xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx: This line allows browser to learn maximum horizontal size quickly. This file contains Cached Text Only versions of Web Pages referenced by this Web Site in case the Live Web Pages are no longer accessable.

The following is an index to aid in finding items on particular subjects.
For example, news items about the Waco incident are marked with
with "WacoIncidentNewsZx". You can use your Web browser's Find command
to search this file for these index words.
Click on the menu bar Edit and Find to activate the command.

* TextNoteIndexOfNamesZx. Alphabetical order.

* 2000PresidentialElectionNewsZx.
* AircraftInformationZx.
* AlaskaAirlines261AviationCrashNewsZx.
* AmericanAirline587AviationCrashNewsZx.
* AnchorLabelCounterDx.
* AviationCrashNewsZx. (some moved)
* AviationNewsZx.
* BBCWorldRadioZx.
* BeneficialCoincidenceZx.
* BookTitleZx.
* BritishAirways2069IncidentZx.
* BuchananCampaign2000NewsZx.
* CarnivoreNewsZx.
* ComputerCrackerNewsZx.
* ConcordeAviationCrashNewsZx.
* EarnhardtDeathNewsZx. (moved)
* EastTimorNewsZx.
* EgyptAir990AviationCrashNewsZx.
* EbolaDiseaseNewsZx (moved).
* ElectrophonicSoundZx.
* EncephalitusVirusNewsZx.
* FootAndMouthDiseaseNewsZx (moved).
* GoogleInfoZx.
* GovernmentHearingDx.
* GovernmentHearingZx.
* GulfAir072CrashNewsZx.
* InaccurateProbablyDx.
* NormMacConnellDx.
* MediaMatrixIncorporatedDx.
* MassHomicideNewsZx.
* MicrowaveZx
* MiddleEastViolenceNewsZx.
+ NewYorkTimesZx.
* NewsFromWorldWideWebBeginsDx.
* NewsFromWorldWideWebEndsDx.
* NewsOfComputerCrimeZx.
* NewsOfJonestownTragedyZx.
* OklahomaCityBombingNewsZx.
* OtherVirusNewsZx.
* ProofAndEvidenceZx.
*!PurgePointDx.
* RadarZx.
* RelationshipNewsZx.
* RubyRidgeNewsZx.
* PayneStewartAviationCrashNewsZx.
* SharkViolenceNewsZx.
* SingaporeAir006CrashNewsZx.
* TWA800AviationCrashNewsZx.
* TheLowellSunNewspaperMetroEditionArticleZx.
* UgandaMassHomicideNewsZx.
* VC46d.
* ValuJet592AviationCrashNewsZx.
* WacoHolocaustElectronicMuseumDx.
* WacoANewRevelationDx.
+ WacoIncidentDx.
* WacoIncidentNewsZx.
* WacoIncidentSummaryZx.
* WacoTheRulesOfEngagementDx.
* WacoVideoSourceZx.
* WeaponNewsZx.

-----------------------------------------------------------

* CarnivoreInfoZx.
http://www.networkice.com/altivore/

Altivore

Network ICE is posting a feature-complete version of Carnivore to this
site. We are doing this because:

alternative for ISPs
We are giving ISPs responding to court orders free license to use
Altivore. This means that if the FBI comes in with a search warrant
for the e-mail or full traffic of one of their customers, the ISP may
be able to satisfy the warrant by using Altivore rather than having
to install one of the FBI's secretive "black-boxes". Network ICE
can do nothing to stop legitimate court orders; we can at least
reduce the intrusiveness of this legal process.
narrow the debate
Network ICE feels the privacy debate is extremely important.
Carnivore itself isn't important -- the fact that we allow the
government heavy-handed access to our private data is the real
issue. Recently, a spokesman for a prominent privacy group made
the erroneous claim that Carnivore could not selectively capture a
single person's e-mail and ignore all others. With Altivore, we've
clearly shown (in source-code form) exactly how this is done.
Misunderstanding of the technical issues only dilutes the debate
over the privacy issue.
clarifies Network ICE's technological advantage
Network ICE makes the most popular and most sophisticated
network monitoring software on the Internet. While our software is
designed to track cr/hacker activity rather than act as a legal
wiretap, the technology is similar to Carnivore. We believe that
Carnivore has made the same technology shortcuts as our
competitors in the area of reassembly, protocol analysis, and
dropped packets. The Altivore source code highlights these
deficiencies of these shortcuts.

altivore.c
This software contains the basic Carnivore feature set outlined in the
FBI's solicitation for independent review of Carnivore. The basic
capabilities are:

monitors suspect's e-mail (either headers or full content)
monitors suspect's accesses to certain types of servers (FTP,
HTTP, etc.)
full "sniffing" of suspect's IP address
discovery of suspect's current IP address through RADIUS logon

This software is provided in source form only (at this time) and still
requires extensive debugging. It is only for programmers. Instructions for
compiling are provided within the source. We are encouraging
developers to add features to Altivore, such as packet reassembly and
any new features announced for Carnivore. Altivore is definately not a
supported product.

carnivore-faq.html
Frequently Asked Questions about Carnivore, and some answers. Note
that due to the lack of hard information, this document contains a number
of guesses and opinions.

00toorcon.ppt
Presentation made by Robert Graham (CTO, Network ICE) at the
Toorcon security conference on September 2nd, 2000.

An egroups discussion board has been setup for Altivore:
http://www.egroups.com/group/altivore

Site maintained by [email protected]

* NewsFromWorldWideWebBeginsDx. TextNoteChronologyZx, approximately.

* AmericanAirline587AviationCrashNewsZx.
Might be a cover story for people that do not trust government.
Says flight was brough down by a shoe bomber positioned
in a critical location on plane.

http://www.freeworldalliance.com/newsflash/2002/02newsflash0109.htm

1/17/02

BUSHWHACKED: American Flight #587
was Bombed Out of the Sky

_______________________________________________________________

Recall the credible eye-witnesses in Queen's, New York, who
claimed they saw an 'orange fireball' explosion from the right side
of AA #587 and then the right wing separate from the aircraft?
Throughout the ordeal, the Bushwhacked media and the lap-dog
NTSB discounted those eye-witnesses and continued with their
propaganda line, stating that the cause of the 'accident' was due
to
turbulence from a 747 jumbo ahead of AA #587? PURE
RUBBISH! Guess where seat No. A 19 is located on an
Airbus? Do you
think flying on a commercial jetliner is safe? Feel like rolling the
dice?

FROM DEBKA INTELLIGENCE FILES
Was Richard Reid
'Shoe Bomber No. 2'?
Some experts believe Flight 587 downed by Shoe Bomber No.
1

Editor's note: DEBKAfile's electronic news publication is a
news-cum-analysis live wire, online round the clock seven days a
week.
A weekly edition, DEBKA-Net-Weekly, is now available
through WorldNetDaily.com. Drawing on DEBKAfile's unique
sources,
analytical talents and forward-looking insights, it is presented as a
compact, intelligence-angled weekly package. It is available as a
direct e-mail feed or via the Internet.

Was Richard Reid, the Briton indicted this week on charges of
attempted murder -- after failing to blow up American
Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami on Dec. 22 -- the first
shoe bomber?

DEBKA-Net-Weekly reports a spreading conviction among
aviation and counter-terror experts that he was Shoe Bomber
No. 2, and that American Airlines Flight 587 was brought down
40 days earlier over Queens, N.Y., by Shoe Bomber No. 1.

Their argument springs from a simple question: Why did not Reid
simply lock himself in the bathroom and ignite the fuse
to the bomb without risk of interference?

The answer is that he was instructed to position himself in
window seat No. A 19, next to where the wing attaches to the
body of the plane to follow the example of Shoe Bomber No. 1.

A bomb exploding in this position would allow the plastic
explosive to erupt through the wall of the cabin and rupture
the wing where jet fuel is stored. This position was also close to
the center fuel tank in the body of the plane between the
wings. If Reid had not been wrestled down by the flight
attendants and passengers, the explosives in his shoes would
have ripped a hole in the side of the plane and then ignited the
fuel stored in the wing.

This, according to DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s sources, is
precisely what happened on the AA flight 587 Airbus bound
for Santo Domingo, 40 days previously, with tragic
consequences. All 255 passengers and crew died, as well as five
people on the ground.

The official explanation is that the crash was caused by
turbulence from another jet, mechanical defects in the composite
materials in the tail of the plane -- causing the tail to fall off -- and
pilot error. DEBKA's sources say that explanation does
not cover the evidence.

Several witnesses report that a small explosion occurred on the
right-hand side of the fuselage, before the second big
explosion on the right wing. “It was only then that the
plane fell apart.”

As the plane nose-dived, the tail section dropped off and then
both engines separated from the airliner, each engine
landing over 800 feet away from the crash site.

One aviation expert says there has never been a crash in the
history of accidental aviation disasters in which both engines
broke away from the plane at the same time.

According to his explanation – based on the physical
axiom that every action produces an equal and opposite
reaction -- a high-velocity explosion on one side of an airliner will
cause expelling gases to create a rocket effect that will
push the plane in the opposite direction, which weakened the
tail.

With the damaged tail rudder only partially attached to the
aircraft, the pilot tried to correct the plane’s attitude
by using the rudder foot controls. When the plane did not
respond, the pilot would have attempted to push the right
rudder harder alternating between his left and right foot. This
would have been recorded in the black box as “over
response” and therefore pilot error.

The violent sideways motion of the aircraft body, produced by
the explosion exhaust, would account for the two jet
engines falling to the ground, according to the expert source.
Thus, although Shoe Bomber No. 1 got away with carrying
out his mission of terror, fortunately for the 197 aboard AA
Flight 63 Richard Reid was stopped in the nick of time.

* MicrowaveZx.

http://www.raven1.net/uncom.htm#JUSTN

APPENDIX PM6 - VOICE TO SKULL, 1974 SUCCESS

Microwaves and Behavior
Dr. Don R. Justesen
Laboratories of Experimental Neuropsychology
Veterans Administration Hospital
Kansas City, Missouri
as published in
American Psychologist
Journal of the American Psychological Association
Volume 30, March 1975, Number 3

................ Eleanor's comments .........................
This LAYS TO REST ANY DOUBTS THAT VOICE TO SKULL
TECHNOLOGY DOES NOT EXIST OR IS "IN THE FUTURE"!
PERIOD!

This article describes in precise terms how Dr. Joseph C.
Sharp and staff transmitted the WORDS for the digits 1 to 10
using a modulated version of an Allan Frey type pulsed
microwave transmitter. A detailed description of Frey
transmitters can be viewed at:

Appendix PM2

The relevant text is below.
.............................................................
Page 396:

...

The demonstration of sonic transduction of microwave energy
by materials lacking in water LESSENS the likelihood that a
thermohydraulic principle is operating in human perception
of the energy. Nonetheless, some form of thermoacoustic
transduction probably underlies perception. If so, it is
clear that simple heating is NOT a sufficient basis for the
Frey effect; the requirement for pulsing of radiations
appears to implicate a thermodynamic principle.

Frey and Messenger (1973) and Guy, Chou, Lin, and Christen-
sen (1975) confirmed that a microwave pulse with a slow rise
time is INeffective in producing an auditory response; only
if the rise time is SHORT, resulting in effect in a square
wave with respect to the leading edge of the envelope of
radiated radio-frequency energy, does the auditory response
occur.

[Eleanor's comment: This is why we don't "hear" ordinary
radio and TV signals.]

Thus the rate of change (the first derivative) of the
waveform of the pulse is a CRITICAL factor in perception.
Given a thermodynamic interpretation, it would follow that
information can be encoded in the energy and "communicated"
to the "listener".

Communication has in fact been demonstrated. A. Guy (Note
1), a skilled telegrapher, arranged for his father, a retired
railroad telegrapher, to operate a key, each closure and
opening of which resulted in a pulse of microwave energy.
By directing the radiations at his own head, complex mess-
ages via the Continental Morse Code were readily received
by Guy.

Sharp and Grove (note 2) found that appropriate modu-
lation of microwave energy can result in "wireless" and
"receiverless" communication of SPEECH. The recorded by
voice on tape each of the single-syllable words for digits
between 1 and 10. The electrical sine-wave analogs of each
word were then processed so that each time a sine wave
crossed ZERO REFERENCE IN THE NEGATIVE DIRECTION, a brief
pulse of microwave energy was triggered.

[Eleanor's comment: This is, in effect a form of what is
called pulse-RATE modulation.]

By radiating themselves with these "voice modulated"
microwaves, Sharp and Grove were READILY able to hear,
identify, and distinguish among the 9 words. [Typo?]
The sounds heard were not unlike those emitted by persons
with artificial larynxes.

Communication of more complex words and of sentences was
not attempted because the averaged densities of energy
required to transmit longer messages would approach the
current 10 milliwatts per square centimeter limit of safe
exposure.

The capability of communicating directly with a human being
by "receiverless radio" has obvious potentialities both
within and without the clinic. But the hotly debated and
unresolved question of how much microwave radiation a human
being can safely be exposed to will probably forestall
applications within the near future.

...

* MicrowaveZx.

http://www.raven1.net/uncom.htm#FREYP

APPENDIX PM2 - FREY'S PAPER

Human Auditory System Response To Modulated Electromagnetic Energy

ALLAN H. FREY

General Electric Advanced Electronics Center Cornell University Ithaca, New York

TRANSCRIPTION, Courtesy of MindNet Archives, Mike Coyle
posted at http://www.ritualabuse.net/MCF/

Frey, Allan H., Human Auditory system response to modulated
electromagnetic energy. J. Appl. Physiol. 17(4): 689-692. 1962.

(*) Asterisks indicate unreadable characters in the original copy.

NOTE: In 1962, frequencies were expressed as kiloCYCLES,
megaCYCLES, etc., with abbreviations being kc, mc

--The intent of this paper is to bring a new phenomena to the
attention of physiologists. Using extremely low average power
densities of electromagnetic energy, the perception of sounds was
induced in normal and deaf humans. The effect was induced several
hundred feet from the antenna the instant the transmitter was turned
on, and is a function of carrier frequency and modulation. Attempts
were made to match the sounds induced by electromagnetic energy and
acoustic energy.

The closest match occurred when the acoustic amplifier was driven by
the rf transmitter's modulator. Peak power density is a critical
factor and, with acoustic noise of approximately 80 db, a peak power
density of approximately 275 mw / rf is needed to induce the
perception at carrier frequencies 125 mc and 1,310 mc. The average
power density can be at rf as low as 400 _u_w/cm2. The evidence for
the various positive sites of the electromagnetic energy sensor are
discussed and locations peripheral to the cochlea are ruled out.

Received for publication 29 September 1961.

A significant amount of research has been conducted with the effects
of radio-frequency (rf) energy on organisms (electro- magnetic energy
between 1 kc and ** Gc). Typically, this work has been concerned with
determining damage resulting from body temperature increase. The
average power densities used have been on the order of 0.1-t w/cm2
used over many minutes to several hours.

In contrast, using average power densities measured in microwatts per
square centimeter, we have found that ****r effects which are
transient, can be induced with rf energy. Further, these effects
occur the instant the transmitter is turned on. With appropriate
modulation, the perception of different sounds can be induced in
physically deaf, as well as normal, in human subjects at a distance
of inches up to thousands of feet from the transmitter. With
somewhat different transmission parameters, you can induce the
perception of severe buffeting of the head, without such apparent
vestibular symptoms as dizziness or nausea. Changing transmitter
parameters down, one can induce a "pins-and-needles" sensation.

Experimental work with these phenomena may yield information on
auditory system functioning and, more generally, in the nervous
system function. For example, this energy could possibly be used as
a tool to explore nervous system coding, possibly using Neider and
Neff's procedures (1), and for stimulating the nervous system without
the damage caused by electrodes.

Since most of our data have been obtained of the "rf sound" and only
the visual system has previously been shown to respond to
electromagnetic energy, this paper will be concerned only with the
auditory effects data. As a further restriction, only data from
human subjects will be reported, since only this data can be
discussed meaningfully at the present time. The long series of
studies we performed to ascertain that we were dealing with a
biological significant phenomena (rather than broadcasts from sources
such as loose fillings in the teeth) are summarized in another paper
(2), which also reports on the measuring instruments used in this
work.

The intent of this paper is to bring this new phenomenon to the
attention of physiologists. The data reported are intended to
suggest numerous lines of experimentation and indicate necessary
experimental controls.

Since we are dealing with a significant phenomenon, we decided to
explore the effects of a wide range of transmitter parameters to
build up the body of knowledge which would allow us to generate
hypotheses and determine what experimental controls would be
necessary. Thus, the numbers given are conservative; they should not
be considered precise, since the transmitters were never located in
ideal laboratory environments. Within the limits of our
measurements, the orientation of the subject in the rf field was of
little consequence.

Most of the transmitters used to date in the experimentation have
been pulse modulated with no information placed on the signal. The
rf sound has been described as being a buzz, clicking, hiss, or
knocking, depending on several transmitter parameters, i.e., pulse
width and pulse-repetition rate (PRF). The apparent source of these
sounds is localized by the subjects as being within, or immediately
behind the head. The sound always seems to come from within or
immediately behind the head no matter how the subjects twists or
rotates in the rf field.

Our early experimentation, preformed using transmitters with very
short square pulses and high pulse-repetition rates, seemed to
indicate that we were dealing with harmonics of the PRF. However,
our later work has indicated that this is not the case; rather, the
rf sound appears to be incidental modulation envelope on each pulse,
as shown in Fig 1.

Some difficulty was experienced when the subjects tried to match the
rf sound to ordinary audio. They reported that it was not possible
to satisfactorily match the rf sound to a sine wave or to white
noise. An audio amplifier was connected to a variable bypass filter
and pulsed by the transmitter pulsing mechanism. The subjects, when
allowed to control the filter, reported a fairly satisfactory match.
The subjects were fairly well satisfied with all frequencies below
5-kc audio were eliminated and the high- frequency audio was extended
as much as possible. There was, however, always a demand for more
high-frequency components. Since our tweeter has a rather good
high-frequency response, it is possible that we have shown an
analogue of visual phenomenon in which people see farther into the
ultraviolet range when the lenses is eliminated from the eye. In
other words, this may be a demonstration that the mechanical
transmission system of the ossicles cannot respond to as high a
frequency as the rest of the auditory system. Since the rf bypasses
the ossicle system and the audio given the subject for matching does
not, this may explain the dissatisfaction of our subjects in the
matching.

FIG. 1. Oscilloscope representation of transmitter output over
time (pulse-modulated).

FIG. 2. Audiogram of deaf subject (otosclerosis) who had a "normal"
rf sound threshold.

-10|----|----|----|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|
| | | | | | | | | | | |
0|----|----|----|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--| A = RIGHT BONE
| | A | | | | | | | | |
|----|----B----A--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--| B = LEFT BONE
| | | B | A | | | | | | |
LOSS(db) 20|----|----|----B--B--AB-B--B--B--AB-|--| C = LEFT AIR
| | | | | | | A | | | |
|----|----|----|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--| D = RIGHT AIR
| | | | | | | | | | | C
40|----|----|----|--|--|--|--|--|--|--C--|
| | C C C | | | | | C | |
|----C----|----D--|--C--C--C--|--D--D--D
| | D | D | | D | | | |
60|----D----|----|--|--D--|--|--|--|--|--|
| | | | | | | | | | | |
|----|----|----|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|
| | | | | | | | | | | |
80|----|----|----|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|
| | | | | | | | | | | |
|----|----|----|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|
| | | | | | | | | | | |
100|----|----|----|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|
125 250 500 1000 2000 4000 8000
FREQUENCY (cps)

TABLE 1. Transmitter parameters

Trans- Frequency, Wave- Pulse Width, Pulses Sec. Duty Cy.
mitter mc length, cm _u_sec

A 1,310 22.9 6 244 .0015
B 2,982 10.4 1 400 .0004
C 425 70.6 125 27 .0038
D 425 70.6 250 27 .007
E 425 70.6 500 27 .014
F 425 70.6 1000 27 .028
G 425 70.6 2000 27 .056
H 8,900 3.4 2.5 400 .001

FIG. 3. Attenuation of ambient sound with Flent antinoise stopples
(collated from Zwislocki (3) and Von Gierke (4).

|----|---|--|--|-|-|-|||----|---|--|-|||
| | | | | | | ||| | | | |||
|----|---|--|--|-|-|-|||----|---|--|-||| A = FLENTS
| | | | | | | ||| | | | |||
10|----|---|--|--|-|-|-|||----|---|--|-||| B = THEORETICAL LIMIT
| | | | | | | ||| | | | ||| OF ATTENUATION BY
FUNCTION(db) |----|---|--|--|-|-|-|||----|---|--|-||| EAR PROTECTORS
A | | | | | | ||| | | | |||
|----A---|--|--|-|-|-|||----|---|--|-|||
B | A A A | A AAA A| | | |||
|----B---B--|--|-A-|-|||----A---|--|-|||
| | | | B | | ||| | A | | |||
30|----|---|--|--|-|-|-B||----|---A--|-A||
| | | | | | | ||| | | A |A|
|----|---|--|--|-|-|-|||B---|---|--|-||A
| | | | | | | ||| B | | | |||
|----|---|--|--|-|-|-|||----|---|--|-||B
| | | | | | | ||| B | | B||
|----|---|--|--|-|-|-|||----|---|-B|-|||
| | | | | | | ||| | B | | |||
50|----|---|--|--|-|-|-|||----|---|--|-|||
| | | | | | | ||| | | | |||
|----|---|--|--|-|-|-|||----|---|--|-|||
| | | | | | | ||| | | | |||
|----|---|--|--|-|-|-|||----|---|--|-|||
100 1000 10000
FREQUENCY

TABLE 2. Theshold for perception of rf sound (ambient noise level 70-
90 db).
Peak
Avg Peak Peak Magnetic
Power Power Electric Field
Trans- Frequency, Duty Cy. Density, Density Field amp.
mitter mc mw, cm2 mw, cm2 v cm turns, m

A 1,310 .0015 0.4 267 14 4
B 2,982 .0004 2.1 5,250 63 17
C 425 .0038 1.0 263 15 4
D 425 .007 1.9 271 14 4
E 425 .014 3.2 229 13 3
F 425 .028 7.1 254 14 4

FIG. 4. Threshold energy as a function of frequency of electromagnetic
energy (ambient noise level 70-90 db).

10000|---------|-------------|--------------|
|---------|-------------|--------------|
PEAK |---------|-------------|--------------|
POWER |---------|-------------|-------------*|
DENSITY |---------|-------------|------------*-|
(mw/cm2) | | | * |
|---------|-------------|---------*----|
| | | * |
|---------|-------------|------*-------|
| | | * |
| | | * |
| | | * |
1000|---------|-------------*--------------|
|---------|-----------*-|--------------|
|---------|---------*---|--------------|
| | * | |
|---------|-----*-------|--------------|
| * * * * * * * | |
|---------|-------------|--------------|
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
100|---------|-------------|--------------|
200 1000 2000 3000
FREQUENCY (mc)

FIG. 5. Microwave power distribution in a forehead model neglecting
resonance effects and considering only first reflections
(from Nieset et al. (5), modified).

| REFLECTED ABSORBED
1.5|--- FREQUENCIES FREQUENCIES
| * *
| * * * = 10% OF INCIDENT
CENTIMETERS |Cortical * POWER
|Tissue *
| * @ = 20% OF INCIDENT
1.0|--- * POWER
| *
| * *
|Bone
| * *
|
0.5|--- * @ @ @ *
|Muscle * @ @
|Fat @ @ *
|Skin @ @ @
0|-----------|-----------|-----------|-----------|---
0 100 1000 10000 100000
FREQUENCY (mc)

FIG. 6. Area most sensitive to electromagnetic energy (shaded portion).

