The Candidate of Change

Hat Tip to my YouTube buddy Wyatt @ wyattmcintyre
We keep hearing that Barack Obama is the candidate of change, that he is clear and consistent in his leadership and in his message. But what does that mean? A look at a few of the positions and counter positions the Junior Senator from Illinois has taken in the course of his four short years from a candidate for the United States Senate to a candidate for the Presidency

Wayne LaPierre to be keynote speaker at ORA State Convention

Wayne LaPierre, NRA Executive Vice President, will be the keynote speaker at the Oklahoma Rifle Association State Convention on Saturday, August 16, 2008. Mr. LaPierre will speak at the Awards Banquet on Saturday evening at 6:30 PM.

Site of the ORA State Convention is the Biltmore Hotel, I-40 and South Meridian Ave., Oklahoma City. OK. Tickets purchased before 9 August are $35 per person and are eligible for the "Early Bird Drawing." After August 9, tickets are $40 each. Tickets may be purchased by mail at ORA, PO Box 850927, Yukon, OK 74085-0927 or on the ORA Website. Seating is limited, so order your tickets today!

Town hall meeting set

State Rep. Randy Terrill and State Sen. Anthony Sykes — will host a town hall meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Moore Public Library, 225 S. Howard Ave.

The public is invited to attend.

“We hold these town hall meetings every year and I always look forward to visiting with constituents,” said Terrill, R-Moore.

“This year’s meeting will include an overview of the 2008 session, including a budget update, and provide an opportunity for citizens to suggest new ideas for consideration next year.”

“As a first-term senator, it’s been a huge benefit to work alongside senior Republican House leaders such as Assistant Majority Floor Leader Terrill to advance the interests of Cleveland County,” said Sykes, R-Moore.

“I look forward to visiting with voters about issues being considered at the Capitol.”

American Minute - Jun. 20 - Colony of Maryland Charter

American Minute
with Bill Federer

JUNE 20, 1632, King Charles I of England granted a charter for the Colony of Maryland, named for his Catholic wife, Queen Henrietta Maria, stating:

"Charles, by the Grace of God, of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith...

Whereas our well beloved...subject Coecilius Calvert, Baron of Baltimore, in our Kingdom of Ireland...being animated with a laudable, and pious Zeal for extending the Christian Religion...

hath humbly besought Leave of Us that he may transport, by his own...expense, a numerous Colony of the English Nation, to certain...parts of America...partly occupied by Savages, having no Knowledge of the Divine Being."

Maryland's Charter continued:

"With the increasing Worship and Religion of Christ within said Region...shall... be built...Churches, Chapels, and Places of Worship."

Lord Baltimore sent two ships, the Ark and the Dove, to settle the colony.

Buying land from the Indians, they founded the city of St. Mary's as a refuge for persecuted Catholics.

In 1649, they extended liberty to Protestants by issuing the Toleration Act, which stated:

"That no person... within this province...professing to believe in Jesus Christ shall...from henceforth be any ways troubled or molested...in respect of his or her religion."

American Minute - Jun. 19 - Fathers' Day

American Minute
with Bill Federer

The first formal "Father's Day" was celebrated JUNE 19, 1910, in Spokane, Washington.

Sonora Louise Smart Dodd heard a church sermon on the newly established Mother's Day and wanted to honor her father, Civil War veteran William Jackson Smart, who had raised six children by himself after his wife died in childbirth.

Sonora drew up a petition supported by the Young Men's Christian Association and the ministers of Spokane.

In 1916, Woodrow Wilson spoke at a Spokane Fathers' Day service.

President Nixon, in 1972, established Father's Day as a permanent national observance.

On Father's Day, 1988, Ronald Reagan said:

"Children, vulnerable and dependent, desperately need security, and it has ever been a duty and a joy of fatherhood to offer it.

Being a father requires strength...and more than a little courage...to persevere, to fight discouragement, and to keep working for the family."

Reagan continued:

"With God's grace, fathers find the patience to teach, the fortitude to provide, the compassion to comfort, and the mercy to forgive. All of this is to say that they find the strength to love their wives and children selflessly."

President Reagan ended:

"Let us...express our thanks and affection to our fathers, whether we can do so in person or in prayer."

Second Term

Hat Tip to my YouTube Buddy Wyatt @ wyattmcintyre
With the current challenges and problems that we face can we really afford to elect a candidate committed to finishing Jimmy Carter's second term. Whether it's the windfall profit tax, Cuba or Iran Senator Barack Obama says "Yes we can" to the failed policies of the administration of President Carter and "Yes we can" to the ideas adopted after he lost in 1980.

Republican lawmakers press DHS on border fence

Republican lawmakers
press DHS on border fence
By Chris Strohm CongressDaily June 11, 2008

A group of House Republicans on Tuesday called on the Homeland Security Department to build 700 miles of double-layered fencing along the border with Mexico, as required under a 2006 law.

Leading the group, Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., has introduced legislation that would place such a mandate on the department. Congress removed the requirements in the 2006 law as part of the fiscal 2008 omnibus appropriations bill.

