Tag: Docudharma Times

John McCain: Experienced And Ready

To Lead

When Dealing With Lobbyists  

Russian forces begin leaving key Georgian city

Troops roll out of strategic Gori; major U.S. aid operation launched

MSNBC News Services

TBILISI, Georgia – Russian troops have begun pulling out of the strategically important city of Gori, where their presence raised fears that Russia would challenge a cease-fire agreement, Georgian officials said on Thursday.

Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said that Russian troops have also left Poti, a Black Sea port city with an oil terminal that is a key part of Georgia’s fragile economic health.

Russian troops entered Gori on Wednesday. The city is about 15 miles south of South Ossetia, the separatist Georgian region where Russian and Georgian forces fought a brutal five-day battle.

Peace Plan Offers Russia a Rationale to Advance



By ANDREW E. KRAMER

Published: August 13, 2008

TBILISI, Georgia – It was nearly 2 a.m. on Wednesday when President Nicolas Sarkozy of France announced he had accomplished what seemed virtually impossible: Persuading the leaders of Georgia and Russia to agree to a set of principles that would stop the war.

Handshakes and congratulations were offered all around. But by the time the sun was up, Russian tanks were advancing again, this time taking positions around the strategically important city of Gori, in central Georgia.

It soon became clear that the six-point deal not only failed to slow the Russian advance, but it also allowed Russia to claim that it could push deeper into Georgia as part of so-called additional security measures it was granted in the agreement.

USA

Thai slave laborers freed in El Monte become U.S. citizens

The women take part in ceremonies in Montebello. They were among 72 workers whose plight in 1995 captured the nation’s attention.

By Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

August 14, 2008  

Maliwan Clinton recalls her first taste of America with a shudder. In this fabled land of the free, she was enslaved behind razor wire and around-the-clock guards in an El Monte sweatshop, where she and more than 70 other Thai laborers were forced to work 18-hour days for what amounted to less than a dollar an hour.

When she was freed, a shocked public learned of slavery in its midst and flooded the Thai laborers with American generosity: Churchgoers offered shelter, community advocates proffered English lessons and job tips, lawyers fought for work permits and legal status for the group.Exactly 13 years to the day the Thai laborers won their freedom, Clinton’s American journey came full circle Wednesday as she acquired U.S. citizenship by taking the oath of allegiance to her new nation.

These are dangerous days

To say what you feel is to dig your own grave

Russia Steps Up Its Push; West Faces Tough Choices



By HELENE COOPER

Published: August 11, 2008  

WASHINGTON – Russian troops stepped up their advance into Georgian territory on Monday, attempting to turn back the clock to the days when Moscow held uncontested sway over what it considers its “near abroad,” and arousing increasing alarm among Western leaders.

Even as they prepared to convene an emergency meeting of NATO on Tuesday and President Bush denounced the Russian actions in the strongest terms to date, the United States and its European allies faced tough choices over how to push back. They seemed uncertain how to adjust to a new geopolitical game that threatened to undermine two decades of democratic gains in countries that were once part of the Soviet sphere.

Endangered Species Act Changes Give Agencies More Say



By Juliet Eilperin

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, August 12, 2008; Page A01

The Bush administration yesterday proposed a regulatory overhaul of the Endangered Species Act to allow federal agencies to decide whether protected species would be imperiled by agency projects, eliminating the independent scientific reviews that have been required for more than three decades.

The new rules, which will be subject to a 30-day per comment period, would use administrative powers to make broad changes in the law that Congress has resisted for years. Under current law, agencies must subject any plans that potentially affect endangered animals and plants to an independent review by the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service.

USA

Some Web Firms Say They Track Behavior Without Explicit Consent



By Ellen Nakashima

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, August 12, 2008; Page D01  

Several Internet and broadband companies have acknowledged using targeted-advertising technology without explicitly informing customers, according to letters released yesterday by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

And Google, the leading online advertiser, stated that it has begun using Internet tracking technology that enables it to more precisely follow Web-surfing behavior across affiliated sites.

Throwing Wet Sand At The

Rich

Vladamir Thinks The

Soviet Union Is On A

Reunion Tour  

Russians Push Past Separatist Area to Assault Central Georgia

This article was reported by Andrew E. Kramer, Anne Barnard and C. J. Chivers, and written by Ms. Barnard.