* * * * * *
* *
* *
* * :::::: *
* * ::::::::: *
* O * :::::::: *
* * * *
* * *
* * *
*** ** *
* * *
* * * * *
* *
* *
* * * * * * * * *

At one time in our experimentation with deaf subjects there seemed to
be a clear relationship between the ability to hear audio above 5 kc
and the ability to hear rf sounds. If a subject could hear above 5
kc, either by bone or air conduction, then he could hear the rf
sounds. For example, the threshold of the subject whose audio gram
appears in Fig. 2 was the same average power density as our normal
subjects. Recently, however, we have found people with a notch
around 5 kc who do not perceive the rf sounds generated by at least
one of our transmitters.

THRESHOLDS

As shown in Table 1, we have used a fairly wide range of transmitter
parameters. We are currently experimenting with transmitters that
radiate energy at frequencies below 425 mc, and are using different
types of modulation, e.g., pulse-repetition rates as low as 3 and
4/sec.

In the experimentation reported in this section, the ordinary noise
level was 70-90 db (measured with a General Radio Co. model 1551-B
sound level meter.) In order to minimize the rf energy used in the
experimentation, subjects wore Flent antinoise ear stoppers whenever
measurements were made. The ordinary noise attenuation of the Flents
is indicated in Fig. 3. Although the rf sounds can be heard without
the use of Flents, eventhough they have an ambient noise evel of 90
db, it appears that the ambient noise to some extent "masked" the rf
sound.

Table 2 gives the thresholds for the perception of the sounds. It
shows fairly clearly that the critical factor in the perception of
the rf sound is the peak power density, rather than the average power
density. The relatively high value for transmitter B was expected
and will be discussed below. Transmitter G has been omitted from the
table since the 20-mw/cm2 reading for it can be considered only
approximate. The field-strength-measuring instruments used in that
experiment did not read high enough to give an accurate reading. The
energy from transmitter H was not perceived, even when the peak power
density was as high as 25 w/cm2.

When the threshold energy is plotted as a function of the rf energy
(Fig. 4), a curve is obtained which is suggestive of the curve of
penetration of rf energy into the head. Figure 5 shows the
calculated penetration, by frequency of rf energy, into the head. Our
data indicate that the calculated penetration curve may well be
accurate at the higher frequencies but the penetration at the lower
frequencies may be greater than that calculated on this model.

As previously noted, the thresholds were obtained in a high ambient
noise environment. This is an unusual situation as compared to
obtaining thresholds of regular audio sound. One recent
experimentation leads us to believe that, if the ambient noise level
were not so high, these threshold fields strengths would be much
lower. Since one purpose of this paper is to suggest experiments, it
might be appropriate to theories as to what the rf sound threshold
might be if we assumed that the subject is in an anechoic chamber.
It is also assumed that there is no transducer noise.

Given: As a threshold for the rf sound, a peak power density of 275
mw/cm2 determined in an ambient noise environment of 80 db. Earplugs
attenuate the ambient noise 30 db.

If: 1 mw/cm2 is set equal to o db, then 275 mw/cm2 is equal to 24 db.

Then: We can reduce the rf energy 50 db to -26 db as we reduce the
noise level energy from 50 db to o db. We found that -26 db rf
energy is approximately 3 _u_w/cm2.

Thus: If an anechoic room, rf sound could theoretically be induced
by a peak power density of 3 _u_w/cm2 measured in free space. Since
only 10% of this energy is likely to penetrate the skull, the human
auditory system and a table radio may be one order of magnitude apart
in sensitivity to rf energy.

Up to Contents

RF DETECTOR IN AUDITORY SYSTEM

One possibility that seems to have been ruled out in our
experimentation is that of a capacitor-type effect with the tympanic
membrane and oval window acting as plates of a capacitor. It would
seem possible that these membranes, acting as plates of a capacitor,
could be set in motion by rf energy. There are, however, three
points of evidence against this possibility. First, when one rotates
a capacitor in an rf field, a rather marked change occurs in the
capacitor as a function of its orientation in the field. When our
subjects rotate or change the positions of their heads in the field,
the loudness of the rf sound does not change appreciably. Second,
the distance between these membranes is rather small, compared with
the wavelengths used. As a third point, we found that one of our
subjects who has otosclerosis heard the rf sound.

Another possible location for the detecting mechanism is in the
cochlea. We have explored this possibility with nerve-deaf people,
but the results are inconclusive due to factors such as tinnitus. We
are currently exploring this possibility with animal preparations.

The third likely place for the detection mechanism is the brain. Burr
and Mauro (6) presented evidence that indicates that there is an
electrostatic field about neurons. Morrow and Sepiel (7) presented
evidence that indicates the existence of a magnetic field about
neurons. Becker (personal communication) has done some work
indicating that there is longitudinal flow of charged carriers in
neurons. Thus, it is reasonable to suspect that possibly the
electromagnetic field could interact with neuron fields. As yet,
evidence of this possibility is inconclusive. The strongest point
against it is that we have not found visual effects although we have
searched for them. On the other hand, we have obtained other
nonauditory effects and have found that the sensitive area for
detecting rf sounds is a region over the temporal lobe of the brain.
One can shield, with a 2-in.2 piece of fly screen, a portion of the
stippled area shown in Fig. 6 and completely cut off the rf sound.

Another possibility should also be considered. There is no good
reason to assume that there is only one detector site. On the
contrary, the work of Jones et al. (8), in which they placed
electrodes in the ear and electrically stimulated the subject, is
sufficiently relevant to suggest the possibility of more than one
detector site. Also, several sensations have been elicited with
properly modulated electromagnetic energy. It is doubtful that all
of these can be attributed to one detector.

As mentioned earlier, the purpose of this paper is to focus the
attention of physiologists on an unusual area and stimulate
additional work on which interpretations can be based.
Interpretations have been deliberately omitted from this paper since
additional data are needed before a clear picture can emerge. It is
hoped that the additional exploration will also result in an increase
in our knowledge of nervous system functions.

REFERENCES:

Neider, P.C. and W.D. Neff. Science 133: 1010, 1961.

Frey, A.H. Aero Space Med. 32: 1140, 1961.

Zwislocki, J. Noise Control 4:42, 1958.

Von Gierke, H. Noise Control 2:37, 1956.

Nifset, R., Pinneo R. Baus J. Fleming, & R. McAfee. Ann. Rept. USAF
Rome Air Development Command, TR-61-65, 1961.

Burr, H., & J. Seipel, J. Wash Acad. Sci. 21: 455, 1949.

Morrow, R., & J. Seipel. J. Wash. Acad. Sci. 30: 1, 1969.

Jones, R.C., S.S. Stevens, & M.H. Laurie. J. Acoust. Sci. Am. 12:
281, 1940.

* MicrowaveZx.
http://www.geocities.com/adrian9999999999/DEWandTI.html

Submitted to the Switchboard by William MacIntosh

DIRECTED ENERGY WEAPONS (DEW) AND
TARGETED INDIVIDUALS (TI’s)

Great leaps in technological advancement have always started with the
business of warfare; it is simply the nature of man. The Militaries of the
world, especially the U.S., have reportedly kept a great knowledge
advantage, at least a decade or more ahead of general civilian
understanding. When this Advanced Technology is deployed into the
civilian realm, great Human Rights violations inevitably occur.

An unfortunate situation has resulted which I hope will intrigue you -
civilian casualties in a silent, covert war – the targeting of specific
individuals by government & contract agencies utilizing directed energy
weapons (DEW). We Targeted Individuals (TI’s) can be found all
around the world, but are usually to be found, more often than not, near
US intelligence & military sites. Here in California, the greatest
concentration of victims within the United States, the perpetrators are the
government agencies and their hired contractor & subcontractor lap
dogs.

The apparent intents here are twofold - primarily socio-political control
of troublemakers, the silencing of whistleblowers and other conscientious
objectors and the continued test development of DEW on civilian
nonconsensual human subjects. I am a former defense (US Navy)
employee myself, and I strongly suspect personal vendettas and favors
are a real factor in our selection for harassment. Solid proof of
wrongdoing has been minimal due to the intelligence (spy) methods, the
Security Classification of these 'Special Operations' and the very nature
of Directed Energy Weapons themselves. These devices are deliberately
designed and used - so as not to leave evidence. Each victim has an
individual story but also has a noted consistency in the abuse modus
operandi and of the terrible health problems that affect all casualties of
EMF/DEW irradiation.

Since the victims of this personal techno-terrorism have asserted their
right and obligation to disclose the facts of this abuse, these agencies
have actively taken active countermeasures, of their own, by further
abusing these vocal victims silent. Fear is a very powerful inhibitor. This
harassment is strictly of Intelligence (spy) origins based primarily on
military psychological operations. The purpose being to induce fear,
bewilderment, disgrace & disenfranchisement in the test subject. The
perpetrators of these terrible crimes deliberately interfere with public
disclosure. Several investigative reporters have been similarly assaulted
when pursuing this problem. Similar methods are used on anyone our
government wishes to silence and is standard operating procedure (SOP)
for any supposed 'troublemaker' here in the US.

The development of Directed Energy Weapons offered some very
enticing advantages to the Intelligence community. First and foremost is
the fact that there is no evidence of its use, ever! Damage can be done
without a projectile, without a sound and without need of visual targeting.
Second: walls will not stop an RF or microwave attack. Barriers just
reduced the effective power level, nothing more! You are not safe even
in you own home! Third: detailed intelligence on the target, including
voice, heart rate and respiration can be determined long before the
attack. This information is also used to identify the target. Fourth: there
are no proper laws to protect the average citizen from such a 'Classified'
attack.

History:

Back in the ‘40’s Great Britain was one of the leading developers of
radar in the years leading up to WW2. The research they conducted led
to an early warning radar system called "Chain Home". They built their
radar stations around the British Isles and in America to provide warning
of aerial threat.

It was noted by the attending personnel, that near these early radar
stations, birds and animals (even insects) tend to avoid the area of
energized antennas. Occasionally small creatures were found dying and
dead that could not have directly touched energized circuitry. Reports
were made and great interest was expressed in this disabling bio-effect.
Research began into the possibility of a whole new class of weapon, RF
& Microwave Directed Energy.

Various military and intelligence establishments did have suspicions about
the harmful effects of non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation and
microwaves on humans. The Defense Intelligence Agency, the CIA and
the Army had been monitoring the progress made by the former Soviet
Union and its satellites for decades. Despite the intelligence reports on
the harmful effects of Electromagnetic Frequency (EMF) and
microwaves, they decided to try to establish the facts themselves.

FIRST KNOWN CASE OF DELIBERATE IRRADIATION -

Moscow Signals:

Project Pandora began after the Soviets covertly directing RADAR like
microwave beams at the U.S. embassy in Moscow, not only gathering
intelligence but also using embassy workers as guinea pigs for low-level
EMR experiments. Washington, D.C. was initially oddly quiescent,
allowing the Soviets to continue the embassy irradiation. All the while the
CIA morbidly studied the terrible effects on unaware attending embassy
personnel such that THREE CONSECUTIVE Ambassadors died from
the effects of nonionizing radiation.

In April 1976 the Secretary of State Henry Kissinger sent the following
telegram to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow that summarized the
conclusions of the study of the Moscow signal.

Subject: Radiation and UHF and Electromagnetic Dangers

“Beginning in 1960 the Soviet Union directed the high frequency beams
of radiation at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow that were calculated not to
pick up intelligence but cause physiological effects on personnel. The
effects the Soviets calculated to achieve in the personnel serving (at least
as early as 1960) included:

(A) Malaise (B) Irritability, (C) Extreme fatigue.

At this time the Soviets believed that the induced effects were temporary.
Subsequently, it has been verified that the effects are not temporary.
Definitely tied to such radiation and the UHF/VHF electromagnetic
waves are:

(A) Cataracts, (B) Blood changes that induce heart attacks, (C)
Malignancies, (D) Circulatory problems, (E) Permanent deterioration of
the nervous system.

In most cases the after-effects do not become evident until long after
exposure - a decade or more.”

DEFENSE RESEARCH EFFORT -

From 1965 through to 1970, Defense Advanced Projects Research
Agency (DARPA), with up to 80% funding provided by the military, set
in motion operation PANDORA to study the health and psychological
effects of low intensity microwaves with regard to the so-called
"Moscow signal." This project appears to have been quite extensive and
included (under U.S. Navy funding) studies demonstrating how to induce
heart seizures, create leaks in the blood/brain barrier and production of
hallucinations. FOIA filings revealed memoranda of Richard Cesaro,
Director of DARPA, which confirmed that the program's initial goal was
to:

"Discover whether a carefully controlled microwave signal could
influence the mind." Cesaro urged that these studies be made: "for
potential weapons applications."

HISTORICAL INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE/ABUSE OF
CIVILIANS -

Domestic Ops Life Magazine’s article, March 26, 1971

Coinciding precisely with the “hay day” of CIA’s MK-Ultra and all 149
SUB PROJECTS, 80 INSTITUTIONS and 185 PRIVATE
RESEARCHERS involved, is an article about Army & Navy - Domestic
intelligence. During this time, there were hundreds of supporting articles
about the governments’ domestic spying. Sam Ervin’s committee caught
on that the Army and Navy Intelligence, the FBI, CIA, NSA, etc were
all engaged in massive domestic spying & harassment campaign.

In 1971 Senator Ervin’s Committee found that the Army claimed they
had only 7,000 people being watched. Next that number was boosted to
14,000. Then it settled on a range somewhere between a whopping two
million people & one quarter of the total U.S. population was under
surveillance. The Military claimed many very trite reasons for keeping
track of so many civilians; information indicates that human test subjects
and all their acquaintances were the bulk of these numbers!

In response to the Church Committee investigation of 1973, all records
of the MK-Ultra project were ordered destroyed. Correspondingly the
numbers of people under surveillance suddenly dropped as well.
Although the shocking details of medical ethics abuses by the U.S.
government were amply detailed, Washington, citing national security and
government privilege, stalled for so long – that the cases never came to
trial. Since no individuals or agencies were held legally accountable, the
door was left wide open for further atrocities under new project names.

Senator Ervin’s and the Church Committee admirable actions promptly
curtailed any further overt testing and harassment. For the next twenty
years or so, the covert agenda quietly dominated the domestic operations
landscape while testing and developing, on unwitting military & civilian
personnel, a whole new arsenal of weapons - Directed Energy.

DISSEMINATION OF ADVANCED DIRECTED ENERGY
WEAPONS -

FOIA “Memorandum of Understanding” 1994: excerpts

“This MOU stems from recent findings of DoD's Advanced Research
Projects Agency (ARPA) and DOJ's National Institute of Justice (NIJ)
and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) concerning the application of
advanced technology to law enforcement. In general, these findings
reflect a growing convergence between the technology required for
military operations and the technology required for law enforcement.
Moreover, recent technological advances suggest a current ability to
enhance the effectiveness of both the DoD Operations Other Than War
(OOTW) and DOJ and other Law Enforcement (LE) missions.”

“User organizations designated by the signatories, or "test bed units," will
test and evaluate transitioning products. The remainder of FY94 will be
devoted to choosing technology programs for FY95, setting up the joint
organization, identifying test bed units, and beginning selected efforts.
During the first quarter of FY95, the JPSG members will physically move
to ARPA in order to begin intensive management of the joint OOTW/LE
program.”

/s/ Janet Reno Attorney General Date: 4/20/94

/s/ John Deutch Secretary of Defense Date: 4/20/94

note: OOTW is a nice way of describing Domestic Intelligence
Operations of questionable legality.

NEWS RELEASE OF THE ABOVE MEMORANDUM - excerpts

PENTAGON, JUSTICE DEPT. SET PLANS FOR SHARING
NONLETHAL TECHNOLOGY

By John Lancaster Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, March
23, 1994 ; Page A03

Justice Department officials, for their part, see an opportunity to apply
the fruits of Pentagon research to America's urban battlefields.

Other military technological advances that will be evaluated for their
usefulness in combating crime include infrared surveillance gear, sonar
devices…"neural inhibitors," and a high-power microwave generator.

The Present:

Today we know one of the early descendants of RADAR research is
probably located in your own kitchen. “Microwave Ovens” are a
common appliance and “The Microwave Heating” effect is created from
the induction of eddy currents by microwave irradiation, an electric
current flow that will interfere with normal healthy functioning of a living
nervous system. It acts very much like an anesthetic, jamming the normal
nerve function while the tissues are being damaged. Directed at some
poor soul, that person could be burned inside and out. Think now how
damaging a MASER, a microwave LASER, would be to a man.

Non-lethal/Less Than Lethal Weapons:

DEW Non-lethal weapons are defined as "acoustic and electromagnetic
weapons that are designed to disable personnel, weapons, supplies, or
equipment in such a way that death or severe permanent disability to
personnel are unlikely." Note well that by they’re very description, DEW
are the perfect tool to harass & abuse civilians in the community and at
home. It should be known that some "non-lethal" weapons are not
authorized under the international law governing weapons. Given that
these are more devices of torture than weapons of war.

Conclusion:

If improperly used a common “Radar Range” can easily be transformed
into an effective Directed Energy Weapon. I speak of the known
biohazards a common Magnetron removed from your kitchen microwave
oven. Activated and directed at some poor soul, that person could be
attacked without even a clue that an attack occurred. Swelling and
blisters would just seem to form spontaneously, no reason that can be
discerned by victim or doctor. Know to that radiation in whatever guise
is absolutely deadly to life. Even low level doses, over a time, may be a
death sentence with cancer on the horizon. Be it ionizing radiation or
electromagnetic radiation, they all kill.

Directed Energy Influence Weapons are a definite reality, an undeniable
fact! I’ m not talking about the imagination of a TV show or the super
science of some distant future. I’m only speaking of the technological
advancement and evolution of RADAR over some 50 years of time.
Should we not consider the necessity of creating laws, similar to those for
projectile weapons? It seems only right that the same laws governing the
use of projectile weapons (guns) also be used for Energy Weapons
(DEW). We must protect all citizens from the indiscriminate abuse of
classified advanced weaponry readily available to some Military and
Intelligence personnel.

Caught between our Governments desire to test & develop Advanced
Antipersonnel Weapons on its own unsuspecting citizenry and the
stringent requirements to maintain National Security, lie hundreds of poor
innocent tortured souls, caught in pain and seeking freedom from this
most terrible situation. These victims once again are raising this serious
question to you:

…does the end ever justify these means?

After all, those responsible are indeed aware of the harmful effects of
EMF, and yet they have deliberately concealed the facts from their
victims and have manufactured “new truths” for the general public. Many
lives have already been unnecessarily lost and the lifespan of hundreds, if
not thousands, have been seriously compromised.

Yet no liability has ever been admitted by our government.

Thank you,
Bill MacIntosh

* AmericanAirline587AviationCrashNewsZx.
Witnesses saw 2 explosions before tail fell off.
The following URL no longer works:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/12022001/commentary/35535.htm

NTSB BIRDBRAINS STICKING
HEADS IN ROCKAWAY SAND

By STEVE DUNLEAVY

December 2, 2001 -- LITTLE wonder the National
Transportation Safety Board has bleated for help from
NASA to help them out in the tragic crash of American
Airlines Flight 587. The NTSB has shown in the past that it
is run by a bunch of bumbling bureaucrats who couldn't find
a needle in a thimble.

Here they were with 265 dead, and God knows how many
mourners, giving us this claptrap that the tail fell off
mysteriously.

"No tail fell off, not before the explosion. I swear to that,"
said retired firefighter Tom Lynch, who was doing his
exercise march along Rockaway Beach Boulevard on Nov.
12.

"I had my head up taking in that beautiful, clear day and was
staring straight at the plane.

"It made a bank turn and suddenly there was an explosion,
orange and black, on the righthand side of the fuselage. It
was a small explosion, about half the size of a car.

"The plane kept on going straight for about two or three
seconds as if nothing had happened, then ‘vwoof' - the
second, big explosion on the right wing, orange and black.

"It was only then that the plane fell apart. It was after the
explosion and I'm telling you, the tail was there until the
second explosion."

Lynch, who lives near the crash site in Belle Harbor, claims
he has 13 people who saw the plane on fire before the
breakup. Until the explosion the tail was intact.

He contacted the FBI, NTSB, Rep. Anthony Weiner, and
Sens. Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton.

"I got no response from anyone," said Lynch, "Sabotage?
That's for other people to decide. At first, we hear there
were seagulls in the engine, the plane was caught in a jet
stream and the tail fell off. No damn tail fell off until after
the second explosion."

Jim Conrad, who retired last month as a police lieutenant
after 34 years, accidentally met Lynch in a dentist's office
one week after the crash.

"I saw exactly what Tom saw. I was near a stop light at the
Marine Parkway Bridge. First, the small explosion. The
plane kept on going, tail intact, then the big explosion and the
plane nose-dived. The first thing I said was: ‘The bastards
did it again.'"

For the NTSB to seriously speculate that the bloody tail fell
off in the face of so much evidence that it didn't happen is
arrogant and treating us all like a bunch of morons.

But NTSB spokesman Ted Lopatkiewicz said: "We don't
have any evidence of an explosion [after searching] the
wreckage or from the cockpit recorder. It doesn't mean it
didn't happen."