But the Republicans said they are committed to seeing the fencing built. "This to me is a matter of national security," Jones said during a news conference. "We believe sincerely that this issue cannot be delayed."

Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff told reporters Monday that the department plans to have 670 miles of fencing and vehicle barriers constructed along the border by the end of this year.

But that is unacceptable to Republicans like House Homeland Security ranking member Peter King, who introduced the 2006 law. "I'm not satisfied with that answer," King said of Chertoff's remarks. He said the department only plans to build 370 miles of physical fencing, of which a small fraction will be double-layered.

Chertoff also said he believed the border would be secured by 2011. But the secretary said it could be secured sooner if Congress passed comprehensive immigration reform that includes a guest-worker program.

American Minute - Jun. 18 - War of 1812

American Minute
with Bill Federer

The War of 1812 began on JUNE 18, 1812.

The British captured American ships and enslaved sailors.

They incited Indians to capture Fort Mims, massacring 500 men, women and children.

They captured the Capitol, burnt the White House, bombarded Fort McHenry and attacked New Orleans.

Outraged, many volunteered for the Army, including Davy Crockett.

In his Proclamation of War, President James Madison stated:

"I do moreover exhort all the good people of the United States...as they feel the wrongs which have forced on them the last resort of injured nations...to consult the best means under the blessing of Divine Providence of abridging its calamities."

In the three years of the War, President Madison, who had introduced the First Amendment in the First Session of Congress, issued Proclamations of Public Humiliation and Prayer in 1812 and 1813, followed by a Proclamation of Public Fasting in 1814, in which he stated:

"in the present time of public calamity and war a day may be...observed by the people of the United States as a day of public humiliation and fasting and of prayer to Almighty God."

After the War, in 1815, James Madison proclaimed a National Day of Thanksgiving to the "Divine Author of Every Good and Perfect Gift."

gAssaway disbarred

Attorney Mike gAssaway disbarred
By John Greiner
Capitol Bureau
Tue June 17, 2008

The Oklahoma Supreme Court disbarred Oklahoma City attorney Michael (Mike) gAassaway today.

"The gravity of the offenses committed by Respondent (Gassaway), and clearly proven by the OBA (Oklahoma Bar Association), mandates our highest discipline," the court said.

The bar association alleged multiple counts of attorney misconduct, the court said.

Among the counts are forgery of another attorney's letterhead on a letter that he purported to sign on the other lawyer's behalf and seeking sexual favors for legal services.

"Unfortunately, Respondent (Gassaway) is no stranger to the disciplinary process and the gravity of his misconduct has been significant," the Supreme Court said.

In 1987, Gassaway twice was disciplined for misconduct.

He received a public censure for misconduct stemming from his criminal convictions in state and federal courts for willful failure to file income tax returns, the court said, adding that he served six months in federal prison.

Op/Ed - Real ID, real problem

Real ID, real problem

The costly, burdensome federal mandate does little to stop illegal immigration and actually leaves us more vulnerable to identify theft; Maryland should join other states in rejecting it

By Cynthia Boersma
June 17, 2008

"No. Nope. No way."

So exclaimed Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montana when asked whether his state would participate in the federal Real ID program.

Frustration with this misguided, expensive and unworkable federal mandate also compelled another governor, Republican Mark Sanford of South Carolina, to call Real ID "the worst piece of legislation I have seen during the 15 years I have been engaged in the political process." If Real ID has any friends in the states, they're not speaking up.

This sentiment is now percolating through the halls of Congress. In recent hearings before the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, senators from both sides of the aisle were blistering in their criticism of Real ID. "The massive amounts of personal information that would be stored in state databases that are to be shared electronically with all other states, as well as the unencrypted data on the Real ID card itself, could provide one-stop shopping for identity thieves," said Sen. Daniel K. Akaka, a Hawaii Democrat, at the hearing over which he presided with Republican Sen. George V. Voinovich of Ohio.

Unfortunately, some folks in Maryland have not yet gotten the message. Opponents of illegal immigration recently staged protests outside Motor Vehicle Administration offices, demonstrating a misunderstanding of Real ID. The erroneous impression that participation in Real ID will prevent illegal immigration or require Maryland to issue driver's licenses only to documented U.S. citizens is also shared by the O'Malley administration.

Before Maryland sinks hundreds of millions of its precious transportation dollars into the Real ID sinkhole, leaders should understand what participation in Real ID will and will not do.

Under the Real ID Act, the federal government requires states to issue uniform driver's licenses - essentially a national ID card - with insecure, unecrypted personal information on machine-readable strips. That means three bad things: huge costs of time and money for Marylanders, an easier task for identity thieves, and less, not more, security for our state.

Real ID will vastly increase the time, travel and expense involved in obtaining a Maryland driver's license. It will require every driver to re-enroll at the MVA. It will require every applicant for a state driver's license to submit original birth certificates and other original source documents in person to obtain or renew a license.

Real ID then requires these documents to be electronically stored in a database accessible to the federal government and every MVA in the country with no established restrictions on access, data sharing or data mining. It will render every Marylander highly vulnerable to identity theft and will subject personal information to misuse and fraud.

