Yeah I take anything posted on Prison Planet with a grain mine full of salt really.

For growing numbers of international business travelers, visa and customs regulations are making trips to the United States a thing of the past.

Companies say U.S. rules have become so onerous in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that it is often simpler to meet customers, business partners and employees elsewhere. Exxon Mobil has held customer meetings in a London branch office; Ingersoll-Rand says it took one of its Indian engineers three 18-hour trips to get his U.S. visa.

Problems created by the entry requirements have become so evident that the man who initially helped enforce them — Tom Ridge, the first U.S. secretary of homeland security — is now working with a business group to change them.

"Our challenge now is to continue to meet our security needs while striking a better balance with how we welcome foreign visitors," Ridge said

http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/state/16294223.htm

Associated Press
TYLER, Texas - A one-time Texas drug agent described by a former boss as perhaps the best narcotics officer in the country plans to begin selling a video that shows people how to conceal their drugs and fool police.

Barry Cooper, who once worked for police departments in Gladewater and Big Sandy and the Permian Basin Drug Task Force, plans to launch a Web site next week where he will sell his video, "Never Get Busted Again," the Tyler Morning Telegraph reported in its online edition Thursday.

A promotional video says Cooper will show viewers how to "conceal their stash," "avoid narcotics profiling" and "fool canines every time."

Cooper, who said he favors the legalization of marijuana, made the video in part because he believes the nation's fight against drugs is a waste of resources. Busting marijuana users fills up prisons with nonviolent offenders, he said.

"My main motivation in all of this is to teach Americans their civil liberties and what drives me in this is injustice and unfairness in our system," Cooper told the newspaper.

Cooper said his Web site should be operating by Tuesday, and he plans to publicize the video in a full-page advertisement in a national publication.

As a drug officer, Cooper said, he made more than 800 drug arrests and seized more than 50 vehicles and $500,000 in cash and assets.

"He was even better than he says he was," said Tom Finley, Cooper's former boss on a West Texas drug task force and now a private investigator in Midland. "He was probably the best narcotics officer in the state and maybe the country during his time with the task force."

News of the video has angered authorities, including Richard Sanders, an agent with the Tyler Drug Enforcement Agency. Sanders said he plans to investigate whether the video violates any laws.

"It outrages me personally as I'm sure it does any officer that has sworn an oath to uphold the laws of this state, and nation," Sanders said. "It is clear that his whole deal is to make money and he has found some sort of scheme, but for him to go to the dark side and do this is infuriating."

Smith County Deputy Constable Mark Waters, a narcotics officer, said the video is insulting to law enforcement officials, especially when it was made by an ex-police officer.

"It's an embarrassment to all law enforcement officers across the United States, who put their life on the line everyday," Waters said. "This is a slap in the face to all that we do to uphold the laws and keep the public safe."

Report: Toyota System Would Detect Drunken Drivers, Shut Down Cars
Wednesday, January 03, 2007

E-MAIL STORY RESPOND TO EDITOR PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION
TOKYO — Drivers who get beyond the wheel after too many drinks could soon find themselves in trouble not just with the law, but with their cars, too.

Toyota Motor Corp. (TM) is developing a reputedly fail-safe system for cars that detects drunken drivers and automatically shuts the vehicle down if sensors pick up signs of excessive alcohol consumption, a news report said Wednesday.

Cars fitted with the detection system will not start if sweat sensors in the driving wheel detect high levels of alcohol in the driver's bloodstream, according to a report carried by the mass-circulation daily, Asahi Shimbun.

Click here to visit FOXBusiness.com's Autos Center.

The system could also kick in if the sensors detect abnormal steering, or if a special camera shows that the driver's pupils are not in focus. The car is then slowed to a halt, the report said.

The world's No. 2 automaker hopes to fit cars with the system by the end of 2009, according to the report. Calls to Toyota's headquarters in Nagoya rang unanswered on Wednesday, a public holiday.

Nissan Motor Co., another Japanese car manufacturer, has already been experimenting with breathalyzer-like devices that could detect if a driver was drunken. Similar technologies, such as alcohol ignition interlocks, are in use in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Some in the U.S. hailed the report as evidence of companies addressing societal problems while appealing to consumer demands. In an e-mailed response to a FOXNews.com reporter's questions, David Boaz, Executive Vice President of the Cato Institute, a libertarian-leaning think tank, said "This is a great example of the way the private sector solves problems. There's more demand for reducing drunk driving, and Toyota is responding to that demand with innovative engineering."

Concerns over drunken driving have surged in Japan following a series of alcohol-related accidents last year. In August, a drunken driver collided with another vehicle carrying a family of five, plunging them off a bridge and killing three children.