* AmericanAirline587AviationCrashNewsZx. engines intact.
This original URL went bad:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20011114-21973.htm

November 14, 2001

Theories on crash eliminated

By Frank J. Murray
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Federal investigators said yesterday the co-pilot of
doomed American Airlines Flight 587 called for "max power"
four seconds after the frame of his A300 Airbus was rattled
twice, possibly by the wake of a larger plane.
Nineteen seconds later, both
engines and the tail inexplicably
began tearing free of the plane,
which had just taken off for Santo
Domingo, Dominican Republic,
from John F. Kennedy
International Airport. The pieces
and the rest of the aircraft began
falling in a straight line down into
the ground. All 260 persons
aboard were killed, as apparently
were five persons missing from
homes that the plane hit.
National Transportation Safety
Board officials all but ruled out bird strikes or spontaneous
disintegration of engine parts as causes of Monday's crash
during a dramatic news conference where NTSB Chairman
Marion C. Blakey said the probe was "coming to a head."
Her unusual optimism about the search for an answer so
soon, and elimination of several important theories so early in
an investigation of a major airline disaster, were
extraordinary.
Mrs. Blakey said the Airbus' rudder was pulled yesterday
from Jamaica Bay, where the tailfin was found Monday. The
find increased the riddle of why tail sections would fall first,
even before the denser engine that apparently broke loose in
flight.
"The most perplexing issue is what the vertical stabilizer
was doing in the water, virtually untouched. They've got to
figure out why that happened," said Peter Goelz, former
managing director of the National Transportation Safety
Board. He said that if the tail had been knocked off by an
engine tearing from its wing mounts, the engine also would be
in the water, closer to Kennedy Airport than the large white
tailfin.
Last night, NTSB member George W. Black Jr. said the
fin was closest to Kennedy Airport, the rudder was found
200 yards closer to land, engine No. 1 from the left wing fell
at the gas station on 119th Street, engine No. 2 crashed into
a boat in a driveway on 128th Street.
The bulk of the plane came straight down onto houses
between 131st and 132nd streets, punctuating the straight line
of debris.
Just 144 seconds after engines were revved up at the end
of the runway, and 87 seconds from the moment the plane
lifted off toward the northwest on Runway 31 Left, it climbed
to 2,800 feet, turned south and dropped off the radar screen
at 9:16 a.m.
Disclosures of the final 37 seconds gleaned from cockpit
sound recordings were revealed after Mrs. Blakey
announced yesterday the discovery in the wreckage of the
more sophisticated flight data recorder which she called "a
major breakthrough."
The recorder's case was badly bent and damaged,
however, and the work of removing its protective shell last
night delayed the start of analysis.
Mr. Black discussed the recordings which captured not
only the voices of pilot Capt. Edward States and co-pilot
Sten Molin but also engine sounds and other noises.
Those noises included what Mr. Black called "airframe
rattling sounds," apparently when something shook the huge
airliner's structure, even though it was a clear day and there
was no reported turbulence.
When asked how loud the rattling had been, he said,
"Significant enough for them to make note of it."
In between the two rattles, Mr. Black said, Mr. States
mentioned a "wake encounter," rough air presumably from
another airliner that took off earlier. Mr. Black said a Japan
Air Lines 747 preceded Flight 587 on takeoff but drew no
connection between that and the crash.
Mr. Black said the JAL aircraft took off two minutes and
20 seconds ahead of Flight 587, more than the two-minute
minimum separation that the Federal Aviation Administration
requires.
Four seconds after the second rattling sound, Mr. Molin
called for "max power" which was followed by what Mr.
Black said were "comments about the lack of power."
Then the tape ends.
The other part of Mr. Black's announcement eliminated
two widely discussed theories seeking to explain the loss of
an engine in flight, either the disintegration of engine parts or
strikes by large birds.
"Initial inspection shows no evidence of any sort of failure,
internal failure, of the engine. They all appear to be in one
piece," said Mr. Black. "There's no evidence of any bird
strike."
Attention has focused on engines from that plane, which
was the oldest of American Airlines' 35 A300s, because
witnesses reported seeing the one on the right wing break
loose and fall into the Belle Harbor community Monday just
before the fuselage drilled into a cluster of houses.
For years, U.S. airlines have been criticized by mechanics
unions, principally the International Association of Machinists
and Aerospace Workers and the Transport Workers Union,
who say major engine maintenance is farmed out to
less-qualified workers overseas.
Investigators anxiously marked up maps of the scattered
debris field, listing where each piece of the Airbus was found
in hopes that would provide a clue as to why the tailfin and
rudder fell first over water, despite the absence of marks to
indicate what tore them loose from the fuselage.
Although believed to be an accident, sabotage or other
crimes have not been totally ruled out.
"We're not going to exclude that possibility until the
investigation goes much further than this," Mr. Black said on
NBC's "Today" show.
The FBI continued its normal parallel investigation which
technically is under NTSB direction but would swiftly take
control if evidence of a crime is found.
Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani amended casualty figures
slightly yesterday, saying rescue workers recovered 262
bodies including a man still holding a baby. All of the plane's
251 passengers and nine crew were reported dead and five
adults were missing in Belle Harbor.
On Oct. 5, federal safety officials concluded there was an
unsafe condition in the type of engine used in Flight 587 and
called for mandatory inspections of the 2,854 engines in
service.
General Electric, parent company for the engine maker,
called them "phenomenally reliable." The CF6-80C2 engine is
used on more than 1,000 aircraft, including President Bush's
Air Force One.

* ElectrophonicSoundZx.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast26nov_1.htm

Listening to Leonids

On Nov. 18, 2001, millions of sky watchers saw a dazzling
storm of Leonid meteors. Some observers heard them too!

November 26, 2001: All at once there was a
eye-squinting flash of light and a strange crackling noise.
Puzzled sky watchers looked at one another ... and
confessed: "Yes, I heard it, too."

Hearing meteors? It could happen -- and indeed it did,
plenty of times during this month's Leonid meteor storm.

Right: a Leonid fireball captured by photographer Darren
Talbot on Nov. 18, 2001. [more]

"I am sure I could hear several of the meteors," recalled
Karen Newcombe, a Leonid watcher from San
Francisco -- one of many who reported meteor sounds
to Science@NASA on Nov. 18th. "Several times when
a Leonid with a persistent debris train flew directly
overhead, I heard a faint fizzing noise [instantly]."
There was no delay between the sight and the sound.

"How is that possible when the meteor was so many miles above my head?"
she wondered.

The same question has bedeviled some of history's greatest scientists. For
example, in 1719 astronomer Edmund Halley collected accounts of a
widely-observed fireball over England. Many witnesses, wrote Halley,
"[heard] it hiss as it went along, as if it had been very near at hand." Yet his
own research proved the meteor was at least "60 English miles" high. Sound
takes about five minutes to travel such a distance, while light can do it in a
fraction of a millisecond. Halley could think of no way for sky watchers to
simultaneously hear and see the meteor.

Baffled, he finally dismissed the reports as "pure fantasy" -- a view that
held sway for centuries.

Yet just last weekend scores of people little
inclined to fantasy heard the Leonids. The sounds
weren't rumbling sonic booms or the loud crack
of a distant explosion arriving long after the
meteor's flash had come and gone. Rather,
these were exotic, delicate noises, heard while the
meteor was in full view. Scientists call them "
electrophonic meteor sounds."

Meteor listeners have long been reluctant to
report their experiences -- a result of Halley-esque
skepticism. But hearing a meteor doesn't mean
you're crazy. Indeed, modern researchers are
increasingly convinced that the electrophonic
sounds are real.

Left: Edmund Halley was one of many scientists puzzled by
electrophonic meteor sounds. [more]

Colin Keay, a physicist at the University of Newcastle in Australia, not
only believes in electrophonic meteors, he's also figured out what
causes them. According to Keay, glowing meteor trails give off not
only visible light, but also very low frequency (VLF) radio signals.
Such radio waves, which oscillate at audio frequencies between a few
kHz and 30 kHz, travel to the ground at the speed of light -- solving
the vexing problem of simultaneity.

Of course, human ears can't directly sense
radio signals. If Keay is right, something on the ground
-- a "transducer" -- must be converting radio
waves into sound waves. In laboratory tests, Keay
finds that suitable transducers are
surprisingly common. Simple materials like aluminum foil, thin
wires, pine needles -- even dry or frizzy
hair -- can intercept and respond to a VLF field.

Here's how it works: Radio waves induce
currents in electrical conductors. "Strong,
low-frequency currents can literally shake
ordinary objects," explains Dennis Gallagher, a space
physicist at the NASA Marshall Space Flight
Center. "When things shake, they launch vibrations
into the air, which is what we hear."

Higher-frequency radio waves, like TV
transmissions or FM radio broadcasts, oscillate much too
fast (hundreds of millions of times per
second) to substantially shake conductors. Even if they did,
we couldn't hear the resulting MHz-frequency
sound waves, which are far above the frequency
range of a human ear.

But VLF waves can do the job. Keay discovered
that even a pair of glasses could be made to vibrate
slightly. Perhaps that explains the experience of Erich
in Troy, New York: "When I was out [viewing the
Leonids on Nov. 18th]," he reported, "I had my head
back on the ground and heard a sizzling sound. My
head was close to grass and leaves and I wear wire
frame glasses as well. The sound was definitely
simultaneous with the observation of a rather large
streak."

Above: Laboratory tests reveal that a
surprising variety of substances, including frizzy hair and
vegetable matter, can act as radio-to-audio VLF transducers.

But how do meteors generate VLF radio signals?

"It was a knotty problem," recalls Keay. When
he began his work on electrophonic meteors in
the 1970's, physicists had no idea how VLF
waves might emerge from a meteor's ionized trail.
"Some new mechanism had to be found."

"[I was inspired by] Fred Hoyle's sunspot
theory in which energy is trapped in twisted magnetic
fields," he says. Magnetic fields that
suddenly untangle -- snapping back like stretched rubber
bands -- can trigger solar flares: violent
blasts of electromagnetic radiation and energetic particles.

Perhaps, thought Keay, magnetic fields in the glowing trail of a
meteor might do something similar.... only on a much less
energetic scale.

Left: Nuclear explosions release VLF radio waves, which are
reportedly "heard" by soldiers in nearby bunkers. This VLF
spectrum from such an explosion peaks at 12 kHz. [more]

When a meteoroid races through Earth's atmosphere, the air
around it becomes a plasma -- that is, a cloud
of ionized gas. Plasmas have a curious property:
Lines of magnetic force that permeate them
become trapped. Wherever the plasma goes, the
magnetic field follows. If a magnetized plasma
becomes turbulent, the magnetic fields inside it
become twisted and tangled as well.

The plasma tails of certain meteors do become
turbulent, says Keay, and they are permeated by
a magnetic field: Earth's. "The plasma is
swirling so fast that the magnetic field can be scrambled
up like spaghetti." And therein lies a source
of energy for VLF waves.

Keay continues: Eventually the plasma cools.
Electrons return to the atoms from which they were
earlier ripped, and the gas becomes neutral
again. Magnetic fields find themselves suddenly free
to straighten out. That abrupt rebound is what
produces the low frequency radiation.

Above: During the 2001 Leonid meteor shower
photographer Frank S. Andreassen of Norway
captured this image of two things that produce
mysterious "electrophonic" sounds: auroras and
meteors.

It's a plausible theory, says Gallagher: "It's
easy to understand and is supported by Keay's
laboratory work."

Gallagher added, "I think what makes this
exciting is that we're talking about a phenomenon that
has been experienced by people for perhaps
thousands of years. Even in modern times folks who
reported hearing such sounds were ridiculed.
It was only about 25 years ago that Keay was able
to do the research and legitimize the
experiences of all those generations of people."

"It shows there are still wonders in nature
yet to be recognized and understood. We should take
this experience with meteors as reason to open
our minds to what may yet be learned."

* AmericanAirline587AviationCrashNewsZx.
Left front fin mount is the odd one.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/queenscrash/2001/11/19/investigation-usat.htm

11/18/2001 - Updated 11:06 PM ET

Jet's wreckage may indicate prior damage

By Alan Levin, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Crash investigators are paying special attention to a
single section of the tail fin that snapped off American Airlines Flight 587
because it may show evidence of previous damage.

The carbon-fiber piece has a series of cracks that do not appear on the other
five points that snapped between the tail and the fuselage, sources familiar
with the investigation told USA TODAY.

Investigators and experts familiar with composite materials like the one that
broke on the jet caution that it is too early to say whether the cracks were on
the tail before the crash or resulted from the tail being wrenched from the jet.
But if the cracks were present before the accident, it could help explain why
the vertical tail fin flew off the Airbus A300, sending it spinning out of control.

Flight 587 crashed Nov. 12 less than 2 minutes after taking off from John F.
Kennedy International Airport on a flight to the Dominican Republic. All 260
people aboard and five local residents on the ground died.

The jet was buffeted by relatively minor turbulence, and later swung sideways
sharply three times. But National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)
officials have said that these forces should not have been severe enough to
structurally damage the jet's tail fin.

As a result, investigators are looking at several possible causes for the failure:

Some kind of pre-existing damage had weakened the tail, which
allowed it to break loose. The jet did encounter a major turbulence
incident in 1994, but American Airlines inspected it afterward and
found no damage.
The tail design was not strong enough. However, Airbus extensively
tested the tail and subjected it to severe stresses that exceeded what
the company believed it would receive in flight.
Some force that investigators have not yet identified caused the tail to
snap. In theory, an unusually strong gust of wind could break the tail,
though investigators have no evidence this occurred and consider it
unlikely.

Similarly, the jet's rudder, which moves the nose right and left, swung sharply
several times shortly before the tail section came loose. It is possible that the
pilots moved the rudder too much in response to earlier turbulence and those
rudder movements created forces that damaged the tail. Jets are built to
withstand the most extreme rudder movements to one side. But some experts
worry that swinging of the rudder from side to side could cause stresses that
designers had not anticipated.

The vertical fin, which helps a jet fly straight and stable, had been attached at
six points at the top of the fuselage. At most of those points, the fin's
carbon-fiber plastic material tore off just above where it was bolted to metal
attachments on the fuselage.

But on the front left attachment, the carbon-fiber material broke at the area
where the bolt is located. And, unlike the other five attachments, the material
contains a series of cracks near the breaking point. Such cracks could
indicate "delamination," which occurs when the multiple layers that make up
the material begin to separate. Delamination can significantly weaken the
material.

As work on the investigation transfers from New York to Washington,
experts both in and outside the NTSB will begin inspecting the material to
determine whether delamination could have played a role in weakening the
structure.

Paul Lagace, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who is a
specialist in the composite materials that severed, cautioned that it takes long
and careful examination before scientists can determine whether delamination
caused a break or occurred as a result of the structure coming apart.

* 2000PresidentialElectionNewsZx AmericanAirline587AviationCrashNewsZx.
http://www.newsmax.com/commentarchive.shtml?a=2001/11/16/133221

Okay, Now I’m Scared

Richard Poe
Nov. 16, 2001

When I heard the news, all I could think was, "Oh no, not again!"

No, I’m not talking about the Airbus A-300 that crashed into my
home borough of Queens Monday morning.

I refer to the more ominous events reported by cyber-journalist
Matt Drudge the night before.

The headline read "Big Media Florida Recount: Gore Topped Bush
if All Under/Over Votes Counted."

The myth of the stolen election had returned.

Why do I call Drudge's story "more ominous" than the plane crash?
Let me explain.

The crash of American Airlines Flight 587 was jarring. Most New
Yorkers assumed that the terrorists had struck again (and, frankly,
most of us still do).

But what of it? A plane crash, when you get right down to it, is still
just a plane crash. A thousand more like it could never shake the
foundations of our Republic.

The terrorists may use airliners, anthrax or knapsack nukes, but in
the end, the worst they can do is kill us. History teaches that nations
can take a lot of killing, without giving in.

The Russians lost over 20 million souls in World War II. Americans
cannot fathom such carnage in our darkest nightmares.

Yet many Russian oldtimers look back on what they call the Great
Patriotic War with nostalgia.

In his 1976 book "The Russians," New York Times correspondent
Hedrick Smith recalls a Moscow dinner party at which he asked the
guests to name the best period in Russian history.

Ben Levich – a dissident scientist in his 60s – responded, "The best
time of our lives was the War."

He explained:

"At that time we all felt closer to our government than at any other
time in our lives. It was not their country then, but our country."

To illustrate, Levich told how the cheka, the secret police, had once
come pounding on his door in the middle of the night in wartime
Kazan.

"If some chekist had done that in the thirties, I would have been
terrified," he said. "If it had happened after the war, just before
Stalin died, it would have been just as frightening. If someone did
that now, I would be very worried … but then, during the war, I
was absolutely unafraid. It was a unique time in our history."

In fact, the secret police had simply come to fetch Levich to a
meeting. They feared that the Germans might be using chemical
warfare. Levich was a chemist, so they wanted his opinion. That
was all.

Smith reports that the other Russian dinner guests shared Levich's
view. They too remembered the war – for all its bloodshed – as a
rare and blessed moment in their lives, when they temporarily had
more to fear from outsiders than they did from each other.

I thought of Levich's story on September 14, as I watched
President Bush on television, speaking at the National Cathedral in
Washington.

Bush said, "Today, we feel what Franklin Roosevelt called the
warm courage of national unity."

He was right. September 11 – for all its horrors – had stoked a
healing fire of national unity that had warmed us to our bones.

But when I logged on to "The Drudge Report" on Sunday night,
November 11, I felt a blast of cold air instead. For the first time
since the attacks, I was afraid.

"Not again," I thought. "Not again."

Do you remember, gentle reader, how it felt to fall asleep on
Election Night 2000, warmed by the announcement of Bush's
victory, only to rise the next morning to the astonishing news that Al
Gore would not concede?

For the first time in living memory, a ruling party had been voted
out – yet had refused to step down.

I remember the smiling, chatty newscasters pretending that nothing
unusual was happening.

I remember Sean Wilentz – a Princeton historian with close ties to
the Clinton White House – proposing that America hold an
unconstitutional "run-off" election, supervised by the United
Nations.

I remember 35 sleepless nights, haunted by the faces of
Washington, Jefferson and Patrick Henry.

As schoolchildren, we were told how lucky we were to live in a
country where no tanks rolled in the streets on Election Day.

Now I wonder if we can still make that boast.

I do not fear plane crashes, anthrax or knapsack nukes.

But I fear that Americans may never again hold a presidential
election in peace.

For that, we can thank the Clinton-Gore team. Bin Laden, in his
wildest fantasies, never struck a blow so hard and cruel.

Richard Poe is editor of FrontPageMagazine.com and
SlapHillary.com. His latest book is "The Seven Myths of Gun
Control." For more on Poe and his work, visit RichardPoe.com.
E-mail him at [email protected].

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Presidential Race 2000

* AmericanAirline587AviationCrashNewsZx. BestBest.
Good summary.
Mentions "engine housing" with hole at gasoline station, McKeon residence.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18314-2001Nov12.html

At Least 260 Dead as Jet Plunges Into N.Y.
Probe Focuses on Engines Of Dominican-Bound Plane

By Barton Gellman
Washington Post Staff
Writer
Tuesday, November 13,
2001; Page A01

NEW YORK, Nov.
12 -- An American
Airlines jetliner bound
for the Dominican
Republic turned nose
down this morning and
plunged into flaming
wreckage in a Queens
waterfront
neighborhood, shortly
after takeoff from John
F. Kennedy airport.

There were 251
passengers and nine
crew members aboard,
all presumed dead, and
at least six people
missing on the ground.
The flight was a regular
connection home for
New York's large
Dominican community,
and many of the
travelers carried
Dominican passports.

"Everyone feels it like it
was my family," said
Gaspar Hernandez of
the Washington
Heights section of
New York, home to
many Dominicans. "It
was the talk of our
town."

With the nation on
heightened terrorist
alert, the crash raised
immediate anxieties of
a fresh assault. It came
two months and a day
after hijacked aircraft
destroyed the World
Trade Center and
damaged the
Pentagon, and
coincided with a dense
assembly of global
leaders at the United
Nations. But law
enforcement authorities
said with unusual
speed that they had no
indication of criminal
involvement. Marion
C. Blakey, who chairs
the National
Transportation Safety Board, said, "All information we have
currently is that this is an accident."

Federal investigators said they were focusing initially on the
Airbus A300's twin turbofan engines. Some witnesses reported
that a burning engine fell from the sky before the aircraft did, and
others described a midair explosion. Such accounts are not
always reliable, and catastrophic mechanical failure could
account for the sounds that reached the ground. The Airbus is
certified capable of takeoff and flight with one engine, but experts
said such a loss in the first minutes of climb -- when the airframe
and engines are under maximum load -- would render the plane
nearly impossible to save.

The Bush administration reported no prior threats against civil
aviation, no unusual communications from the cockpit, and no
warning that Flight 587 was in trouble until it crashed. But
officials emphasized that it is much too soon to be sure that
terrorists or saboteurs had no role in the disaster. "We have not
ruled anything in, we have not ruled anything out," said White
House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

The doomed flight lifted off at 9:13 a.m., well after its scheduled
8 a.m. departure. Neither American nor the Federal Aviation
Administration supplied a reason for the delay. The aircraft
banked counterclockwise through a climbing three-quarter turn
over Jamaica Bay. Air traffic controllers lost radar and radio
contact at 9:17 a.m., four minutes after the plane took to the air.

It fell to earth in the Rockaway section of Queens, a middle-class
neighborhood that lost scores of firefighters and financial workers
on Sept. 11. Burning jet fuel settled into the sewers, then belched
flame and smoke up storm drains to the street.

At 428 Beach 128th St., Kevin McKeon heard an enormous
noise at his breakfast table. Then the house shuddered and "the
room just exploded."

McKeon's 4-year-old daughter Shannon was blown outside
through a shattered patio door, his wife was flung bodily into the
living room and the house on Beach 128th Street was set ablaze.
All of them survived with minor injuries. As best McKeon could
reconstruct afterward, one of the plane's engines, burning as it
fell, sheared the rear wall off his house and crushed a 20-foot
motorboat on its trailer before coming to a smoldering rest.

Residents poured out of their homes in the waterfront residential
strip, about five miles south of the airport and 15 miles from
Manhattan. Some of them battled small blazes with garden hoses
until firefighters arrived. Four houses were destroyed, four were
seriously damaged, and as many as a dozen others sustained
lesser damage, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani said.

"There were bodies all over the place," said John Carrington,
who lives on 130th Street. "We were stepping on parts of the
plane and on body parts. I can't even talk about it."

Emergency medical technician Jorge Peralka responded to the
call of "plane going down" and arrived to find an inferno. "There
was nothing to be rescued," he said.

The National Transportation Safety Board sent a "go team" of
nearly 100 investigators from Washington, and Fleischer said at
the White House that the safety board would lead the crash
probe. The NTSB concentrates on human, mechanical and
system failures.

Barry Mawn of the FBI's New York office said from the scene
that the bureau, as usual, would open a parallel probe into the
crash and designate the wreckage a crime scene. In cases in
which there is evidence of foul play, the FBI normally takes the
lead investigative role.

Blakey, the safety board's chair, said tonight that investigators
had recovered the cockpit voice recorder. Two such "black
boxes" -- actually painted orange to make them conspicuous at a
crash site -- are housed in the aircraft's tail, one for instrument
readings and aircraft movements, and one for cockpit voices. If
both boxes are recovered intact, they should provide the entire
technical and sound record of the brief flight.

Blakey said wreckage had fallen in three places. One cylindrical
piece, resembling an engine housing, fell onto a Texaco station,
where it landed six feet from the fuel pumps. Video footage
showed a hole the size of a car tire in its exterior. Most of the
fuselage cratered into an intersection at Newport Avenue,
sending columns of dense black smoke aloft over leaping flames.
And Blakey said a wing section plunged into Jamaica Bay. Coast
Guard video later showed the vertical fin from the aircraft's tail --
not a wing section -- being fished from the water by crane.

With the cause of the crash uncertain and security fears at a
peak, the FAA imposed a ban on takeoffs at all airports within a
25-mile radius of New York at 9:26 a.m. Before noon it
confined that restriction to the three principal airports -- JFK, La
Guardia and Newark International. By afternoon only outbound
flights from JFK were restricted, while the Port Authority
checked the jet fuel there for contamination.

Regional authorities closed inbound and some outbound traffic
through the city's bridges and tunnels, but opened them again
about noon.

Scores of world leaders remained in New York on the third day
of the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.
Extraordinary security measures had already been imposed on
the gathering after a hostile statement this month from Osama bin
Laden, whose al Qaeda organization is blamed for the terrorist
attacks of Sept. 11.

Commercial airlines also had new security measures in place.
Paul Takemoto, speaking from the Operations Center of the
Federal Aviation Administration, told reporters in a conference
call that since Sept. 11, all major airlines have completed
reinforcements to aircraft cockpit doors intended to prevent
entry by would-be hijackers. Authorities declined to discuss
whether an armed air marshal had been aboard Flight 587.

To discourage the planting of explosives, international flights --
including the one that crashed today -- are required to match
every checked bag with a passenger whose boarding has been
confirmed. More than 140 explosives detection systems are in
place at 47 airports nationwide, not nearly enough to screen all
checked baggage.

"Bags are scanned for explosives where they have equipment
available, and I don't know what the status was for this particular
flight," Takemoto said. American Airlines said bomb detectors
"were operative and were used" for baggage aboard Flight 587,
but a knowledgeable aviation source said the standard scanning
equipment, based on the computed tomography (CT) technology
used in medicine, was not installed at the departure terminal.

President Bush learned of this morning's crash at 9:25, minutes
after air controllers lost contact with Flight 587. A military aide
passed him a note during an unrelated national security briefing in
the White House Situation Room.

Fleischer said the president urged Americans to maintain faith in
commercial aviation. "The president continues to believe that
people need to travel, people need to get on with their lives," he
said.

"The New York people have suffered mightily," Bush said later,
appearing briefly with former South African president Nelson
Mandela. "They suffer again. But there's no doubt in my mind
that New Yorkers are resilient and strong and courageous
people and will help their neighbors overcome this recent incident
that took place."

