FBI Alert for Five Men Based on Hoax - ABC News

Jan. 6

— WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI has concluded the information that led to a hunt for five men thought to have entered the United States illegally on Christmas Eve was fabricated by an informant, ABC News reported on Monday.

Citing unnamed sources, the report said the informant identified as Michael John Hamdani, who was arrested in Canada, made up the story about 19 men who sought false passports in an attempt to get himself off the hook on criminal charges he was facing in the United States.

In the months since the Pentagon and World Trade Center attacks, we have heard countless warnings and alerts about "possible" terrorist attacks or other terrorist activity.  To date, none of them have amounted to anything.  Whether this is because there was nothing to them to begin with, or that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have managed to thwart them, or, perhaps, because once their plans were announced, the terrorists decided to back off, is unknown.  What is known is that the more often we are warned or alerted and see that nothing has happened, the less likely we become to pay attention to the next warning or alert.

In this most recent case, the FBI asked for the help from US citizens and residents to find 5 people who may have snuck into the US for unknown or undetermined reasons.  While I doubt that too many people went out of their way to try and find these guys, I don't doubt that there were at least some people keeping their eyes open, and even more who were frightened by the possiblity for another terrorist attack raised by the manhunt.  Yes, as before, nothing happened.  Worse, we now learn that the whole incident was based on a hoax from a prisoner trying to make his own situation easier.

Its been speculated that several of the other warnings came from another prisoner, who may have made them up either to gain more lenient treatment for himself, or to try keeping us off-balance and in a constant state of fear - in effect, trying to help his compatriots even though he's been captured and imprisoned by the US.  There's no proof that this is the case, but it has been a concern.

It's hard to know, any more, how "alert" one should be.  We certainly can't trust that the FBI is only going to pass on reliable warnings - especially since they, themselves, seem to be unable to confirm a warnings reliability until much later - in many cases, not until after the date the alert warns about.  Yet we don't want to fall into complacency, becuase the threat of future attacks is very real.

One possible solution would be for the FBI, when issuing a warning or alert, to assign it a "reliability level" - similar to the "threat assessment level", but - hopefully - without the colour scheme - so that people will have an idea of how serious an issue it is.  If the warning is issued with a reliability level of, say, 1 - meaning that it's unverified or unverifiable - and is based on a statement from only one person, then we know that we should probably take some extra care, but it's not time to panic by any stretch of the imagination.  A warning with a reliability level of 5 - meaning that they have verified this threat through multiple sources or have other reason to believe that it is a very significant possiblity, would let us know that this is something to take very seriously, to the point of considering changing any plans or routines if necessary. 

Without something of that nature, I'm afraid that we may start treating all warnings and alerts as routinely as we treat the weather -- and if you think about how many people you see dashing through the rain with no umbrella or other head covering, you'll have a pretty good idea of just how seriously that is.

All News Media Inc.

By Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel

WASHINGTON - Without much notice, the federal government is moving toward the most sweeping change ever in the rules that govern ownership of the American news media.

[...] What will happen to communities if the ownership rules are eliminated? Among the possibilities is that one or two companies in each town would have an effective monopoly on reaching consumers by being allowed to control the newspaper, radio, TV, billboards and more — with costly consequences for businesses that need those outlets for advertising. Such a monopoly on information would also reduce the diversity of cultural and political discourse in a community.

The precedent in radio is telling. Since the rules on ownership of radio were last relaxed in 1996, the two biggest companies went from owning 130 stations to more than 1,400.

The F.C.C. chairman, Michael K. Powell, has scheduled only one public hearing, in Richmond, Va., on the proposal, and the public comment period will close at the end of this month. It is a small and brief opportunity, but one that the public should seize if it cherishes an independent press.