Real ID will increase our vulnerability to security threats and fraud at a cost of $4 billion nationwide and over $121.5 million to Maryland. And though it may seem incredible to those who believe Real ID is intended to improve the security of our borders, the one thing it does not mandate is that Maryland require proof of citizenship to obtain a driver's license.

The contradictory and unreal nature of Real ID is driving a rebellion against it by the states. Nine states have enacted laws prohibiting state participation in the program. Ten other states have passed resolutions opposing the program. States refusing to implement Real ID include states with a lawful-presence requirement for their driver's licenses as well as states with no such requirement.

Thankfully, there is a far better alternative. Recently, the National Conference of State Legislatures issued a call to support repeal of Real ID and passage of replacement legislation. The Identification Security Enhancement Act was introduced this year in the U.S. Senate with bipartisan support. That bill would protect privacy, would achieve effective driver's license security, could be implemented more quickly than Real ID and would not cost billions of dollars to be shouldered by the states.

A congressional subcommittee is considering this year's budget for the Department of Homeland Security, which contains $50 million for Real ID implementation. This is a tiny fraction of Real ID's real cost.

Maryland should join other states in saying no to Real ID. Marylanders should urge Gov. Martin O'Malley to end our state's participation in this wasteful and dangerous program and Sens. Benjamin L. Cardin and Barbara A. Mikulski to support the federal reform bill. This failed program should not be allowed to limp along to the next administration.

Real ID may be a real nightmare, but it is one from which we can still wake up.

Cynthia Boersma is legislative director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland. Her e-mail at boersma@aclu-md.org.

American Minute - Jun. 17 - Battle of Bunker Hill

American Minute
with Bill Federer

"Don't Shoot Until You See the Whites of Their Eyes!" was the order given JUNE 17, 1775, by Colonel William Prescott to troops on Breed's Hill, adjacent Bunker Hill, guarding the north entrance to Boston Harbor.

They were aiming at 2,300 British soldiers, under General Howe, marching at them with bayonets fixed.

Twice the Americans repelled them until they ran out of gunpowder.

The British then burned the nearby town of Charlestown.

This first action of the Continental Army saw over 1,000 British killed, and nearly 500 Americans.

This same day, 300 miles away in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress drafted George Washington's commission as commander-in-chief, for which he refused a salary.

Washington wrote to his wife, Martha:

"Dearest...It has been determined in Congress, that the whole army raised for the defense of the American Cause shall be put under my care, and that it is necessary for me to proceed immediately to Boston to take...command...

I shall rely therefore, confidently, on that Providence which has heretofore preserved, and been bountiful to me."

Washington ended:

"I...got Colonel Pendleton to Draft a Will...the Provision made for you, in case of my death, will, I hope, be agreeable."

Cities welcome law making gang-related graffiti a crime

To see what Oklahoma is doing see Senate Approves Sykes’ Measure to Stiffen Penalties for ‘Tagging’ and see The Sykes Update for March 13, 2008

Cities welcome law making
gang-related graffiti a crime
By Christine Clarridge
Seattle Times staff reporter

The owners of a small Rainier Valley auto-glass shop keep four shelves stocked with the paint they use to cover the graffiti that frequently appears outside the store.

The building gets tagged all the time, complained Annie Zhang and Gordon Situ of Golden Auto Glass. They go out and paint over the symbols to keep up the neighborhood's appearance, only to get hit again.

"Sometimes next day," Situ said. "Sometimes next week."

Faced with an increasing wave of graffiti, much of it gang-related, many Seattle-area cities are welcoming a new law that specifically makes gang-related graffiti a crime and allows property owners to recover civil penalties and costs. Police and other officials said they have seen an increase in gang-related violence and graffiti over the past year.

"We do have a problem with graffiti," said Seattle City Councilman Tim Burgess. "In the first quarter of 2008, it was up 33 percent in Seattle parks compared to the first quarter of '07."

The graffiti measure is a small part of a larger anti-street-gang state law, House Bill 2712, signed in March, which goes into effect today.

Police and prosecutors said the larger law's primary purpose is to officially define "street gangs" and their members and create a statewide database for information on gangs.

The new law also provides funding to the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs which will be allocated to local police to combat street-gang activity and deal with gang-related graffiti.

"Gang graffiti is of a much different thing than just tagging." said Lt. Ronald Wilson, commander of the Seattle Police Department's gang and robbery units.

"It's used to mark territory, intimidate, make threats and send messages to rival gangs. It's much more destructive than just property damage."

While tagging has been prosecutable as malicious mischief under the old law, the new law means those convicted of gang graffiti could be forced to pay a penalty in addition to damages.

Tom McBride, the executive secretary for the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, said he doesn't expect the new measure to alter much in the criminal courts in terms of graffiti prosecution.

The new law, however, will allow prosecutors to seek longer prison sentences for people convicted of gang-related felonies.

The new law defines a "criminal street gang" as "any ongoing organization, association or group of three or more persons, whether formal or informal, having a common name or common identifying sign or symbol, having as one of its primary activities the commission of criminal acts, and whose members or associates individually or collectively engage in or have engaged in a pattern of criminal street-gang activity."

