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Flying with fear: The future of air security

It may be bad now. But soon, you'll be scanned, sniffed and 'undressed' by the cameras

Paul Rodgers / London Independent | August 20 2006

August 2011 and you're travelling light. In one pocket is your wallet - no cash, just credit cards - and your intelligent passport, its chip loaded with your encrypted iris scans and fingerprints. Except for the odd bit of lint, the other pockets are empty. Everything else you'll want on your trip - from toothpaste to contact lens solution - was collected the night before by a secure luggage-forwarding service. Only the keys to the house and car remain, and those you can leave safely with the car park attendant at Heathrow's new Terminal 5C.

The future of aviation may not be quite that stark, but it is certain to be more bleak than it was only a couple of weeks ago. Even after the present chaos in the departure lounges is sorted, flying is likely to be less spontaneous and more expensive.

The last thing security experts are predicting is a return to business as usual. "We've crossed a Rubicon," says Simon Stringer, a consultant with Kroll Security. "If anything, you're going to see far more draconian restrictions."

Michael Chertoff, America's Homeland Security Secretary, promptly proved him right by announcing that, by early next year, airlines will have to give his officials the passenger lists for all US-bound flights, and then wait for them to be checked before take off. And John Reid, the Home Secretary, persuaded several of his European counterparts that British-style bans should be introduced across the EU

But with delays and cancellations making air travel a confusing, unprofitable misery, pressure from passengers, airlines and airports for a more sensible regime is growing.

And while they may not change the regulations, their complaints will probably lead to procedures that work more smoothly within the rules.

Such as having your bags picked up a day early so they can be thoroughly scanned, probed, sniffed, sampled and examined prior to departure. Your security-approved, carry-on luggage would be waiting for you on the other side of the passenger checks. So too, would be the shops, stuffed with goods that have similarly been cleared to fly. Already you can buy anything from vin ordinaire to Chanel No 5 at duty free and take them anywhere - except America. And if the blanket ban on cabin luggage returns, airlines may have to look at providing toys for children, potboilers for their parents and laptops for their business passengers.

Aviation security has been an issue for decades; hijackings are almost as old as powered flight itself. Rebel Peruvian soldiers staged the first recorded attempt when they tried to seize a two-seater Ford Tri-Motor at a southern aerodrome in 1931. Its pilot, an American named Byron Rickards, refused to take them up and a polite stand-off lasted for 10 days until news arrived that the revolution had succeeded. Rickards was released on condition that he give a member of the junta a lift back to Lima.

After the Second World War, hijackings were a way to escape oppressive regimes. Cubans fled to Miami and, sometimes, Americans fled to Havana. The crime boomed after the first - and only successful - attack on an El Al plane in 1968. The next year saw a record 82 hijackings, mostly by members of Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organisation. The most famous hijacking - until September 2001 - was in 1976 when an Air France jet en route to Israel was diverted to Entebbe airport in Uganda by Palestinian terrorists. Israeli commandos raided the airport, rescuing all but three of the 108 passengers. But the bloody storming of aircraft and terminals is a last resort. Catching terrorists before they attack is immeasurably better.

By 2011, Heathrow's new Terminal 5 will be the most visible front line between good and evil. But even on Friday, security at the building site was impressive. The Gurkhas guarding the gate weren't satisfied with my passport and stamped BAA visitors pass, and sent my guide and me off to get a countersignature from another official.

When it's finished in 2008, T5 will handle all BA's Heathrow flights, about 30 million passengers a year. Departing travellers will move from groundside to airside through a single broad passage on the top floor of the 43-metre tall building, beneath the arching wave of T5's 18,000 ton, steel-and-glass roof. Last week, crews were laying Italian floor tiles - pale composites of marble, granite and quartz - where sophisticated scanners will be installed within the next two years. Below us, on the ground floor and down into the basement, a maze of chutes and conveyor belts is already being tested for the task of moving, sorting and X-raying hundreds of thousands of bags a day.

Even now, T5 looks more like a crystal palace than a fortress, though the knuckle joints that hold up the roof do give it an industrial, "Brunelian", air. Travelling through here will never be perfectly safe. At best, its defences, and those at other airports, can be hardened in the hope that the fanatics will turn to easier targets. If they persist, it will likely be with new tactics; travel experts already fear that the next wave of airline attacks will be made with surface-to-air missiles, more than 1,000 of which have slipped beyond the reach of the world's governments. BAE Systems is testing a modified US military device for use on commercial jetliners. Called Jeteye, it can track incoming missiles and disrupt their infrared guidance systems with a powerful laser.

Or they may revert to older tactics. The alleged plot foiled two weeks ago involved triacetone triperoxide (TATP), the same explosive used for the July 2005 attack on the Underground. And the idea of assembling a bomb in flight from innocuous chemicals is more than a decade old. In the 1995 Bojinka plot, a cell led by Ramzi Youssef, a Pakistani raised in Kuwait and educated in Wales, planned to assemble bombs on 11 aircraft flying out of Manila. A fire in Youssef's apartment, where he had been conducting experiments, exposed the plot and a month later he was arrested in Pakistan. He is now serving a life sentence in America for the first World Trade Center attack.

Security companies have been racing since 2001 to develop scanners able to detect threats to civil aviation. Among them are devices that can see through clothes, and CCTV computer programmes that, it is hoped, will one day be able to identify suspected terrorists even beneath disguises.
But the most pressing need is for something that can spot explosives, and domestic liquids that could be easily turned into explosives. Some reports in the past fortnight have suggested that these are years away. In fact, several are already on the market.

The most common devices involve variations on mass spectrometry, a technique best known for its role in identifying mysterious substances on forensic science programmes such as CSI and Silent Witness. The first such device was developed in 1918 by Arthur Dempster, a Canadian physicist in Chicago who went on to work on the Manhattan project. They work by ionising molecules - giving them an electric charge - then sorting them by weight with magnetic and sometimes electric fields, since the paths of lighter ions are easier to bend than those of heavier molecules. The trick has been to find ways to make these analysers small, fast and accurate enough, to work in an airport setting.

One British company, Smiths Detection, has a range of devices, including hand-held wands that can be poked into bags, and "puffers", which look like a metal-detector gate with glass doors. Passengers stepping into the puffer are blasted with pressurised air to dislodge trace molecules which are then sucked up and analysed. Its customers include HM Customs and the New York Police Department.

A New Zealand company, Syft Technologies, uses a different variation on mass spectroscopy for its scanners. One of the problems with trying to detect TATP is that it breaks down into the common chemicals acetone and water. Even dogs are unable to detect it, says Geoff Peck, Syft's chief executive. His company's device, however, can not only spot traces of the explosive as faint as a few parts per billion, but it can report how many it finds, making an expensive false alarm from a single stray molecule much less likely.

A completely different scientific principle - the Raman effect, discovered by Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, the first Asian scientist to win a Nobel prize - lies behind the First Defender device sold by Ahura, an American company. First Defender works by shining an infra-red laser on to a liquid, even one in a translucent plastic container, and looking for the rare photons that bounce back with changed wavelengths. The pattern of changes is matched against a computer library to reveal what the liquid is, even if it's a mixture of up to five chemicals.

These technologies have two fundamental weaknesses, however. The first is that they are expensive - a single scanner from Ahura will cost the UK government £27,000. And security generates no profits. Many of the companies that provide security to airports are under pressure to cut costs, particularly in poorer countries. "All airports can see that they must have security, but it doesn't have to be done well," says Henrik Kiertzner, an associate director at Arup, a security and risk group that acted as prime infrastructure consultant to Heathrow's Terminal 5.

