MB Civic

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/04/155257

From today’s headlines at Democracy Now…

Nixon, Reagan Ordered Spying on Rehnquist Witnesses
Newly-released FBI documents reveal both the Nixon and Reagan administrations ordered the monitoring of witnesses set to provide critical testimony about former Chief Justice William Rehnquist. In 1971, the Nixon White House ordered the FBI to run background checks on witnesses in Renquist’s initial Senate confirmation hearing. When Renquist was nominated to chief justice fifteen years later, the Reagan administration told the FBI to check on the witnesses and find out what they planned to say. The FBI obtained the names from then-assistant attorney general John Bolton. Bolton was the Bush administration’s UN ambassador until last month. The documents also show the FBI was aware in 1971 Rehnquist owned a home in Phoenix that was only allowed to be sold to whites. The clause was only disclosed fifteen years later and Rehnquist claimed he was unaware. The new files also reveal details of Rehnquist’s dependency on prescription painkillers. In 1981, doctors reported Rehnquist exhibited severe withdrawal after he stopped receiving the medication. Rehnquist was said to have tried to escape from a hospital stay in his pajamas after convincing himself of a CIA plot against his life. The FBI has withheld an additional two hundred pages in Rehnquist’s file and says one entire section cannot be retrieved.

Israeli Peace Activist Released from Prison
In Israel, an Israeli peace activist imprisoned for aiding a Palestinian militant has been released from jail. Tali Fahima had served more than two years of her three-year sentence for aiding Zakaria Zubeidi, the head of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Jenin. As part of her conditions for early release, Fahimi will be barred from visiting the Occupied Territories. As she emerged from jail Wednesday, Fahima said: “I don’t regret anything. I will continue to work against the occupation and for peace.”

Voting-Machine Testing Lab Suspended Over Lax Methods
In voting news, the New York Times is reporting the laboratory responsible for testing most of the nation’s electronic voting systems has been barred from approving new machines after election officials concluded it hasn’t kept proper records. The company, Ciber Inc. of Colorado, is the largest tester of voting machine software in the United States. Experts say Ciber’s lax procedures could mean many current machines were not properly tested for crucial features like vote-counting software and security against hacking. Aviel Rubin, a computer science professor at Johns Hopkins, said: “What’s scary is that we’ve been using systems in elections that Ciber had certified… This calls into question those systems that they tested.”

CNN Apologizes to Obama for bin Laden Gaffe
..CNN has apologized to Illinois Democrat Senator Barack Obama over a graphic that mistakenly listed Osama bin Laden’s first name as “Obama.” The mistake came in a preview for a segment on bin Laden that read QUOTE: “Where’s Obama?” The incident is one of several that have raised questions about the media’s coverage of Obama as he mulls a possible presidential campaign. Pundits have begun highlighting Obama’s middle name “Hussein” as a potential political liability. And last month on CNN senior analyst Jeff Greenfield compared Obama’s style of dress to that of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

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-MAB