The wide-body A300 was built by Airbus Industrie, a European
consortium. It was the first aircraft produced by Airbus, and is
now out of production. American operates 35 of the Airbus jets,
specifically the A300-600 variant. The one lost today was built in
Toulouse, France, and entered service with American on July 12,
1988. That corresponds to early middle age for a modern
jetliner. Its last light maintenance check was Sunday, and its last
major inspection was Oct. 3.

Two General Electric engines powered the aircraft, each
designed to fly 10,000 hours between overhauls. The left engine
had logged only 694 hours since its last overhaul, but the right
engine had 9,788 hours of flight time and would have been
removed for major maintenance soon.

Blakey said the safety board is "pulling all of the maintenance
records on the aircraft," and thus far had found nothing "that is
indicative of a specific problem."

In recent years, the FAA has issued scores of compulsory orders
for mechanical adjustment of the A300 or its separately
manufactured engines. Known as "airworthiness directives," they
specify remedies for potential defects that could jeopardize flight
safety. One, in April, described a potential "dual engine surge"
during takeoff. Another, in September, ordered modifications to
fuel level sensors to prevent overheating and the possibility of an
explosion.

Only last month, on Oct. 7, the FAA updated a directive on the
General Electric engines -- CF6-80C2 series turbofans --
involved in today's crash. It mandated new inspections "to detect
cracks in the bottoms of the dovetail slots that could propagate
to failure of the disk and cause an uncontained engine failure."

There was no evidence today whether this or any other known
risk played a role in the crash.

Authorities said destruction on the ground was remarkably
contained, suggesting a sharply vertical plunge that is consistent
with witness accounts of a final spiral. "This is a very difficult
thing to say" in light of the high casualties aboard the aircraft,
Giuliani said, "but this could have been far worse. . . . It was
amazing how the plane landed in one small defined area."

Doctors from around the city converged on a triage site set up at
P.S. 114, the nearest elementary school, but found little to do.
Gilbert G. Makabali, chairman of the department of surgery at
St. John's Episcopal Hospital, said there were no survivors from
the plane or the neighborhood to treat. Later, 34 people
straggled to the Peninsula Hospital Center emergency room with
cuts, bruises and smoke irritation to lungs and eyes.

The dead were more numerous. By midafternoon, Giuliani said
emergency workers had recovered 225 bodies. For most of the
day the airline spoke of 246 passengers, but added five by
evening to account for infants and toddlers held on laps.

Donald Carty, chairman of American's parent company, AMR,
said the airline had "absolutely no indication of what caused the
accident." In a news conference hours later, he said recovery of
the data recorder and easy access to the wreckage meant "we
will know an awful lot more in the next day or two."

For the fourth time in five years, the airport Ramada Plaza was
pressed into mournful duty as a crisis center as the next of kin of
passengers converged on New York. It served the same role
after crashes involving Trans World Airlines, Swiss Air and
Egypt Air. Giuliani led about 600 family members in silent prayer
this afternoon as they waited for confirmation of their losses.
American Airlines announced a toll-free information line:
800-245-0999.

First reports of the crash sent cascading waves through the stock
market and telecommunications system. The Dow Jones average
plunged 150 points at the market's opening, but shares
recovered most of their losses as authorities discounted a
terrorist attack. Lasting damage came only in the airline sector.
AMR, the parent company of American Airlines, lost about 9
percent of its value by day's end.

As New Yorkers and their loved ones around the nation reached
for telephones, local and long distance circuits were temporarily
overwhelmed. Verizon Communications Inc., the dominant local
telephone company in New York and other East Coast states,
said its switching equipment in Queens normally handles about
2,700 calls an hour. That increased by nearly a factor of 20, to
51,000 an hour throughout the mid-morning, but eased back to
normal levels by afternoon.

Least informed were stranded passengers at JFK airport's
departure terminals. At American's international departure gates,
the airline disclosed nothing. "They had CNN on" in the lounge,
said passenger Rick Tedaldi, 31, whose Flight 679 to Aruba was
canceled. "The second they showed the plane crash, [airline
employees] shut the TV off. Unbelievable."

Staff writers Ceci Connolly, Guy Gugliotta, Robert
O'Harrow Jr., Sally Jenkins and Chris Stern contributed to
this report.

* 2000PresidentialElectionNewsZx.

http://drudgereport.com/mattv.htm

I received the following error when I first tried to view the page.
The page that I eventually viewed follows the error.

Netscape

A network error occurred while Netscape
was receiving data.

(Network error: connection reset by peer.)

Try connecting again.

----------------

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX SUN NOV 11, 2001
18:09:35 ET XXXXX

BIG MEDIA FLORIDA RECOUNT: GORE TOPPED BUSH IF
ALL UNDER/OVER VOTES COUNTED; LEGAL STRATEGY
DESTROYED CHANCES

**World Exclusive**
**Must Credit DRUDGE REPORT**

A vote-by-vote review of untallied ballots in
the 2000 Florida presidential election
commissioned by the nation's main media outlets
shows Al Gore edged ahead of George W. Bush
"under all the scenarios for counting all
undervotes and overvotes statewide," the DRUDGE
REPORT has learned.

APCNNNYTWASHPOSTLATIMESNEWSDAYCHICAGOTRIB will
splash in Monday editions an election review
which will ignite total controversy during a
time of war, publishing sources told DRUDGE on
Sunday.

Bush would have narrowly prevailed in the
partial recounts sought by Gore, but Gore could
have "reversed the outcome -- by the smallest of
margins -- had he pursued and gained a complete
statewide recount," according to one
interpretation of the database compiled by the
monstermedia consortium. [Each media outlet will
produce a news analysis based on the database
product.]

Under any standard that counted all disputed
votes in Florida, Gore erased Bush's advantage
and emerged with a tiny lead that ranged from 42
to 171 votes.

Gore followed a legal strategy that would have
led to his defeat even if it had not been
rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court, according to
one interpretation set for publication.

Gore sought a recount of a small number of
disputed ballots while the review indicates his
only chance lay in a course he advocated
publicly but did not pursue in court -- a full
statewide recount of untallied votes!

Gore took a 171-vote lead when the consortium
tried to recreate how each county said it would
handle a court-ordered statewide recount, and a
42-vote lead under what was called the "Palm
Beach standard".

All outcomes were closer than the 537 votes of
Bush's official victory, the media outlets will
claim, while noting it would be impossible to
interpret the survey results as definitive, with
such narrow margins in all directions.

Impacting...

* GoogleInfoZx.
http://www.internetweek.com/lead/lead060100.htm

Thursday, June 1, 2000
Google Bets The Farm On Linux

Cost, support benefits of open-source
OS drive massive server expansion

By MITCH WAGNER

Search engine Google.com is dramatically expanding one of the
world's most computationally intensive Web sites by lashing
together thousands of Linux PCs--a configuration it says is far
less expensive than other options.

Google's 4,000 PC servers constitute one of the largest Linux
installations. With the recent addition of a third data center in
Herndon, Va., Google now has twice the server capacity it had just
six months ago. That expansion is driven by the increased
popularity of Google's Web site, which had 3.2 million unique
visitors in April.

Why is Google running its business on an operating system
supported mostly by legions of independent programmers? For
starters: price.

The operating system itself, downloaded from vendor Red Hat,
costs nothing, compared with $500 to $900 per server for
Windows. The hardware is also cheap; Red Hat runs on
custom-assembled PCs rather than more expensive RISC Unix
servers. Many of the systems are based on Intel Celeron
processors, the same chips in cheap consumer PCs.

"Our hypertext analysis is computationally expensive. We need to
have an efficient system for doing that," said Google founder and
president Sergey Brin. "That's why we use a lot of cheap PCs.
The cost per MIPS is better for PCs."

Google's search algorithm requires massive computing power.
Google weights each Web page for importance by analyzing the
pattern of which pages link to others over all 300 million pages the
search engine indexes. Google's process entails 500 million
variables and 2 million terms to index every month, resulting in
about 1 terabyte of data to index.

Support was another critical factor in Google's choice of Linux.
The company has Linux expertise in-house, and it values the
ability to delve into the source code to correct problems rather
than having to rely on a vendor, Brin said. Where the in-house
expertise isn't adequate, Google has found the Linux community
responsive with fixes.

Major Commitment

Google may well be the largest Linux installation in the world.
Internet content distribution company Akamai claims on its Web
site to have "4,000+" Linux servers, but the company didn't
respond to requests for comment.

Google's endorsement of Linux should make IT managers feel
safer about deploying it for e-business applications, analysts said.
But while the site is vast, the technology used to deploy it isn't
new.

Like Deja.com, DoubleClick and other Linux-based e-businesses,
the Google site uses custom software, conducting a single task
and running a "stateless" application--meaning that the app
doesn't need to remember anything from one transaction to the
next. A typical e-commerce application needs to remember the
state of a customer's shopping basket and line of credit from one
transaction to the next.

Such business transactions run better on large-scale servers
rather than arrays of small computers, which have usually
sacrifice robustness for redundancy, said Jim Garden, an analyst
at Technology Business Research.

Nonetheless, analysts say the Google strategy is sound. "This
type of use of Linux enhances the concept that you can cluster a
large number of platforms to solve an important problem and that
you can run Linux on just about anything," said Aberdeen Group
analyst Bill Claybrook.

But for Linux to spread into brick-and-mortar enterprises, more
packaged applications will have to be written for it, Claybrook said.

In deciding on a platform for its search engine, Google made the
hardware decision first. It went with PCs because RISC Unix
systems from Sun Microsystems and Silicon Graphics are five to
10 times as expensive, Brin said.

Also, PCs are more conducive to high-density, rack-mounted
configurations, Brin said. Google's PC servers are made by two
small vendors: Rackable Systems and King Star Computer. Two
Rackable machines fit in a single 1U high space in a rack, with
one behind the other. This economy of space saves Google about
$1 million per year in collocation costs, Brin said.

These off-brand PCs cost less than half what the major PC
makers charge, and the major brands are lagging in providing
high-density systems, Brin said.

The systems Google uses are typically single-processor with 256
megabytes of memory and 80 gigabytes of storage. Google chose
single-processor systems because multiprocessor servers are
less stable and harder to manage, Brin said.

For an operating system, Linux seemed the best choice of the PC
OSes, he said.

The price was right; Google doesn't pay any significant amount of
money to Red Hat. Google downloads the software for free and
gets support in-house and from the Linux community. Google
actually paid for only about 50 copies of Red Hat, and those
purchases were more of a goodwill gesture. "I feel like I should be
nice, so when I go to Fry's I pick up a copy," Brin said.

Among Unix options, Sun's Solaris is available on the PC but isn't
widely supported, Brin said. The open-source BSD operating
system is well supported, but Linux appears to have more
development momentum, more application support and a ready
supply of personnel trained on the OS.

Windows NT and 2000 are more expensive than Linux, and they
aren't stable enough to run Google.com, said Brin, who added that
he doesn't trust the quality of Microsoft tech support. "In the
Windows case, it's not how many dollars it would cost--it's how
much heartburn," he said.

Google chose Red Hat because it's the most commonly used
Linux OS, but it isn't relying on off-the-shelf Red Hat. It stripped the
operating system of lots of unnecessary functionality: the
compiler, the X Window system and the Apache Web server, as
well as networking tools such as Telnet that Google thought would
leave security vulnerabilities. Google does keep the Emacs text
editor on each server so that IT managers can make changes to
code on the fly to keep the PC servers up and running, Brin said.

Google developed its own network installation tools to load
software remotely on 40 to 80 servers at once. Automatic
installation is one area where Sun still has an edge over Linux, he
said, noting that the installation tools were difficult to write and
configure.

Distributed Network

Google has three data centers. Its first data center--in Santa
Clara, Calif., hosted by Exodus Communications--went online two
years ago. It opened a data center hosted by Frontier Corp. (now
Global Crossing) in Sunnyvale, Calif., later that year to provide
redundancy. It opened its third data center in Herndon as
protection against an earthquake or other West Coast
catastrophe.

Each of the data centers has an identical image of all the data.
Google uses round-robin DNS to direct traffic among the data
centers. However, it's transitioning to Border Gateway Protocol for
better traffic management.

Within the data centers, Google uses its own traffic management
and load-balancing software to direct traffic to the best server. The
index of the Web is broken down into parts, with each section of
the index distributed to a cluster of about 40 servers for
redundancy and failover. The traffic management tools get their
biggest workout about once a month, when Google updates its
index and has to ship tens of terabytes of data across the LAN to
update each server.

The servers are connected on 100-Mbps links within the racks;
gigabit links connect the racks to one another.

Each server has two disks totaling about 80 GBs of storage. The
disks curently used are IBM IDE disks and 40-GB MaxSource
disks, though Google will switch to the 75-GB IBM disks when they
become available. Google distributes its storage among the
servers rather than use a centralized storage area network
because it's cheaper and because a large RAID array would be a
single point of failure, Brin said.

The company relies on revenue from ads on its search pages and
from licensing the search engine to other Web sites, including
Netscape, Red Hat, the Virgin Group and The Washington Post.

* WeaponNewsZx.
http://www.vny.com/cf/news/upidetail.cfm?QID=163207

New non-lethal energy weapon heats skin

Monday, 26 February 2001 21:14 (ET)

New non-lethal energy weapon heats skin
By KELLY HEARN, UPI Technology Writer

WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 (UPI) -- The Marine Corps is developing a non-lethal
weapon that uses electromagnetic energy to heat but not permanently burn
human skin. The weapon could help soldiers counter terrorism threats,
control unruly crowds and defend airfields and ships.

Experts confirmed it was the first time the military had designed a
so-called "directed energy weapon" for use against human targets.

The weapon concentrates energy into a beam of micro-millimeter waves that
penetrate clothes to rapidly heat moisture particles in the outermost layer
of flesh without going deep enough to damage organs. The device reportedly
causes no permanent damage to the body or to electronic devices such as
pacemakers.

Dubbed the Vehicle-Mounted Active Denial System, the weapon was revealed
in a story published first in the Marine Corps Times Monday.

Officials at the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate in Quantico, Va.
reportedly planned to show the classified system to top generals in April.
But Monday's story scuttled those plans and sent officials scrambling to
contain a possible public relations fiasco.

A Marine spokesmen would not comment on the system, saying only that
subject specialists would be available for interviews later this week.

Though detailed information about the weapon's design remain classified,
the story stated that the weapon would heat a target's skin to approximately
130 degrees Fahrenheit in about two seconds. Humans start to feel pain at
113 degrees. The report went on to say that soldiers could fire the weapon
from distances exceeding 750 meters (2,250 feet) from their target -- a
range that would allow them to remain outside the reach of most small arms
fire. The weapon could be mounted atop a military vehicle or on an aircraft.

Defense experts told United Press International the Marines especially
have sought new ways to non-lethally confront large, hostile crowds. Among
other things, the Department of Defense has looked to lasers, teargas and
rubber bullets for less-than-lethal impact. But these have either proven
ineffective or have attracted consternation from human rights groups.

"Unlike the other three branches, the Marines often are in situations
where there are lots of innocent bystanders, where they have to control an
unruly mob," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a non-profit
policy research firm in Alexandria, Va. "Tear gas and rubber bullets just
have not been effective, so they've want something more lethal than those
and less lethal than an M16. Whether they have found that here remains to be
seen."

"One of the fears is that there will be a misapplication of this kind of
technology, particularly in terms of civilian use," said Chris Hellman, a
senior analyst for the Center for Defense Information, a Washington
D.C.-based independent research group that monitors military planning and
policy. "Clearly we've seen military combat weaponry migrate to the civil
sector. Just walk past any Swat Team and you see what is basically an army
unit," he told UPI.

The article quoted an official saying that human subjects had been exposed
to the beams more than 6,000 times under laboratory conditions. Furthermore,
military researchers had completed a study, which has not been released, on
the long-term health effects of exposure.

"This puts a non-lethal arrow in quiver of commanders," said Ron Madrid,
former Marine and an expert on non-lethal weaponry at the University of
Pennsylvania. "It provides decision makers with options. You can guarantee
that the Marines were excruciatingly detailed in building in technological
limiters to keep the system from having a lethal effect,"

Retired Major General William L. Nash, the former commanding general of
the 1st Armored Division, told UPI the device will inevitably create a race
to build counter weapons. "The good news is the weapon is non-lethal but the
bad news is that for every weapon there is bound to be a counter weapon," he
said. "I can imagine someone trying to develop a polymer based shield
against this, for example."

The Defense Department spent nearly $40 million over 10 years to develop
the technology, said the Marine Corps Times report. The Air Force
co-sponsored the project, the story said, doing much of the research and
development.

--
Copyright 2001 by United Press International.
All rights reserved.
--

* ConcordeAviationCrashNewsZx.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/010501/concorde.sml

France Releases New Details on Concorde Crash
Friday, January 5, 2001

It appears "more and more probable" that the deadly July 25
Concorde crash outside Paris was caused by a stray piece of
metal on the runway that gashed one of the plane's tires,
French investigators said in a report released Friday.

The New York-bound Air France supersonic jet crashed into a hotel in
the industrial town of Gonesse outside Charles-de-Gaulle airport near
Paris on July 25, killing all 109 aboard and four people on the ground.

The report, released by the French Accident and Inquiry Office (BEA),
says the crash was likely caused when a stray piece of metal gashed one of
the plane's tires. The burst tire is then believed to have catapulted pieces of
rubber toward the fuel tanks and triggered a fuel leak.

The fuel leak in turn sparked the fire that likely caused the crash.

The report also confirms that the piece of metal came from a Continental
Airlines DC-10, which took off minutes before the fatal flight in Paris.

Blown-out tires have been blamed for past brushes with near-disaster of
the supersonic Concorde, for decades the pride of French aviation until
last year's deadly crash.

In 1981, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board reported four
"potentially catastrophic" incidents resulting from blown-out tires during
Concorde takeoffs between June 1979 and February 1981.

The French Accident and Inquiry Office also said in its report that six prior
incidents in which burst tires had perforated Concorde fuel tanks had
occurred between June 1979 and October 1993.

The finding could prove important, with Air France and its insurers already
pursuing Continental in the French courts for its alleged role in the
accident.

A spokesman for Continental Airlines in London said his company had not
been given access to the missing metal strip, and therefore could not
confirm that it did indeed come from its DC-10.

The BEA said its experts had examined the cowling of the fan reverser on
the Continental DC-10 involved. Their report pointed to errors in repair
work on the plane.

"The level of wear on the strip adjacent to the missing strip was greatly in
excess of the tolerance permitted by the manufacturer," the BEA said.

Comparing a similar strip to the one that dropped off, it wrote: "a rivet was
missing... the strip was twisted... in comparison with an original part, this
strip was too long".

Concorde's airworthiness certificate was suspended in August after
investigators released their initial findings, and engineers are looking into
ways of preventing a burst tire from sparking such a disaster in future.

Air France insurers face multi-million dollar compensation claims arising
from the crash and are hoping to recoup at least some of the costs from
Continental.

Under clause 141 of the international Civil Aviation Code, airlines are
legally responsible for any parts that drop off their aircraft.

— Sky News in London and the Associated Press contributed to this
report.

* WacoIncidentNewsZx WacoIncidentSummaryZx.

http://www.carolmoore.net/davidian-massacre.html

THE DAVIDIAN MASSACRE
PAGES
These pages are dedicated to the 82 men, women
and children
killed by federal agents outside of Waco, Texas
in 1993.
Complete text of Carol Moore's 500+ page
book. The Davidian Massacre "Carol
Moore has done more research on Waco than
anyone else. Her book pulls together many of
the most shocking details of government abuses
that a reader cannot find anywhere else." James
Bovard, author of Lost Rights .... "I am indebted
to Carol Moore's well-documented work, The
Davidian Massacre: Disturbing Questions
About Waco Which Must Be Answered (1995)".
Ambrose Evans-Prichard in notes in his The
Secret Life of Bill Clinton Paperback ordering
information

WACO NEWS
FIVE YEARS OF UPDATES ON
WACO
MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES
AND DOCUMENTS
TOP WACO LINKS
PHOTOGRAPHS AND
GRAPHICS
DAVIDIAN SURVIVORS
INFORMATION
DAVIDIAN PRISONERS
INFORMATION
COMMITTEE FOR WACO
JUSTICE

THE NEXT PRESIDENT MUST
PARDON THE DAVIDIAN
PRISONERS!! Seven male
Davidian Prisoners still in prison
were sentenced to a total of 235
years. They won their Supreme
Court appeal and their sentences
were cut to a total of 105 years.
Each has about five more years to
serve, with good behavior. Two Davidian women already have
served a total of eight years. The victims, not the perpetrators,
are doing the time.
Drawing of prisoner Livingstone Fagan by Miriam Lizcano.

