Online Database of Informants & Agents

Sure, they charge for their service but if you really need to know if that guy who's acting suspiciously and asking too many questions or keeps 'running into you' at places you rarely go to is an informant, traitor, spy, undercover cop, etc. then here's a helpful service that may be worth the price of a membership.

FBI Taps Cell Phone In Eavesdropping

CNET News.com
December 1, 2006

The FBI appears to have begun using a novel form of electronic surveillance in criminal investigations: remotely activating a mobile phone's microphone and using it to eavesdrop on nearby conversations. The technique is called a "roving bug," and was approved by top U.S. Department of Justice officials for use against members of a New York organized crime family who were wary of conventional surveillance techniques such as tailing a suspect or wiretapping him.

The surveillance technique came to light in an opinion published this week by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan. He ruled that the "roving bug" was legal because federal wiretapping law is broad enough to permit eavesdropping even of conversations that take place near a suspect's cell phone. Kaplan's opinion said that the eavesdropping technique "functioned whether the phone was powered on or off." Some handsets can't be fully powered down without removing the battery; for instance, some Nokia models will wake up when turned off if an alarm is set.

The U.S. Commerce Department's security office warns that "a cellular telephone can be turned into a microphone and transmitter for the purpose of listening to conversations in the vicinity of the phone." An article in the Financial Times last year said mobile providers can "remotely install a piece of software on to any handset, without the owner's knowledge, which will activate the microphone even when its owner is not making a call."

Nextel and Samsung handsets and the Motorola Razr are especially vulnerable to software downloads that activate their microphones, said James Atkinson, a counter-surveillance consultant who has worked closely with government agencies. "They can be remotely accessed and made to transmit room audio all the time," he said. "You can do that without having physical access to the phone." Because modern handsets are miniature computers, downloaded software could modify the usual interface that always displays when a call is in progress. The spyware could then place a call to the FBI and activate the microphone--all without the owner knowing it happened.

The FBI declined to comment. [Read More]

Ancient Computer Surprises Scientists

New York Times
November 29, 2006


Fragments of the Antikythera Mechanism, shown above, have now been examined with the latest in high-resolution imaging systems and three-dimensional X-ray tomography. But a century ago, pieces of a strange mechanism with bronze gears and dials were recovered from an ancient shipwreck off the coast of Greece.

Historians of science concluded that this was an instrument that calculated and illustrated astronomical information, particularly phases of the Moon and planetary motions, in the second century B.C.

The Antikythera Mechanism, sometimes called the world’s first computer, has now been examined with the latest in high-resolution imaging systems and three-dimensional X-ray tomography. A team of British, Greek and American researchers was able to decipher many inscriptions and reconstruct the gear functions, revealing, they said, “an unexpected degree of technical sophistication for the period.”

The researchers, led by Tony Freeth and Mike G. Edmunds, both of the University of Cardiff, Wales, are reporting the results of their study in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature.

They said their findings showed that the inscriptions related to lunar-solar motions and the gears were a mechanical representation of the irregularities of the Moon’s orbital course across the sky, as theorized by the astronomer Hipparchos. They established the date of the mechanism at 150-100 B.C.

The Roman ship carrying the artifacts sank off the island of Antikythera around 65 B.C. Some evidence suggests that the ship had sailed from Rhodes. The researchers speculated that Hipparchos, who lived on Rhodes, might have had a hand in designing the device.

America's First Gay President

Doctors Refuse To Examine Man's Cervix

Telegraph
By Celia Hall, Medical Editor

A family doctor has been summoned to a formal hearing over his refusal to put a 34-year-old male patient on the list for screening for cervical cancer. The man, who has fathered a child, believes he is a hermaphrodite although his doctors have examined him and can find no evidence for this. However, they did agree to his request to be re-registered with a female name.

He first wanted a cervical examination and was refused because he did not have a cervix. He then asked to be put on the list for regular screening. One doctor in the practice said: "We are worried that the PCT is so falling over backwards to be patient-friendly, that it has gone too far the other way. Silly things are starting to happen."

The wife of one of the GPs, told The Telegraph she had every sympathy for people who believe they had the body of the wrong gender but the decision to investigate the refusal was political correctness taken to extremes. She said her husband, who has been a GP for 30 years and who trains young doctors would be "pleased to hear from anyone, medical or otherwise, who could teach him the correct way to carry out a cervical smear on a 34-year-old male".

