Members of Congress Demand Answers for Homeland Security’s Unjust Domain Name Seizures

Electronic Frontier Foundation
Trevor Timm

This morning, a bipartisan group of Representatives, led by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), sent a pointed letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and the Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano protesting the recent spat of domain name seizures—executed on dubious copyright grounds—that have been censoring websites with no due process.

“Our concern centers on your Department’s methods, and the process given, when seizing the domain names of websites whose actions and content are presumed to be lawful, protected speech,” the letter said, which was also signed by Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Ut.).

The Representatives’ letter focused on the case of former hip hop website Dajaz1. Dajaz1’s domain name had been seized for over a year, despite evidence that the website had lawful material, and that “many of the allegedly infringing links to copyrighted songs, and specifically the links that were the basis of the seizure order, were given to the site’s owner by artists and labels themselves” including Kanye West, Diddy, and a vice president of a major record label.

Adding to the injustice, the government refused to cooperate with Dajaz1’s attorneys for months, and sought numerous extensions of the seizure authority in secret. When the court records were finally released, it showed that the government was waiting on the RIAA to evaluate a "sampling of allegedly infringing content" and respond to other “outstanding questions.”  While the RIAA fiddled, Dajaz1 lost the right to speak and the public lost its right to read what was published there.

Finally, after a year, control over dajaz1.com was handed back to the owners with no apology, and no explanation.  It is disturbing enough that DHS has been effectively acting as the tax-funded hired gun of the content industry, but, even more horrifying, it censored the wrong targets, for no good reason, for a year.

Dajaz1’s case is far from unique, as we found out earlier this week when a similar situation happened to Rojadirecta.com and Rojadirecta.org, the popular sports streaming sites that were seized—again with no due process—back in February 2011. The sites, which have been in the midst of a court fight to return its domains, had been arguing that linking was not infringing, noting that a Spanish court had already found the sites legal. Yet the government still held onto their domain for 18 months.  On Wednesday, they again handed back their domains with no explanation. 

As we explained:

Dropping the case was, of course, the right move. The government's copyright arguments were incredibly weak (it’s pretty well-settled that linking is not infringement). Even more troubling, the seizures also captured plenty of legal and protected speech. Indeed, many (including EFF) have been making these arguments for well over a year. The real question is why it took so long. 

We also demanded the government should explain why it reversed its position, and provide a clear policy rationale so websites around the world could assess their risk for unexplained and unjustified seizures.

The Representatives want answers to the same questions. At the end of their letter, they ask seven specific questions about DHS’ policy, their rationale, and what procedures they plan on implementing so websites’ rights aren’t trampled on again. You can read the full letter here.

EFF is encouraged that Congress is taking an increased interest in making sure First Amendment protected speech is not censored on the Internet due to draconian copyright policy, and we look forward to the Justice Deparment and Homeland Security’s official response.  

Flashback: The Homeland Security Program Made for Jewish Non-Profits

AllGov
Noel Brinkerhoff

Chabad Rabbi Levi Shemtov
with Barack Obama

While nothing in its policy guidelines say it’s supposed to be this way, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has distributed the vast majority of its nonprofit security grants to Jewish organizations.

During one three-year period (2007-2010), Jewish groups received 73% of DHS’ Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP) awards. This share grew larger in 2011 (80%) and still larger in 2012 (97%).

In total dollars, Jewish institutions will take in $9.7 million in NSGP grants this year out of $10 million available.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano explained the results of the program’s grant awards this way: “Unfortunately there are risks attendant on the Jewish community that are not attendant on all other communities.”

The point of the NSGP funding is to help nonprofits at risk of terrorist attacks to better protect themselves. Orthodox Jewish groups in particular have done better than non-Orthodox Jewish groups in receiving assistance, presumably because they are more likely to be targeted by anti-Semitic movements. Of the 109 NSGP grants in 2012, 35 went to groups linked to Chabad, an orthodox Hasidic organization. A majority of the funding went to groups in the areas of New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles.

Only a few the NSGP recipients this year were not Jewish. These included a San Diego church, a Planned Parenthood center in Washington and a New York City Catholic church.