"There's a degree of box ticking going on. The tendency is to scrimp on training, salary and personnel development. I'd rather have 10 really bright people with no technology than a dummy with £10m of equipment."

The second great drawback is that none of these security checks is foolproof. Perhaps the best medium-term hope, says Kroll's Mr Stringer, is the kind of intelligence and police work that led to the raids a two weeks ago. Not only did they disrupt a big terrorist operation, but they may have deterred others from trying anything similar. "But that still hasn't solved the root problem," he says. "Trying to understand the motivation of people who are willing to die for their cause and find ways to deter them will continue. That's a longer-term, strategic game."

Current hand baggage restrictions

Passengers may take on board one small bag of 45cm x 35cm x 16cm, including wheels, handles and pockets. Liquids and gels are banned. Parents of infants may bring milk or liquid baby food, but must taste it in front of security personel. Liquid medicines under 50ml may be taken if verified by a pharmacist at the airport. Liquids bought after the security barrier may be taken to all destinations except the US.

Aviation security in 2011

Sophisticated software will use credit card details to check a passenger's air-travel history. Suspicious patterns - trips to Afghanistan followed by the purchase of a one-way ticket to New York - would be reported to security staff, possibly even MI5.

On the day of travel, passengers will be scanned by remote-sensing devices before they even reach the doors of the terminal. Facial-recognition programmes will match their CCTV images against those of known or suspected terrorists and criminals. The Police Information Technology Organisation began building a mugshot database in 2002.

As a passenger enters the terminal, a form of natural radiation given off by the body - one which passes through clothes as if they were transparent - will be picked up by passive,

millimetre-wave cameras, revealing hidden objects such as guns, knives or explosives. The technology was tested at Gatwick in 2002.

Computers will also be watching passengers for unusual behaviours - such as moving against the flow of traffic or loitering outside the security gates, waiting for guards to relax.

Metal detectors will be combined with "puffers" or low-frequency vibration plates, which will shake dust from the passenger. The dust is then sucked into a chemical analyser. An X-ray backscatter scanner, first tested at Heathrow Terminal 4 in 2004, can also see through clothes. Passengers who refuse to go through it on grounds of modesty - it reveals everything - are automatically subject to a hand search.

Finally, an array of biometric devices could check to make sure that the ticket-holder is the same person named on his passport and ID card. Computer chips could carry details of finger, retinal or voice prints for comparison.

Mutiny as passengers refuse to fly until Asians are removed

Passengers refuse to allow holiday jet to take off until two Asian men are thrown off plane

CHRISTOPHER LEAKE and ANDREW CHAPMAN / UK Daily Mail | August 20 2006

British holidaymakers staged an unprecedented mutiny - refusing to allow their flight to take off until two men they feared were terrorists were forcibly removed.

The extraordinary scenes happened after some of the 150 passengers on a Malaga-Manchester flight overheard two men of Asian appearance apparently talking Arabic.

Passengers told cabin crew they feared for their safety and demanded police action. Some stormed off the Monarch Airlines Airbus A320 minutes before it was due to leave the Costa del Sol at 3am. Others waiting for Flight ZB 613 in the departure lounge refused to board it.

The incident fuels the row over airport security following the arrest of more than 20 people allegedly planning the suicide-bombing of transatlantic jets from the UK to America. It comes amid growing demands for passenger-profiling and selective security checks.

It also raised fears that more travellers will take the law into their own hands - effectively conducting their own 'passenger profiles'.

The passenger revolt came as Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary was accused of using the terror crisis to make money. Government sources say he boasted to an official at the Transport Department: "Every time I appear on TV, I get a spike in sales."

The Tories said the Government's failure to reassure travellers had led the Malaga passengers to 'behave irrationally' and 'hand a victory to terrorists'.

Websites used by pilots and cabin crew were yesterday reporting further incidents. In one, two British women with young children on another flight from Spain complained about flying with a bearded Muslim even though he had been security-checked twice before boarding.

The trouble in Malaga flared last Wednesday as two British citizens in their 20s waited in the departure lounge to board the pre-dawn flight and were heard talking what passengers took to be Arabic. Worries spread after a female passenger said she had heard something that alarmed her.

Passengers noticed that, despite the heat, the pair were wearing leather jackets and thick jumpers and were regularly checking their watches.

Initially, six passengers refused to board the flight. On board the aircraft, word reached one family. To the astonishment of cabin crew, they stood up and walked off, followed quickly by others.

The Monarch pilot - a highly experienced captain - accompanied by armed Civil Guard police and airport security staff, approached the two men and took their passports.

Half an hour later, police returned and escorted the two Asian passengers off the jet.

'There was no fuss or panic'

Soon afterwards, the aircraft was cleared while police did a thorough security sweep. Nothing was found and the plane took off - three hours late and without the two men on board.

Monarch arranged for them to spend the rest of the night in an airport hotel and flew them back to Manchester later on Wednesday.

College lecturer Jo Schofield, her husband Heath and daughters Emily, 15, and Isabel, 12, were caught up in the passenger mutiny.

Mrs Schofield, 38, said: "The plane was not yet full and it became apparent that people were refusing to board. In the gate waiting area, people had been talking about these two, who looked really suspicious with their heavy clothing, scruffy, rough, appearance and long hair.

"Some of the older children, who had seen the terror alert on television, were starting to mutter things like, 'Those two look like they're bombers.'

"Then a family stood up and walked off the aircraft. They were joined by others, about eight in all. We learned later that six or seven people had refused to get on the plane.

"There was no fuss or panic. People just calmly and quietly got off the plane. There were no racist taunts or any remarks directed at the men.

"It was an eerie scene, very quiet. The children were starting to ask what was going on. We tried to play it down."

Mr Schofield, 40, an area sales manager, said: "When the men were taken off they didn't argue or say a word. They just picked up their coats and obeyed the police. They seemed resigned to the fact they were under suspicion.

"The captain and crew were very apologetic when we were asked to evacuate the plane for the security search. But there was no dissent.

"While we were waiting, everyone agreed the men looked dodgy. Some passengers were very panicky and in tears. There was a lot of talking about terrorists."

Patrick Mercer, the Tory Homeland Security spokesman, said last night: "This is a victory for terrorists. These people on the flight have been terrorised into behaving irrationally.

"For those unfortunate two men to be victimised because of the colour of their skin is just nonsense."

Monarch said last night: "The captain was concerned about the security surrounding the two gentlemen on the aircraft and the decision was taken to remove them from the flight for further security checks.

"The two passengers offloaded from the flight were later cleared by airport security and rebooked to travel back to Manchester on a later flight."

A spokesman for the Civil Guard in Malaga said: "These men had aroused suspicion because of their appearance and the fact that they were speaking in a foreign language thought to be an Arabic language, and the pilot was refusing to take off until they were escorted off the plane."

Pakistanis find no evidence against ‘terror mastermind’

GLEN OWEN / UK Daily Mail | August 20 2006

The Briton alleged to be the ‘mastermind’ behind the airline terror plot could be innocent of any significant involvement, sources close to the investigation claim.

Rashid Rauf, whose detention in Pakistan was the trigger for the arrest of 23 suspects in Britain, has been accused of taking orders from Al Qaeda’s ‘No3’ in Afghanistan and sending money back to the UK to allow the alleged bombers to buy plane tickets.

But after two weeks of interrogation, an inch-by-inch search of his house and analysis of his home computer, officials are now saying that his extradition is ‘a way down the track’ if it happens at all.

It comes amid wider suspicions that the plot may not have been as serious, or as far advanced, as the authorities initially claimed.