Annie Zhang said she doesn't really expect to reap any benefits from the new law. She doesn't know if the graffiti her husband paints over is gang-related or not. And she doesn't think the government is going to end up paying for it.

All she knows is that she's already lost time, effort and gas money to the fight.

"We don't want the money, we just want them to stop. It's a waste," she said.

Christine Clarridge: 206-464-8983 or cclarridge@seattletimes.com

Millions of contract employees to be vetted for legal employment status

Millions of contract employees to be
vetted for legal employment status

By Robert Brodsky rbrodsky@govexec.com

Federal contractors will be required to vet nearly 4 million current and future employees through an online government database to verify their legal working status, under a proposed rule published last week in the Federal Register.

The Federal Acquisition Regulation notice, however, does not resolve questions about how the government will oversee the system or punish companies that fail to fire illegal immigrants.

President Bush issued an executive order on June 9 requiring that, as a condition of all future federal contracts, companies must agree to use E-Verify, an electronic employment eligibility verification system. The program currently is voluntary for private sector companies but mandatory for federal agencies.

The rule would apply to all future contract employees and existing employees once they begin working on new contracts. Current indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts would be amended so the rule applies to all future task orders.

The rule also applies to federal subcontractors.

In its initial year, the government expects nearly 170,000 contractors and subcontractors will enroll in the system, verifying the status of roughly 3.8 million employees. The program is expected to cost contractors more than $100 million in the first year and between $550 million and nearly $670 million during the next 10 years. The cost to the government would be significantly less, an estimated $8.2 million during the next decade.

The rule exempts employees working on contracts performed outside of the United States, those hired before Nov. 6, 1986, contracts valued at less than $3,000, and subcontracts for materials only for commercially available products.

"E-Verify, working with these other agencies, is going to give these contractors the tools they need to make sure that workers who were hired to work on federal contracts are legal workers," said Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Homeland Security Department, which administers the system, at a press conference last week. "It is always embarrassing, frankly, when we have these periodic operations in which we discover illegal workers working on federal projects paid for by federal money that is ultimately paid for by the taxpayer."

The proposed rule inserts a clause into all future government contracts requiring companies to verify the status of their new and existing hires through E-Verify within 30 days of the contract award.

"Contractors that use E-Verify to confirm the employment eligibility of their workforce are much less likely to face immigration enforcement actions, and are generally more efficient and dependable procurement sources than contractors that do not use that system to verify the work eligibility of their workforce," the notice stated.

In an attempt to reduce potential identity theft, workers will be required to supply their employers with both a Social Security number and photo identification. The contractor will put that information into the E-Verify system, which will tell the employer immediately if the worker is legally allowed to work in the country.

If the database is unable to confirm the employee's status, the worker will receive a "tentative nonconfirmation" notice and have eight days to settle the issue at a Social Security Administration office. If the worker fails to contest the finding or is unable to furnish proof of legal status, the employee must be fired, the rule states.

About 6 percent of employees vetted through E-Verify receive a tentative nonconfirmation letter requiring further action, said DHS spokeswoman Amy Kudwa. The majority choose not to contest the findings.

Companies that do not terminate the employment of nonverified workers face a fine of $500 to $1,000, the rule states. Contractors that break the rule, however, would not necessarily lose their contracts or face suspension or debarment.

"Suspension and debarment are really serious matters," Kudwa said. "These sanctions will occur only when it's in the public's interest."

The Federal Acquisition Regulation already provides federal officials with the authority to terminate a contract or to recommend suspension or debarment proceedings for companies that knowingly hire illegal workers.

And while contractors must agree to participate in E-Verify, there does not appear to be a system in place to confirm after the fact that they have done so.

Alan Chvotkin, vice-president of the Professional Services Council, a contractor trade group, suspects that federal watchdogs will conduct spot checks and perform periodic system reviews to verify that companies are complying with the rule. But he admits that it would be virtually impossible to audit every company's compliance.

"There's an element of truthfulness to it," Chvotkin said. "But we don't audit contractors' tax compliance. We don't presume that they have violated the rules."

Critics also have raised concerns about the reliability of E-Verify data. In December 2006, SSA's inspector general found that the database had an error rate of 4.1 percent.

Chertoff indicated last week that glitches in the system had been fixed, noting that the current error rate was down to 0.5 percent.

More than 69,000 companies currently use E-Verify, and the number of registered employers is growing by an average of more than 1,000 per week, DHS officials said.

Hoo-ah: The 50-State Strategy to Sell Cyber Command

The 50-State Strategy
to Sell Cyber Command
BY BOB BREWN, BBREWIN@GOVEXEC.COM

One way to secure the Hill's backing -- and bucks -- for any new program is to spread it over as many states and congressional districts as possible. The new Air Force Cyber Command takes this approach to its ultimate limit: The service plans a cyber unit in every state, according to a briefing given in April by Maj. Gen. William Lord, the Cyber Command chief. The briefing was sent to me by a source who chooses to remain anonymous.

The very crowded slide of the 50 states that Lord presented at the Scope Warrior Spring Symposium, a gathering of top Air Force communications and information technology folks, looks like a bit of cyber-rebranding of the service's existing IT functions.