OVERVIEW OF THE DAVIDIAN MASSACRE
by Carol Moore

It is always satisfying to see a “lost cause” become headline
making news once again. This is especially true for those of us who
have been working for justice for the Branch Davidian victims of Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) and Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) crimes in the 1993 “Waco” massacre at Mount
Carmel church. We got quite a bit of satisfaction in the summer of 1999
when headlines like “Ex-agent says device fired at Waco compound,”
“[Texas Rangers] official says Army force present at Waco siege,”
“Reno Says FBI Misled Her About Waco Arms,” “Reno and Freeh
Agree on New Independent Probe of Waco” and “Independent
Counsel and Congress Investigate Waco” blared across newspapers
front pages and web pages of America.
Of course these weren’t “revelations” to most Waco researchers,
government critics and Davidian attorneys–or to people who had seen
the Academy Award-nominated and Emmy winning film “Waco: the
Rules of Engagement.” Evidence of most of these lies has been available
to the press and public in news and government reports, and
investigated and discussed in thousands of Internet postings and web
pages, since soon after the massacre. But these new revelations were
so startling to a suddenly alert press and the American public that the
Department of Justice finally called for a Waco Special Prosecutor.
Congress promised yet another round of Waco hearings.
Will the Special Prosecutor and Congress get to the truth this
time? Unfortunately, Americans should not be too optimistic. Simply
put, the truth is too terrible for the American people to hear: federal
agents twice attacked and murdered a total of 82 civilians, mostly
women, children and the elderly–half of them people of color. And the
Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of our “Constitutional
Republic” let them get away with it.
The truth would undermine Americans’ faith in their political
system. Waco film-maker Michael McNulty has revealed some in
Congress fear “The truth would just inflame the crazies.”
What is the truth? The short version is as follows:
On February 28,1993 overly aggressive and highly militarized
agents of BATF set out to put on a "big show" to increase their budgets
and prestige by attacking the Branch Davidian religious group outside of
Waco, Texas. Six months earlier, agents had spurned David Koresh's
attempts to cooperate with their investigation of his gun business by
inviting them to see his guns. On February 28, when he came to the
front door and tried to cooperate, reckless agents shot him and mortally
wounded his father-in-law. Other agents started shooting from
helicopters, killing four Davidians. Agents probably assassinated another
Davidian who approached Mount Carmel later that day. And so began
a 51 day standoff.
Davidians and their on-site attorney made it clear to FBI
negotiators that evidence of illegal gunfire in the highest roofs and walls
of Mount Carmel would lead to prosecution of agents for murder. One
of the Davidians' motivations for refusing to surrender was their
demands for assurances this evidence would not be destroyed by BATF
investigators after they left the premises. It was not until the end of
March that outside attorneys told them that Texas Rangers, who they
trusted, and not BATF, would be investigating.
FBI Hostage Rescue Team member hearing of these claims, and
bent on revenge for the deaths of four BATF agents killed by Davidian
defenders during the February 28th BATF attack, did their best to
sabotage negotiations. They escalated harassment of Davidians every
time individuals left Mount Carmel, turning off power, faking tank
attacks, turning on bright lights and loud music. Finally, distrustful
Davidians stopped coming out at all.
At the same time agents began a campaign of lies to Attorney
General Janet Reno about the status of negotiations, the alleged beating
of children, the safety of CS gas, the rules of engagement, and other
issues, tricking her into approving their gas and tank assault. They set it
up to make sure that the attack would lead to the destruction of the
building, its incriminating evidence–and scores of inconvenient Davidian
witnesses to BATF crimes.
On April 19, 1993, as the tank assault began, FBI agents falsely
claimed that Davidians broke their phone, making negotiations
impossible. Davidians believe a tank broke the line. They claimed
Davidians shot at them, giving them an excuse to speed up their plan to
massively gas Davidian and rip apart Mount Carmel with tanks.
Davidians pleaded with gestures and signs to have their phones
fixed--they were terrified of being shot or run over by tanks if they
started exiting. For even as tanks rammed the building, the FBI lied,
calling out over loudspeakers, "This is not an assault."
After six hours of tank attacks, a fire started, probably by the last
tank attack knocking over a lantern–but possibly by an FBI incendiary
device at the front of the building. Infrared (FLIR) video evidence
strongly suggests an agent in an FBI tank lobbed an incendiary device
into the back of the building after the first fire, starting a second fire.
Wind whipped fire swept through the tinderbox of a building. Most
Davidians were trapped by debris and collapsed stairwells on the
second floor or inside the concrete room. There is evidence on FLIR
video that FBI or Delta force personnel shot at least 70 shots at the
back of building during the fire, probably to stop Davidians trying to
escape. There even is evidence, dramatized convincingly in the new film
“Waco: A New Revelation” that FBI or Delta Force personnel sneaked
into the building and placed a shaped charge on top of the concrete
room to kill Davidian leaders who they believed were hiding there.
Nineteen men, thirty-four women and twenty-three children died that
day.
The trial of eleven survivors was a travesty of prosecutorial and
judicial misconduct. Nine Davidians received a total of 243 years in
sentences. Seven now remain imprisoned, five looking at 40 year
terms. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear their appeals on the 30
year sentences the judge meted out to them for carrying a gun during the
commission of a crime–even though the jury found them innocent of that
crime, murder of federal agents. (He also failed to tell the jury they
could find the Davidians innocent of aiding and abetting voluntary
manslaughter by reason of defense, something some jurors declare they
would have done!)
In 1995, after two weeks of hearings, Congress announced it had
gotten out all the truth –and promised it had gotten federal agents under
control. Yet four years later, pushed by evidence from Davidian civil
suit investigators and attorneys, as well as film-makers, Texas Rangers
and FBI personnel finally revealed one important truth: the FBI had lied
about using pyrotechnics on April 19th. Every week new lies are
revealed in Texas papers and circulated via the wire services.
All branches of the federal government have a vested interest for
finding federal agents innocent of all crimes–protection of their own
perks and privileges. That is why it is not surprising that in early 2000
Waco Special Prosecutor John Danforth also found federal agents
innocent of crimes against the Davidians. The only prosecution he
brought was against the federal prosecutor who allowed a Waco
investigator too free an access to evidence, prompting the 1999
revelation that FBI agents had used pyrotechnic devices on April 19th,
despite their previous denials. (The prosecutor earlier had engaged in
coverups of evidence of BATF agents' crimes against Davidians, so we
shouldn't feel too badly for him.)
Americans must demand prosecution of all responsible agents.
And Americans must demand freedom for the seven Davidian prisoners
still serving 105 total years of sentences. Otherwise, federal agents will
always know they can get away with murdering citizens and covering it
up.
* * *
Check out Carol Moore's book The Davidian Massacre, a
systematic analysis of ATF and FBI crimes. The book draws on
government and news sources, trial and 1995 congressional transcripts,
and interviews with experts and participants, including extensive contacts
with Davidian survivors and prisoners. It is a mass market paperback,
487 pages, plus 20 pages of graphics and incriminating FBI
photographs, as well as photos of federal perpetrators from the 1995
Congressional hearings.
The Davidian Massacre is only $13.00 first class; $20.00 for foreign.
Only around 300 autographed copies are now available from the author.
For ordering information (including by PAYPAL) click here.

* MiddleEastViolenceNewsZx.

New address: http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=18774

Old address: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_kupelian_news/20001204_xndku_who_really.shtml
On 2002/03/17 the following error was returned:
Error processing SSI file '/bluesky_kupelian_news/20001204_xndku_who_really.shtml'

MONDAY
DECEMBER 4
2000

Who killed
Mohammed al-Dura?
12-year-old Palestinian boy
likely 'martyred' by his own people,
say Israeli investigators

By David Kupelian
© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com

The following report is excerpted from the December
cover story of WorldNetDaily's sister publication, the
monthly WorldNet magazine. Readers interested in
obtaining the complete, in-depth version of "Who
killed Mohammed al-Dura?" -- along with many other
exclusive feature stories -- are invited to subscribe to
WorldNet at WND's online store.

"When peace comes, we will perhaps in time be able to
forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be
harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to
kill their sons."
-- Golda Meir, Israel's prime minister from 1969
to 1974

Twelve-year-old Mohammed al-Dura and his
father Jamal were on their way home in Gaza
when, at the remote Netzarim junction, they
were caught up in a firefight between
Palestinian snipers and the Israel Defense Force.

Crouching in terror behind his father, who
struggled in vain to protect his son from the
gunfire, Mohammed was shot. He died there,
cradled in his father's arms, after both father and
son frantically pleaded for help. Since that day,
Mohammed al-Dura has become the poster
child, rallying cry and virtual symbol of the
2000 Al Aqsa intifada.

The dramatic footage
of al-Dura's Sept. 30
death has been
broadcast the world
over. Palestinian
television has created
an edited version
wherein pictures of an
Israeli soldier shooting
have been spliced into
the original footage.
Heart-wrenching
photographs of the
father and son have
been posted alongside
roads throughout the
West Bank. And
Egyptian authorities are reportedly naming the
street on which the Israeli embassy is located
after Mohammed al-Dura.

The Israeli military was quick to apologize for
the deaths -- some say too quick.

The theory, backed by considerable evidence,
has now emerged that the unthinkable actually
occurred -- that a Palestinian shot the boy in
cold blood to create a needed martyr -- on film --
to advance the Palestinian nationalist cause.

'The martyr is lucky'
Most Palestinians believe the establishment of
the state of Israel was a terrible mistake, an
injustice involving the forcible relocation of
many of their forebears. Indeed, Israel's very
existence has never been accepted by many in
the Arab world.

As a result of this perceived injustice, many
Palestinians teach their children, from the very
earliest ages, unbridled hatred toward Israelis.

But to free the children
to act on that hatred, a
second teaching is
deeply inculcated
throughout their
childhood. The
Palestinians teach
explicitly, as do many
Arab nations, that to
die in the "jihad" --
holy war -- against Israel purchases the "martyr"
instant acceptance into heaven. And it is a very
red-blooded and lusty male heaven they are
promised, characterized first and foremost by
endless sex with a multitude of virgins.

Recently, the mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine,
Sheik Ikrima Sabri -- the highest religious
authority in the region -- was interviewed by the
Egyptian weekly, Al-Ahram Al-Arabi about his
admiration for child "martyrs." Dozens of
Palestinian youths reportedly have died since
late September in violent clashes with Israelis
after the meltdown of the doomed
Clinton-brokered "peace process."

"I feel the martyr is lucky because the angels
usher him to his wedding in heaven," said the
mufti, appointed by Palestinian Authority
President Yasser Arafat. "There is no doubt that
a child [martyr] suggests that the new
generation will carry on the mission with
determination. The younger the martyr, the
greater and the more I respect him."

Lavishing praise
specifically on the
sacrifice of Palestinian
children to the cause,
Sabri reflected: "One
[child martyr] wrote
his name on a note
before he died. He
wrote: 'the martyr so
and so.' In every
martyr's pocket we
find a note with his
name on it. He
sentences himself to
martyrdom even
before he becomes a martyr."

The interviewer then asked an incredible
question: "Is this why the mothers cry with joy
when they hear about their sons' death?"

"They willingly sacrifice their offspring for the
sake of freedom," answered the mufti. "It is a
great display of the power of belief. The mother
is participating in the great reward of the Jihad
to liberate Al-Aqsa."

In an apparent reference to the widely held
belief that martyrs who die killing an infidel
will be given 50 virgins in heaven, Sabri added:
"I talked to a young man ... [who] said: '... I want
to marry the black-eyed [beautiful] women of
heaven.' The next day he became a martyr. I am
sure his mother was filled with joy about his
heavenly marriage. Such a son must have such a
mother."

The Jerusalem Post's Oct. 27 edition revealed
the shocking aftermath of the violent deaths of
some Palestinian children.

"Interviewed by journalists after [recent]
tragedies, some of the parents of these young
victims refer to their children as shahids
(martyrs), whose lives were given willingly and
proudly to the Palestinian cause in fighting the
hated Zionist enemy," wrote Post writer Gerald
M. Steinberg.

"In an unbelievably shocking scene, one mother
boasted that she bore her son precisely for this
purpose, and the father proudly claimed credit
for providing the training. The parents will also
receive a sizeable financial 'reward' from the
Palestinian Authority," he added.

The preparation for martyrdom begins early.

In a Palestinian television program called the
"Children's Club," young children are shown
singing songs about wanting to become "suicide
warriors" and to take up "a machine gun" to
direct "violence, anger, anger, anger" against
Israelis.

During the show, which features children aged
4-10, one young boy sings, "When I wander into
Jerusalem ... I will become a suicide bomber."
Afterward, other children stand to call for
"Jihad! Holy war to the end against the Zionist
enemy." In another segment, a boy who appears
to be no more than 8 or 9 years old chants: "My
patience has run out. ... All Arab existence cries
for revenge" against the Jews in Israel.

Media biased against Israel?

The Associated Press photo published in the
New York Times and other newspapers in late
September said it all: A club-wielding,
screaming Israeli soldier stood above a
blood-drenched Palestinian on the Temple
Mount. Further proof of Israeli brutality against
the Palestinians.

Except the
"Palestinian" in the
photo was not
Palestinian at all, but a
20-year-old Jewish
student from Chicago,
named Tuvia
Grossman, who was
studying at a yeshiva
in Jerusalem. He had
just been savagely
beaten by a mob of
Palestinians, and was,
as the photo was
taken, being protected
by an Israeli
policeman against his
Palestinian assailants.

The New York Times,
long criticized as biased against Israel, has
plenty of company.

On Oct. 1, shortly after the outbreak of
Palestinian rioting, National Public Radio's
Jennifer Ludden reported:

"Today is a repeat of the last three days ...
You've got this Goliath of an Israeli army with
guns. In some places yesterday they used
armored tanks. There were battle helicopters
buzzing overhead. At one point in the Gaza
strip yesterday, Israeli soldiers fired an
anti-tank missile. All this directed at young kids
with stones."

But according to the pro-Israel group CAMERA
(the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East
Reporting in America), this is just another
example of extreme and long-standing
anti-Israel bias on NPR's part.

"None of the Israeli weaponry cited has been
'directed at young kids with stones,'" according
to CAMERA. "At that point, the tanks had not
fired one shot at anyone, but were positioned as
a deterrent. The helicopters had been brought in
to help rescue an Israeli shot by Palestinians
who was trapped and bleeding to death in
defense of Joseph's Tomb in Nablus. The
anti-tank missile was used against Palestinian
snipers firing at Israelis from high-rise buildings
at the Netzarim junction in Gaza."

In the aftermath of the Dura shooting, the
international media glibly reported that "a
French photographer" or "a French television
crew" had filmed the tragedy. In reality,
although the news organization was French, the
photojournalist who actually filmed the
shooting was a Palestinian named Talal Abu
Rahma, who lives in Gaza.

Rabbi Avi Shafran weighed in on anti-Israel
media bias in the Oct. 13 edition of the
Providence Journal-Bulletin. "When baseless
biases are openly voiced, they are seen for what
they are: ugly, evil, human faults," he wrote.
"When subtly layered, though, into journalistic
products' choices of photographs, captions,
turns of phrase, stories' spins, they often slip by
unnoticed, and proceed to infect and deform
countless hearts and minds."

While National Public Radio correspondents
routinely portray Israeli soldiers as jack-booted
thugs, some in the international news media are
even more openly sympathetic to the
Palestinian cause than the major American
press:

Riccardo Cristiano, Mideast representative for
the official state-owned Italian television station,
RAI, placed an ad in the Oct. 16 edition of the
main Palestinian Authority newspaper, Al
Hayat al Jedida, promising he would never
think of giving any bad publicity to the
Palestinians or their cause.

"My dear friends in
Palestine," the ad
began. "We
congratulate you and
think that it is our duty
to put you in the
picture (of the events)
of what happened on
October 12 in
Ramallah."

He was referring to the
brutal beating and
murder by a
Palestinian mob of two
non-combatant drivers
in the Israel Defense
Force, at a Palestinian
Authority police station in Ramallah.

Apologizing for a rival, private Italian television
station's filming of the brutal lynchings, he
assured readers that it was not the official Italian
news media that did so.

"Israeli television
broadcast the
pictures," Cristiano
bemoaned, "as taken
from one of the Italian
stations, and thus the
public impression was
created as if we (RAI)
took these pictures.
We emphasize to all of
you that the events did
not happen this way,"
the ad continued,
"because we always
respect (will continue
to respect) the
journalistic procedures
with the Palestinian
Authority for
(journalistic) work in
Palestine. ..."

Cristiano added, "We thank you for your trust,
and you can be sure that this is not our way of
acting. We do not (will not) do such at thing.
Please accept our dear blessings."

'Only one possible solution'
Palestinian leaders, realizing the profound
influence world opinion will likely have on the
ultimate outcome of the Middle East crisis --
particularly on the effort to "internationalize"
Jerusalem and install U.N. "peacekeeping
forces" in the region -- are very public
relations-conscious. In fact, they are notorious
for playing to the overly sympathetic and often
one-sided international media's camera.

Photographers zoom in on demonstrator waving
Palestinian flag in an apparently staged photo
shoot.

USA Today ran a story showing how the
Palestinian news media have invented "atrocity"
stories by reporting supposed Israeli soldier
attacks on different Palestinian towns, which
upon verification have turned out to be
complete fabrications. There have also been
reported instances of Palestinian ambulances
sent out to pick up fake wounded -- for the sake
of eager Western cameras.

Although there are moderate Palestinian voices,
the leadership holds to a long-held, ambitious
and somewhat secret (to the West, at least)
ultimate objective -- to take over all of Israel.
Indeed, the Arab-Israeli conflict cannot be
understood unless it is recognized that the
complete "liberation" of Palestine (which to the
Palestinians includes all of Israel) is, and always
has been, the endgame of the Arab leadership
toward Israel.

Based on an enmity many trace back to
Abraham, most Arab leaders -- as distinct from
courageous souls like the late Anwar el-Sadat as
well as many moderate Arabs both in the
Middle East and throughout the world who
have risen beyond this cultural and spiritual
hatred -- still cling to the "jihad," the struggle to
"reclaim Palestine," as a holy mission. Current
Mideast leaders like Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein, Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei and Palestinian Authority President
Yasser Arafat continually fan the ancient fires of
hatred toward Israel that first burst into flame
against the modern Jewish state one day after its
establishment in 1948:

"This will be a war of extermination and a momentous
massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian
massacres and the Crusades."
-- Arab League Secretary General Azzam Pasha,
May 15, 1948, the day five Arab armies invaded
the new state of Israel, one day after the nation
declared its independence

"The Arab nations should sacrifice up to 10 million of
their 50 million people, if necessary, to wipe out Israel
... Israel to the Arab world is like a cancer to the
human body, and the only way of remedy is to uproot
it, just like a cancer."
-- Saud ibn Abdul Aziz, King of Saudi Arabia,
Associated Press, Jan. 9, 1954

"I announce from here, on behalf of the United Arab
Republic people, that this time we will exterminate
Israel."
-- President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt,
speech in Alexandria, July 26, 1959

"We shall never call for nor accept peace. We shall
only accept war. We have resolved to drench this land
with your [Israel's] blood, to oust you as aggressor, to
throw you into the sea."
-- Hafez Assad, then-Syrian Defense Minister,
May 24, 1966, who later became Syria's
president

"The battle with Israel must be such that, after it,
Israel will cease to exist."
-- Libyan President Mohammar Qadaffi, al-Usbu
al-Arrabi (Beirut) quoted by Algiers Radio, Nov.
12, 1973

"There has been no change whatsoever in the
fundamental strategy of the PLO, which is based on
the total liberation of Palestine and the destruction of
the occupying country ... On no accounts will the
Palestinians accept part of Palestine and call it the
Palestinian state, while forfeiting the remaining areas
which are called the State of Israel."
--Rafiq Najshah, PLO representative in Saudi
Arabia, Saudi Arabian News Agency, June 9,
1980

"The struggle with the Zionist enemy is not a struggle
about Israel's borders, but about Israel's existence. We
will never agree to anything less than the return of all
our land and the establishment of the independent
state."
--Bassam Abu Sharif, a top Arafat aide and PLO
spokesman, quoted by the Kuwait News
Agency, May 31, 1986

"The establishment of an independent Palestinian
state on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip does not
contradict our ultimate strategic aim, which is the
establishment of a democratic state in the entire
territory of Palestine, but rather is a step in that
direction."
--Salah Khalaf (Abu Iyad) interview with
Al-Safir, Lebanon, Jan. 25, 1988

"We will enter Jerusalem victoriously and raise our
flag on its walls ... We will fight you [the Israelis] with
stones, rifles, and 'El-Abed' [the Iraqi missile]..."
--Yasser Arafat, reported by the Associated
Press, March 29, 1990, at the start of the Gulf
War

"The hands of the U.S. are fully stained with the blood
of the Palestinians. There is only one possible solution
to unrest in the Middle East, namely, the annihilation
and destruction of the Zionist state."
-- Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, in a "prayer sermon" at Tehran
University addressing hundreds of thousands of
Iranians, Dec. 31, 1999

Israel re-enacts shooting
Let's put all the pieces together:

Political and religious leaders that teach the
highest calling for a person -- including a young
person -- is to die in pursuit of the violent,
dangerous but glorious mission of "liberating"
Palestine -- which involves killing many Jews
and ultimately occupying all of Israel. Indeed,
failure to participate in jihad, many children are
taught, will bring upon them the wrath of Allah.

A condition of extreme, murderous rage on the
part of some -- although certainly not all --
Palestinians, inculcated, encouraged and
justified from an early age.

A Western press ignorant of both history and
religion, which regards the tiny Jewish nation's
50-year struggle for continued existence, as
National Public Radio put it, as "this Goliath of
an Israeli army" firing guns and anti-tank
missiles "at young kids with stones."

A proven willingness on the part of intifada
provocateurs to play to the camera, to routinely
send children out to the frontlines of battle for
the sympathy and public relations points
inevitably scored. All of this is rooted in the
belief -- reinforced with promises of both
terrestrial and eternal rewards, as well as threats
of punishment -- that a violent death is the
doorway to a better life.

Question: Is the possibility that Mohammed
al-Dura was killed by a zealous Palestinian
prepared to send the boy to a glorious life in
heaven in return for advancing the glorious
Palestinian cause on earth really so
unthinkable? There are many who don't think
so.

On Oct. 23, Yosef Doriel, an Israeli engineer,
spearheaded an Israel Defense Force
investigation and re-enactment of the
Mohammed al-Dura shooting, which attempts
to make the case that the 12-year-old boy could
not have been shot by IDF soldiers -- but instead
fell victim to a cruel plot perpetrated by
Palestinian sharp-shooters and a Palestinian
television cameraman.

At one of the IDF's southern firing ranges,
participants piled up blocks to simulate the
wall where the boy and his father were pinned.
A concrete barrel was brought in, to represent
the one behind which the father and son
crouched.

"Soldiers sent to the firing range by the IDF
Southern Commander, Major General Yom Tov
Samia, stood on top of a dirt embankment and
fired shots at the wall and barrel, using a variety
of different weapons," reported the Israeli daily
newspaper Ha'aretz.

Doriel, a former IDF sniper, had several reasons
to suspect that it was not the Israelis who shot
the boy:

"For one thing, the boy and his father were
hiding behind and to the left of a barrel that was
between them and the Israeli forces," he told
IsraelNationalNews.com. (To view sequence of 5
photos of the Dura shooting, click here. Warning: The
images are disturbing.)

"In the video clip, you see four clean bullet
holes to the side of them. These were not shot
by the Israelis -- they are 'clean' and full holes,
not mere grazes that would have been formed
by the 30-degree angle of the Israelis -- but
rather by Palestinians (stationed more directly
in front of the father and son) to make sure that
the two would stay put.

"Suddenly, you see the boy lying down in his
father's lap, with another bullet hole in the wall
directly behind him -- again, it could not have
come from the IDF position, which was behind
the barrel and to the side, but only from the
Palestinian position, which was more directly in
front of the father and son. This is the bullet that
went through his stomach and out of his back."
(See aerial photograph of Netzarim junction with
Palestinian and Israeli locations indicated.)

At that point in the video, says Doriel, "you can
hear the firing -- but the Israeli position was far
away! Rather, what happened was that a
Palestinian advanced to a spot very close to the
photographer, and shot the fatal shot. You can
also notice that at that moment of the fatal shots,
the photographer suddenly 'shook' and the
picture was blurred -- a signal that the shots
came from close to him."

A film crew from CBS' "60 Minutes" was there to
capture the re-enactment, and broadcast its
report on Nov. 12. The report, titled "The
Crossroad," concerned the larger issue of the
controversial Jewish settlements in the Gaza
strip -- populated by more than one million
Palestinians -- and the Israeli army outpost
located at the Netzarim junction to protect those
settlements. Anchored by Bob Simon, "60
Minutes" characterized the IDF's shooting
re-enactment and findings as inconclusive.

And yet, Samia, Doriel and many others who
have looked at the evidence have little doubt as
to who was responsible for the death of
Mohammed al-Dura.

"The Palestinian forces staged the event," Doriel
states emphatically. "The Israelis were firing, for
sure -- but the fatal shots came not from them,
but from the Palestinian position in front of the
boy, behind the cameraman."

Doriel, who fought in Israel's War of
Independence in 1948-1949, engaged in combat
missions along the northern front, and was
among the first group of Israeli Air Force
pilot-cadets participating in air battles. He told
WorldNetDaily that he personally sent the
results of his investigation to Israeli Prime
Minister Ehud Barak.

WorldNetDaily obtained a copy of Doriel's
report on the shooting at the Netzarim junction.
Noting that the footage of the shooting has
"unleashed anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish
propaganda in the well-known pattern of TSW --
TV-Supported-Warfare" -- Doriel makes the
following points:

"UNCONTESTED FACTS:

"Confirmed by all sides: Israeli soldiers
were confined to one outpost across the
junction, at a distance of 110m from the
victim and an angle of 30 degrees from the
brick wall at the point where the boy and
his father took shelter behind a concrete
barrel. At this time, Palestinian outposts
were dispersed all over the area -- in front
and behind the victim.

"Confirmed by official representative of
the Palestinian Authority on channel 2 of
Israeli TV -- Oct. 31, 2000: The boy was
killed by one bullet which entered his
body from the front and left the body from
his back (therefore no bullet was found in
the boy's body).

"The cameraman returned to the scene of
the event the day after, and confirmed: the
barrel behind which the boy took shelter
was of concrete (not of sheet metal),
therefore no rifle bullet could penetrate it
from side to side ("Ha'aretz" newspaper,
Nov. 7, 2000).

"The film taken by the Palestinian
cameraman revealed on the wall the only
hole of the bullet which penetrated the
boy's body.

"CONCLUSIONS:

"The hole revealed on the brick wall
behind the boy's body, after he fell on the
pavement, is the only evidence of a bullet
which penetrated his body, as declared by
the PA representative.