Analysts suspect Pakistani authorities exaggerated Rauf’s role to appear ‘tough on terrorism’ and impress Britain and America.

A spokesman for Pakistan’s Interior Ministry last night admitted that ‘extradition at this time is not under consideration’.

Rauf’s arrest followed a protracted surveillance operation on him and his family which, The Mail on Sunday has established, dates back to the 7/7 bomb attacks on London.

The possible link between 7/7 and the alleged plot emerged when this newspaper spoke to Rauf’s uncle, Miam Mumtaz, in Kashmir.

Mumtaz was approached by two members of ISI, the feared Pakistani security service, as he nervously denied any knowledge of his nephew’s alleged activities.

One ISI man said it had been monitoring all movement by Mumtaz and the rest of Rauf’s relatives since the 7/7 attacks.

It is the first official acknowledgement of any suspected link between the London bombings and the plot to blow up planes flying from Britain to America.

But it comes against a welter of claims made by Pakistani security sources about Rauf, who is being interrogated by British and Pakistani agents in Rawalpindi.

The sources believe Rauf went to Afghanistan twice, where he made contact with senior Al Qaeda commanders. They also say he visited the border city of Quettain, where Taliban and Al Qaeda have a heavy presence.

They believe that at least seven of the suspects in custody in Britain travelled to Pakistan while planning the bombings.

Rauf left for Pakistan four years ago after another uncle was stabbed to death in Birmingham following an alleged dispute over an arranged marriage.

Meanwhile, Rauf’s 54-year-old father Abdul was held at Islamabad airport as he tried to leave the country yesterday.

He was involved in setting up Ilford-based Crescent Relief, which is being investigated by the CharityCommission over claims that money donated for victims of the Kashmir earthquake last October could have been diverted to extremist groups.

The fight against terror Surveillance UK

Airports are getting back to normal, and Britain has eased its threat assessment. But on the streets, scores of top suspects are being followed as MI5 desperately seeks to head off 'dozens' of plots

Reports by Raymond Whitaker, Paul Lashmar, Sophie Goodchild, Severin Carrell, Justin Huggler and Lauren Veevers / London Independent | August 20 2006

The biggest surveillance operation in British history is under way this week as the authorities seek to track what the Home Secretary, John Reid, has called "dozens" of terror plots. While every police force in the country is now involved in investigating the alleged plot to bring down transatlantic airliners, MI5, the main counter-terror agency, is being strained to the limit as it seeks to head off the next threat.

"The one thing we can be sure of is that there will be a 'next one'," said a Whitehall source. "The big question, indeed, is 'Where next?'"

Ten days after the world learned about Operation Overt - the wave of arrests in this country and Pakistan which is said to have prevented the attacks on air travel - airports are returning to something approaching normal. Most flights are getting away, and the initial prohibition on virtually any hand baggage has been eased.

The 23 suspects arrested in the early hours of 10 August in High Wycombe, Birmingham and east London are being held in high-security police stations, with few details emerging about their interrogations. A further 17 people - some British, some local citizens - are reported to have been arrested in Pakistan, where intelligence officials fuel speculation about al-Qa'ida links and "masterminds".

Here, although the Home Secretary has spoken of the suspected "main players" being accounted for, and "substantial" material having been found at suspect properties, few other details have been forthcoming. Unofficial police leaks of the discovery of "martyrdom" videos, firearms and a bomb-making kit have not been confirmed.

The national threat assessment, raised to "critical" - its highest level - when Operation Overt was launched, has been lowered one notch to "severe". But behind the scenes there is acute concern and intense activity.

According to security service estimates, there are about 400 potential terrorists in Britain, including a "hard core" of around 50 people, many of whom have undergone advanced training in terror camps and aim to carry out attacks here. Many are being watched day and night amid fears that at least one, possibly two, other significant plots are well advanced, and may be brought forward in the wake of Operation Overt.

MI5 has borrowed surveillance teams both from MI6, the foreign intelligence service, and the new Serious Organised Crime Agency in the race to stay ahead of would-be terrorists. "Everybody who has ever been trained in surveillance is being recruited in to help," said an intelligence source. "It is clear that MI5 are very, very worried about someone attempting another major attack."

Beyond those of immediate concern, there may be as many as 800 more extreme Islamist "peripherals" who could become active terrorists at any point, giving the security services further problems in deciding who to watch. MI5 has admitted it failed to follow up evidence that the ringleader of the London bombings last year, Mohammed Siddique Khan, was on the fringes of an earlier terrorist plot before going on to lead the 7/7 attacks.

Most surveillance teams consist of 16 people, but it can take up to twice as many to trail someone who is very active and does not follow routines. It is believed that about 80 suspects are under intense surveillance, requiring hundreds of officers working full time. Others are monitored more lightly, but still absorb considerable manpower.

"The number of people you need to follow someone can depend on how serious a threat a target may be," said Jim Smith, a former Scotland Yard detective and surveillance expert. "How they travel is the first thing you find out: do they walk, use public transport or a car? If they walk a lot, that can be even more difficult than if they use a car.

"In my experience, a team needs several people on foot, a car and a motorbike. A motorbike is vital if you are following a car, especially in towns, because it is anonymous, and can hang back in traffic and then catch up quickly, getting through traffic lights if they are about to change.

"The important thing is to work out where you can pick up the target you want to follow. You want to be as far as way from their home as possible. The first half mile is the most difficult because targets are more suspicious of being followed from their home."

A former security officer said: "It's clear that many of those suspected of being involved in extremist activity have knowledge of some of the techniques that can be used against them and have become more savvy of surveillance activities."

Terrorists well know that the best time to move can be at night. This is not only because surveillance teams may assume they are sleeping and lower their guard, but because following someone on dark, deserted streets is much more obvious than during the day. Mounting surveillance in areas with a large ethnic minority population can be tricky for MI5, which still tends to attract mainly white recruits. Terror suspects also tend to live where residents are suspicious of the police or anyone else who does not appear local.

Modern technology, such as mobile phones, computers and emails, can help terrorists as well as those seeking to thwart them. A suspect's mobile will be monitored by the signals intelligence agency, GCHQ, whose experts carry out "traffic analysis" of all calls to and from the phone, building up a picture of his contacts and, where appropriate, seeking fresh warrants to monitor their phones. As long as the target's mobile phone is switched on and he has it with him, it can be used to listen to anything he is saying to anyone else.

Tensions have arisen in the struggle to secure evidence of the "airliners plot" and prevent future attacks, both among agencies in this country and between Britain and other countries, notably the US and Pakistan.

American pressure triggered the arrest in Pakistan of Rashid Rauf, the former resident of Birmingham accused of a key role in the plot.

"Britain wanted the Pakistanis to keep him under observation and help gather evidence against him, but they and the Americans have far less concern for due process," said one source. "But when Pakistan arrests top suspects wanted by the Americans, they are on a plane out of the country within hours, and disappear into a secret CIA prison. There is no mention of a trial."

Both Britain and Pakistan say the question of Mr Rauf's possible extradition is some way off, but yesterday there were claims that he might have Pakistani as well as British citizenship, further complicating the issue. Pakistan's main concern throughout has been to play down local links to al-Qa'ida; a stream of leaks from local intelligence sources have sought to stress that the alleged plot was supported from Afghanistan, with a new "mastermind" being suggested almost every day.

Following Mr Rauf's detention, British sources say, they observed a surge in electronic traffic from Pakistan to the UK, suggesting the conspirators were speeding up their plot. This forced the authorities to move in much sooner than they wished, which is why the investigation is at such an embryonic stage.