Ambien Can Cure Vegetative States

Guardian Unlimited
September 12, 2006

For three years, Riaan Bolton has lain motionless, his eyes open but unseeing. After a devastating car crash doctors said he would never again see or speak or hear. Now his mother, Johanna, dissolves a pill in a little water on a teaspoon and forces it gently into his mouth. Within half an hour, as if a switch has been flicked in his brain, Riaan looks around his home in the South African town of Kimberley and says, "Hello." Shortly after his accident, Johanna had turned down the option of letting him die.

Three hundred miles away, Louis Viljoen, a young man who had once been cruelly described by a doctor as "a cabbage", greets me with a mischievous smile and a streetwise four-move handshake. Until he took the pill, he too was supposed to be in what doctors call a persistent vegetative state.

It all sounds miraculous, you might think. And in a way, it is. But this is not a miracle medication, the result of groundbreaking neurological research. Instead, these awakenings have come as the result of an accidental discovery by a dedicated - and bewildered - General Practitioner. They have all woken up, paradoxically, after being given a commonly used sleeping pill (marketed as Ambien).

Dr Ralf Clauss, a physician of nuclear medicine - the use of radioactive isotopes in diagnostic scans - at the Medical University of Southern Africa, contacted Nel to suggest carrying out a scan on Louis. "The results were so unbelievable that I got other colleagues to check my findings," says Clauss, who now works at the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford. "We did scans before and after we gave Louis zolpidem. Areas that appeared black and dead beforehand began to light up with activity afterwards. I was dumbfounded - and I still am." [Read More]

OTO Accused Of Pedophilia & Child Porn

TheAge.com.au
November 21, 2006

An anti-child sex campaigner accused an occult religious group of hosting parties at which naked children acted as waiters and at which members had sex with and murdered children, a tribunal was told yesterday.

The obscure group Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO) claims Dr Reina Michaelson and the Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Program described it in a website article as a satanic cult that sacrificed children and ate their organs and blood.

It has complained under Victoria's religious hatred law that Dr Michaelson and her organisation vilified OTO members, causing revulsion, ridicule, hatred and contempt.

According to OTO's statement of complaint, Dr Michaelson said it was not a religion but a child pornography and pedophile ring, that its members practised trauma-based mind control, sexual abuse and satanic rituals to discourage its victims from complaining to the authorities, and that it condoned kidnapping street children and babies and children from orphanages for sex and sacrifice in religious rituals.

The case began at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal yesterday, but was adjourned to today to allow a last-ditch attempt to settle out of court.

The article, still accessible on a website run from NSW, suggests senior politicians and television celebrities are part of a top-level pedophile ring and have been protected by some police. It says some members of the ring pretended to support Dr Michaelson's campaign and became board members of her group to subvert it from within.

Adam Paszkowski, for Dr Michaelson, who was named Young Australian of the Year in 1997 for founding the Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Program, said the article was published on the website "without her knowledge or consent or authority".

Dr Michaelson last year called for a royal commission to investigate her claims that Victoria Police did not properly investigate pedophile ring allegations.

Earlier complaints led to a report by the police ombudsman in 2004 that was highly critical of two senior detectives.

IDF Admits Targeting Civilian Areas With Cluster Bombs

Haaretz
November 20, 2006

The Israel Defense Forces on Monday admitted for the first time to having targeted populated areas with cluster munitions during the recent war in Lebanon. The IDF Spokesman's Office said in a statement that "the use of cluster munitions against built-up areas was done only against military targets where rocket launches against Israel were identified and after taking steps to warn the civilian population." The upper echelons of the IDF ordered the use of cluster munitions during the war in Lebanon and authorized every target north of the Litani River, including those in densely populated areas, a commander in the IDF's Multiple Launch Rocket System unit said Monday.

As a result of this information, Defense Minister Amir Peretz ordered an "extensive inquiry" into the use of these munitions before the war's end.

MK Ran Cohen (Meretz), a reserves colonel who led an artillery support unit in the first Lebanon war, called the use of cluster bombs a "very unusual" measure. He added that in his experience, every such use must receive the approval of the division commander or even the regional general officer. "This is a very grave matter," Cohen said. "If cluster bombs were used in populated areas, it is an indescribable crime. There is no goal that can't be reached without the use of clusters. The massive use the IDF employed during the war testifies to a lack of control, to complete hysteria."

To date, roughly 58,000 unexploded bomblets have been discovered at about 800 different sites in southern Lebanon. Most are near populated areas. According to the officer, in order to compensate for the rockets' lack of precision, they were told to "flood" the area with them. "We have no option of striking an isolated target, and the commanders know this very well," he said. [Read More]

If I Didn't Do It, Here's How It Didn't Happen

Newsday.com
November 20, 2006

In a surprise move, News Corporation has pulled the plug on both the forthcoming O.J. Simpson book and a scheduled two-part interview special that was to air next week. In a statement released a few minutes ago, News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch said, "I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project. We are sorry for any pain this has caused the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown-Simpson."