DHS policy defines preferred recipients as those having “the highest risk of terrorism-related activity due to their ideology, beliefs and mission.”

-Noel Brinkerhoff

To Learn More:

Jewish Groups Grab Huge Share of Grants (by Josh Nathan-Kazis, Jewish Daily Forward)

How an Anti-Terror Program Became a Jewish Earmark (by Nathan Guttman, Eileen Reynolds and Maia Efrem, Jewish Daily Forward)

FY 2012 Nonprofit Security Grant Program (Department of Homeland Security) (pdf)

Obama Contributor, Who Helped Enact Assault-Weapons Ban, Ran ‘Fast and Furious’

CNS News
Fred Lucas

Dennis K. Burke, who as a lawyer for the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee in the 1990s

Former U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke

was a key player behind the enactment of the 1994 assault-weapons ban, and who then went on to become Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano’s chief of staff, and a contributor to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential primary campaign, and then a member of Obama's transition team focusing on border-enforcement issues, ended up in the Obama administration as the U.S. attorney in Arizona responsible for overseeing Operation Fast and Furious.

When Obama nominated Burke to be U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona, Burke told the Arizona Capitol Times he believed he understood what the president and his attorney general wanted him to do.

“There’s clearly been direction provided already by President Obama and Attorney General Holder as to what they want to be doing, and this is an office that is at the center of the issues of border enforcement,” said Burke.

Over the course of several days, CNSNews.com left multiple telephone messages with Burke for comment on this story. He did not respond.

Dennis K. Burke has had a long career working as an aide and political appointee to Democratic elected officials. From 1989 to 1994, he was a counsel for the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, working in that capacity for several years on an assault-weapons ban, which was finally enacted on Sept. 13, 1994 as the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. That act expired on Sept. 13, 2004. (See NYT: Dennis Burke, Sen. DeConcini, Weapons Ban.pdf)

From 1994-95, Burke served in the Clinton Justice Department in the Office of Legislative Affairs, and in 1997-99, he was an assistant U.S. attorney in Arizona.

From 1999 to 2003, Burke was chief deputy and special assistant to Arizona Attorney General Janet Napolitano.

In 2003, when Napolitano became governor, Burke became her chief of staff. He stayed in that job until the fall of 2008, when he left to help Democratic political campaigns, including then-Sen. Obama’s presidential campaign.

Department of Homeland Security
Secretary Janet Napolitano.

Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show that on Jan. 9, 2008, while working as Gov. Napolitano’s chief of staff, Burke contributed $2,000 to then-Sen Obama’s presidential primary campaign. Since 1997, according to FEC records, Burke has contributed a total of $16,350 to various Democratic candidates.

After Obama was elected in November 2008, Burke joined his presidential transition team, serving on the Immigration Policy Working Group.

Eight days before Obama’s inauguration, on Jan. 12, 2009--while Burke was working on the transition team--Obama met with Mexican President Felipe Calderon at the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington, D.C. At that meeting, Obama “pledged” to take action to stop the flow of guns from the United States to Mexico.

Obama also decided to put Burke’s old boss, incoming Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, in a leadership role in making the gun-trafficking problem a top priority.

“President-elect Obama expressed support for efforts in the border states in both the United States and Mexico to eradicate drug-related violence and stop the flow of guns and cash,” incoming White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement at the time. “He told President Calderón that he intends to ask the Secretary of Homeland Security to lead an effort to increase information sharing to strengthen those efforts. He pledged to take more effective action from the United States to stem the flow of arms from the United States to Mexico.”

When Napolitano became Homeland Security secretary, Burke moved from the Obama transition team to become her senior adviser. On Feb. 25, 2009, a little more than a month after Obama had made his “pledge” to Calderon, Napolitano testified in the House Homeland Security Committee. She stressed that stopping the flow of guns to Mexico was a top priority of the Obama administration and key focus of her work.

Former Obama chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.

Responding to a question about violence on the border, Napolitano said the administration was going to work with the Mexican government on the issue. Then she said: “Secondly, it is looking at, government-wide, at what we can do to stop the southbound export of weaponry, particularly assault-type weapons and grenades that are being used in that drug war.”