"The location of the killing bullet-hole is
well inside the space protected from
Israeli outpost sniper by the concrete
barrel. (See Doriel's drawing).

"The killing bullet-hole could be caused
only by a sniper facing the boy from the
front (behind the bushes at the back of the
cameraman), and the noise recorded by
the cameraman before the boy was seen
dead was of a very near-by weapon, with a
sound quite different from the shooting
heard before, from distanced outposts.

"The armed outposts facing the boy from
the front were manned only by
Palestinians. Therefore, only they could
have killed the boy. The same holds true
for the bullets which wounded the boy's
father: He was so deeply hidden in the
corner between the wall and barrel -- that
only bullets shot from the front could hit
him, and in no way could they be bullets
from the Israeli outpost which was at an
angle of 30 degrees from the wall. It was
impossible even from an angle of 43
degrees."

Then, on Nov. 27, Gen.
Samia finally made the
results of the IDF's
official inquiry -- as
distinct from Doriel's
own analysis -- public:

"A comprehensive
investigation
conducted in the last
weeks casts serious doubt that the boy was hit
by Israeli fire," he said. "It is quite plausible that
the boy was hit by Palestinian bullets in the
course of the exchange of fire that took place in
the area."

Only one soldier in the corner of the Netzarim
junction Israeli outpost -- called Magen 3 -- was
in a position to possibly hit Dura and his father,
who were crouching about 120 yards away, said
Samia.

Although that soldier had been firing a sniper's
rifle, which shoots only single rounds, Dura and
his father were struck by automatic gunfire,
Samia said, based on analysis of the videotape.
Noting that Palestinians fired on Magen 3 from
seven positions, including behind Dura and his
father, Samia noted that the Palestinian shooters
easily could have hit the boy and his father.

"This Israeli investigation is an attempt to hide
the facts," countered Marwan Kanafani, a top
aide to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat,
according to the Boston Globe. "The facts are
that Israeli troops shot Dura and his father."

The Palestinian cameraman who videotaped the
shooting, Talal Abu Rahma, said he heard
bullets whistling over his head. The ones that
hit Dura and his father clearly came from the
Israeli position, he said.

"All of the Palestinian policemen ran like rabbits
after three or four minutes of Israeli shooting.
No one could raise his head," he said "The
closest Palestinian policemen were 200 meters
away. They couldn't have shot him."

'Guests in paradise'
Despite the understandable protests of
Palestinians after the investigation's results
were made public last week, it appears more
than likely that Mohammed al-Dura was shot by
one of his own. Samia leaves open the
possibility that Palestinian gunmen shot Dura
and his father accidentally, from a position that
put father and son between that of the
Palestinian gunmen and the IDF stronghold
across the junction. But Doriel doesn't think it
was an accident. In addition to the forensic and
ballistic evidence, Doriel points to a culture that
has demonstrated not only the willingness, but
the determination to send its young children to
the front lines of its "holy war."

"This behavior of Moslem militants is
completely compatible with their old tradition
of sacrificing their own people for a political
purpose defined by their leader as the will of
Allah," said Dorial. "This makes them
automatically holy martyrs -- 'shahids' -- gaining
respect from all their society towards the martyr
and his family." He points out that would-be
suicide bombers caught recently by Israeli
police "confessed that they were promised and
believed that after their martyr's death, they
would become a 'shahid' who is entitled to be
an honorable guest in paradise."

Doriel doesn't stop there. "Also compatible with
Moslem militants' beliefs is that telling outright
lies is legitimate -- if they are used against an
enemy. Such is the lie they produced and
spread worldwide -- to accuse Israeli soldiers as
heartless killers of innocent children."

And noting that the Palestinian Authority offers
$2,000 to every family whose child is killed in
the new intifada, Doriel presses his case to the
hilt: "This is part of their child-recruitment
practice, which is revealed again and again,
when their officials order the closing of schools
and send pupils of all ages to confront Israeli
positions."

Child-recruitment is an international crime, he
adds, and "Israel has to sue those responsible
for it in the proper judicial organs, including the
issue of arrest orders against them, wherever
they can be caught."

The preceding report has been excerpted from the
December cover story of the monthly WorldNet
magazine, WorldNetDaily's sister publication. The
complete, in-depth version of "Who killed Mohammed
al-Dura?" -- along with many other feature articles --
is available by subscribing to WorldNet at WND's
online store.

David Kupelian is managing editor of
WorldNetDaily.com and WorldNet magazine.

* WacoIncidentNewsZx. BeneficialCoincidenceZx.

Note, this is the day after the election.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2000/11/8/111944.shtml

Final Report from John C. Danforth, Office of
Special Counsel, Waco Investigation

NewsMax.com Wires
Wednesday November 8, 2000

ST. LOUIS -- Special Counsel John C. Danforth today delivered
to Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder his Final Report
Concerning the 1993 Confrontation at the Mt. Carmel Complex,
Waco, Texas. This Report unequivocally reaffirms the
conclusions contained in the Special Counsel's Interim Report of
July 21, 2000. Specifically:

(1) Government agents did not start the fire at Waco;

(2) Government agents did not shoot at the Branch Davidians on
April 19, 1993;

(3) Government agents did not improperly use the United States
military;

(4) Government agents did not engage in a massive conspiracy
and cover-up. There is no evidence of any wrongdoing on the
part of Attorney General Reno, the present and former Director
of the FBI, other high officials of the United States, or the
individual members of the FBI Hostage Rescue Team who fired
three pyrotechnic tear gas rounds on April 19, 1993.

(5) Responsibility for the tragedy at Waco rests with certain of
the Branch Davidians and their leader, David Koresh, who shot
and killed four ATF agents, wounded twenty others, shot at FBI
agents trying to insert tear gas into the complex, burned down
the complex, and shot at least twenty of their own people,
including five children.

These conclusions are based on a review of some 2.3 million
pages of documents, interviews of over 1000 witnesses, and
examination of thousands of pounds of physical evidence. They
are supported by the findings of numerous experts retained by
the Office of Special Counsel to assist in its investigation. The
expert reports are attached as appendices to the Special
Counsel's Final Report.

The Final Report contains new conclusions as to whether
government employees covered up evidence of the Hostage
Rescue Team's firing of three pyrotechnic tear gas rounds four
hours before the outbreak of the fire. After completing its
investigation, the Office of Special Counsel has again ruled out
the existence of a widespread conspiracy to cover up the use of
the pyrotechnic tear gas rounds. In many cases, government
agents did not disclose this information because they
legitimately did not know that any pyrotechnic tear gas rounds
were used. In some cases, the failure to disclose the information
was due to negligence rather than "bad acts."

Significantly, however, the Office of Special Counsel concluded
that certain members of the Department of Justice's trial team
that prosecuted the Branch Davidians knew about the
pyrotechnic tear gas rounds in 1993 and wrongly chose not to
disclose this information to defense attorneys for the Davidians,
to Congress, and to others within the Department of Justice.
Danforth's Final Report is sharply critical of several of these
individuals for obstructing his investigation by misleading
investigators and attempting to cast blame on others in order to
conceal their own role in this matter. The Final Report is also
critical of the two FBI agents who were in charge of the evidence
collection at the Branch Davidian complex.

Closely related to these conclusions, a federal grand jury sitting
in St. Louis today returned an indictment against former
Assistant United States Attorney William Johnston, one member
of the trial team that prosecuted the Davidians. The five-count
indictment charges that Johnston obstructed Danforth's
investigation and made false statements to Danforth's
investigators.

The charges set forth in an indictment are merely accusations
and each defendant is presumed innocent until and unless
proven guilty.

Because of the pending indictment, the Office of Special
Counsel has redacted some portions of its Report as required
by (1) the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure; (2) the
Department of Justice's guidelines regarding the treatment of
individuals under indictment; and (3) the need to protect law
enforcement sensitive information. At such time as these
redactions are no longer necessary, the Department of Justice
will make available an unredacted version of the Report.

SOURCE Office of Special Counsel

* SingaporeAir006CrashNewsZx.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2000/11/3/73337.shtml

747 Was on Wrong Runway, Likely Hit Barrier

NewsMax.com Wires
Friday November 03, 2000

The Singapore Airlines jumbo jet that burst into flames Tuesday
in Taiwan headed down the wrong runway on takeoff and
slammed into construction equipment, a Taiwanese prosecutor
said early today.

''From the crash scene, it's very easy to see that the plane had
mistakenly used the wrong runway where there were scraps of
steel and two construction cranes,'' said Song Kuo-yeh , a
prosecutor at the Taoyuan County district office where the
Chiang Kai-shek Airport is located.

The pilot has said he hit something.

''We are deeply shocked and devastated at the conclusions that
have been reached,'' Singapore Airlines spokesman Rick
Clements told reporters in Singapore, after learning of the
prosecutor's statements.

At least 81 of the 179 people aboard Flight SQ006 from Taipei
to Los Angeles died after the 747-400 broke into pieces and
caught fire. At least 23 of the dead were U.S. residents.

The jet's flight crewmembers were among the survivors. Song
also said pilot Chee Kong Foong was being kept in Taiwan for
questioning during the investigation into the crash.

Investigators have found no wreckage on the runway where the
jet was supposed to take off, said Kay Yong, the top investigator
at Taiwan's Aviation Safety Council.

That runway, 5L, also had no skid marks from the jet, Yong said
Thursday.

Flight SQ006 came to rest on a shorter parallel runway that was
closed for construction. That runway is several hundred feet from
the runway that the jet was supposed to use.

Investigators also have found no evidence that the jet skidded
across the grassy strip between the two runways.

Charred wreckage was found scattered across the runway
under repair, known as 5R.

''Wreckage distribution was concentrated around the
construction site. Very few pieces were outside, and no parts''
were on the other runway, Yong said.

Yong declined to say what the evidence might mean, but
sources familiar with the investigation said it appears that the
pilot accidentally turned onto the wrong runway as rain from an
approaching typhoon pounded the airport.

The jet was traveling at 145 mph when the accident occurred,
Yong said.

Preliminary evidence from the cockpit voice recorder indicates
that the pilot uttered an exclamation at about the time of impact.
Because of the heavy rain, controllers in the airport tower could
not see the jet.

The airport does not have ground radar, which would have
allowed controllers to track the 747. Controllers cleared the pilot
for takeoff.

''He said several times that he was on'' the right runway, said
Abram Huang, deputy director general of Taiwan's Civil
Aeronautics Administration.

If the pilot turned the wrong way, Huang said, ''nobody would
know.''

* WacoIncidentNewsZx.

http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/9/26/190545

New Evidence in Waco Case

Stephan Archer
Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2000

A week ago today, a U.S. District Court upheld the government's behavior at
Waco in the Branch Davidians' $675 million wrongful-death lawsuit, but a new
motion for reconsideration loaded with "smoking gun" evidence could influence
appeals and keep the saga alive.

Michael McNulty, a reporter and documentary film producer who has brought to
light serious questions regarding the Waco siege, told NewsMax.com there
was little chance Judge Walter Smith Jr. would seriously consider the evidence
in the motion. The point of the motion is to make sure all the evidence is in the
record before the case moves to the appellate level, he said.

"It ain't over 'til it's over," McNulty said in referring to evidence he believes
indicts the FBI.

According to McNulty, the newly presented evidence revolves around two main
claims of the government. In its first claim, the government argued the flashes
on the Forward-Looking Infrared (FLIR) tapes could not be gunfire because
they lasted longer than 8 milliseconds on the tape. Its second claim points to
the fact that people can't be seen in the tapes firing a weapon.

A Sept. 6 FLIR imagery field test conducted by experts for the Branch
Davidians, however, indicates the government's FLIR conclusions were shaky
at best and deceptive.

According to the independent test at Fort Collins, Colo., gunfire flashes can
occur on the tapes without any visible presence of people. Gunfire flashes can
also last more than four times as long on the tapes as the government claims.

These findings aren't short of extraordinary in light of the fact that similar tests
conducted by the government at Fort Hood, Texas, didn't uncover any of this
information.

A reason for this discrepancy could be that the temperature during the test at
Fort Hood was about 20 degrees cooler than the temperature during the test at
Fort Collins, which more accurately assimilated the temperature in Waco
during the 1993 siege.

Another reason for the different test results could be that Fort Hood used a
different video format for recording while Fort Collins used the same format as
that used at Waco.

In the motion to reconsider are a number of affidavits including that of
Ferdinand H. Zegel, a physicist with more than 30 years' experience in thermal
imaging and related fields. He is a project manager and staff engineer for
Radian Inc., involved in missile target thermal signature recognition.

He observed the Fort Collins test and concluded that people moving outside
the Davidian compound would have been difficult to see on the FLIR tapes.

"The Fort Collins test demonstrates that under ambient conditions
approximating those of April 19, 1993, individuals are not readily visible in
FLIR imagery," Zegel said in his affidavit.

Zegel further explained in his affidavit that a human image from the Fort Collins
test should be more discernible than a similar human image recorded at Waco
or Fort Hood because the images were larger. The reason for this is the
camera was closer to the "action" at Fort Collins. The camera was also more
stable and at a better angle making any pictures just that much more clear. Yet,
human images still ranged from invisible to barely visible.

McNulty added that after the test at Fort Collins, it was also discovered that
standard military issue uniforms, such as the ones worn by FBI agents during
the Waco siege, are chemically treated to reduce or eliminate thermal image.

Commenting on government claims that gunfire flashes on FLIR tapes would
last no longer than about 8 milliseconds, Zegel said in his affidavit, "The Ft.
Collins test demonstrates that bursts of gunshots generate much longer
duration flash signatures than values claimed possible by defense experts."

Experts for the Davidians contend that these findings show that the
government's arguments need to be re-evaluated.

Carroll Lucas, who has experience interpreting aerial and satellite
photography, had previously spent 25 years with the CIA in what was then
known as its National Photographic Interpretation Center. In a written affidavit
that was submitted along with the motion to reconsider, he said individuals
could be seen near locations of the flashes on the FLIR tapes.

"Based on the digital image analysis, I conclude that individuals are visible in
the courtyard near locations and at times associated with FLIR imagery
flashes," Lucas said.

With this whirlwind of information coming in at a time in which the end of the
Waco case seemed to be at hand, will Judge Smith reconsider the case?

"I don't think (he) will," said McNulty. "I think the judge has got his mind made
up, and he doesn't want to be disturbed by the facts."

Get two Waco videos at a discount from the NewsMax Store:
Waco: A New Revelation, including interviews with Mike McNulty,
and Waco: The Rules of Engagement, praised by Siskel and Ebert.

See more articles on Waco in Hot Topics.

* GulfAir072CrashNewsZx.
http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/8/24/165409

Gulf Air Begins Crash Investigation

UPI
Friday, Aug. 25, 2000

MANAMA, Bahrain – Gulf Air has begun an investigation into the crash of an
Airbus A320, which plunged into the Persian Gulf on Wednesday, killing all 143
passengers.

Experts from France and the United States are en route to help crash
investigators.

All bodies of the dead and both black boxes of the ill-fated plane have been
recovered, British Broadcasting Corp. reported Thursday. Rescuers were
helped by the shallow water depth (less than 10 feet) of the crash site.

Relatives of the victims were busy Thursday identifying the bodies from
photographs provided by the airline company.

Originating in Cairo, Egypt, Flight GF072 took off at 4:45 p.m. The plane
reportedly burst into flames as it hit the water 3 miles shy of its destination,
Bahrain International Airport in Manama, the capital.

It was the plane's third attempt to land. The pilot had reported that the plane's
engine was on fire, Bahraini Information Ministry official Saeed al Bably told
CNN earlier. But the crew did not make a distress call before the crash, BBC
said.

Gulf Air President Ali Ahmadi said: "It is too early to ascertain what caused the
crash. The investigation is ongoing, and it will be some time until the results are
published," the BBC reported.

The plane was carrying 135 passengers and a crew of eight. The independent
satellite TV channel Al-Jazeerah, based in neighboring Qatar, reported the
nationalities of most of the victims: 66 Egyptians, 34 Bahrainis, 12 Saudis,
nine Palestinians, six from the United Arab Emirates, three Chinese, two
Britons and one each from Australia, South Korea, Kuwait, Oman and Sudan.

A State Department official in Washington said Bahrain had informed the
United States that a boarding pass from Flight 072 belonged to an American
working as a diplomatic courier for the department.

The U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet was assisting in the rescue, Pentagon spokesman
Brian Whitman said. Three helicopters from the USS George Washington
aircraft-carrier battle group, as well as two American destroyers – the
Oldendorf and the Milius – and three smaller U.S. Navy ships were helping in
the salvage operation.

Bahrain plays host to a major U.S. military presence in the Middle East and
hosts the headquarters of the U.S. commander of Naval Forces Central
Command.

Donna Winton, of the U.S. Embassy in Manama, said the Bahraini coast guard
and civil defense agency were heading the rescue effort and were being
assisted by the U.S. Navy.

Gulf Air, based in Bahrain, is the national carrier of Bahrain, Oman and Qatar
and part of the United Arab Emirates. The Airbus Industrie Web site said the
A320 family was the world's fastest-selling family of jetliners. The airplane was
designed in the 1980s.

The plane was delivered to Gulf Air in September 1994. It had logged 17,000
hours, CNN said, and completed 14,000 cycles, each consisting of one takeoff
and one landing.

* ConcordeAviationCrashNewsZx.
http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/7/25/151721

August 15, 2001

Concorde Crash Kills 113

UPI
Wednesday, July 26, 2000

PARIS – An Air France Concorde supersonic jetliner bound for New
York crashed into a small hotel while trying to take off from Charles
de Gaulle International Airport on Tuesday, killing all 109
passengers and crew aboard the plane and four people on the
ground, French officials said.

A senior Air France executive said the crash, the first fatal accident
for the Concorde since entering service in 1976, was caused by "an
engine problem." He ruled out that slight cracks that were recently
discovered in the four of the airline's six Concordes had been a
factor.

French Prime Minister Leonid Jospin rushed to the scene in the
town of Gonesse, on the edge of the airport, where the jet had
crashed into the Hotel Hotelissimo, which was virtually empty at the
time.

A witness told French Television 3 the hotel was "incredibly
demolished and burning." Premier Jospin told reporters that, in
addition to the four dead, some people had been injured in the hotel
but their condition was not serious.

Air France said Flight AF 4590 had been chartered to a German
tour company, and all the passengers were German tourists who
were scheduled to join a cruise ship in New York and sail to the
Galapagos Islands off the west coast of Ecuador. The airline said
there were 97 adult passengers, three children and nine crew
members on the plane.

After news of the crash, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder canceled all
his appointments, according to reports from Berlin.

Capt. Sid Hare, a pilot for Federal Express who witnessed the crash
from an airport hotel, told CNN the sound of the Concorde taking off
was "two or three times as loud as normal." He said he could see
smoke trailing from where the plane had taken off.

"I knew it was in trouble," he said.

He said he saw flames trailing from 200 to 300 feet behind the left
bank of engines on the four-engine plane, and the aircraft couldn't
gain altitude. He said the nose pitched up almost vertical, the plane
stalled and then crashed.

Hare speculated that the failure had occurred before the plane even
left the ground, but the pilot had to continue takeoff because he
didn't have enough runway to stop.

"It was a sickening sight when it hit, just a huge fireball like a
mini-atomic bomb," he said.

Later Tuesday, Air France announced that it had grounded its fleet
of Concordes "for the time being." British Airways, the only other
airlines regularly flying Concordes, canceled its New York flight.

British Airways acknowledged Sunday that all seven of its
Concordes also had small cracks in the wings. British Airways was
reportedly checking its entire Concorde fleet, after grounding one of
the supersonic jets because of what its spokesmen called "the
growing size of the cracks in its wings."

The French airline announced Monday that cracks had appeared in
four of its aircraft "a few months ago" and had been seen during a
routine safety check. According to Air France at the time, two of the
four affected planes were kept in service, and the other two were
grounded for an unrelated periodic review.

The average age of each Concorde jet is about 21 years. The Air
France aircraft that crashed had been in service since 1980.

This was the first fatal crash of a Concorde, although the plane – the
flagship of both national carriers – has had technical problems since
its first flight in 1976.

In March 1991, the rudder on a British Airways Concorde
disintegrated at 56,000 feet. A similar incident was reported in
October 1998.

In May 1998 a 4-foot-by-2-foot panel fell off a wing during a flight
from London's Heathrow Airport to New York. According to British
Airways, it reported its discovery of wing cracks to the French
manufacturer, Aero Spatiale, and to the Civil Aviation Authority. Both
Aero Spatiale and the Civil Aviation Authority reportedly agreed at
the time that the aircraft remained safe to fly.

See more articles on Concorde.

* EncephalitusVirusNewsZx.

http://www.boston.com/news/daily/reporters/26/virus.htm

West Nile virus found in
Massachusetts

Infected bird discovered in Jamaica
Plain

By Chris Szechenyi, Boston.com Staff, 07/26/00

BOSTON - State health
officials today
confirmed the existence
of the West Nile virus in
a dead crow found
recently near a pond in
Jamaica Plain, marking
the first time that the
potentially deadly virus
has been isolated in
Massachusetts.

The discovery has prompted public health officials to
warn the public to protect themselves from
mosquitoes, and it has forced them to take
additional surveillance measures in Boston and
Brookline, such as collecting live birds for testing
and setting more mosquito traps.

"This is the first indication of this virus' presence in
Massachusetts," Dr. Bela Matyas, medical director
of the state's Division of Epidemiology, told
Boston.com. "This is not something to panic about,
but there are things the public can do to minimize
the risks."

Last year in New York, the West Nile virus killed
seven people and made 62 ill. The virus grows in
birds and is then transmitted to humans by
mosquitoes.

Matyas speculated that the crow, discovered near
Willow Pond and the Muddy River in Jamaica Plain
by a park ranger, flew there from Connecticut or
New York.

Dr. Ralph Timperi, assistant commissioner of the
state's bureau of labs, told the Associated Press
that crows can fly up to 200 miles, and he confirmed
this is the farthest the virus has been found in the
U.S. from its epicenter in Queens, New York.

In response to the finding in Massachusetts, local
health departments in Boston and Brookline are
going to consider several options, Matyas said.
"Boston has indicated its going to do ground-level
spraying among other things, like setting up a hotline
and trying to kill the larvae of mosquito."

The State Department of Public Health will step up
its efforts to monitor the virus, Matyas said. "We're
going to do active bird surveillance in the Jamaica
Plain area, which means trapping and testing live
birds and not just dead ones. We've already
stepped up mosquito surveillance by putting out
more traps," Maytas said.

State health authorities also plan to engage
hospitals in their effort to track the disease caused
by the virus. "We're going to be contacting all of the
hospital emergency rooms and infection control
practitioners," Matyas said. "We want to monitor the
occurrence of human disease caused by the virus
and get lab samples tested."

The dead crow carrying the virus was found on July
22 and was first tested two days later, Matyas said.
Today the results were confirmed.

"We were expecting the West Nile virus would
impact Massachusetts," Matyas said. "This is not an
unexpected situation. The bottom line is that the
surveillance system worked as it should."

But he stressed that people should take several
precautions: Eliminate any mosquito breeding areas
such as standing pools of water, and turn over
wheelbarrows, throw out old tires and make sure
gutters are clear. Matyas said people should try to
avoid being bitten by mosquitoes.

"You want to wear long sleeves and pants and use
insect repellant that contains DEET," he said. But he
warned parents not to apply repellant with DEET to
infants or to the faces or hands of children. He also
said not to use products on children that contain
more than 10 to 15 percent DEET.

The disease is fatal in only a small minority of
people who contract it. The West Nile virus can
cause encephalitis, a dangerous swelling of the
brain which can be deadly.

