clean
Steve Svekis
Here's the deal
September 16, 2006
Pompano Beach's Cherie Dangerfield sent along an interesting e-mail. Thecrux of it: "I'm hoping you can help me with information about donating acomputer to charity. I am concerned about the personal information currentlystored on the hard drive, and want to find a method for clearing the files."
The safest route involves not donating your hard drive, instead physicallydestroying it or storing it in your home.
Of course, most of us don't want to be storing anything that we don't need.So, how much risk is there to "wiping" the hard drive clean and sending thewhole unit on its way to a recycler?
Representatives from companies savvy on the workings of the computer's inner sanctum all told me that, if employed properly, a reliable wiping program -- Darik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN) is a popular free program(http://dban.sourceforge.net) -- can protect you from all but the mostskilled and deep-pocketed thief.
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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/15533906.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
PARTIAL CONSCIOUSNESS
Life and hope, or a fate worse than death?
BY ELLEN GOODMAN
ellengoodman@globe.com
Of all the headlines on the story, this one took the prize for provocation:Woman in Vegetative State Plays Tennis in Her Head. I suppose this is whathappens when science throws up a startling piece of new research and themedia slams it into the court of public opinion.
In Britain, researchers have reported that a totally unresponsive23-year-old woman showed signs of awareness on a brain-imaging test. Whenasked to imagine playing tennis, her brain lit up the same neural pathwaysas a healthy brain. When asked to imagine walking through her house, the MRIrevealed changes in specific brain regions that mimicked healthy people.
The exuberant lead researcher, Adrian Owen, said the results ''confirmedbeyond any doubt that she was consciously aware of herself and hersurroundings.'' torial in Science magazine, where the research waspublished, was quick to warn that this case is nothing like that of TerriSchiavo. The British woman has something Terri did not have: a cortex. Shesuffered an injury, not a lack of oxygen. She was in her unresponsivecondition for five months, not 15 years. She was not in a persistentvegetative state.
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