Napolitano further noted that drug cartels were targeting Mexican government officials and law enforcement officers, and that, given the seriousness of the threat, Obama’s national security adviser, the attorney general, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and Customs (of which the Border Patrol is part) would all be working on the issue.

DHS Documents Show Role in Occupy Crackdown

Reader Supported News

A trove of documents released today by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in response to a FOIA request filed by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, filmmaker Michael Moore and the National Lawyers Guild Mass Defense Committee reveal that federal law enforcement agencies began their coordinated intelligence gathering and operations on the Occupy movement even before the first tent went up in Zuccotti Park on September 17, 2011.

On September 17, 2011, a Secret Service intelligence entry in its Prism Demonstrations Abstract file records the opening of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. The demonstration location that the Secret Service was protecting? The "Wall Street Bull." The name of the Protectee? The "U.S. Government."

American taxpayers might find it odd to learn that the Secret Service was on duty to protect the Wall Street Bull in the name of protecting the U.S. Government. But there it is.

The DHS's Game of Three Card Monte to Deflect Disclosure of Law Enforement Operations

These documents, many of which are redacted, show that the highest officials in the Department of Homeland Security were preoccupied with the Occupy movement and have gone out of their way to project the appearance of an absence of federal involvement in the monitoring of and crackdown on Occupy.

On the street it would be called "Three Card Monte," a swindler's game to hide the ball - a game of misdirection. The House always wins.

The DHS, as revealed in the newly released documents, has engaged in what appears to be a effort to avoid looking for Occupy related materials where it is likely to be found, including in Fusion Centers and DHS sub-divisions such as the Operations Coordination & Planning sub-division which is responsible for DHS coordination with local and federal law enforcement partners.

Feds Label Bulk Buying of Food a Potential Terrorist Activity

Prison Planet
Paul Joseph Watson

Despite the fact that FEMA itself spent $1 billion dollars on storable food last year alone

As part of its effort to encourage business owners to spy on their customers, the FBI has labeled the bulk purchase of food as a potential indication of terrorist activity, despite the fact that FEMA itself last year purchased $1 billion dollars worth of storable food.

A flyer aimed at Military Surplus stores produced under the auspices of the FBI’s Communities Against Terrorism project, encourages owners to report people who “make bulk purchases of items to include….meals ready to eat”.

According to the flyer, the FBI advises store owners to demand ID’s from all new customers, as well as asking them questions about their purchase and being aware of “suspicious statements”.

The flyer also characterizes paying with cash or “demanding identity privacy” as an indication of terrorism.

The characterization by the feds of those who choose to protect themselves against rising food prices or a potential interruption in the food supply by purchasing storable food as potential terrorists is not only chilling – it is also completely hypocritical.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) itself ordered $1 billion dollars worth of dehydrated food in just one instance last year, purchasing a total of 420 million meals.

Are we to follow the FBI’s advice and treat this as a suspicious activity? Should FEMA be reported to other law enforcement agencies as a potential terrorist threat?

Indeed, the Department of Homeland Security is also busy stockpiling storable food and seed varieties in underground bunkers as part of preparations for domestic emergencies. Under its Resolve to be Ready program, the DHS even encouraged Americans to store food as part of a “basic emergency supply kit”.

Non-lethal nonsense kills

The Examiner
William Heuisler

Brian Terry

Agent Terry’s family wants to know why their son was outgunned in the desert.

According to the Associated Press, today Tucson District Border Partol Agent Brian Terry's parents have requested U.S. District Judge James Teilborg to allow them to be a party in the case against Jaime Avila and 19 gun and drug smugglers connected with their son’s murder on December 14 th, 2010.

They want to know why Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) supplies Mexican smugglers with AK 47s and Barrett 50 caliber rifles, but Tucson District Border Patrol supplies half the members of its elite interdiction Tactical Teams with beanbag guns. They apparently wonder why politically correct American policies would rather use “non-lethal” force against criminals - no matter the risk to Agents.