>By ANNE BARNARD, ANDREW E. KRAMER and C. J. CHIVERS

Published: August 10, 2008

TBILISI, Georgia – Russia expanded its attacks on Georgia on Sunday, moving tanks and troops through the separatist enclave of South Ossetia and advancing toward the city of Gori in central Georgia, in its first direct assault on a Georgian city with ground forces during three days of heavy fighting, Georgian officials said.

The maneuver – along with bombing of the Georgian capital, Tbilisi – seemed to suggest that Russia’s aims in the conflict had gone beyond securing the pro-Russian enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia to weakening the armed forces of Georgia, a former Soviet republic and an ally of the United States whose Western leanings have long irritated the Kremlin.

Kitajima Leaves Hansen and Rivalry Behind



By CHRISTOPHER CLAREY

Published: August 11, 2008  

BEIJING – One of swimming’s finest rivalries is now looking lopsided. For the past five years, Kosuke Kitajima of Japan and Brendan Hansen of the United States have pushed each other, developing mutual respect and lower numbers across the language barrier.

But Kitajima is firmly in command at these Olympics, and on Monday, he roared back on the second lap of the 100-meter breaststroke to win the gold medal in 58.91 seconds, taking Hansen’s world record of 59.13 seconds with him.

Hansen, who has struggled in the lead-up to these Games and failed to qualify in the 200 breaststroke, swam a strong first lap but faded to fourth in 59.57 seconds.

USA

For Those Once Behind Bars, A Nudge to the Voting Booth



By Krissah Williams Thompson

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, August 11, 2008; Page A01

TALLAHASSEE — Herbert Pompey had gone through rehab, stayed sober, held a job, married and started a landscaping business in the two years since he walked out of Taylor Correctional Institution. But what Pompey hadn’t done — and what he assumed a string of felony drug and DUI convictions would keep him from ever doing again — was vote.

So his pulse quickened when civil rights lawyer Reggie Mitchell called to tell him that his rights had been restored.

Breathing Easy At The Olympics

If You’re An

Exhaust Pipe

Russia widens attacks as world pleads for peace in South Ossetia

· Moscow targets Georgian towns

· UN heads frantic bid to contain war in Caucasus

Peter Beaumont, Matthew Collin in Tbilisi and Helen Womack in Moscow

The Observer,

Sunday August 10 2008

Russian bombers and artillery yesterday widened their attack against Georgian forces with strikes against towns and military bases across the country in a dangerous escalation of the two-day-old war. Moscow appeared determined to dismantle Georgia’s military capability in punishment for its rival’s brutal attempt to regain control of the breakaway enclave of South Ossetia.

Russia’s Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, last night insisted that its actions were ‘legitimate’ and called on Georgia to end its ‘aggression’ against the separatist province.

As the civilian casualties escalated on both sides, Georgia’s military adventure seemed to be unravelling. President Mikheil Saakashvili demanded a ceasefire from Russia and implored the West to intervene to help him. Georgia’s difficulties deepened further as separatists in a second pro-Russian breakaway Georgian republic – Abkhazia – joined the conflict, attacking Georgian forces in the contested upper Kodori Gorge.

Beijing Curbs Religious Rights

Christian Activists Detail Harassment

By Maureen Fan

Washington Post Foreign Service

Sunday, August 10, 2008; Page A01

BEIJING — China describes itself as a religiously tolerant society, one that allows its citizens to worship freely. This week, per Olympic tradition, it is extending that same freedom to athletes in the form of worship rooms in the Olympic Village, each dedicated for the world’s major religions.

Worshipers also have at their disposal dozens of foreign clerics; 10,000 English-Chinese Bibles emblazoned with the Olympics logo; and an electric organ, for Catholics.

But religious freedom does not extend beyond the heavily secured perimeter fence of the Olympic Green.

USA

Democrats derail effort by Clinton backers to ban caucuses



By Steven Thomma | McClatchy Newspapers

PITTSBURGH – Devoted Hillary Clinton supporters urged the Democratic party Saturday to get rid of caucuses, the town hall meetings in states such as Iowa where Clinton’s presidential campaign stumbled and Barack Obama launched his march to the nomination.