The majority of the sites, which will come under the Cyber Command umbrella, are designated as so-called network operations, a fancy way to describe the circuits and connections that already exist to serve those bases. While this is just putting a new name on old operations, it helps to include all 50 states in the count, which then bolsters the sales job.

The real centers of power, in what Lord called in his slides “AF Distributed Cyber Enterprise,” are eight bases located in the East, Midwest and South:

Networked Computer Operations:
Bolling Air Force Base, Washington

Theater Operations Integration:
Langley Air Force Base, Va.

Information Systems:
Rome Laboratory, N.Y.

Cyber Operations Integration:
Barksdale Air Force, La.

Information Operations:
Lackland Air Force Base, Texas

Space Operations Integration:
Peterson Air Force Base, Colo.

Global Operations Integration:
Offutt Air Force Base, Neb.

Global Networks:
Scott Air Force Base, Ill.

Then there’s the command's new headquarters, which has sparked a sweepstakes that at least 18 states have entered. The Air Force plans to announce in September 2009 its decision on where to locate the headquarters.

I guess the consolation prize will be one of the smaller, rebranded cyber units the command has decided to sprinkle around the country.

It’s About Network Attack

During the past year, the Air Force has made it clear that the primary focus of the new Cyber Command will be the ability to attack an enemy’s networks, and Lord’s presentation reinforces this point.

In a slide under the heading of "Global Power," network and electronic attack capabilities take precedence over cyber deterrence. Lord emphasized that the command’s mission is to “provide robust, survivable access to cyberspace, with offensive and defensive capabilities.”

I'm hopeful that the Cyber Command can work out a way to conduct these attack missions without knocking out the 6 million Web pages linked to Paris Hilton and the 2 million or so Web pages dedicated to tracking the ups and downs of Britney Spears.

New Jobs, New Slogan, New Badge

It’s hard to have a cyber command without cyber warriors. To that end, Lord disclosed that the Air Force plans to develop a cyber career field for officer, enlisted and civilian personnel that will subsume venerable specialties in the communications and electronics field under the new cyber brand.

Lord also floated what could be a new slogan for the Cyber Command: "Transforming Warfare . . . Byte By Byte." I love it. It's punchy, to the point and better than a mission statement.

But you can’t set up a new command without a new badge, and Lord unveiled the cyber operator badge, which has what looks like four satellite orbits spaced evenly around the globe on what is the original Air Force badge.

Blogs4Borders! June 16, 2008

Hat Tip to MJ and Jake @ Freedom Folks
Assimilation blues: why are la Raza and several other Hispanic groups so afraid of scrutiny toward the Hispanic community? We investigate.

100% Preventable! Americans continue to pay the bloody price for open borders! When will the madness end?

And, Who are the people in your neighborhood? Globalists, open border freaks and diversophiles insist that we are enriched by other cultures. But is this always true? We take a look.

American Minute - Jun. 16 - Father of the American Space Program

American Minute
with Bill Federer

The father of the American space program died JUNE 16, 1977.

He developed the V-2 rocket for Germany before emigrating to the US, where in 1958, he launched America's first satellite.

He was director of NASA and the U.S. guided missile program.

His name was Wernher von Braun.

Founder of the National Space Institute, Wernher von Braun stated:

"The laws of nature that enable us to fly to the Moon also enable us to destroy our home planet with the atom bomb. Science itself does not address the question whether we should use the power at our disposal for good or for evil.

The guidelines of what we ought to do are furnished in the moral law of God."

Wernher von Braun continued:

"It is no longer enough that we pray that God may be with us on our side. We must learn to pray that we may be on God's side."

To the California State Board of Education, September 14, 1972, Wernher von Braun wrote:

"Some...challenge science to prove the existence of God. But must we light a candle to see the sun?"

In American Weekly, February 10, 1963, Wernher von Braun wrote:

"It is difficult for me to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a superior rationality behind the existence of the universe...

Viewing the awesome reaches of space...should only confirm our belief in the certainty of its Creator."

(Nashville) Effort to make English official language revived

Effort to make English official language revived
Petition drive is under way to get issue on ballot
BY JANELL ROSS • STAFF WRITER

The movement to make English Nashville's official language is alive again, 14 months after a mayoral veto ended the last effort.

This time, a group identified only as NashvilleEnglishFirst.com has begun to circulate a postcard-based petition drive to place an "English only" measure on the Nov. 4 ballot. The measure would alter the Metro charter, make English Metro's official language and limit all government business, publications and meetings to the English language unless such measures would violate federal or state law.

Its proponents must collect the signatures of 10,103 registered voters by Aug. 16 to make the November ballot.

Councilman Eric Crafton, who represents District 22, is a driving force behind the new petition drive, said Ray Barrett, Davidson County's elections administrator.

Crafton sponsored a bill, approved in February 2007, that called for the English language to be used exclusively on all Metro government voice mail systems, publications and "communications," unless required by federal law or a matter of public health or safety. The latest version doesn't include a health and safety exception.