Most who contract it experience flu-like symptoms
and never realize they have been exposed to the
virus.

"The usual situation is not even to know that you
have been infected," Dr. Stephen Zinner, a Harvard
Medical School professor and chairman of the
department of medicine at Mt. Auburn Hospital in
Cambridge, told the Associated Press.

More severe infections can cause tremors,
convulsions and sometimes death. About 7 percent
of those sick enough to be hospitalized for the virus
die from it, according to the state public health
department.

"This is no cause for alarm, or any reason to change
vacations, or not go outside, or not let your children
go outside," Zinner said. "In this area, we are used
to protecting ourselves from mosquito bites
because of Lyme disease."

In addition to New York, the virus has been detected
recently in dead birds in Stamford, Conn., New
Jersey and Maryland.

New York City officials this week took the unusual
step of spraying parts of the city for mosquitoes, and
even closed Central Park for a day while the
spraying took place.

* WacoIncidentNewsZx.

http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2000/6/15/195709

With Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

For the story behind the story...

Thursday, June 15, 2000; 8:58 p.m. EDT

Waco: 'A Curious String of Coincidences'

Michael McNulty, the brave reporter and documentary film
producer who has brought to light serious questions regarding
the Waco tragedy, now questions the "curious string of
coincidences" surrounding the timely illnesses of key witnesses
in the case.

According to McNulty, all of these witnesses were involved in
examining the FBI's infrared film taken on the day of the
Bureau's raid. And all the witnesses acquired illnesses during
the latter part of March 2000.

Fred Ziegler

Fred Ziegler is an expert in daylight and infrared video. He is
the alternate FLIR (Forward-Looking Infrared) video expert for
another expert, Dr. Edward Allard and helped identify gunfire on
the tapes.

Ziegler suffered a serious case of lead poisoning in March. If
he hadn’t collapsed in a public place, McNulty believes he would
be dead today. As it was, Ziegler collapsed with a raging fever
and was rushed to a hospital, where he was pumped full of
antibiotics.

Dr. Edward Allard

At about the same time, Dr. Edward B. Allard, the lead FLIR
expert, suffered from a stroke that almost cost him his life.

Maurice "Mac" Cox

Mac Cox is the expert in solar geometry who analyzed the FLIR
tapes for "reflections of sunlight" that the FBI contends were
the bright flashes of light on the videos. He has stated that
the flashes were not reflected sunlight, as the FBI has
contended, but gun fire.

Just after Allard and Ziegler became ill, Cox had a severe renal
infection.

Since the 1950s, Cox had been suffering from a renal condition
making him susceptible to infection. However, the virulent
infection he contracted caused such problems that even the
doctors had a problem getting a handle on it. Cox is still being
treated today.

Are these illnesses unrelated coincidences?

"I don’t want to make more of it than it is," said McNulty.
"It’s just really strange that just these few men involved with
this one narrow issue were stricken."

Of course, if the illnesses are more than just a coincidence,
these three men can consider themselves very lucky. They made
out with their lives.

One didn't.

Carlos Ghigliotti, the expert FLIR videotape analyst hired by
the House Government Reform Committee to analyze the flashes on
the tapes, wasn’t so fortunate. The 42-year-old was found dead
in his office on April 28.

Autopsy reports later claimed he died of arteriosclerosis, a
hardening and thickening of the arteries.

Although found dead late in April, the autopsy showed Ghigliotti
had died much earlier in the month and closer to the time period
in which these three other witnesses became sick.

Coincidences happen!

* WacoIncidentNewsZx.

http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/4/30/155105 .

Exclusive: Lawyer Reveals Expert Witness Findings

David Hardy
April 30, 2000

David Hardy is an attorney who has been involved in civil litigation relating to
the Waco raid of 1993. Hardy had significant dealings with Carlos Ghigliotti,
an expert Congress had hired to review infrared film taken during the FBI raid
of the Koresh compound. For the first time Hardy reveals what Ghigliotti told
him about the film.

For the last year I have been privy to certain secrets which I was sworn not to
reveal. For reasons I'll mention later, I am now released from my promise of
secrecy.

The presence of FBI gunshots on the Waco FLIR [Forward-Looking InfraRed]
videotapes has been news for the past few months, but the story had been
sitting on media shelves for years before that time.

The FLIR videotapes were made by an FBI aircraft orbiting the Davidian
building and show the scene as if it were a black and white video, in terms of
heat and cold. The most important tapes were made on April 19, 1993, the day
of the fire.

On that day, FBI swore again and again it did not fire a single shot and tried its
best to keep Davidians from burning in the blaze.

My involvement in the Waco matter began in 1995, when a friend of mine
contacted me about the case. Apparently "60 Minutes" had taken an interest in
the aerial infrared footage and sent it to be analyzed by a private firm called
Infraspection. While experts at Infraspection determined the blips of light on the
footage were gunfire, "60 Minutes" decided not to air the story at that time.

I contacted Infraspection and they offered me the names of other infrared
specialists who might be willing to take on the work.

They highly recommended Ghigliotti, who ran a lab in Laurel, Md.

Ghigliotti said that before he would put his name on an opinion, he would need
a first-generation copy of the original FBI tape; he would stake his reputation
on nothing less than the best material. At that point, the best we had were
third-generation copies in VHS, so we had to let the matter go.

Three years later, in late 1999, I got a call from Ghigliotti. He needed some
other Waco videos which I had pried out of the FBI and ATF.

He related that he had been retained by the House Government Reform
Committee, chaired by Congrssman Dan Burton, and was examining the FLIR
tape under their authority.

Ghigliotti added that he had obtained a remarkable copy of the FLIR, a
quantum leap above what anyone else possessed. He had discovered that,
even when the FBI said it was passing out a first-generation copy, it was in fact
giving out a copy, not of the original tape, but of a digitized "master copy."

Knowing that digitization compresses the image and discards detail, he had
demanded and gotten a copy of the original 1993 tape, made in Super VHS
with some format specifications which ensured it had all the sharpness and
quality of the original.

By good fortune, I was flying to his area on some work anyway, so I arranged to
visit him in his lab.

It was impressive. He had a bank of Super VHS recorders feeding a row of
large monitors, and tapped into a pair of the hottest computers I'd yet seen.
With this, and some hardware he had personally designed, he could
coordinate two, three, or four different videos and show them in parallel, frame
by frame; thus an infrared image could be played alongside a simultaneous
video made in visible light.

He was a pilot, and used the arrangement to track things such as illegal water
pollution (the polluting water is generally warmer than the river or bay into which
it flows, and thus shows up on infrared, while the coordinate visible image
makes it easy to spot the location.).

Ghigliotti had no politics that I ever noted, he was proud of his skill, and he was
rigorously honest. He staked his reputation on every opinion, and made sure
that it was unimpeachable.

In fact, he once mentioned, he'd been hired by the FBI in the past, and cited
them as a reference. He would let the chips fall where they might.

Sitting there in his lab, I was a bit cautious about asking his opinion of the
Waco tape. I got a feeling, though, when he remarked, "The only thing that
pisses me off over this, Dave, is when I hear government officials lying about
things that I know happened, because I've seen the evidence."

It was perhaps typical of him: A lack of honesty was more offensive to him than
the prospect of official abuse or even homicide. Carlos lived by the truth and
could not condone any failure in that arena.

Carlos Ghigliotti did offer me a few previews. He ran a portion of the FLIR
video, which depicted events after an FBI tank had demolished the large room,
commonly known as "the gym," at the back of the Davidians' home.

By this point, the gym was a field of construction rubble loosely attached to the
main building. In the midst of the image a strange flash occurred, perhaps ten
feet long.

I asked what it was — clearly it was too long for a gun flash.

"That's a bullet in flight," Carlos said. I knew that a bullet after firing is far too hot
to pick up, but I'd never realized they could be seen in infrared. I asked him if he
was sure.

"I've imaged them when I've flown over shooting ranges. I know what I see
there," was his reply.

Carlos rewound the tape.

"Now, let's see what he was shooting at." He pointed to a spot in the gym
wreckage. The unmistakable image of a human being was there, jumping up
from behind the cover of one pile of wreckage and sprinting to dive behind
another.

The bullet flash came just after he dove down.

"Missed him by half a second," Carlos said.

I almost gasped. On my FLIR copies — previously described as first
generation, the best you could get — the flash was visible but the man was not.

Carlos' copy, and equipment — and his eye for detail — had found the holy
grail.

He had proof that the FBI was lying.

FBI agents had dismounted from the tanks and engaged in a foot assault,
invading the building.

"Yes," Carlos said, "they're lying."

He showed me another preview. This one was from ordinary color video, shot
by telephoto media cameras from their position miles away. It was shot aftter
the fire was already raging. The images were blurry and the angle shallow —
bushes and tanks blocked part of the view of FBI agents moving around.

I'd seen the tape before, but Carlos' eye had seen what mine had not.

"Watch this guy here," he said, pointing to a specific human image on the other
side of the parked tanks.

The agent moved, stopped ... and took a shooting stance. You couldn't see the
weapon, but it was the stance of a man shouldering a rifle.

Then he turned his head toward the cameras, saw that he was on a line-of-sight
with the media positions, and suddenly ducked down and lunged in front of one
of the tanks.

That wasn't all. Carlos showed me another of the conventional video
sequences.

From in front of one of the tanks came a long bright streak of fire, looking like a
large tracer bullet.

"That's not a sunlight flash. I've imaged the same flash from videos taken at two
... no, three ... different angles," Carlos said. "I think it's the fuse on a
pyrotechnic grenade."

The "pyros" are teargas shells, well known for starting fires.

I noticed that the angle of the flash was decidedly downward. Carlos explained
that the FBI was shooting down into the Davidians' underground storm shelter,
sometimes called "the pit."

I said wait a second ... the pit was the exit of the underground tunnel leading out
of the Davidian house.

The tunnel was where the FBI (incorrectly) thought the women and children had
been placed. So now the FBI is gassing what it thought was their only escape
route out of the fire. Carlos nodded affirmatively.

Before I left that day, Carlos gave me another tip.

There is a soundtrack on the last FLIR tape — I should listen to it carefully.
When I got back to my office, I did just that.

Before I was through, my jaw was sagging. FBI officials had admitted they
stopped fire engines from responding to the fire, but only for a few minutes,
until they thought it was safe for the engines to go in.

The soundtrack of the FLIR picks up their radio traffic that day. On the
soundtrack, the commander at the scene is calling for fire engines, being told
they are on the way, and hearing reports that none are arriving.

He finally gets so upset that he screams into the radio, "If you have any fire
engines down there, get them up here immediately!"

He is told they will be there momentarily ... and none arrive.

Either he had been overruled by higher command, or the agents had gone
insubordinate and were making sure the Davidians would burn. There was also
a strange conversation about someone outside the building, and then pops that
sounded like gunfire, and the FLIR aircraft pilot's asking another crewman "did
you hear that?"

Carlos and I stayed in touch by telephone and e-mail. I sent him useful data
when I found it, and kept my mouth shut.

By the end, Carlos told me that he had spotted nearly 200 likely gunshots,
many at full auto.

The FBI hadn't merely fired shots on April 19, it had hosed down the back of
the building with rapid gunfire.

Carlos had carefully plotted the movements of each shooter. He could now
show shots from one location, the shooter moving to another, and shots from
his new site.

At least two individuals were shooting, close in to the building, with others
lending support from a distance. And, all the while, the FBI was giving out press
statements claiming that the flashes could not be gunfire because no shooters
were visible near them.

The FBI was digging itself deeper and deeper into the hole.

Carlos also told me that he'd seen FLIRs from nights before the gassing
assault, and that it was apparent that the FLIR aircraft was being used to
monitor the Davidians' water supply.

The water was stored in those big plastic tanks at the rear of the building, and
the coolness of the water inside showed up as a darker area. It was apparent
that the water supply was shrinking, and by April 19 was almost gone. He had
heard the aircraft crew talking about it and noting that the level was going
down.

So, essentially, they knew that thirst would force an end to the siege within a
few days of April 19. Which also meant that the FBI officials had lied to Reno
when they said the Davidians had plenty of food and water and the siege was
unlikely to end soon.

During this time-frame, Carlos's name first cropped up in the press, as an
expert for the House Government Reform Committee who had opined that the
FBI fired shots. Strangely, the Committee distanced itself from its own expert,
stating in the same article that his opinion was based on regular video rather
than FLIR — which wasn't the case.

I asked Carlos if the Committee was abandoning him and covering matters up.

No, he replied, it was quite the opposite. He was briefing them on virtually a
weekly basis.

They had uncovered a lot more information than he had. What he knew he
couldn't talk about, except that one tiny part of it was that, not only the initial
ATF raid, but the entire siege, had been funded out of money dedicated to the
war on drugs.

One might say that the entire Waco affair was funded by official embezzlement,
since all legal guidelines for use of those millions had been violated by ATF
and FBI.

There were other things, he added. But these could simply not be let out.

They were sufficiently shocking to where the Committee was genuinely
concerned that, if known, they might inspire violent retribution from radicals.

I said I'd heard statements like that — the truth about Waco could not be
explored, for fear of violence, but discarded them as agency excuses.

Carlos said no — the fear is real, and it's not poppycock. The truth is really that
grim. The Committee had not yet figured out how to reveal the truth without
running this risk, and until it did, it had to disavow his work and sit on the other
information.

Much of the data was in the hands of certain key reporters (a few of whom he
named), and they were sitting on it for the same reason. But it would come out
in time.

In March of this year, Carlos called with several more discoveries that truly
sealed the matter.

He'd managed to spot when a hatch opened on the tank at the back of the
building, and when a crewman got out of it.

That crewman then fired at an image of a man who fled back into the burning
building. Carlos had said that the House Government Reform Committee knew
the name of the FBI agent under that hatch. When his testimony was taken, he
denied everything — but began shaking violently as he did so.

Carlos had another breakthrough. I'd spotted a strange flash on the tape, and
for once had found one that he'd missed. While he was looking for that,
however, he found some other flashes.

He told me that he could now link, by time and place, one of the conventional
video images of an FBI agent taking a shooting stance, to the FLIR image of a
gun flash at the same location and instant in time. The case was now open and
shut.

Then, sometime in March of this year, his relationship with the Committee
began to break up. I have only his side of the story on this. Apparently, the
committee staff wanted quick results.

His response was that he had cataloged nearly 200 likely gunshots. To pin
down each one to the certainty he required would take some more months. He
wanted, not merely to say something looked like a gunshot, but that after
examining every other possibility, after tying in the media videotapes and
soundtracks, that there was no possibility it could be anything else.

He had reached that certaintly with some gunshots, but not with the rest. The
staffers got into arguments with him. They wanted results, right then.

Some threatened not only to stop payment, but to sue him for what he'd already
been paid. Chairman Burton himself called and tried to chew him out.

I urged him to stay on with them — this was vital, and politicos were often hard
to work with, you just had to put up with them. He called back a day later and
said he'd thought it over and, no, he had better things to do than work with
people who threatened him.

He was going to give a preliminary report, brief majority and minority staff,
finish his report on the gunshots of which he was certain, and present that with
a list of all the things he had not been able to analyze.

On March 18, he faxed me a copy of his preliminary report, identifying when the
FBI agent (described simply as an "unknown subject") exited the tank hatch,
and the gunfire of which he was certain, together with a brief outline of the
movements of the FBI shooters. (As it turns out, this fax is apparently the only
surviving copy of that preliminary report, other than those given to the
Committee.) In late March, he briefed the staffs.

It goes without saying that by this point, Carlos had become a rather dangerous
commodity.

He had found the most solid of evidence that implicated virtually the entire FBI
Hostage Rescue Team, and the FBI's high command, in clear perjury.

To the extent they were shooting and gassing in order to pin people in the fire,
they were tied in on attempted murder, and accessory after the fact to
attempted murder, as well.

Men were collecting government pensions who deserved to be in prison. The
survival of HRT — the reputation and perhaps survival of the FBI — were on the
line.

This was far worse than J. Edgar Hoover's COINTELPRO, far worse than
Watergate, and after years of covering up, the entire agency hierarchy was now
stuck to the tar baby.

Now Carlos was no longer under the Committee's control; he was free to talk to
whomsoever he chose. Indeed, he had already briefed one of the Davidians'
attorneys, and was mulling over whether to testify in the wrongful death suit they
had brought.

I've said that I had sworn secrecy, and that I'm now released from that promise.
This is a rather long article, but there is a reason. It's in part a memorial for a
feisty and totally honest guy I came to like a good deal.

On April 19 of this year, from a hotel room in Waco, I called Carlos to report a
minor discovery I had just made at the scene. I got his answering machine, but
when it came time to leave a message, the tape just said "tape finished. Thank
you for calling."

I thought he'd run out of tape — never happened before, but who knows?

I tried again from time to time, with the same result. I sent e-mail asking him to
call. No reply. Well, maybe he was out of town. He did have other court cases
going, and had been talking about taking a vacation,

Early on April 29 I tried again, and this time nothing picked up; the phone just
rang off the hook.

That afternoon I received a call. Carlos had been found dead in his office. (The
press reports said in his apartment, but the address was that of his office; it
was on the third floor of an office building, and had no living quarters.)

Perhaps his time was up. He was only 42, and looked in excellent shape (I bet
he worked out), but he did have a Type-A personality. Whatever it was, the man
most dangerous to a very powerful agency and scores of its agents had been
removed from the scene.

The next day the House Government Reform Committee was quickly
distancing itself from its own expert, a man who had been briefing it for months,
had submitted his preliminary report a few weeks before, and had been
briefing its staffs within the past two weeks.

An AP story quoted committee staff as saying that "Ghigliotti's work for the
committee ended some time ago." Rumors were quietly placed that he was
"controversial" and had been "fired by the Committee."

Let me set the record straight: I owe it to that honest man. In my phone log I
have two calls from him, sometime between March 18 and March 23 (I often
overlook writing in the new day). These are about 3-4 weeks before his death:

Notes on first call:

Kevin Binger, chief of staff to Burton, wanted report rewritten his way. Carlos
needed stuff from locker (presumably Rangers' evidence locker or locker in
custody of court) and committee refused to send him (Carlos) down there.
[Again, the indication is that he's not fully broken off relations.]

Notes on second call:

Shots from side of tank. He had been showing the FLIR of a tank hatch
opening and a guy coming out of the CEV to the Demo staff members; they
agreed that the hatch opened but some didn't agree they could see the person.
They knew by name the person under that hatch. Guy dismounts and shoots at
a Davidian. Something about audio track at another point says tank is in
pursuit of an unidentified subject. [Word unclear, begins with C, likely
"Congress"] only wanted his anomaly list [i.e., his list of thermal anomalies,
rather than a study of each]. Over a hundred of those. Something about four
gunshots. He suggested Demos might pay for analysis of the rest. Demos
unaware. [As I recall, he said the minority staff had been kept apprised only of
the major developments, and were surprised to learn of all the details.]

I had placed high hopes on the Congressional inquiry, but my trust level is
rapidly declining.

Carlos had said that the Committee would let it all out eventually, that they were
just keeping a distance from him in the press reports until that time.

But now he's dead, and the Committee is claiming falsely that he was fired and
had not worked for them for some time. But for his fax, and a phone log, the
story might pass muster and his discoveries be buried with him.

I'm beginning to wonder if Carlos wasn't a bit too trusting of his employers.
There are ways to silence congressional oversight.

J. Edgar Hoover was a master of that ... it was amazing what a few files on the
pecadillos of congressmen could do. And so far, for all the thousands of pages
of documentation the Committee has gotten — for the secrets they had
uncovered, that Carlos takes to his grave, but considered so damning of the
agencies that it might inspire another Oklahoma City — not one word has been
revealed to the public, and no hearings are scheduled.

Nobody ever said that politics is conducive to honor. But Carlos deserved
better — he was a genuinely honorable man.

* AlaskaAirlines261AviationCrashNewsZx.
http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/2/2/43329

Investigation of Jet Crash Intensifies

UPI
February 2, 2000

Alaska Airlines Flight 261 plunged into the Pacific Ocean off
Southern California just seven minutes after the pilot first radioed
that he was having problems controlling the MD-83 jetliner.

No survivors have been found, although the Coast Guard said
Tuesday night it still considers the search of the deep waters of the
Santa Barbara Channel northwest of Los Angeles to be a search and
rescue mission.

A total of 88 people were aboard the plane as it headed from Puerto
Vallarta, Mexico, to San Francisco and Seattle Monday afternoon.

National Transportation and Safety Board member John
Hammerschmidt told a news conference Tuesday, some 22 hours
after the crash, that a rough draft transcript of the radio
communications between Flight 261 and air traffic controllers
showed that the plane was cleared to San Francisco International
Airport at 3:55 p.m. At 4:10 the pilot advised controllers that he was
having trouble controlling the plane.

After descending from 31,000 to 23,700 feet, the pilot radioed at
4:11 that he was somewhat stabilized and was going to troubleshoot
the problem. At 4:15, Flight 261 said the stabilizer was jammed. A
minute later the plane was cleared to land at Los Angeles
International and the pilot said he wanted to lower his flaps and
slow to prepare to approach Los Angeles over the water. That was
the last communication from the plane.

A message from controllers at 4:17 was not acknowledged and the
plane dropped off radar moments later. Hammerschmidt said the
nose-dive plunge was witnessed by the crews of a SkyWest plane, a
private aircraft and an Alaska flight that was following its sister ship.
Those pilots were being interviewed and the possibility that a fourth
aircraft was in the area is also being explored.

The NTSB has organized into several teams of investigators that
will look into operations, traffic control, witnesses and structure.
The Federal Aviation Administration, the FBI, Alaska Airlines,
Boeing, Pratt & Whitney engine makers, the Airline Pilots
Association, the Association of Flight Attendants, the Air Traffic
Controllers Association and local authorities will also be part of the
investigation.

A team charged with examining the jet's maintenance records will
meet this week in Seattle, the home base of Alaska Airlines. There
have been questions about whether Alaska Airlines had addressed
an FAA directive that stabilizers on the nation's MD-83s – a version
of the MD-80 – should be checked for a possible corrosion problem
around the hinges. An Alaska Airlines spokesman said Tuesday the
jet that crashed was scheduled for inspection in June 2000, well
ahead of the FAA's September deadline.

The Navy, which has a destroyer and a frigate taking part in the
search, has heard pings it believes may be coming from the plane's
flight data and cockpit voice recorders, but the water in the channel
is about 700 feet deep and there is no equipment on the West Coast
that can reach such a depth; additional equipment is being sent from
the East Coast.

Coast Guard and Navy ships and aircraft continued to comb an area
of 3 to 5 square miles around the crash site, hauling in wreckage
and debris from festive Mexican vacations. The remains of at least
four people – two women, a man and an infant – have been
recovered. Commercial fishermen who endured 10-foot swells
while scouring the crash site through the night were allowed to
discontinue their efforts Tuesday and leave the area to the Coast
Guard and Navy.

Most of the floating debris has been picked up, leaving little visible
evidence of the tragedy on the surface. Flowers, candles, and
makeshift memorial crosses have been left on the beach.

Skies were clear and the sea was calmer Tuesday, but the weather
forecasts call for deteriorating conditions Wednesday and there is a
possibility of a storm moving through Thursday.

President Clinton extended the nation's condolences to the victims'
families Tuesday, saying in a statement: "Today, our nation prays
for the men and women who were aboard Alaska Airlines Flight
261, and for their families and friends. In times of tragedy, the
American people pull together as one and offer their prayers and
solace to those in need. Underlying all these efforts is a strong and
heroic determination to save lives, and to find out exactly what went
wrong so that lives can be saved in the future.

"Throughout this difficult day, and in the days and weeks to come,
we will keep passengers and crew of Flight 261 in our thoughts, and
let us hope that God's mercy will shine on them and their families."