“We need to get rid of caucuses,” said Melissa Whitener, a waitress from Conneaut, Pa., who traveled to lobby the Democratic National Committee as it prepared its party platform.

“Caucuses are inherently unfair,” she said. “I work in a restaurant. I can’t take off a whole shift to go sit in a caucus. We need to all be on the same primary system. Why should 2,000 people in Iowa have the same say as 2 million in Pennsylvania?”

Who Needs The

Olympics

When One Can

Have A War

Comedian Bernie Mac dies at age 50

Comedian Bernie Mac died early Saturday in a Chicago-area hospital from complications due to pneumonia, his publicist told CNN. He was 50. Publicist Danica Smith did not provide additional details, and asked that his family’s privacy be respected

Georgia: Russia steps up ‘peace enforcement’



> AP and Reuters

Saturday, 9 August 2008

Intense fighting raged for a second night in the Georgian separatist region of South Ossetia today, with Georgia’s interior ministry reporting air attacks on three military bases and key facilities for shipping oil to the West.

Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said the Vaziani military base on the outskirts of Tbilisi was bombed by warplanes during the night and that bombs fell in the area of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline.

F.B.I. Says It Obtained Reporters’ Phone Records



By THE NEW YORK TIMES

WASHINGTON – The Federal Bureau of Investigation said Friday that it had improperly obtained the phone records of reporters for The New York Times and The Washington Post in the newspapers’ Indonesia bureaus in 2004.

Robert S. Mueller III, director of the F.B.I., disclosed the episode in a phone call to Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, and apologized for it. He also spoke with Leonard Downie Jr., the executive editor of The Washington Post, to apologize.

USA

Credit crisis triggers unprecedented response

Worst debt turmoil since Depression sparks government action

By David Cho and Neil Irwin  

Since the credit crisis erupted a year ago, the Bush administration has presided over one of the broadest expansions of the government into private lending in U.S. history, risking public money to prop up financial firms both large and small.

The administration has transformed federal agencies into dominant players in such diverse realms as student lending and mortgage finance while exposing itself to trillions of dollars in loans.

Let The Smog Alert

Olympics Begin

Don’t Forget Those

Masks

On the brink of historic change, but will China see the light?

James Lawton on a momentous day for Beijing – and the world

Friday, 8 August 2008

China, the nation that invented fireworks, will today write in the smoggy sky above this ancient city an extraordinary statement of belief in its future – and its defiance of an ever-increasing tide of international criticism.

There will never have been such a show – or such dramatic symbolism – when the 29th summer Olympics opens in the futuristic “Bird’s Nest” stadium. With another batch of protesters cleared away from Tiananmen Square, and the United States President and arch critic, George Bush, one of 80 watching heads of state, the button will be pressed on the ultimate pyrotechnic spectacular.

Gates Pushing Plan to Double Afghan Army



By THOM SHANKER

Published: August 7, 2008

WASHINGTON – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates will endorse a $20 billion plan to substantially increase the size of Afghanistan’s army and will also restructure the military command of American and NATO forces in response to the growing Taliban threat, senior Pentagon and military officials said Thursday.

Taken together, the two decisions are an acknowledgment of shortcomings that continue to hinder NATO- and American-led operations in Afghanistan. With the war in Iraq still an obstacle to any immediate American troop increase in Afghanistan, the plan was described by officials as an attempt to increase allied and Afghan capabilities in advance of deploying the additional American brigades that Mr. Gates and his commanders agree are necessary.

The additional American troops are unlikely to be available until next year.

USA

The New York bodega fights for its life

Julio Pimentel is trying not to let his neighborhood shop become one of the many that have been forced to close — victims of high prices, both for rent and the food they sell.

By Erika Hayasaki, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

August 8, 2008  

NEW YORK — The 7 a.m. sun gleams off the windows of this East Harlem bodega, as its owner, Julio Pimentel, unlocks the door and steps behind the counter that separates him from customers. He switches on a fan and tunes the radio to a Spanish station, and merengue awakens the humid morning.