Six days after the Metro council voted in favor of the bill, Metro's legal department said courts probably would find that the measure violated the Tennessee and U.S. constitutions. That day, Mayor Bill Purcell took the rare step of vetoing the bill and declared, "This is not who we are."

"I, along with a lot of citizens, felt their voice was thwarted" when Purcell vetoed the bill, Crafton said Thursday. "We've had a lot of people asking what we can do. This seems like the best solution."

Should the proposed Metro charter amendment make it onto the ballot and then become law, it could represent a violation of the First and 14th Amendments — the ones guaranteeing free speech and equal protection under the law — said Hedy Weinberg, American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee's executive director.

"Does this mean you can't dial 911 and tell the operator in some other language about a crime that you fear is taking place next door, or in your own home?" said Weinberg, "These policies don't celebrate the cultural pluralism that makes this city so special. They try to crush it."

Mayor Is Concerned

Mayor Karl Dean, Purcell's successor, said in a statement Thursday the city has an obligation to protect and serve residents without regard to the language they speak.

Dean plans to ask Metro's legal department to review the proposed charter amendment but said he saw no substantial differences between it and last year's bill. Dean expressed concern about what the proposed charter amendment would do to the city's image.

"We live in a global economy, and the image we want to project of Nashville to the rest of the world is that we're a welcoming and open city," he said.

Advocates of last year's measure described it as an attempt to en courage immigrants to learn and use English. If it weren't possible to conduct official business in another language, they argued, people would improve and use their English language skills.

But Renata Soto, co-founder of Conexion Americas, a Nashville nonprofit that works with Latino families, said demand for English language courses already far outstrips the supply.

Last year, the debate about making English the official language in Nashville drew worldwide attention. Several news stories marveled that a city where 11.4 percent of the population is foreign-born, according to 2006 U.S. Census figures, would consider such a measure and described it as an outgrowth of anti- immigrant fervor.

Contact Janell Ross at 726-5982 or jross1@tennessean.com.

Ireland delivers stunning blow to Europe's Master

Irish voters reject EU treat
By Sarah Lyall and Stephen Castle

Europe was thrown into political chaos Friday by Ireland's rejection of the Lisbon Treaty, a painstakingly negotiated blueprint for consolidating the European Union's power and streamlining its increasingly unwieldy bureaucracy.

The defeat of the treaty, by a vote of 53.4 percent to 46.6 percent, was the result of a highly organized campaign that played to Irish voters' deepest fears about the EU. For all its benefits, many people feel, the Union is remote, undemocratic and ever more inclined to strip its smaller members of the right to make their own laws and decide their own futures.

Although the Irish are less than 1 percent of the EU population of almost 500 million, the repercussions of the vote Thursday - whose results were announced Friday - are enormous. To take effect, the treaty must be ratified by all 27 members of the EU. So the defeat by a single country, even one as tiny as Ireland, has the potential effect of stopping the whole thing cold.

Reacting with frustration Friday, other European countries said they would try to press ahead for a plan to make the Lisbon Treaty work after all and would discuss the matter when EU leaders gathered for a summit meeting in Brussels next week.

But if they fail, the Union will have to find some other way of adjusting institutionally to the addition of 12 new members since 2004, a rapid growth that the treaty was designed to address.

It will also have to come to terms with the unpleasant reality that, as important as the Union is to their daily lives, many ordinary Europeans still feel alienated from it and confused by how it works.

"Europe as an idea does not provoke passionate support among ordinary citizens," said Denis MacShane, a Labour member of the British Parliament and a former minister for Europe.

"They see a bossy Brussels, and when they have the chance of a referendum in France, the Netherlands or Ireland to give their government and Europe a kick, they put the boot in," he added in an interview, referring to the French and Dutch rejections of a proposed European constitution in similar referendums three years ago.

The Lisbon Treaty, dense and complex, was the response to those French and Dutch defeats. If enacted, it would give Europe its first full-time president and create a new foreign policy chief who, among other things, would control EU development aid.

The treaty would also reduce the number of members on the European Commission, the EU's executive body, rotating the seats so that each member country would sit on the commission 10 out of every 15 years. It would change the voting procedures so that fewer decisions would require majority votes.

Ireland is the only country voting on the treaty in a referendum, as it is required by law to do; the other 26 countries are considering it through their legislatures and executives.

In Ireland, the failure of the referendum was a crushing blow to most of the Irish establishment, including the major political parties and most business groups, which had worked for a yes vote.

But campaigners for a no vote mobilized under the efficient leadership of Declan Ganley, a businessman who argued that the treaty took power away from Ireland.

Ganley, who formed the group Libertas to campaign against the treaty, said that the vote would force the Irish prime minister, Brian Cowen, to renegotiate the treaty and secure a "better deal."

"We want a Europe that is more democratic, and that if there is to be a president and a foreign affairs minister, they should be elected," he said in an interview.

Libertas and other opponents of the treaty capitalized on voters' confusion, their disillusionment with the government and their feelings of alienation from the institutions of Europe, which is the source of about 85 percent of the new laws passed in Europe every year, said Michael Bruter, a senior lecturer in political science at the London School of Economics.