On March 4th Senator Grassley on the Judiciary Committee asked Alan Bersin, Commissioner of the ATF:

“As you know, I am investigating the connection between the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) operation “Fast and Furious” and the firefight on December 14, 2010 that claimed the life of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC) Agent Brian Terry. Terry’s attackers were apparently armed with assault rifles originally purchased as part of ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious. The BORTAC unit used thermal binoculars to identify the rifles and demanded that the suspected aliens drop their weapons. Yet, according to an affidavit filed by FBI Agent, Scott Hunter (US District Court, 2011) even after the aliens refused to disarm themselves, the BORTAC unit was under standing orders to first use non-lethal bean bag rounds. The aliens responded with gunfire, and Agent Terry was killed in the ensuing exchange.” (US Senate 2011)

According to the Judiciary Committee record, Agent Brian Terry’s brother, Kent Terry, has said that of the four individuals in the BORTAC unit, only two were armed with standard firearms at all. Two carried only beanbag guns. These agents did not even have the means to defend themselves.
After the World Trade Center attacks in 2001 Departments of Customs and of Border Patrol were placed under overall supervision of The Department of Homeland Security.

Was Secretary of Homeland Security (Arizona’s former Governor) Janet Napolitano, aware some agents were patrolling the dangerous Arizona desert virtually unarmed?

Evidence of perjury?

Examiner
William Heuisler

Attorney General Eric Holder gave a false sworn statement before the House Judiciary Committee in May of 2011…carelessly forgetting a speech he gave in April of 2009.

 At the May 3rd Judiciary Committee hearing, Congressman Darrell Issa asked Eric Holder, “When did you first know about the program officially, I believe, called Fast and Furious? To the best of your knowledge, what date?”

Holder responded: “I’m not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.” (Hollingsworth, 2011)

According to CBS News investigative correspondent, Sharyl Attkisson, about Operation Fast and Furious - widely known as Operation Gunrunner, "Holder's office at first vehemently denied ATF has ever knowingly allowed weapons to get into the hands of suspected gunrunners for Mexico's drug cartels." (Attkisson, 2011)

Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s mother has demanded to know who authorized the ATF weapon smuggling that caused the death of her son in the desert south of Tucson.

She will find her answer in a two-year-old speech of Attorney General Eric Holder.

In a speech recorded in the Justice News, (Justice Department’s site of record) the Attorney General himself announced Operation Gunrunner back in 2009:

In Cuernavaca, Mexico, on April 2, 2009, Eric Holder said: "Last week, our administration launched a major new effort to break the backs of the cartels. My department is committing 100 new ATF personnel to the Southwest border in the next 100 days to supplement our ongoing Project Gunrunner.

Despite Previous Reassurances by Janet Napalitano and Homeland Security, Incident Rates of Cancer Surge in TSA Employees

PrisonPlanet

FOIA documents reveal how “large number of workers have been falling victim to cancer, strokes and heart disease”

 Fearful of provoking further public resistance to naked airport body scanners, the TSA has been caught covering up a surge in cases of TSA workers developing cancer as a result of their close proximity to radiation-firing devices, perhaps the most shocking revelation to emerge from the latest FOIA documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

After Union representatives in Boston discovered a “cancer cluster” amongst TSA workers linked with radiation from the body scanners, the TSA sought to downplay the matter and refused to issue employees with dosimeters to measure levels of exposure.

The documents indicate how, “A large number of workers have been falling victim to cancer, strokes and heart disease.”

“The Department, rather than acting on it, or explaining its position seems to have just dismissed. I don’t think that’s the way most other agencies would have acted in a similar situation if they were confronted with that question,” EPIC’s Marc Rotenberg said.

In an email sent to Heather Callahan (PDF), deputy federal security director at Boston Logan International Airport, union representatives express their concern about “TSA Boston’s growing number of TSOs working here that have thus far been diagnosed with cancer.”

Of course, if TSA workers who are merely standing near the scanners are already developing cancer, frequent flyers are also putting themselves in harm’s way by standing directly inside the radiation-firing machines.

As we reported yesterday, newly released internal government documents, obtained via the Freedom Of Information Act by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, reveal that the TSA, and specifically the head of the Department of Homeland Security, “publicly mischaracterized” the findings of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, in stating that NIST had positively confirmed the safety of full body scanners in tests.