The incident prompted stepped-up roadside spot checks by police, who also plan to stiffen penalties for drunken driving.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,240983,00.html

Senate to get first socialist ever
by Antoine AgasseTue Jan 2, 9:32 AM ETUS

Socialism will get its first-ever face in the US Senate when veteran Vermont politician Bernard "Bernie" Sanders takes a seat in the powerful upper house of the legislature.

In a country where most people think more of North Korea when they hear the word "socialism" -- rather than, for instance, democratic socialist Scandinavian countries -- Sanders, 65, will be a new phenomenon in the staid two-party system of Washington.

The son of Jewish immigrants from Poland is hardly an extreme leftist. But those in his home state used to his gruff, straight-spoken ways say he could stir up the debate over the policies of President George W. Bush as he assumes his role as a key ally of the new but slim Democratic majority.

Sanders swept to victory with a decisive 65 percent of the vote in the Vermont senatorial race last November.

Running officially as an independent but never hiding his socialist ideas, he trounced a businessman who spent seven million dollars of his own fortune in the race.

But it was hardly surprising after a three decade career in Vermont politics, where people have learned that his disheveled air of a college professor and his strong accent from his native Brooklyn, New York, don't pose a threat to US democracy.

"I'm a democratic socialist," he says, explaining his beliefs.

"To my mind, our goal should be a society in which you have a strong entrepreneurial class creating wealth, creating good jobs, but at the same time you need a strong government presence to make sure that all of our people receive at least a minimum standard of living."

It is an idea Sanders has been pushing since he first ran for a Vermont seat in the Senate in the early 1970s. He only got six percent of the vote against mainstream Democratic and Republican party candidates.

But when he then decided instead to contest the mayorship of the state's largest city, Burlington, in 1981, he surprised everyone by beating the veteran Democratic incumbent by a bare 10 votes.

"No one expected him to win that race," said Peter Freyne, a political reporter for the local weekly Seven Days. "He was on the fringe, a loud mouth screamer."

His victory left local people nervous about the socialist label, rarely worn voluntarily by successful US politicians. Under Sanders the city was sarcastically branded "The People's Republic of Burlington."

"They were fearful," recalled Garrison Nelson, a University of Vermont political science professor who had to go on television to explain that a Soviet attack on a local air base was not imminent as a result of Sanders' taking office.

After his first triumph, few thought Sanders would last in politics, refusing to join either the Democrats and Republicans, and wearing his socialist views openly.

But on a strong record of managing Burlington, making it known as one of the country's most livable cities, he was reelected mayor three times in the 1980s.

That record helped carry him to victory in the 1990 contest for Vermont's sole seat in the US House of Representatives. He held the seat for eight two-year terms before deciding to chase the Senate seat last year.

"The most rural state in the union picking a Brooklyn Jewish socialist makes no sense. But that's the great paradox of Vermont," said Nelson.

Nelson said Sanders, who can come across as rude, sports hardly any of the normal attributes of successful US politicians.

"If you look at all the resources that usually exist to explain the success of an American politician, you realize that he has not a lot," Nelson said.

"He has no political party, he has no personal wealth. He's not what you call charming, no family connections."

Sanders is not shy of saying what he thinks, says Cathy Resmer, a local journalist, but it helps him.

"People think he is telling the truth and they like that. He tells them what he believes and not what they want to hear," Resmer said.

"He's an indefatigable politician, full of energy and dedicated to the people," adds Freyne.

"He has no hobby. Politics is his hobby, his life, and he's determined to get results."

The Senate will give Sanders a new soapbox for his views. He is officially listed as an independent, but in practice he and another independent will work with the Democrats and be key to their bare 51-49 seat majority over Bush's Republicans.

"He's going to do everything he can to make president Bush miserable," Nelson predicts. "He's a one-of-a-kind phenomenon."

Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.
Copyright © 2007 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

U.S. Bars Lab From Testing E-Voting Machines
Posted by kdawson on Thursday January 04, @09:14AM
from the watching-the-watchers dept.
United States Politics
joshdick writes to point out a NYTimes story on the decertification of Ciber Inc. from testing electronic voting systems. It will come as a surprise to no-one here on Slashdot that experts say the deficiencies of the laboratory suggest that crucial features like the vote-counting software and security against hacking may not have been thoroughly tested on many machines now in use. From the article: "A laboratory that has tested most of the nation's electronic voting systems has been temporarily barred from approving new machines after federal officials found that it was not following its quality-control procedures and could not document that it was conducting all the required tests... The federal Election Assistance Commission made this decision last summer, but the problem was not disclosed then... Ciber... says it is fixing its problems and expects to gain certification soon."