"It's a pro-European country, but they didn't understand the treaty - why it was needed, what it was going to change," Bruter said, speaking of the Irish voters. "They just don't want to give Europe a blank check anymore."

Kick-started by Europe, which poured in billions of dollars beginning in the late 1980s, Ireland was able to transform itself from an insular, impoverished agrarian society to a European powerhouse with an enticingly low corporate tax rate and some of the world's largest pharmaceutical plants. But, having been the beneficiary of European money for years, Ireland now finds itself having to help finance the newer, and poorer, countries that have recently joined the Union.

Time Warner Cable, Comcast and ATT to Curb Internet Traffic

NYTimes.com

Charging by the Byte to Curb Internet Traffic

Some people use the Internet simply to check e-mail and look up phone numbers. Others are online all day, downloading big video and music files.

For years, both kinds of Web surfers have paid the same price for access. But now three of the country’s largest Internet service providers are threatening to clamp down on their most active subscribers by placing monthly limits on their online activity.

One of them, Time Warner Cable, began a trial of “Internet metering” in one Texas city early this month, asking customers to select a monthly plan and pay surcharges when they exceed their bandwidth limit. The idea is that people who use the network more heavily should pay more, the way they do for water, electricity, or, in many cases, cellphone minutes.

That same week, Comcast said that it would expand on a strategy it uses to manage Internet traffic: slowing down the connections of the heaviest users, so-called bandwidth hogs, at peak times.

AT&T also said Thursday that limits on heavy use were inevitable and that it was considering pricing based on data volume. “Based on current trends, total bandwidth in the AT&T network will increase by four times over the next three years,” the company said in a statement.

All three companies say that placing caps on broadband use will ensure fair access for all users.

Internet metering is a throwback to the days of dial-up service, but at a time when video and interactive games are becoming popular, the experiments could have huge implications for the future of the Web.

Millions of people are moving online to watch movies and television shows, play multiplayer video games and talk over videoconference with family and friends. And media companies are trying to get people to spend more time online: the Disneys and NBCs of the world keep adding television shows and movies to their Web sites, giving consumers convenient entertainment that soaks up a lot of bandwidth.

Moreover, companies with physical storefronts, like Blockbuster, are moving toward digital delivery of entertainment. And new distributors of online content — think YouTube — are relying on an open data spigot to make their business plans work.

Critics of the bandwidth limits say that metering and capping network use could hold back the inevitable convergence of television, computers and the Internet.

The Internet “is how we deliver our shows,” said Jim Louderback, chief executive of Revision3, a three-year-old media company that runs what it calls a television network on the Web. “If all of a sudden our viewers are worried about some sort of a broadband cap, they may think twice about downloading or watching our shows.”

Even if the caps are far above the average users’ consumption, their mere existence could cause users to reduce their time online. Just ask people who carefully monitor their monthly allotments of cellphone minutes and text messages.

“As soon as you put serious uncertainty as to cost on the table, people’s feeling of freedom to predict cost dries up and so does innovation and trying new applications,” Vint Cerf, the chief Internet evangelist for Google who is often called the “father of the Internet,” said in an e-mail message.

But the companies imposing the caps say that their actions are only fair. People who use more network capacity should pay more, Time Warner argues. And Comcast says that people who use too much — like those who engage in file-sharing — should be forced to slow down.

Time Warner also frames the issue in financial terms: the broadband infrastructure needs to be improved, it says, and maybe metering could pay for the upgrades. So far its trial is limited to new subscribers in Beaumont, Tex., a city of roughly 110,000.

In that trial, new customers can buy plans with a 5-gigabyte cap, a 20-gigabyte cap or a 40-gigabyte cap. Prices for those plans range from $30 to $50. Above the cap, customers pay $1 a gigabyte. Plans with higher caps come with faster service.

“Average customers are way below the caps,” said Kevin Leddy, executive vice president for advanced technology at Time Warner Cable. “These caps give them years’ worth of growth before they’d ever pay any surcharges.”

Casual Internet users who merely send e-mail messages, check movie times and read the news are not likely to exceed the caps. But people who watch television shows on Hulu.com, rent movies on iTunes or play the multiplayer game Halo on Xbox may start to exceed the limits — and millions of people are already doing those things.

Streaming an hour of video on Hulu, which shows programs like “Saturday Night Live,” “Family Guy” and “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” consumes about 200 megabytes, or one-fifth of a gigabyte. A higher-quality hour of the same content bought through Apple’s iTunes store can use about 500 megabytes, or half a gigabyte.

A high-definition episode of “Survivor” on CBS.com can use up to a gigabyte, and a DVD-quality movie through Netflix’s new online service can eat up about five gigabytes. One Netflix download alone, in fact, could bring a user to the limit on the cheapest plan in Time Warner’s trial in Beaumont.

Even services like Skype and Vonage that use the Internet to transmit phone calls could help put users over the monthly limits.

Time Warner would not reveal how many gigabytes an average customer uses, saying only that 95 percent of customers use under 40 gigabytes each in a month.