According to another official, the US administration wanted to issue a statement about Operation Overt before the arrests here had even been completed. In the first few days, most of the detail about the alleged plot - far more than Britain apparently wanted to disclose - came from US Homeland Security officials.
According to one police source, some senior officers were angry that they had to carry out the arrests so early in their investigations.

There is concern in Whitehall over police leaks about evidence, such as the "martyrdom" videos and bomb-making materials, which have allegedly been found. Suspicions are growing that the Metropolitan Police wants to exploit this case after the embarrassing errors in July's Forest Gate raid, when one innocent man was shot and no evidence of any terror plot was found.

"The Met are pursuing this as a public relations exercise after Forest Gate, at the risk of jeopardising everything," said one source.

TEN DAYS ON: WHAT WE KNOW AND WHAT WE DON'T

Ten days after the world learned that a conspiracy "intended to be mass murder on an unimaginable scale" had been disrupted, much remains to be disclosed.

The plot

WHAT IS KNOWN

Government sources say there was a plan to bring down as many as a dozen airliners flying to the US, possibly in "waves" of two or three at a time. It is alleged that two apparently harmless chemicals would have been combined in flight to produce an explosive, and detonated by an electronic device such as an iPod or a camera. The Home Secretary, John Reid, has said the main suspects are in custody, and that there is "substantial" material evidence to support the case.

WHAT IS NOT KNOWN

There are major question marks over how close the alleged plan was to fruition, and the intended timing of any attacks. It is claimed that TATP, the explosive used in the London bombings last year, would have been used, but the process for producing it is risky, difficult and almost impossible to carry out unobtrusively. Experts have been at a loss to explain how it would have been possible to create this explosive in an aircraft toilet.

The suspects

WHAT IS KNOWN

Britain continues to hold 23 suspects in custody, all of them arrested in the early hours of 10 August in High Wycombe, Birmingham and east London.

At least two are said to be women. A 24th person arrested later was released within a day. Police will have to gain court agreement tomorrow to extend the detention of two of the suspects, with renewal due for the other 21 on Wednesday. Pakistan is reported to be holding another 17 people, including Britons, but Rashid Rauf, whose family moved to Birmingham after he was born in Pakistan, is the only one to be named, and fresh doubts have been raised about what citizenship he holds.

WHAT IS NOT KNOWN

Although the Bank of England named 19 of the suspects when freezing their assets, including Tayib Rauf, the brother of Rashid, the identities of some remain unknown. Most reports about those arrested in Pakistan are unsourced and speculative - yesterday there was a claim that the Raufs' father, Abdul, had been held in Islamabad as he went to catch a flight back to Britain.

Links to other plots

WHAT IS KNOWN

Police and security services are investigating any possible connection to the 7/7 and 9/11 attacks, but no conclusive links have emerged. It is believed, however, that the alleged orchestrators behind this latest thwarted plot do share a connection with one of the London suicide bombers, Shehzad Tanweer. Like him, they have been associated with Lashkar-e Taiba, a radical Islamist group based in Pakistan. This Kashmiri militant group ran the madrasa near Lahore which Tanweer visited a few months before the July 2005 attacks. Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, said to be the founder of Lashkar-e Taiba, is currently under house arrest. It has also been alleged, though not officially confirmed, that one of two British-born men arrested earlier this month in Pakistan left a voicemail message last year which was found on a phone in the home of one of the 7/7 bombers.

WHAT IS NOT KNOWN

There is speculation that the current plot was planned to coincide with the fifth anniversary next month of the 9/11 attacks. However, there is no direct evidence to support the theory, and intelligence sources have indicated that the attacks were in fact scheduled to take place last week, not in September. Among other unanswered questions are whether the alleged plotters were recruited by the same figure or figures as those behind other plots, and whether there is any common link between the types of explosives involved.

The Pakistan connection

WHAT WE KNOW

Rashid Rauf moved to Pakistan four years ago, shortly after his uncle was murdered in Birmingham. After initial claims that he was the mastermind of the alleged plot, Pakistani officials now appear to be playing down his significance. This may be because his most obvious connection is not to al-Qa'ida, but to a Pakistani militant group, Jaish e-Mohammed. His wife is the sister-in-law of Jaish's chief, Maulana Masood Azhar.

WHAT IS NOT KNOWN

Although most of the suspects arrested in Britain are of Pakistani origin - The Independent on Sunday has learnt that some may not be British citizens - little has emerged about how many had travelled to Pakistan, how often, how much time they spent there or whether they had received any training. Accounts of where and when Rashid Rauf was arrested, the event said to have triggered the security swoop here, vary wildly.

The al-Qa'ida connection

WHAT IS KNOWN

British security sources have been confident from the outset that this plot is connected to al-Qa'ida, unlike some others where a link remains uncertain. There have been allegations that one of those held is al-Qa'ida's chief in Britain, and that two or three of the others were connected to the network, but official sources have refused to make any comment on these claims.

WHAT IS NOT KNOWN

While agreeing that there is a link to the al-Qa'ida network of Osama bin Laden (pictured), Pakistan has done its best to insist that the trail runs through Afghanistan. The campaign began with reports that Rashid Rauf was held near the Afghan border, when it is much more likely that he was picked up where he lived, in the south Punjab town of Bahawalpur. It continued with almost daily suggestions of different masterminds, all conveniently said to be in Afghanistan. These included an unnamed figure said to be al-Qa'ida's third in command, an unspecified son in law of the deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Zawahiri himself. It is far more plausible, however, that the link may be a Pakistani, Matiur Rehman, who also lived in Bahawalpur and may or may not have been arrested.

U.S. Measures Anti-Terror Laws vs. Britain's

Some in the GOP want a more flexible system, such as that used to uncover an alleged plot. Critics say such changes would trample rights.

LA Times / Richard B. Schmitt | August 20 2006

WASHINGTON — The uncovering of an alleged bomb plot in London has focused new attention on the differences in the legal arsenals available to terrorism hunters in the U.S. and Britain.

Some Republican lawmakers contend the U.S. should emulate parts of the British model because it gives agents more flexibility in monitoring and detaining suspects. But critics say such expansive powers come at a great cost: British laws are generally considered more hostile to civil liberties, and trying to adopt such rules in the U.S. would create legal and public outcry.

While the London case has underscored the importance of efficient police work and secret surveillance, it is far from clear whether Britain's less-restrictive laws for combating terrorism deserve the credit.

A closer look shows some similarities between the British and American rules, due in part to a series of aggressive anti-terrorism moves by the Bush administration since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"The general consensus, at least initially, seems to be that many of the tools are comparable," said an administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, who is familiar with the early discussions about broadening executive powers.

The preemptive strike in London is nonetheless sparking a legal and public debate about whether lawmakers are doing all they can to equip U.S. authorities with the tools they need.

The Justice Department announced last week that it was launching a review of U.S. and British anti-terrorism laws. But some officials have downplayed the chances that the effort will lead to new legislation.

The administration's main anti-terrorism priority in Congress is a surveillance bill that, in some ways, would give authorities more leeway than what is allowed in Britain. U.S. officials appear to be hoping that generalized concern about terrorism raised by the London case will help engender support for the legislation, which was worked out between the White House and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.).

With Congress on summer recess, little is likely to happen before the fall, when a number of House and Senate committees are expected to consider what, if any, curbs should be placed on domestic surveillance.

But some lawmakers are already asking whether the United States should consider adopting at least some aspects of Britain's counter-terrorism system. In particular, they have argued that it is too cumbersome to obtain warrants for domestic surveillance in the United States, as is currently required, through a special court established under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

"The British have better tools. If you want to get a warrant, all you have to do is call up a minister," Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence committee, said last week. "I'm not advocating that in the United States with the FISA court or anything else, but it seems to me that they have taken actions that would really speed that along."