In erroneously citing both NIST and the Johns Hopkins school of medicine to claim that the body scanners are safe, the TSA has also deliberately misled the public on the dangers posed by the devices.
Documents obtained by EPIC show that, far from affirming their safety, NIST warned that airport screeners should avoid standing next to full body scanners in order to keep exposure to harmful radiation “as low as reasonably achievable.”

Further documents illustrate how a Johns Hopkins study actually revealed that radiation zones around body scanners could exceed the “General Public Dose Limit,” contradicting repeated claims by the TSA that Johns Hopkins had validated the safety of the devices.

At the time we pointed out that Dr Michael Love, who runs an X-ray lab at the department of biophysics and biophysical chemistry at the Johns Hopkins school of medicine had publicly stated two days previously that “statistically someone is going to get skin cancer from these X-rays”.

DHS partners with Jewish organizations

The Hill
Jordy Yager

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced its first faith-based security partnership on Friday, as it joined ranks with two major Jewish organizations.

The move is part of the agency’s “If You See Something, Say Something” awareness campaign and will work with the Jewish Federations of North America and the Secure Community Network to promote and distribute media materials in Jewish centers, organizations and communities throughout the country.

“Homeland security begins with hometown security, and our nation’s faith-based organizations play a critical role in keeping our communities safe,” said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano in a statement.

“Expanding the ‘If You See Something, Say Something’ campaign to national Jewish groups, the first faith-based partnership for the campaign, is an important step in the Department’s ongoing effort to engage the American public in our nation’s security efforts.”

The board of The Jewish Federations of North America pointed to recent attempted attacks on Jewish targets, such as the two men who were accused of allegedly plotting to attack a Manhattan synagogue last month as they allegedly tried to purchase a grenade and handguns.

“The American Jewish community and the places we gather are, unfortunately, often targets for terrorists,” said Michael Gelman, the chairman of the Executive Committee of the Board of the Jewish Federations of North America.

“This new partnership with the Department of Homeland Security will empower us to counter this threat as we become more actively involved in our own protection,” he said.

Last July, DHS launched its nationwide public awareness campaign after local law enforcement officials successfully ran a similar program’s in New York City. The DHS program has partnered with major sporting associations including the NBA, NFL, and NCAA, in an attempt to use employee and the public reports as a way to spot suspicious activity and thwart possible terrorist attacks.v

Janet Napolito Would Like You to Bend Over

Rawstory

Airline passengers should get used to invasive full body scans and enhanced

pat-downs, the Homeland Security secretary suggested Sunday.

CNN's Candy Crowley asked Janet Napolitano if she expected changes to the controversial Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screening procedures in the near future.
"Not for the foreseeable future," Napolitano replied.

"You know we're always looking to improve systems and so forth, but the new technology, the pat-downs -- just objectively safer for our traveling public," she said.
About 70 airports have put into use more than 400 backscatter x-ray machines that can see beneath passengers' clothing. Passengers who set off a metal detector or body scan machine or refuse to be scanned receive an invasive physical pat down.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said it received over 900 complaints from travelers in November who were subjected to the new screening procedures of the TSA.
"Under the newly implemented enhanced pat-down, a TSA officer slides his or her hands over an individual's breasts, buttocks, groin, and inner thighs, and inserts his or her fingers inside the entire circumference of the pant's waistband," a lawsuit filed against Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and TSA administrator John Pistole stated.

"Although it is well established that subjecting airline passengers to limited searches designed to detect weapons and explosives is consistent with the Fourth Amendment, it is equally well established that such searches must be reasonable," the lawsuit added.

Crowley pressed Napolitano to explain how she could claim security is improving when a recent ABC News report found a nearly 70 percent failure rate at some major airports.
But the Homeland Security secretary brushed off those reports.

"I think I know the test to which you refer, many of them are very old, and out of date and there were all kinds of methodology issues with them. Let's set those aside."

"We pick up more contraband with the new procedures," she added.

President Napolitano: Internet Monitoring Needed to Fight Homegrown Terrorism

Fox News

Translation: We're finding it more difficult to lie to the public and those who are posting true contradictions to our lies are internet terrorists.