That means that 5 percent of customers use more than 50 percent of the network’s overall capacity, the company said, and many of those people are assumed to be sharing copyrighted video and music files illegally.

The Time Warner plan has the potential to bring Internet use full circle, back to the days when pay-as-you-go pricing held back the Web’s popularity. In the early days of dial-up access, America Online and other providers offered tiered pricing, in part because audio and video were barely viable online. Consumers feared going over their allotted time and bristled at the idea that access to cyberspace was billed by the hour.

In 1996, when AOL started offering unlimited access plans, Internet use took off and the online world started moving to the center of people’s daily lives. Today most Internet packages provide a seemingly unlimited amount of capacity, at least from the consumer’s perspective.

But like water and electricity, even digital resources are finite. Last year Comcast disclosed that it was temporarily turning off the connections of customers who used file-sharing services like BitTorrent, arguing that they were slowing things down for everyone else. The people who got cut off complained and asked how much broadband use was too much; the company did not have a ready answer.

Thus, like Time Warner, Comcast is considering a form of Internet metering that would apply to all online activity.

The goal, says Mitch Bowling, a senior vice president at Comcast, is “ensuring that a small number of users don’t impact the experience for everyone else.”

Last year Comcast was sued when it was disclosed that the company had singled out BitTorrent users.

In February, Comcast departed from that approach and started collaborating with the company that runs BitTorrent. Now it has shifted to what it calls a “platform agnostic” approach to managing its network, meaning that it slows down the connection of any customer who uses too much bandwidth at congested times.

Mr. Bowling said that “typical Internet usage” would not be affected. But on the Internet, “typical” use is constantly being redefined.

“The definitions of low and high usage today are meaningless, because the Internet’s going to grow, and nothing’s going to stop that,” said Eric Klinker, the chief technology officer of BitTorrent.

As the technology company Cisco put it in a recent report, “today’s ‘bandwidth hog’ is tomorrow’s average user.”

One result of these experiments is a tug-of-war between the Internet providers and media companies, which are monitoring the Time Warner experiment with trepidation.

“We hate it,” said a senior executive at a major media company, who requested anonymity because his company, like all broadcasters, must play nice with the same cable operators that are imposing the limits. Now that some television shows are viewed millions of times online, the executive said, any impediment would hurt the advertising model for online video streaming.

Mr. Leddy of Time Warner said that the media companies’ fears were overblown. If the company were to try to stop Web video, “we would not succeed,” he said. “We know how much capacity they’re going to need in the future, and we know what it’s going to cost. And today’s business model doesn’t pay for it very well.”

Cyberattack Gets Worse

Many U.S. legislators have complained that their computers were infected by eavesdropping software inserted by hackers traced back to China.

There was a similar flap over two years ago. Back then, there was enough proof to know that China was behind the increasing number of Internet based attacks, but not enough to call China out on it.

This all began about eight years ago, with an increasing number of very well executed Internet attacks hitting U.S. government (especially Department of Defense) computers. Analysis of these attacks indicated that the hackers appeared to be coming from China. At first, it was thought to be adventurous computer science students, or criminals out to steal something they could sell.

Then, in 2003, came the "Titan Rain" incident. This was a massive and well organized attack on American military networks. The people carrying out the attack really knew what they were doing, and thousands of military and industrial documents were sent back to China. The attackers were not able to cover their trail completely, and some of the attackers were traced back to a Chinese government facility in southern China. The Chinese government denied all, and the vast amounts of technical data American researchers had as proof was not considered compelling enough for the event to be turned into a major media or diplomatic episode.

In the wake of Titan Rain, governments around the world began to improve their Internet security. But not enough. The attacks kept coming. Out of China. And the attackers were getting better. In 2005, a well organized attack was made on the networks of the British parliament. This time, the defense won the battle. Mostly. The carefully prepared emails (with virus attached), would have fooled many recipients, because they were personalized, and this helped prevent network defenses from detecting the true nature of these messages. These targeted emails from hackers were very successful. If the recipient tried to open the attached file, their computer who have hacking software secretly installed. This software would basically give the hacker control of that PC, making it possible to monitor what the user does on the computer, and have access to whatever is on that machine.

While many recipients sense that the "spear fishing" (or "phishing") attack is just that, some don't, and it only takes a few compromised PCs to give someone access to a lot of secret information. This would be the case even if it is home PCs that are being infected. The recent complaints from American legislators is all about that, as they have discovered office and personal PCs of themselves and their staffers infected.

But many other attacks are only discovered when they are over, or nearly so. The attackers are very well prepared, and usually first make probes and trial run attacks on target systems. When the attackers come in force, they don't want to be interrupted. And usually they aren't. The Chinese attackers use techniques similar to those employed by criminal gangs trying to get into banks, brokerages and big businesses in general. Thus it is believed that the Chinese hackers try, as much as possible, to appear like just another gang of cyber criminals. But the Chinese have certain traits that appear more military than gangster.

The Chinese cyber army keeps getting better, and that includes covering their tracks. It may take a defector or three to make it definite that China is waging a stealthy war over the Internet. Meanwhile, the Chinese reap enormous economic and political benefits from their raids on economic and technical secrets in the West.