News reports said British authorities received a tip that led them to the men involved in the alleged plot. Investigators then used secret surveillance, including intercepting phone calls, to obtain more information.

Bush administration officials said the British experience may contain lessons for America.

"What helped the British in this case is the ability to be nimble, to be fast, to be flexible, to operate based on fast-moving information," said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who formerly headed the Justice Department's criminal division.

But when pressed, he refused to say the law should be changed. "I don't think there's any specific authority I would suggest we need now," he said Aug. 13 on ABC's "This Week."

Critics say the administration has not shown how the British case demonstrates a need for changing U.S. laws.

"Their legal regime [in Britain] is similar to ours," said Bruce Fein, a former Reagan administration lawyer. "The government should have to bear the burden to show the need for making a change.

"In my judgment, this case cuts the other way. The powers they are requesting are irrelevant to the cracking of this case in Britain."

When it comes to surveillance, the British laws share some basic features with those in the United States.

Investigators in Britain, like their counterparts here, may intercept phone calls and eavesdrop on private conversations, but only under what British authorities describe as a system of "strict control and oversight" that includes individual warrants.

American law also requires investigators to have a warrant before they intercept private phone calls, but administration officials have said that rule is impractical in the war on terrorism.

In December, the president confirmed he had authorized the National Security Agency to intercept, without judicial warrants, some international phone calls and e-mails of people in the U.S. Last week, a federal judge ruled that was unconstitutional and ordered the NSA to stop. Bush said Friday that he disagreed with the ruling and that the administration expected to win an appeal.

Meanwhile, Congress has been debating whether to revise the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires officials to obtain a warrant for such interceptions. Britain tightened its surveillance laws under the 2000 Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.

"Authority to intercept someone's conversation — listening to a phone conversation, reading a letter or e-mail — requires the agreement of the secretary of State," Britain's Home Office says in describing its surveillance law. "The Home secretary will sign a warrant only once satisfied that it is absolutely necessary and proportionate."

Congress is considering several bills that would permit the government to move quickly to obtain a warrant when a terrorism suspect is being pursued.

But some contend that U.S. law appears to already allow for the sort of targeted surveillance that British authorities reportedly exercised.

"They were focused on a specific set of targets who they believed were conspiring with Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda-affiliated entities, which is different from the administration claim that it can just monitor anyone it wants," said Lisa Graves, a legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union. "The fact of the matter is, under current law, the president can easily get a court order to monitor any American who is conspiring with Al Qaeda, and if there is an emergency, surveillance can begin immediately."

Another flashpoint is British authorities' power to detain terrorism suspects for up to 28 days without charge.

The U.S. Supreme Court has said that most suspects have to be charged or released within 48 hours of being detained, making such a system an apparent non-starter under U.S. law.

Asked about a more liberal detention law in an interview last week with CNN, U.S. Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales said he believed there were "serious questions as to whether or not that would be constitutional."

But the Bush administration has in a way achieved a functional equivalent through interpretations of other laws, such as those allowing for the detention of people who are material witnesses to crimes. After the Sept. 11 attacks, the government also used immigration statutes to hold terrorism suspects for months even though many were eventually released without any proof that they had posed a threat.

"The notion that we need a preventative detention law [like Britain] is a little disingenuous," said James X. Dempsey, policy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington advocacy group. "We already act like we have one."

Terror charges axed in 2nd cellphone bomb plot

Thomas C Greene / The Register | August 20 2006

The spirit of Barney Fife is alive and well in small-town America, but that will hardly amuse the three men recently accused of terrorist crimes in the redneck backwater of Caro, Michigan.

Adham Abdelhamid Othman, Louai Abdelhamied Othman, and Maruan Awad Muhareb, who were rumbled by a watchful Wal-Mart clerk when they bought 80 pre-paid TracFones, no longer stand accused of plotting to blow up the Mackinac Bridge, but are now, incredibly, facing counterfeiting charges instead.

The men were discovered with nearly a thousand pre-paid phones, and a few pictures of the bridge, leading local authorities to suspect a dastardly, mass-casualty plot in which the phones would serve as detonators. For their part, the men claimed that they were planning to resell the phones at a profit to a merchant in Texas.

Now that it's become clear that the terror plot was not to be, Assistant US Attorney Janet Parker is planning to help the Caro police save face by bringing charges of trafficking in counterfeit goods and money laundering. It would not look good for the men to skate free, after all that crying wolf about al-Qaeda mayhem.

The counterfeit charge likely stems from modifications the men are alleged to have been making to unlock the phones, enabling them to be used on competing networks. Presumably, they would then cease to be "authentic" (however much improved). Although, when last we checked, it was still legal to buy a car, make performance modifications, and sell it at a profit. The money laundering charge appears to be even more of a stretch.

Perhaps in a few weeks' time the charges will be lowered again, to the more realistic level of "creating a situation likely to encourage police officials to make fools of themselves".

Troops long out-of-uniform sent to Iraq

REBECCA SANTANA / AP | August 20 2006

CAMP ANACONDA, Iraq - Spc. Chris Carlson had been out of the U.S. Army for two years and was working at Costco in California when he received notice that he was being called back into service.

The 24-year-old is one of thousands of soldiers and Marines who have been deployed to Iraq under a policy that allows military leaders to recall troops who have left the service but still have time left on their contract.

"I thought it was crazy," said Carlson, who has found himself protecting convoys on Iraq's dangerous roads as part of a New Jersey National Guard unit. "Never in a million years did I think they would call me back."

Although troops are allowed to leave active duty after a few years of service, they generally still have time left on their contract with the military that is known as "inactive ready reserve" status, or IRR. During that time, they have to let their service know their current address, but they don't train, draw a paycheck or associate in any other way with the military.

But with active duty units already completing multiple tours in Iraq, the Pentagon has employed the rarely used tactic of calling people back from IRR status, a policy sometimes referred to as a "backdoor draft."

According to the U.S. Army Reserve, approximately 14,000 soldiers on IRR status have been called to active duty since March 2003 and about 7,300 have been deployed to Iraq. The Marine Corps has mobilized 4,717 Marines who were classified as inactive ready reserve since Sept. 11, and 1,094 have been deployed to Iraq, according to the Marine Forces Reserve.

The 1st Squadron of the 167th Cavalry RSTA, which is based in Lincoln, Neb. and oversees the New Jersey guard unit here in Iraq, has about 40 IRR soldiers within its ranks of roughly 1,000 soldiers, and officers in the squadron say the troops have merged into the unit without any problems.

Jason Mulligan, 28, of Ridgefield, Conn., left the army back in 2002 after two years in the infantry. He was working as a painting contractor while studying wildlife conservation when he received his letter last fall alerting him that he'd been mobilized.

The letter was followed up by another warning to Mulligan that if he didn't comply, the government would prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law.

"My family and my fiancee were telling me 'Don't' report. Don't show up,' said Mulligan, who also serves with a New Jersey National Guard unit as a gunner on a Humvee helping patrol the territory around Camp Anaconda, a base about 50 miles north of Baghdad. "And I thought, 'Well I got that nasty letter saying they were going to put me in jail if I don't show up.'"

Anthony Breaux, 24, from La Place, La., said he had a feeling that eventually he would be recalled to service after hearing of so many other soldiers who were pulled from IRR status. Breaux, who left active duty in September 2002, said he knew it was part of the bargain when he joined the army.