WASHINGTON -- Fighting homegrown terrorism by monitoring Internet communications is a civil liberties trade-off the U.S. government must make to beef up national security, the nation's homeland security chief said Friday.

As terrorists increasingly recruit U.S. citizens, the government needs to constantly balance Americans' civil rights and privacy with the need to keep people safe, said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

But finding that balance has become more complex as homegrown terrorists have used the Internet to reach out to extremists abroad for inspiration and training. Those contacts have spurred a recent rash of U.S.-based terror plots and incidents.

"The First Amendment protects radical opinions, but we need the legal tools to do things like monitor the recruitment of terrorists via the Internet," Napolitano told a gathering of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy.

Napolitano's comments suggest an effort by the Obama administration to reach out to its more liberal, Democratic constituencies to assuage fears that terrorist worries will lead to the erosion of civil rights.

The administration has faced a number of civil liberties and privacy challenges in recent months as it has tried to increase airport security by adding full-body scanners, or track suspected terrorists traveling into the United States from other countries.

"Her speech is sign of the maturing of the administration on this issue," said Stewart Baker, former undersecretary for policy with the Department of Homeland Security. "They now appreciate the risks and the trade-offs much more clearly than when they first arrived, and to their credit, they've adjusted their preconceptions."

Underscoring her comments are a number of recent terror attacks over the past year where legal U.S. residents such as Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad and accused Fort Hood, Texas, shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan, are believed to have been inspired by the Internet postings of violent Islamic extremists.

And the fact that these are U.S. citizens or legal residents raises many legal and constitutional questions.

Napolitano said it is wrong to believe that if security is embraced, liberty is sacrificed.

She added, "We can significantly advance security without having a deleterious impact on individual rights in most instances. At the same time, there are situations where trade-offs are inevitable."

As an example, she noted the struggle to use full-body scanners at airports caused worries that they would invade people's privacy.

The scanners are useful in identifying explosives or other nonmetal weapons that ordinary metal-detectors might miss -- such as the explosives that authorities said were successfully brought on board the Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day by Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. He is accused of trying to detonate a bomb hidden in his underwear, but the explosives failed, and only burned Abdulmutallab.

U.S. officials, said Napolitano, have worked to institute a number of restrictions on the scanners' use in order to minimize that. The scans cannot be saved or stored on the machines by the operator, and Transportation Security Agency workers can't have phones or cameras that could capture the scan when near the machine.

Despite Moratorium, Drilling Projects Move Ahead

New York Times

WASHINGTON — In the days since President Obama announced a moratorium on permits for drilling new offshore oil wells and a halt to a controversial type of environmental waiver that was given to the Deepwater Horizon rig, at least seven new permits for various types of drilling and five environmental waivers have been granted, according to records.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will visit the gulf on Monday, along with Janet Napolitano, the homeland security secretary.

The records also indicate that since the April 20 explosion on the rig, federal regulators have granted at least 19 environmental waivers for gulf drilling projects and at least 17 drilling permits, most of which were for types of work like that on the Deepwater Horizon shortly before it exploded, pouring a ceaseless current of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

Asked about the permits and waivers, officials at the Department of the Interior and the Minerals Management Service, which regulates drilling, pointed to public statements by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, reiterating that the agency had no intention of stopping all new oil and gas production in the gulf.

Department of the Interior officials said in a statement that the moratorium was meant only to halt permits for the drilling of new wells. It was not meant to stop permits for new work on existing drilling projects like the Deepwater Horizon.

But critics say the moratorium has been violated or too narrowly defined to prevent another disaster.

With crude oil still pouring into the gulf and washing up on beaches and in wetlands, President Obama is sending Mr. Salazar and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano back to the region on Monday.

In a toughly worded warning to BP on Sunday, Mr. Salazar said at a news conference outside the company’s headquarters in Houston, “If we find they’re not doing what they’re supposed to be doing, we’ll push them out of the way appropriately.”

Mr. Salazar’s position conflicted with one laid out several hours earlier, by the commandant of the United States Coast Guard, Adm. Thad W. Allen, who said that the oil conglomerate’s access to the mile-deep well site meant that the government could not take over the lead in efforts to stop the leak.