News of the book, "If I Did It, Here's How It Happened" - one of those as-told-to tomes in which Simpson was reportedly going to muse on how he might have killed his wife and her friend - caused an immediate firestorm, both within Fox and outside. Commentators on the Fox News Channel, like Bill O'Reilly, lambasted the decision to publish as well as air the companion special while there was believed to a considerable amount of teeth gnashing off-screen as well. In a matter of just a few days, the planned TV special had done considerable damage to the Fox network's relationship with affiliates - some of whom had planned to spike the two-part interview, scheduled for Nov. 27 and 29. Tribune's Fox affiliates as well as Sinclair's Fox affiliates were believed close to canceling plans to air the special as well.

Exactly what Simpson was to say in the book - scheduled for release late next week - remains shrouded in mystery. Most observers assumed he would stop short of a confession because that would have him subject to further prosecution (although he can not be charged in criminal court again.) News Corp. publishing unit, Reganbooks, was believed to have paid Simpson $3.5 million; that figure - of course - doesn't' include cost of printing and marketing, which means News Corps' total lost from the double-cancellation will be a multiple of that figure.

Accept Jesus or "You Belong In Hell"

The Star-Ledger
November 15, 2006

David Paszkiewicz, a Kearny (NJ) high school history teacher who is also a Baptist preacher in town, told students that if they didn't accept Jesus, "you belong in hell." He also dismissed as 'unscientific' the theories of evolution and the "Big Bang." Paszkiewicz, a teacher at the high school since 1992, did not return phone messages left for him at the high school.

On Sept. 14 - the fourth day of class - Paszkiewicz is on tape saying, "He (God) did everything in his power to make sure that you could go to heaven, so much so that he took your sin on his own body, suffered your pains for you and he's saying, 'Please accept me, believe me.'"

He adds, according to the tapes: "If you reject that, you belong in hell. The outcome is your prerogative. But the way I see it, God himself sent his only son to die for David Paszkiewicz on that cross ... And if you reject that, then it really is to hell with you." He also told his class that dinosaurs were on Noah's ark.

Principal Al Somma declined to comment. Superintendent Robert Mooney, who called Paszkiewicz "a wonderful teacher," said he was aware of the issues raised by a student, Matthew LaClair - and recordings made by LaClair - and that "corrective action" would be taken. He refused to elaborate.

USA Enters Into Nuclear Deal with India

Toronto Daily News
November 17, 2006

The US Senate has adopted a bill on US-India Civilian Nuclear Agreement to co-operate with India over civilian nuclear technology, reversing a 30-year-old ban. US Congress chose to bypass the requirements of the US Atomic Energy Act, which currently prohibits nuclear sales to countries that didn't sign nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty., such as India.

US weapons experts warned that forging Atomic Energy Act would not only make it harder to enforce rules against nuclear renegades Iran and North Korea, but also set a dangerous precedent for other countries with nuclear ambitions.

Under the bill, India would gain access to U.S. nuclear fuel and reactors. In return, India agreed to place its atomic reactors, except India's eight military plants, under global safeguards as part of the deal. Speaking to the media during his visit to Asia US president Bush immediately praised the passage of the deal saying it would bring India into the 'non-proliferation mainstream'.

Bush and Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister, had agreed to the deal in July last year when Singh paid a visit to Washington.

Bush Buys Land in Northern Paraguay

Prensa Latina

Buenos Aires, Oct 13 (Prensa Latina) An Argentine official regarded the intention of the George W. Bush family to settle on the Acuifero Guarani (Paraguay) as surprising, besides being a bad signal for the governments of the region.

Luis D Elia, undersecretary for the Social Habitat in the Argentine Federal Planning Ministry, issued a memo partially reproduced by digital INFOBAE.com, in which he spoke of the purchase by Bush of a 98,842-acre farm in northern Paraguay, between Brazil and Bolivia.

The news circulated Thursday in non-official sources in Asuncion, Paraguay.

D Elia considered this Bush step counterproductive for the regional power expressed by Presidents Nestor Kirchner, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Evo Morales, Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro.

He said that 'it is a bad signal that the Bush family is doing business with natural resources linked to the future of MERCOSUR.'

The official pointed out that this situation could cause a hypothetical conflict of all the armies in the region, and called attention to the Bush family habit of associating business and politics."