"Well, I signed up. I signed the papers. So you know what? I got to do what I got to do," Breaux said, before getting ready for a reconnaissance patrol around Camp Anaconda.

Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Arlington, Va.-based Lexington Institute, said part of the reason that the military has called up so many people who were on reserve status is that certain skill sets such as military police or civil affairs were concentrated in the reserves after the Cold War ended.

But he said the sheer numbers of IRR soldiers being mobilized also are a sign that the military doesn't have enough people to fight this war, now in its fourth year.

"It seems clear in retrospect that the active-duty force wasn't big enough to sustain a 'long war' against global terrorism, and also lacked the proper mix of skills to wage that war with maximum effectiveness," Thompson said.

That thought is echoed by many of the IRR soldiers. Mulligan said the military's reliance on IRR soldiers shows how "desperate" the services are for troops.

"Maybe it says something for maybe the way the military is treating the people that are over here, because they're just not wanting to stay on," said Mulligan.

Some of the IRR soldiers, such as Carlson, still will have time on their military contracts when they return from this deployment, meaning they could possibly be called back another time. But others will end their IRR status around the same time their deployment in Iraq ends next spring or will have so little time left that they would not be deployed again.

Spc. Mark Wiles, 27, of Phoenix, said his 6 1/2 years of active duty and the time he'll have served on this deployment mean that his reserve status will be over when the unit gets home. The only way that the military could keep him is if they extended the unit's stay in Iraq.

"Those of us who are IRR are seriously hoping they don't do that," Wiles said.

Thousands to be deployed for airport security

Aidan Hennigan / Irish Examiner | August 19 2006

WHILE passenger checks continue at British airports, thousands of extra police are to be deployed in one of the largest security operations of modern times.

Officers from 43 forces in England, Wales, Scotland and the North, many of whom specialise in search and evidence recovery techniques are to investigate the plane bombing plot and possibly other such terrorist threats.

However, airlines are demanding that airports be brought back to normal within a week or the British Airports Authority will face legal action for loss of profits.

It is argued that if airport security and air travel are not brought back to normal the airports authority will have handed terrorists and extremists an unbelieveable and undeserved public relations victory.

However, travellers were warned there would be no early end to airport delays in Britain as police disclosed the huge scale of their investigation into the alleged transatlantic airline terror plot.

The Department for Transport (DfT) has ruled out any imminent return to “normal” airport security measures, despite an ultimatum from budget airline Ryanair.

The Irish no-frills carrier said it would sue the British government for compensation for delays unless usual security arrangements resumed within a week.

But the department said it had “no intention of compromising security” and did not anticipate changes in the next week.

Meanwhile, a group of British tourists endured a terrifying diversion of their holiday flight after the captain told them a note had been found saying there was a bomb on the plane.

The Boeing 767 operated by Sussex-based charter carrier Excel Airways landed safely at Brindisi airport in southern Italy.

The aircraft was escorted by an Italian air force F16 fighter aircraft and landed at Brindisi at 2.45pm Irish time.

An Excel Airways spokes- man said tonight: “A note on a sickbag was found which said, ‘There is a bomb on this aircraft’. This note was passed among passengers before being handed to a cabin crew member who handed it to the cockpit crew.”

Meanwhile, it was reported that police investigating the alleged plot had found a suitcase containing components needed to make an explosive device.

The discovery is thought to have been made in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, where specialist officers are combing King’s Wood for traces of explosives or evidence of explosive tests, the BBC reported.

Scotland Yard has refused to comment on the reports.

Intelligence officials in Pakistan claimed Rashid Rauf, a key suspect in the alleged plot, had links with an outlawed Pakistani militant group and met al-Qaida figures inside Pakistan in the lead-up to his arrest.

Rauf, a British national and the brother of one of those detained in Britain, was held in Pakistan last week and is widely believed to have triggered the police operation to smash the alleged plot.

Charges expected within days over airline 'terror plot'

Sean Rayment / London Telegraph | August 20 2006

Terrorism charges against the suspects allegedly involved in a plot to blow up transatlantic airliners are "imminent", The Sunday Telegraph has learnt.

The police are "hugely optimistic" that they will be able to bring charges against many of the suspects in the very near future, according to security sources.

It is also thought that anti-terrorist officers have found the liquid explosive which police believe was intended to be used to destroy up to 10 airliners.

The latest breakthrough came after it emerged that police had found up to six "martyrdom" video files on laptop computers confiscated during the raids across England 10 days ago.

Police also reportedly discovered bomb-making equipment in a woodland "hide" in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, close to where some of the suspects lived.

Although senior police officers are confident that charges will be brought against most of the suspects, it is unlikely that all of them will be charged.

One security source said: "Intelligence is not evidence and although there is intelligence to suggest that some of the suspects were involved in the plot it remains to be seen whether there is evidence against them all.

"The police are very busy, it is a complex and painstaking investigation and they will not be rushed into bringing charges. The key thing is that when the suspects are charged the charges stick."

While MI5 is understood to be delighted with the early successes of Operation Overt - the code name for the investigation - Whitehall sources have warned that there are "many more" ongoing plots underway in Britain, in which Islamist terrorists are planning to kill hundreds of people.

MI5 is also convinced that the alleged airline plot and many others are being coordinated by al-Qaeda operatives. A Whitehall source said: "MI5 believes al-Qaeda has been behind virtually all of the attacks, and those which have been thwarted in this country, right back to Richard Reid (who planned to destroy an aircraft with a bomb in his shoe). The plots are becoming more sophisticated and they are all linked to al-Qaeda."

Police have been granted more time to question the 23 suspects being held in a number of locations in London. They have another six days to interrogate 21 of them and another four days to question the other two before having to formally apply to a High Court judge for more time. The police can only hold them for up to 28 days - a date which will be reached on September 7 - after which they must be charged or released.

It has also emerged that a charity, Crescent Relief London, founded to help orphans and victims of disasters, is linked to some of the suspects.

Two sons of its founder, Abdul Rauf, are among those held. Rauf, a baker from Birmingham, is said to have severed his links with the charity. He is understood to have been detained in Islamabad, before boarding an international flight.

Azzam Tamimi, 51, a Muslim radical who has said he is prepared to be a suicide bomber, is expected to address 10,000 at an Islamic convention in Manchester today.

French reopen Diana inquiry

David Leppard / London Times | August 20 2006

THE French authorities have reopened their inquiry into the circumstances behind the car crash that killed Diana, Princess of Wales after fresh doubts emerged over scientific tests that stated her chauffeur was drunk.

The French director of public prosecutions has authorised a judge to reexamine two forensics experts whose evidence was central to the finding that the 1997 crash in Paris was a simple road accident caused by a drunk driver.

The move will excite Diana conspiracy theorists and could lead to further delays in the UK authorities closing the case.

French investigators found in 2002 that Henri Paul, the chauffeur, was to blame for the accident. Their conclusion relied on blood tests showing that Paul was more than three times over the alcohol limit when the Mercedes he was driving crashed, killing himself, Diana and Dodi Fayed, her lover.

Doubts over the blood tests are also delaying the submission of a lengthy report into Diana’s death by Lord Stevens, the former Metropolitan police commissioner.

Thierry Betancourt, the deputy chief judge at Versailles, last week ordered fresh depositions to be taken from Professor Dominique Lecomte, the pathologist who conducted Paul’s post-mortem, and Dr Gilbert Pepin, who tested his blood.

The judge appears to have accepted claims that there are serious inconsistencies and omissions in the scientific paper trail that led French police to conclude in 2002 that the crash was caused by Paul’s drink-driving. The new documents show that:

While Lecomte testified on oath that she had taken just three blood samples from Paul, a log book shows five samples were taken, suggesting the extra samples may have been wrongly attributed to Paul.