“They have the eyes and ears that are down there,” the admiral said on CNN’s “State of the Union” program. “They are necessarily the modality by which this is going to get solved.”

Since the explosion, federal regulators have been harshly criticized for giving BP’s Deepwater Horizon and hundreds of other drilling projects waivers from full environmental review and for failing to provide rigorous oversight of these projects.

In voicing his frustration with these regulators and vowing to change how they operate, Mr. Obama announced on May 14 a moratorium on drilling new wells and the granting of environmental waivers.

“It seems as if permits were too often issued based on little more than assurances of safety from the oil companies,” Mr. Obama said. “That cannot and will not happen anymore.”

“We’re also closing the loophole that has allowed some oil companies to bypass some critical environmental reviews,” he added in reference to the environmental waivers.

But records indicated that regulators continued granting the environmental waivers and permits for types of work like that occurring on the Deepwater Horizon.

In testifying before Congress on May 18, Mr. Salazar and officials from his agency said they recognized the problems with the waivers and they intended to try to rein them in. But Mr. Salazar also said that he was limited by a statutory requirement that he said obligated his agency to process drilling requests within 30 days after they have been submitted.

Full Article

Engineer accuses BP of ignoring damaged oil well safety gear

Times Online

INN World Report

The critical piece of safety equipment that failed to shut down the oil well after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded last month was damaged before the accident, it emerged yesterday.

According to a survivor’s account that could prove devastating to BP as it struggles to stop millions of gallons of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, the safety device — known as a blowout preventer — was punctured in the weeks before the blast but nothing was done to fix it.

Mike Williams, the rig’s chief electronics technician, also said that in the lead-up to the disaster BP officials, concerned that the project was behind schedule and costing the company $1 million (£680,000) a day, ordered a faster pace of drilling.

Since the rig exploded on April 20, BP has been asked repeatedly why the blowout preventer, designed to seal off a well in the event of an explosion, failed to activate. That failure has led to crude oil pouring into the Gulf for a month, a spillage set to eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez accident.

Mr Williams said that shortly before the explosion workers were conducting a test on the blowout preventer. While it was shut a crewman accidentally nudged a joystick, which sent 15ft of the oil pipe through the closed device, whose key component is a rubber gasket that can close tightly around the well head, sealing it off in the event of an explosion.

Mr Williams added that a crewman “discovered chunks of rubber in the drilling fluid”. He thought that it was important enough to bring them into the driller shack. “I recall asking the supervisor if this was out of the ordinary. And he says, ‘Oh, it’s no big deal’. I thought, how can it not be a big deal? Chunks of our seal is now missing,” Mr Williams told 60 Minutes on CBS.

He added that one of the two control pods that operate the blowout preventer had lost some of its function weeks before the explosion, and the batteries on the device were weak. With the schedule slipping, Mr Williams said that a BP manager ordered a quicker pace. The faster drilling had caused the bottom of the well to split open, swallowing tools. “There’s always pressure [on the crew], but yes, the pressure was increased,” he said.

BP said that it was now capturing about a fifth of the oil gushing from the ruptured well after a suction tube had been inserted into the well riser pipe on the ocean floor. The Obama Administration said that it was unimpressed. In a letter to BP, Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security Secretary, and Ken Salazar, the Interior Secretary, said that the insert pipe “is not a solution to the problem and it is not yet clear how successful it will be”.

Edward Markey, Democrat chairman of the House Sub-Committee on Energy and the Environment, said BP had failed to respond to repeated requests for information about the scale of the spill. Officials said that the White House would set up a presidential commission to investigate the disaster.

Threats to Air Travel Being Used by Janet Napolitano to Pass "Pass I.D."

Stating how unlikely it is that other states will be compliant for the Real I.D. Act of 2005, Napolitano pushes for a passage of "Pass I.D." and is using the threat of paralyzing travel through the entire United States of America in order to encourage the Senate to move the Pass ID bill along. Napolitano is claiming the need to abide by the 9/11 Commission's recommendation on this issue. Again, officials are quoting from the thoroughly disgraced 9/11 commission Read the full article.