Bill Kovach is chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists. Tom Rosenstiel is director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Additional information on this issue can be found at: http://www.fcc.gov/ownership/

To contact the FCC Commissioners by e-mail:

Chairman Michael K. Powell: mpowell@fcc.gov
Commissioner Kathleen Q. Abernathy: kabernat@fcc.gov
Commissioner Michael J. Copps: mcopps@fcc.gov
Commissioner Kevin J. Martin: kjmweb@fcc.gov
Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein: jadelste@fcc.gov

For other ways of contacting the FCC, please visit: http://www.fcc.gov/contacts.html

Bush to propose eliminating dividend taxes

January 6, 2003

By Scott Lindlaw, Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- President Bush will propose wiping out the taxes shareholders pay on dividends as the centerpiece of his economic revival plan, a step that would cost the Treasury more than $300 billion over a decade.

"It'll encourage investment, and that's what we want," Bush said at the end of a Cabinet meeting Monday. "Investment means jobs."

Bush also argued that eliminating the dividends tax would correct an injustice in the tax code. Dividends are taxed once at the corporate level, when companies report profits, and again as dividend income to shareholders.

First, a caveat - I got a "D" in Economics.  I got "A"s and "B"s in every other one of my business classes (except Accounting, but we'll leave that one alone), so a "D" is a pretty good indication that I just had no real clue as to what was being discussed in that class.  So, when reading my opinion on economic matters, just keep that in mind, and if I'm off base, feel free to correct me (gently, please) as I really would like to understand it better.

The problem I have with Bush's plan is two-fold.  First, didn't we try the "if we let rich people keep their money, they'll invest it and make jobs for the rest of you" tactic under Reagan?  If I recall correctly, Bush's father called that "voodoo economics", and also known as "trickle-down economics", which didn't work so well.  I don't see how it would work any better this time around...

The second is in his theory that because the money gets taxed twice - first as corporate profits, and then as dividend income - that it's unfair.  If that's the case, shouldn't all retail taxes be eliminated as well?  I mean, the money paid to workers is taxed first as personal income, and then taxed again when exchanged for goods and services.  What's worse, in the first example, the corporation shoulders the first tax burden (when its taxed as profits) and the shareholder shoulders the second (when its taxed as divident income).  In the second example, the individual shoulders the entire tax burden - having the income tax taken from their paycheck and sales tax added on to the cost of the goods they're buying.

Court: Rape Can Occur Even After Consent

Mike McKee
The Recorder
01-07-2003

On Monday, the California Supreme Court ruled 6-1 that it's rape if a man continues to have sex with a woman who originally consented but then changed her mind.

[...] In what she called a "sordid, distressing, sad little case," Justice Janice Rogers Brown dissented, saying the majority provided no guidance about what constitutes withdrawal of consent and what amount of force turns consensual sex into rape.

This is one of those stories that kind of leaves me scratching my head.  On one hand, rape is a very serious problem that can inflict a great deal of trauma and cause a significant disturbance in its victims lives.  Women have to be able to say "no" and have it taken seriously.  On the other hand, however, there also has to be a point at which a man can trust that a woman has given her consent and that it's ok to go ahead and have sex with her without worrying about being labeled a rapist.

In either case, the idea of a woman being able to withdraw her consent post-penetration and then charge her partner/attacker with rape has some serious issues on a practical level and in terms of enforcement.  As the dissenting opinion asked "...how soon is soon enough?" for the man to respond to the woman's instruction to stop, after they begun to have consentual sex.  Another question would be how long after the intercourse has started does the woman have to change her mind?  Can she withdraw consent at any point - even, say, when the man is at the point of orgasm?  Or does there come a point where her initial consent is considered "final" and the is actually committed to the act?  And, of course, there's the biggest question - how does she prove - beyond a reasonable doubt - that she withdrew consent and that her partner/attacker understood and deliberately ignored her wishes?

Having been a victim of date rape, I do understand the emotional devastation that it can cause, and I certainly don't take it lightly.  It's been nearly 15 years since it happened, and there are still repercussions of it in my daily life.  But in spite of my own experience, I do think there has to come a point where a woman has to be responsible for the choice she made in consenting to have sex with a man - even if she realizes it was a bad decision - and where he can be confident that "yes" means yes.