It is Friday, Aug. 1. Rent is due, and Pimentel does not know if he can pay.

He spends $3,300 a month to lease the bodega. When he took over the small grocery eight years ago, monthly rent cost $1,500.

Pimentel surveys the shelves. He’s running low on popular items: grape-flavored Kool-Aid mix, Goya honey, Starbursts, Cheez Doodles, applesauce, sunflower seeds.

Oh The Irony

Of The First Story

Enemy Combatants:

Illegal Wiretapping:

Renditions:

Secret Prisons  

Bush chides Beijing over rights

US President George W Bush has expressed “deep concerns” over China’s human rights record in a speech on the eve of the Beijing Olympics.

The BBC

“The US believes the people of China deserve the fundamental liberty that is the natural right of all human beings,” he said in the Thai capital Bangkok.

He praised China’s economy but said only respect for human rights would let it realise its full potential.

Mr Bush has been criticised by some campaigners for going to the Games.

He was due to fly to Beijing following the speech in Bangkok, a stop on his final trip to Asia before he leaves office in January.

Foreign Activists Manage to Pierce China’s Broad Security Apparatus



By Edward Cody

Washington Post Foreign Service

Thursday, August 7, 2008; Page A01

BEIJING, Aug. 6 — China’s intense efforts to block any protest that would mar the Olympic Games were challenged Wednesday by foreign activists equally bent on diverting attention to issues as varied as Tibetan independence, the crisis in Darfur and religious freedom. Two American and two British protesters slipped through a smothering Olympic security net, climbed a pair of lampposts and unfurled banners demanding freedom for Tibet near the new stadium where the Beijing Games are to open Friday night. In Tiananmen Square, three American Christian activists spoke out against China’s rights record and protested its population control policies.

USA

500: Deadly U.S. Milestone in Afghan War



By KIRK SEMPLE and ANDREW W. LEHREN

Published: August 6, 2008

Not long after Staff Sgt. Matthew D. Blaskowski was killed by a sniper’s bullet last Sept. 23 in eastern Afghanistan, his mother received an e-mail message with a link to a video on the Internet. A television reporter happened to have been filming a story at Sergeant Blaskowski’s small mountain outpost when it came under fire and the sergeant was shot.

Since then, Sergeant Blaskowski’s parents, Cheryl and Terry Blaskowski of Cheboygan, Mich., have watched their 27-year-old son die over and over. Ms. Blaskowski has taken breaks from work to watch it on her computer, sometimes several times a day, studying her son’s last movements.

The Olympics Bring

New Freedoms To China

Only If You’re A

Government Official Or The Rich

Secret deal kept British Army out of battle for Basra



From The Times

August 5, 2008

Deborah Haynes in Baquba and Michael Evans, Defence Editor

A secret deal between Britain and the notorious al-Mahdi militia prevented British Forces from coming to the aid of their US and Iraqi allies for nearly a week during the battle for Basra this year, The Times has learnt.

Four thousand British troops – including elements of the SAS and an entire mechanised brigade – watched from the sidelines for six days because of an “accommodation” with the Iranian-backed group, according to American and Iraqi officers who took part in the assault.

US Marines and soldiers had to be rushed in to fill the void, fighting bitter street battles and facing mortar fire, rockets and roadside bombs with their Iraqi counterparts.

China clears streets for the Olympics

Petitioners — those taking their grievances to the government — are swept away for a few weeks.

By Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

August 5, 2008

BEIJING — On a hot summer night about 10:30, the many men and women living under an elevated section of highway were trying to nod off, swatting the mosquitoes at their ears, shifting their hips uncomfortably on sheets of newspaper and cardboard strewn on the pavement, when someone shouted, “Police!”

By the time most could rouse themselves, it was too late. Police had blocked the routes of escape with large buses they would later use to cart away their quarry.

The bedtime bust was part of a massive Olympic cleanup, in which thousands of Chinese citizens are being booted out of the capital like gate-crashers at a party.

The underpass raid that began July 13 and continued for two days netted about 1,000 people. All were petitioners who had come to protest mistreatment in their home provinces.