Pepin said one sample he tested showed Paul had 1.74 grams per litre of alcohol in his blood. But his finding is not supported by paperwork.

Paperwork relating to a second blood test by Pepin gives two widely differing readings for the amount of alcohol in Paul’s blood.

There is no suggestion that either expert acted improperly. But failure to lay to rest the lingering doubts over the blood tests will make it impossible for any court to rule conclusively that Diana’s death was a simple accident caused by Paul.

Betancourt’s inquiry followed complaints from lawyers acting for Paul’s parents and for Dodi’s father, Mohamed al-Fayed, the owner of Harrods, the London store.

Fayed has claimed that Diana was murdered by MI6 on the orders of the Duke of Edinburgh and the blood tests were tampered with to cover up the murder plot. The duke, MI6 and Diana’s friends reject the allegation.

MoD accused of covering up casualty rates

Sean Rayment / London Telegraph | August 20 2006

Defence chiefs have been accused of covering up the number of soldiers injured while fighting Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.

Senior officers have revealed that up to 40 soldiers may have been injured in a series of bitter battles with militants in the southern province of Helmand since the arrival in May of the 3,600 strong British task force. Many have life-threatening injuries and are being treated in hospitals in Britain.

Despite the growing casualty rate, however, the Ministry of Defence has no figures for combat injuries on its website - despite promises by John Reid, the former defence secretary, earlier this year that details would be made public.

The MoD's website, which is supposed to update casualty figures every month, reports fatalities but states that no figures for combat injuries are currently available. No reason is given.

MPs and senior officers have accused the Government of trying to "cover-up" the sacrifices being made by the British troops in Afghanistan, and one senior officer claimed that the MoD's policy of not releasing full details of injured soldiers was for "purely presentational reasons" because of the negative messages it would send to the public.

The officer added that there was a great deal of "bad feeling" within the military over the treatment of casualties, many of whom believe they have become the forgotten victims of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

One of the injured soldiers, a ranger in the Royal Irish Regiment, was shot through the head by a sniper 10 days ago and is fighting for his life in a Karachi hospital. Two weeks earlier, two members of the Parachute Regiment were seriously injured in an ambush during which one soldier was shot in the stomach and another received severe shrapnel injuries to his leg.

In June, three soldiers received gunshot and shrapnel wounds in an ambush that left one officer, Captain Jim Philippson, dead. This newspaper has been given details of several other soldiers injured in battles with the Taliban.

Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, told The Sunday Telegraph that the MoD's policy smacked of political motives.

He said: "Ministers have given us assurances in the past that they will make casualty figures and details of casualties available… any attempt to suppress information of this sort will only serve to undermine public confidence in what's happening in Afghanistan and that would be a tragedy."

A spokesman for the MoD said last night: "There is no attempt to cover up casualty figures. It is our intention to publish casualty figures for Afghanistan in the near future."

FBI: Detained Passenger Not Suspicious

AP | August 20 2006

SAN ANTONIO -- A passenger who was detained after flight attendants said he tampered with a bathroom smoke detector was determined to be "not suspicious at all," the FBI said Sunday.

The passenger, a San Antonio man whose identity wasn't released, was questioned Saturday after flight attendants reported suspicious activity. Explosives experts swept the Delta Air Lines plane after it arrived from Atlanta but found nothing.

"He was cooperative during the interview," FBI spokesman Erik Vasys said Sunday. "He allowed a search of his house, a search of his person, a search of his belongings. Nothing of a suspicious nature was found."

Flight attendants reported he had been "disruptive" in the bathroom and had spent an extended amount of time there, the Transportation Security Administration said. In addition to the smoke detector being tampered with, authorities said ceiling tiles were moved.

Vasys said it appeared someone tried to disconnect the detector, but it was still working and wasn't damaged.

"It wound up being the flight attendant's word against a passenger's, and this guy turned out to be not suspicious at all," he said.

Thirty-six passengers were on board and flight attendants didn't grow suspicious of the passenger until late into the flight, San Antonio International Airport spokesman David Hebert said.

Scanners maketh man

Keanu and Co are transformed into cartoons for Philip K Dick's tale of drugs and conspiracy, says Philip French

The Observer | August 20 2006

There have been numerous adaptations of the late Philip K Dick's science-fiction novels, most famously Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, Paul Verhoeven's Total Recall and Steven Spielberg's Minority Report. Now, at last, his most personal book, 1977's A Scanner Darkly, has been brought to the screen with great fidelity and considerable style. At various times, Charlie Kaufman, who wrote Being John Malkovich, and Terry Gilliam have been reported as wanting to film this cult novel, but the project was eventually undertaken, with the approval of the author's daughters and the Philip K Dick Trust, by one of America's most singular independent film-makers, Richard Linklater.

A native of Texas, Linklater has worked for 20 years in Austin, the state capital, where he now has his own studio. Although he's made some mainstream Hollywood movies (the hugely popular Jack Black comedy, School of Rock, and the remake of The Bad News Bears among them), his speciality is offbeat films involving close encounters of a loquacious kind like Before Sunrise and Before Sunset

Drawing on his experience of drug abuse, Dick, who died in 1982, set A Scanner Darkly in the near future in Orange County, California, the deeply conservative district south of Los Angeles, famous for the ultra-right-wing John Birch Society, Disneyland and John Wayne Airport. Linklater's film announces itself as being set seven years in the future, which is to say 2013, when there is in progress a determined campaign against the manufacture, distribution and use of the deadly Substance D. This paranoia-inducing drug creates an incurable addiction; as one character remarks: 'You're either on it or you've never tried it.'

This all-out anti-drug war involves much innovative surveillance equipment that makes ever-increasing inroads on personal liberty. In other respects as well, the world depicted is much like our own. The chief character is Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves), a social dropout in flight, we learn, from bourgeois life. Having decided one day that he couldn't stand his wife, kids and suburban life, he just walked out on them. Now he lives in squalor with a household of fellow slackers and stoners, all of them drug addicts, who talk endlessly about their situation and about the dystopian police state oppressing them.

Arctor leads a double life because he's also an undercover narcotics agent code-named Fred and in a brilliantly funny opening scene, he's brought in as a guest speaker at an Orange County fraternal organisation, the Brown Bear Lodge, to talk about his job. He's dressed in his working clothes, a so-called 'scramble suit', a form of disguise which defies all forms of recognition as it constantly changes the wearer's appearance, switching sex, race and age 24 times a second.

But during his speech, he goes briefly haywire, insulting his middle-class audience and their prejudices, before getting back on track. He is deeply disturbed as not only is he hunting down addicts and their suppliers, but he's an addict himself. He's spying on his apparent friends, but one of them is informing on him. To cap it all, he's ordered by his superiors to spy on himself, a notion that figures in several thrillers and noir movies, classic cases being the films of Kenneth Fearing's The Big Clock and Cornell Woolrich's Black Angel

What Dick and Linklater have created is a paranoid, anomic world where fugitives from a consumer society create their own hell of addiction while a corrupt, fascistic state seeks to control and exploit conformists and dissidents alike. It is an odd fable that partakes of, and seems to endorse, the crazed ramblings of its demented, paranoid characters, which is not entirely surprising as Linklater and his collaborator, Tommy Pallotta, apparently feel the picture is especially relevant to the current American war on terror and that the US government actually perpetrated 9/11 in order to create a police state. Linklater's respect for the text even goes as far as including at the end of the film Dick's afterword in which he dedicates his novel to the reckless drug users 'who were punished entirely too much for what they did' and lists a dozen friends and the circumstances of their self-destruction.