USA

At Freddie Mac, Chief Discarded Warning Signs



By CHARLES DUHIGG

Published: August 5, 2008

The chief executive of the mortgage giant Freddie Mac rejected internal warnings that could have protected the company from some of the financial crises now engulfing it, according to more than two dozen current and former high-ranking executives and others.

That chief executive, Richard F. Syron, in 2004 received a memo from Freddie Mac’s chief risk officer warning him that the firm was financing questionable loans that threatened its financial health.

Today, Freddie Mac and the nation’s other major mortgage finance company, Fannie Mae, are in such perilous condition that the federal government has readied a taxpayer-financed bailout that could cost billions.

Katy Hilton



I’ve been asked again and again for my response to the now infamous McCain celebrity ad. I actually have three responses. It is a complete waste of the money John McCain’s contributors have donated to his campaign. It is a complete waste of the country’s time and attention at the very moment when millions of people are losing their homes and their jobs. And it is a completely frivolous way to choose the next President of the United States.

The Huffington Post

Grenade attack kills 16 policemen on Chinese border



Tania Branigan in Beijing

guardian.co.uk,

Monday August 4 2008

Attackers have killed 16 policemen and injured 16 more in a suspected terrorist raid in north-west China’s restive region of Xinjiang this morning, the state media have reported.

Two assailants used a dump truck to target a paramilitary police border post near Kashgar, running down and then knifing a team of policemen on their morning drills before exploding grenades, the state news agency Xinhua said.

The area is already under tight security in the run-up to the Olympics, which begin in just four days. The authorities have repeatedly accused Uighur Muslim separatists seeking an independent “East Turkestan” of plotting violent attacks and recently claimed to have arrested 82 people in Xinjiang this year in connection with terrorism.

Iraqis no longer ask, ‘Are you Sunni or Shiite?’



By Nancy A. Youssef | McClatchy Newspapers

BAGHDAD – For years, when she approached Iraqi Army checkpoints and produced an identification card for soldiers to study for clues about her sect, Nadia Hashim used a simple formula to signal the mostly Shiite Muslim force that she, too, is a Shiite.

“I am one of you,” she’d say.

The soldiers would harass Sunnis, but they’d simply wave Hashim through.

Now her pat line gets her an official reproach.

USA

Housing Lenders Fear Bigger Wave of Loan Defaults  



By VIKAS BAJAJ

Published: August 4, 2008

The first wave of Americans to default on their home mortgages appears to be cresting, but a second, far larger one is quickly building.Homeowners with good credit are falling behind on their payments in growing numbers, even as the problems with mortgages made to people with weak, or subprime, credit are showing their first, tentative signs of leveling off after two years of spiraling defaults.

First Do No

Harm

Except When Its

Illegal Immigrants

Sick, Injured

Deport Them  No One Will Notice

China’s Olympic challenge

On the eve of the most politically charged Games in decades, can Beijing change its ways?

By Clifford Coonan in Beijing and Raymond Whitaker

Sunday, 3 August 2008

China was under pressure yesterday to lift censorship and honour its human rights guarantees as thousands of athletes, officials and tourists began arriving for the Olympics, which Beijing’s Communist leadership sees as the moment the country takes its rightful place on the world stage.

With only five days to go before the Games, on which the country has spent £20bn, anticipation among Chinese is high. Many in Beijing are quoting the saying “Bai nian bu yu”, which translates as “We’ve been waiting 100 years for this”.

HIV epidemic in U.S. worse than previously thought, CDC says

Based on new testing methods, the CDC says there are actually about 56,300 new infections a year — not 40,000 — and that rate has been fairly constant for a decade.

By Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

August 3, 2008

Federal officials have been underestimating the number of new HIV infections in the United States by 40% every year for more than a decade, a finding that indicates the U.S. epidemic is much worse than thought, researchers said Saturday.

Using sophisticated testing to identify new infections, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that there are about 56,300 new infections each year, not the 40,000 figure that has been gospel for so long.

The new numbers do not mean that the epidemic is growing in this country, just that researchers have been able to provide more accurate estimates, said Dr. Kevin Fenton, director of the CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention. He said the number of new infections has remained relatively constant since the late 1990s.

Still, the higher estimates were a jarring reminder that the United States, while castigating prevention efforts in much of the world, has not been able to get a firm grip on its own problems.