To merge fable and fact, Linklater has cast several actors connected in different ways to the drug culture - Robert Downey Jr, Woody Harrelson, Winona Ryder (goddaughter of Dr Timothy Leary, a friend of Dick's) and Keanu Reeves, star of The Matrix films, which similarly dissolves the line between reality and fantasy.

The film's title is a technological gloss on 'For now we see through a glass, darkly' in Chapter 13 of St Paul's first Epistle to the Corinthians (which also provided the title for Ingmar Bergman's Sasom i en spegel) and, indeed, the movie is a dark, often obscure affair that brings to mind the David Cronenberg adaptation of William Burroughs's not dissimilar Naked Lunch. Some of its disturbing and murky character derives from the way it's made. Like Linklater's 2001 film Waking Life, a movie about dream, reality and the meaning of life, A Scanner Darkly was shot as a conventional movie in digital video then transformed into an animated movie through a process called 'interpolated rotoscoping'. The actors retain their voices, but they're turned into cartoon figures clearly resembling themselves yet becoming somehow dreamlike and abstracted. The effect is highly unsettling, like flicking quickly through the pages of a graphic novel, and there are astonishing things like the metamorphosing 'scramble suit'.

The flat colours and the use of black edges to define the figures and props resemble at times the work of Patrick Caulfield, but whereas his paintings induce calm, the juddering rotoscope images trouble the eye and the brain in a way normal animation - whether drawn by hand or created by computers - doesn't. It works for this subject, though like Linklater's Waking Life, it will drive many viewers around the bend - where they'll meet up with the film's characters again.

6th Circuit next to review the legality of surveillance

DAN SEWELL / AP | August 20 2006

CINCINNATI — Even though the administration's warrantless surveillance program is heading toward an appellate court loaded with Bush appointees, the court's mixed record makes it difficult to predict how it will view the surveillance, lawyers said.

"It is not a foregone conclusion that a conservative-dominated court is going to say, 'President Bush did this and we're going to uphold what he wants,' " said Robert Sedler, a law professor at Wayne State University. "There are many issues in this case. Conservative judges often have a very strongly libertarian streak."

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit ruled that the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program is unconstitutional. Within hours, the Justice Department filed notice of appeal with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears federal appeals from Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee.

Taylor ordered an immediate halt to the program, but the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the lawsuit, agreed to the government's request to delay enforcement of the injunction. The judge is set to hear the government's request for a stay on Sept. 7.

Bush decried the ruling Friday, saying the program is a legal and vital tool for fighting terrorism.

"I strongly disagree with that decision, strongly disagree," he said. "That's why I instructed the Justice Department to appeal immediately, and I believe our appeals will be upheld."

The program monitors international phone calls and e-mail to or from the United States involving people the government suspects have terrorist links. A secret court has been set up to grant warrants for such surveillance, but the government says it can't always wait for a court to take action.

The government unsuccessfully argued before Taylor, an appointee of President Carter, that the NSA program is well within the president's authority but proving that would require revealing state secrets.

Bush has appointed six judges to the Cincinnati-based 6th Circuit, including two Michigan judges last summer who gave Republican appointees an 8-6 majority. The chief judge was appointed by Ronald Reagan.

The three-judge panels that hear appeals sometimes include a district court judge or a senior judge who is not a full-time member of the court. The full court could hear the case if a panel's decision is appealed.

"There's a whole range of judges in terms of experience, age and background," said John Pirich, a Lansing, Mich., attorney who has argued cases here over three decades.

Pirich, who has been mentioned as a potential Bush appointee to a federal bench, noted that the judges have lifetime appointments and that judicial philosophies sometimes change over time.

Cincinnati attorney Scott Greenwood, a former ACLU general counsel who has had some 40 cases before the 6th Circuit, said regardless of the court's makeup, judges are likely to take a hard look at the separation of powers issues in the wiretapping case.

"Civil liberties are not liberal and they're not conservative," he said.

Though it's impossible to predict how the court will rule on the NSA program, Greenwood said, it's easy to guess the last stop for the case: the U.S. Supreme Court.

1984 has arrived Big Brother is watching!

Norbert Bufka, Midland Daily News | August 20 2006

Remember when we all read George Orwell's book "1984"? We thought it was so distant and so impossible for the government to be so intrusive in private lives. Big Brother is watching!

The year 1984 has come and gone and the book is probably catching dust on bookshelves or relegated to history, but another George has taken up the task of making Big Brother a reality.

First it was the provisions of the Patriot Act, endorsed by President George W. Bush, that allowed Big Brother to check library patrons' book reading. Librarians quickly took up the challenge and destroyed old records, keeping only the record of current books checked out. Also many refused to give information to the government. Big Brother is watching!

Then George decided to intercept e-mails without legal authorization.

He could easily have obtained such authority by going to a special court, but he chose not to take this route, claiming presidential authority granted under the Constitution.

He assured us that only international e-mails were being checked for patterns of communication. Even though some expressed outrage, this seemed to mollify the critics. Big Brother is watching!

Next came the request for and receipt of millions of telephone calls. This started soon after 9/11. AT&T, Verizon, and Bell South complied with the government's request. The U.S. telecommunications industry can connect hundreds of billions of telephone calls each year. Intelligence analysts are seeking to mine their records to expose hidden connections and details of social networks, hoping to find signs of terrorist plots in the vast sea of innocent contacts. Nearly 2 trillion have been collected since late 2001; only the phone numbers have been collected, not names or messages. The National Security Agency is using a program to find patterns of phone calls and find those made to known terrorists. (Washington Post 06May12)

The president assures us that ordinary citizens have nothing to fear. Are we led to believe that there are millions of terrorists running around this country making phone calls? Big Brother is watching!

The Bush administration asked for and received data on the searches made by private citizens on the Internet. Yahoo complied with the request, but Google refused. Big Brother is watching!

When the Terri Schiavo case was being debated in Florida, President Bush stepped in. Big Brother is watching!

A family of five bought a house in Black Jack, Mo., but they discovered a city ordinance required an occupancy permit. The town is trying to prevent overcrowding, it said. Their permit was denied because the man and woman were not married, even though they have been living together for 13 years and two of three children are theirs. They are not considered a family by the city. The city is reviewing the ordinance. Big Brother is watching at the local level, too!

It is this same Big Brother who wants to regulate marriage through a Constitutional amendment. Big Brother is watching!

According to the Washington Post (7/23/06), the Commission on the Future of Higher Education released its proposal in late June to set up a national database that would track college student courses taken and their successes and failures throughout their college careers. Data would be linked to individual Social Security numbers. The article asked how soon will it be before such studies trickle down to high school and elementary school students. Big Brother is watching!

Back when 1984 first came out, it was generally believed that the liberals of this country would be the ones to take the path of making government into Big Brother. After all, the widely held view was and is that it's the liberals who continue to make government bigger and bigger! They are the ones who try to regulate everything, so the thinking goes.

"Surprise, surprise!" as Gomer Pyle used to say. The conservatives are the ones reaching into our private lives, breaking the Fourth Amendment rights of protection from capricious searches.

On the other side, the gun control people, including me, want to ban the ownership and use of firearms, but I begrudgingly admit that this, too, is a case of government intrusion. Big Brother is watching!

When is it proper and good to restrict individual rights under the banner of security? A good question to ponder, especially in this election year.

Norbert Bufka is a Midland resident and occasional contributor to the Midland Daily News. He can be reached by e-mail at norbert609@sbcglobal.net. You can visit his website at www.thisonly.org.