USA

Immigrants Deported, by U.S. Hospitals



By DEBORAH SONTAG

Published: August 3, 2008

JOLOMCÚ, Guatemala – High in the hills of Guatemala, shut inside the one-room house where he spends day and night on a twin bed beneath a seriously outdated calendar, Luis Alberto Jiménez has no idea of the legal battle that swirls around him in the lowlands of Florida.Shooing away flies and beaming at the tiny, toothless elderly mother who is his sole caregiver, Mr. Jiménez, a knit cap pulled tightly on his head, remains cheerily oblivious that he has come to represent the collision of two deeply flawed American systems, immigration and health care.

Look At How

Well The Economy

Is Doing.

So Well That

51,000 Jobs Disappeared

Anthrax Suspect’s Death Is Dark End for a Family Man



By SARAH ABRUZZESE and ERIC LIPTON

Published: August 2, 2008

FREDERICK, Md. – Bruce E. Ivins arrived last month for a group counseling session at a psychiatric center here in his hometown with a startling announcement: Facing the prospect of murder charges, he had bought a bulletproof vest and a gun as he contemplated killing his co-workers at the nearby Army research laboratory.

“He was going to go out in a blaze of glory, that he was going to take everybody out with him,” said a social worker in a transcript of a hearing at which she sought a restraining order against Dr. Ivins after his threats.

The ranting represented the final stages of psychological decline by Dr. Ivins that ended when he took his life this week, as it became clear that he was a suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks.

IOC meets amid Beijing concerns

Olympic organisers are meeting in China six days before the Beijing Games, amid ongoing concerns about air pollution, internet restrictions and doping.

The BBC

International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge arrived in Beijing amid a row over internet access for foreign journalists.

Lingering concerns about air quality are also hampering final preparations.

The IOC has also stripped the US 4x400m men’s relay team of gold at the Sydney Games in 2000 after a doping admission.

Sprinter Antonio Pettigrew admitted in June that he used banned substances between 1997 and 2003.

USA

Mounting job losses point to more economic troubles



By Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON – Employers shed jobs in July for the seventh consecutive month and the national unemployment rate rose to 5.7 percent, the Labor Department reported Friday. The losses weren’t of the size that signals recession, but analysts think that continued sluggish economic growth lies ahead.

The nation’s employers trimmed 51,000 jobs from nonfarm payrolls during the month of July and more than 463,000 jobs cumulatively this year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The jobless rate bumped up two-tenths of a percentage point during the month, from 5.5 percent, leaving more Americans without jobs.

Republicans, McCain

and Racism

Something They

Know A Lot About

Its Their Normal Calling Card

Pakistanis Aided Attack in Kabul, U.S. Officials Say



By MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT

Published: August 1, 2008

WASHINGTON – American intelligence agencies have concluded that members of Pakistan’s powerful spy service helped plan the deadly July 7 bombing of India’s embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, according to United States government officials

The conclusion was based on intercepted communications between Pakistani intelligence officers and militants who carried out the attack, the officials said, providing the clearest evidence to date that Pakistani intelligence officers are actively undermining American efforts to combat militants in the region.

McCain Camp Says Obama Is Playing ‘Race Card’



By MICHAEL COOPER and MICHAEL POWELL

Published: August 1, 2008

ORLANDO, Fla. – Senator John McCain’s campaign accused Senator Barack Obama on Thursday of playing “the race card,” citing his remarks that Republicans would try to scare voters by pointing out that he “doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.”

The exchange injected racial politics front and center into the general election campaign for the first time, after it became a subtext in the primary between Mr. Obama and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

It came as the McCain campaign was intensifying its attacks, trying to throw its Democratic opponent off course before the conventions.

“Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck,” Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, charged in a statement with which Mr. McCain later said he agreed. “It’s divisive, negative, shameful and wrong.”

USA

Travelers’ Laptops May Be Detained At Border

No Suspicion Required Under DHS Policies

By Ellen Nakashima

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, August 1, 2008; Page A01

Federal agents may take a traveler’s laptop computer or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.

Also, officials may share copies of the laptop’s contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.