* BuchananCampaign2000NewsZx.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/buchanan000825.html

Buchanan
Hospitalized
Undergoes Second Gall Bladder
Disease Operation

Reform Party presidential candidate Pat
Buchanan was recovering at a
Washington hospital after undergoing a
second round of surgery to treat gall
bladder disease. (Stephan Savoia/AP
Photo)

W A S H I N G T O N, Aug. 25 — Pat Buchanan was
recovering at a Washington hospital today after
undergoing a second round of surgery to treat
gall bladder disease.
The Reform Party presidential candidate was admitted
to Washington Hospital Center on Wednesday morning
after suffering from what his campaign called “severe
abdominal pain.”

Missed During Earlier Operation
Doctors determined the pain resulted from a gall stone
that was not removed when his gall bladder was taken out
in a previous surgery last week. The campaign said the
latest surgery to remove gall stones, , performed on
Thursday, was successful. He is expected to be released
later today or Saturday morning.
Buchanan is not expected to return to the campaign
trail until after Labor Day.
The gall bladder is an organ on the underside of the
liver that produces bile, a substance that helps the body
digest fatty foods. Mineral deposits in the bile can form
into small stones that clog the bile ducts, causing severe
pain as the liver continues to fill the organ with bile that
cannot get past the stones and into the intestines where it
belongs.
Gall bladder disease affects as many as 20 million
people in the United States each year and more than
600,000 last year underwent surgery to have the organ
removed.

ABCNEWS’ Rebecca Bershadker contributed to this
report.

* BuchananCampaign2000NewsZx.
http://archive.nandotimes.com/noframes/story/0,2107,500241099-500355094-502068708-0,00.html

Buchanan has gall bladder
removed

By DOUGLAS KIKER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (August 18, 2000 3:48 p.m. EDT
http://www.nandotimes.com) - Reform Party presidential
candidate Pat Buchanan underwent surgery to have his
gall bladder surgically removed Thursday.

Buchanan was admitted to Washington Hospital Center
after experiencing repeated episodes of stomach pain
during the last few months, according to his sister Bay
Buchanan.

Buchanan had known he had gallstones, and was waiting
until after the November election to have them removed.
But after an episode of discomfort last week he decided
to remove the gallstones Thursday. During the surgery
doctors decided to remove the entire gall bladder.

He spent one night in the hospital following the surgery
and was expected to return home Friday afternoon to
continue recuperating. Buchanan's doctors anticipate a
speedy and complete recovery, his sister said.

Bay Buchanan joked that Shelly Buchanan, the
candidate's wife, "is the proud owner of his gallstones,
which we may have to put on the market to raise some
money for this campaign."

The gall bladder is a pear-shaped sac beneath the liver
where bile, a liquid produced by the liver to help break
down fats during digestion, is stored. Disease is
frequently characterized by gallstones, which can grow
up to an inch across and cause severe abdominal pain.

The usual treatment for painful gallstones is removal of
the gall bladder; about 500,000 Americans have their
gall bladders taken out each year.

Buchanan recently returned to Washington from Long
Beach, Calif., the site of last week's contentious Reform
Party National Convention.

At the convention, the party essentially split in two
because of Buchanan's controversial candidacy. One
camp nominated Buchanan and the other group, made
up of supporters of party founder Ross Perot, nominated
physicist and Natural Law Party founder John Hagelin as
their candidate.

* BuchananCampaign2000NewsZx.

The following appears to be the speech that I heard on TV.

http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=1999/10/26/00656

Buchanan Announces Reform Bid

Pat Buchanan
October 25, 1999

Good morning. Today, I am ending my lifelong membership in the
Republican Party, and my campaign for its nomination; and I am
declaring my intention to seek the nomination of the Reform Party
for the presidency of the United States.

This decision was not made without anguish and regret. I will
forever cherish the memory of having been perhaps the only
Goldwaterite in the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia
University in 1961. Nor will I ever regret my nine years of service
to Richard Nixon, from his comeback campaigns of 1966 and '68,
to our 49-state triumph of '72, through the final days of Watergate.
I was with Nixon in China. And I also had the high honor of being
Ronald Reagan's second in the Panama Canal debates, and at his
side when that great president refused to give up missile defense
and walked out of the summit at Reykjavik in Ronald Reagan's
finest hour of the Cold War. From the thunderous reception we got
at Houston in 1992, when I told the Buchanan Brigades we had to
come home and stand beside George Bush, to the ovations at
Ames, Iowa, last summer, when I faced off with his son, the
Governor, the Republican party has been good to me. And I have
tried to be loyal to it. But, as John F. Kennedy said, Sometimes
party loyalty asks too much. And today it asks too much of us.

Today, candor compels us to admit that our vaunted two-party
system is a snare and a delusion, a fraud upon the nation. Our two
parties have become nothing but two wings of the same bird of
prey. On foreign and trade policy, open borders and centralized
power, our Beltway parties have become identical twins. Both
supported NAFTA and GATT and the surrender of our national
sovereignty to the WTO. Both supported the extension of nuclear
war guarantees to the borders of Russia. Both supported the illegal
war on Serbia. Both support IMF bailouts of corrupt regimes. Both
vote for MFN trade privileges for a Communist Chinese regime that
today targets missiles on American cities. The appeasement of
Beijing is a bipartisan disgrace, and we will not be a part of it.

Neither party speaks for the forgotten Americans whose jobs were
sent overseas to finance the boom market of the 1990s that the rest
of us enjoy. Both parties are addicted to soft money. Both write
laws with lobbyists looking over their shoulders. Both embrace the
unprincipled politics of triangulation.

And neither fights today with conviction and courage to rescue
God's country from the cultural and moral pit into which she has
fallen. The day of the outsider is over in the Beltway parties; the
money men have seen to that. Never again will our political
establishment permit a dissident to come as close to capturing a
nomination as we did in 1996. They have rearranged the primary
schedule and rigged the game to protect the party favorites.

Candidates of ideas need not apply, as both parties seek out the
hollow men, the malleable men, willing to read from teleprompters
speeches scripted by consultants and pollsters for whom the latest
print-out from the Focus Group is sacred text.

We choose not to play our assigned role in their sham election. My
friends, this year is our last chance to save our republic, before she
disappears into the godless New World Order that our elites are
constructing in a betrayal of everything for which our Founding
Fathers lived, fought, and died.

Only the Reform Party offers the hope of a real debate and a true
choice of destinies for our country. "If we don't go now, Pat," I
have been told by loyalists all across America, "every cause for
which we fought for seven years will die." Well, we can't let those
causes die, because they are America's cause. So let me say to the
money boys and the Beltway elites who think that, at long last, they
have pulled up their drawbridge and locked us out forever: You
don't know this peasant army. We have not yet begun to fight.

So, let me lay out our Patriots' Road for America. With the Cold
War over, we shall craft a foreign policy for a new century rooted
in the great tradition of Washington, Jefferson and John Quincy
Adams who wrote:

Wherever the standard of freedom and independence...shall be
unfurled, there will [America's] heart, her benedictions and her
prayers be....But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to
destroy.

I pledge to you: I will never send an American army to fight in a
foreign war, unless our country is attacked or our vital interests are
imperiled. They call us "isolationists." Well, if they mean I intend to
isolate America from the bloody territorial and ethnic wars of the
new century, I plead guilty. It is the first duty of a statesman: to
keep his country out of wars that are not his country's quarrel. And
the junk yards of history are strewn with the wreckage of republics
and empires that failed to learn that lesson.

We intend to dust off an ancient document and restore it to its
rightful place as the altar piece of American government. You may
have heard of it. It's called the Constitution of the United States.
Under the Constitution, before America goes to war, the Congress
must declare war. By my reading of the Constitution, the soldiers,
sailors, airmen and Marines who take an oath of loyalty to the
United States, are never to be used as the imperial troops of
anybody's New World Order. We will bring our soldiers home
where they belong; and rebuild our military might and morale so no
nation will dare attack us.

And the first step to restore that morale is to evict from the Bully
Pulpit of the Oval Office, our own Elmer Gantry, Mr. Clinton,
whose desecration of that temple of our civilization, and squalid
behavior, render him unfit to serve as Commander in Chief of the
Armed Forces of the United States.

We Americans are a good and generous people. Our tradition of
being first at the scene of natural disasters, providing food and
shelter for the victims, is rooted in deep our hearts. That tradition
we shall maintain. But IMF bailouts of deadbeat dictators must end;
and we must phase out foreign aid and start looking out for the
forgotten Americans right here in the U.S.A.

It is time for a New Patriotism, where America's sovereignty is
wholly and fully restored. And if, as Secretary General Kofi Annan
has threatened, we will lose our vote in the United Nations, if we
don't give him the billion dollars he says we owe him, I would give
Mr. Kofi this word of advice: Sir, don't go there. Because if our
vote in the UN is in jeopardy, your lease on Turtle Bay is in
jeopardy.

As for America's immense trade deficits, even Mr. Greenspan is
now alarmed, as they approach four percent of our entire economy.
Because of NAFTA and GATT, America's industrial base has been
hollowed out, our manufacturing workers, who support families on
a single wage, have been forced to compete with sweatshop labor
abroad; and our country has been left dependent on imports for the
vital necessities of national life.

We must cut out these cancerous trade deficits and make America a
self-reliant nation again. And to those who prattle on about out
duties to the Global Economy, let me say it again: I'm not running
for president of the world; I'm running for President of the United
States.

But of all the needs of this nation, none is greater for our peace and
happiness than racial reconciliation. The backsliding toward
hyphenated-Americanism must end. Let us abolish quotas and
set-asides, these un-American devices that reward individuals based
on what color they are, or what continent their kinfolk came from.
Let us abandon a sterile and futile politics of victims-and-villains,
and rediscover what brings us all together as one nation and one
people. All of us must learn our English language. All of us must
come to know our common history, heritage, and American heroes,
so we can get our great Melting Pot working its magic again. Any
man or woman from any continent or any country can be a good
American. We know that. But it takes time to assimilate the thirty
million who have come in the last thirty years. And we need time.
Indeed, we need a time-out on legal immigration, to ease the
downward pressure on workers' wages and to defeat the forces of
separatism that threaten us and nations all over the world.

This land is our land; it belongs to all of us, immigrant and
native-born alike; and it would be unpardonable ingratitude if we,
the children of pioneers and patriots of every color, continent, and
creed, lost this last best hope of earth, because we could not learn
to live with one another, and could not learn to love one another.

If America stands for anything in this world, it is freedom. Yet
today America is among the most over-taxed, over-regulated, and
over-governed societies in history. Our Federal Government collects
a fifth of all the wealth we produce and controls perhaps half of it.
Can anyone name a single regulation that has been repealed in ten
years, or a single agency that has been abolished? Even the National
Endowment for the Arts soldiers defiantly on.

We need to restore the old constitutional division of labor in
government. Defense and foreign policy are the province of the
federal government, but welfare and education are the business of
state and local governments. And in children's education, parents
come first, teachers second, and federal judges not at all.

Mr. Bush says his Department of Education will write tests for
fourth grade children in Idaho. But if I am elected president, the
bureaucrats at the Department of Education are not going to be
testing kids; they're going to be testing the magic of the market
place. And all federal money for the school children of America will
be sent back to the school districts of America, where accountability
begins and authority belongs.

We need a new Supreme Court where only constitutionalists need
apply, a court that will respect both states rights and human rights,
that will begin to undo the damage done this nation by judicial
aggressions, beginning with that abomination they call Roe v. Wade.

We need a President and a Congress that will pick up the whip the
Founding Fathers left in Article III of the Constitution-to herd the
justices back into the narrow stalls to which they were first
consigned by Hamilton and Madison.

What is a self-governing people doing, waiting meekly each week
for nine jurists to tell us how we may govern ourselves? As our
fathers threw off a tyranny of kings, let us throw off this tyranny of
judges-and let America be America again!

As for our IRS tax code, it is an insult to a free people, the product
of an endless series of corrupt bargains between lobbyists and
legislators. Let us rip this weed out by its roots, cut taxes to the
lowest level in modern history, eliminate taxes on savers and small
business, and shift the burden where it belongs, on a transnational
elite that has no loyalty to any country.

For every tax on manufactured goods that are made in the U.S.A,
let us put an equal tax on foreign goods dumped in the U.S.A. For
every tariff China puts on us, let us put an equal tariff on them.
That way, Mr. Clinton's campaign contributors down at the Chinese
embassy can start contributing to the upkeep of the Seventh Fleet.

Friends, ours is truly the best of times and the worst of times. With
our miraculous advances in medicine, science, and technology, none
of us would want to go back to yesterday. But something good has
been lost from those years as well: The old patriotism, a popular
culture that undergirded the values of faith, family, and country, the
idea that we Americans are a people who sacrifice and suffer
together, and go forward together, the mutual respect, the sense of
limits, the good manners; all are gone. My life has been spent in the
great and good vocations of politics, journalism, and government.
None commands the respect it once did; all today are in disrepute.

I cannot think of a time since Watergate, so poisoned with rancor
and hostility, and I don't know if any president can change that, the
way Ronald Reagan infused his time with his spirit and unabashed
love of country. But I do know this: I will try.

America needs a Government of National Unity and Reconciliation
that draws from the best of all parties, and I promise you: I will
create that kind of government. And if we build it, they will come.

My friends, all the great empires of Europe that began our century
so full of swagger and bombast came crashing down to ruin. All are
now surrendering their identities and their independence to a super
state that pays homage to the god of Mammon. America alone still
endures, independent and free. The great questions before us are
these: Shall we, too, yield to their temptation, follow their path, and
suffer their fate? Is the call to empire irresistible? Is a world
government inevitable? Or can America remain forever a light unto
the nations, an example to mankind of how a free people should
govern themselves, a republic above whose sovereignty stands the
sovereignty of God alone.

That is our cause. And so it is that in the name of the Founding
Fathers, we go forth to rescue America, and we will not quit this
fight as long as there is breath within us.

God save the Republic, and God bless America.

* PayneStewartAviationCrashNewsZx.
http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=1999/10/25/164032

Payne Stewart Dies in Freak Learjet Crash

NewsMax.com
October 25, 1999

Apparently drained of oxygen, a Learjet carrying championship
golfer Payne Stewart flew uncontrolled almost across America
today before crashing in South Dakota, killing all aboard.

Federal crash experts are investigating whether all five crew and
passengers may have lost consciousness from lack of oxygen if the
cabin's pressurization failed.

A spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration said the plane
left this morning from Orlando, Fla., where Stewart made his home.

Its crew failed repeatedly to answer air-traffic controllers as the jet
cruised across state after state at an altitude of 45,000.

Then the Lear 35 ran out of fuel, plummeting into a swamp 12
miles west of Aberdeen in north-central South Dakota, the
Associated Press reported.

In his traditional golfing knickers and colorful Tam o'Shanter
woolen cap, with its Scots pompon, Stewart, 42, was a familiar
figure to sports fans worldwide.

A veteran of 18 tournaments, including three major championships,
Stewart won his second U.S. Open in June, defeating, Phil
Mickelson. He did it by sinking a spectacular 15-foot putt - the
longest to decide that match on the final green.

Stewart had just competed over the weekend in the PGA
tournament at Lake Buena Vista, Fla.

He was en route to Texas for practice rounds before the final
tournament of the 1999 PGA Tour in Houston on Thursday. On
the way, he was to have picked up a golfing companion, Justin
Leonard, in Dallas.

Tracey Stewart, his wife, confirmed he was on the plane. Names of
others aboard were not known immediately.

According to South Dakota Gov. William J. Janklow, there were no
survivors.

The FAA reported the jet, of which Stewart was part owner, left
Orlando on Monday morning and was last heard from as it flew
over Gainesville, Fla.

When controllers were unable to raise anyone by radio on the plane,
the Air Force diverted an F-16 fighter jet on a training mission out
of Tyndall, Fla., to check on the Lear.

Then, two other jets, F-15 fighters from Eglin Air Force Base near
Pensacola, took over the monitoring, which was later assigned to
two National Guard F-16s from Tulsa, Okla.

Flying alongside Stewart's jet, they were unable to establish any
communication, causing authorities to suspect crew members had
passed out.

The National Transportation Safety Board, which is sending a team
from Washington to the crash site to investigate, said the cabin may
have lost pressure, and thus oxygen.

Planes are usually pressurized above 12,000 feet, where passengers
and crew have difficulty breathing the thin air and begin to lose
consciousness.

* MicrowaveZx RadarZx.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_371000/371039.stm

Wednesday, June 16, 1999 Published at 18:02 GMT 19:02 UK

Health

Alarm 'could cut prison
deaths'

The monitor which detects movement is connected to an alarm

An alarm system which can detect when people stop
breathing could be used to save prisoners' lives.

It is estimated that one person a day dies in custody in
the UK.

A small number are the victims of police brutality, but
the majority die when prisoners are left on their own.

More than half die as a result of drugs.

People in custody are usually checked every hour and
those deemed at risk of suicide or self harm are checked
every half hour.

But even half an hour intervals can prove fatal.

According to the BBC One's Tomorrow's World
programme, police in Hertfordshire are trying out a new
alarm system which could cut deaths.

It alerts police within 30 seconds of a person stopping
breathing.

Microwaves

The device includes three microwave transmitters. They
are fitted to a cell wall and to the cell bed.

They send out a low level of
non-harmful microwaves
which bounce off the walls of
the cell and anyone in it.

They are sensitive enough to
pick up any movement,
including breathing.

The sensors are connected
to a computer. It displays
activity in the form of a
moving line.

If the line goes flat, it means the person has either
stopped breathing or left the room.

The computer is in turn connected to a receiver unit with
three lights.

If a person stops breathing, an amber light and alarm
comes on after 12 seconds.

After another 12 seconds, a red light flashes and the
alarm sounds.

Sergeant Mark Ewan says it is much more sensitive
than a video camera.

"A video camera cannot distinguish between a person
lying down and not breathing and a person lying down
and breathing," he said.

Vital seconds

Tina Bennett knows only too well how vital the difference
between a matter of seconds and half an hour can be.

Her 59-year-old mentally ill uncle died in a police cell
last January.

He had been picked up on suspicion of being drunk and
disorderly.

Police checked him every
half hour and he gave a
response every time.

But when they came to
release him, they found that
he was dead.

The post-mortem showed
that he was not drunk, but
had died from pneumonia.

Ms Bennett said: "There is
no worse place for a person
to die than in a police cell.

"The device is a really good idea if it saves lives. If it had
been there when my uncle was in custody he might even
be alive today."

BBC One's Tomorrow's World features the alarm device
at 7.30pm BST on 16 June 1999.

* NewsFromWorldWideWebEndsDx.

* PurgePointDx. Working backwards.
All articles in the NewsFromWorldWideWebBegins section
have been purged or have anchors attached.
But there is much in other later sections that can be moved.
The only remaining purging is the removal of referenced articles.

* WacoANewRevelationDx (WANR).
Documentary film available on video tape.
Title: Waco: A New Revelation.

http://www.waco-anewrevelation.com (can not be found 2002/03/19).

The following is a page on the site (2001/03).

http://www.waco-anewrevelation.com/Waco/WacoP/pages/fsIE.html

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CONFLICT

The following is a brief history of the
Waco tragedy, indexed by date and topic.

THE BRANCH DAVIDIANS
1935 --Victor Houteff, a religious
dissenter, leaves the Seventh-Day Adventists in
California to form a community (Mt. Carmel) in Texas.

1955 -- Victor Houteff dies. His wife
Florence takes over the group, now called the
"Davidian Seventh-Day Adventists,"
announcing that "the end" (the culmination of history
and the return of Christ) will come in
1959. Many Davidians move to the community from
across the country.

1959 -- End fails to come. Most members
dissipate; however, about fifty remain and move
to a New Mt. Carmel located about ten miles
from Waco. 1960 -- Ben Roden takes over
the Davidian leadership, naming them "
Branch Davidians" to differentiate them from the
plain "Davidian" strand. Following Roden's
death, his wife Lois takes over. After her death,
a struggle ensues for leadership between
her son, George Roden, and a relative
newcomer, Vernon Howell.

1987 -- Roden challenges Howell to a duel
to prove who is the "True Prophet," to be
decided by who would raise a long-dead
Davidian from the grave. Later, a gunfight
breaks out between Roden and Howell and
their followers. All Davidians are tried,
acquittals and a hung jury result. Roden is
later jailed for six months for writing
threatening letters to a judge. During that
time, Howell takes over Mt. Carmel.

1989 -- Roden murders a man with an axe and
is committed to a mental institution. He
briefly escapes in 1993. Vernon Howell and
his followers maintain an armed vigil against
retribution.

DAVID KORESH
1990 -- Vernon Howell legally changes his
name to David Koresh, after Hebrew King
David and Persian King Cyrus (who freed the
Jews from Babylonian captivity). Koresh
inherited a millennial view from Houteff
and the Rodens, along with their authoritarian
style of leadership. He believes himself to
the "Lamb of God," drawing many followers
from Adventist circles and rebuilding Mt.
Carmel into a huge complex combining chapel,
residence, gymnasium, water and watch
towers, tornado shelter, swimming pool, and
utility
space.

Koresh focuses on the decoding of
apocalyptic passages (such as the Seven Seals of the
Book of Revelation) that he understands to
refer to the present: the inbreaking of God's
will into human history, with a cosmic
struggle between good and evil. The forces of evil
will be concentrated in the present center
of earthly power, the government of the United
States, whose "Babylonian" might would be
brought to bear against the Lamb and his
Elect. Koresh accumulates a large stockpile
of arms for defense against what he sees as
the coming struggle.

Koresh discerns in several scriptural
passages, especially Psalm 45, the implication that
the Lamb should be united with the "kings'
daughters," "honourable women," "virgins," to
beget "children, whom thou mayest make
princes in all the earth." His understanding is
that only the seed of the Lamb is pure and
that the Lamb alone should beget the children
who would rule the world in the coming age.
To that end, Koresh is accorded exclusive
marital rights to all of the women in the
community, and their husbands (if they were
married) relinquish such rights to Koresh
because of their belief that he correctly
understands the divine will. As a result,
by 1993 Koresh is the father of more than a dozen
children by several women, in addition to
his legal wife, Rachel Jones (daughter of
longtime Davidian Perry
Jones).

March 5-9, 1992 -- local law enforcement
teams inadvertently conduct SWAT training
near Mt. Carmel. David Koresh reacts by 1)
bringing back members from California and
England, 2) making large purchases of
weapons parts, 3) acquiring chemicals which can
be used to make explosives, 4) purchasing
night vision scopes and sensors, and 5)
accumulating large supplies of
ammunition.

INITIAL INVESTIGATIONS
May 1992 -- A driver for United Parcel
Service reports that a carton for delivery to Mt.
Carmel had broken open to reveal a shipment
of (inert) hand grenades. The incident is
reported to the Waco sheriff's office,
which notifies the federal Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) in Austin. An
agent named Davey Aguilera is assigned to
investigate, and by tracing UPS invoices he
compiles a list of $43,000 worth of guns, gun
parts, gun kits, grenade hulls, black
powder, chemicals, fuses, and ammunition.

In March 1992, the BATF's pubic image is
tarnished by allegations of sexual harassment.
Perhaps to help improve its prospects at
Congressional budget hearings in March 1993,
the agency begins in December 1992 to plan
a major raid on the Davidians. They obtain
warrants for the arrest of Vernon Howell
and the search of his property at Mt. Carmel for
illegal firearms (both based on an
affidavit hastily put together by Aguilera).

THE BATF RAID & THE STANDOFF
February 28, 1993 -- After assembling a
large number of agents and rehearsing for several
days, the ATF launches its raid at 9:30 a.
m. on a Sunday morning in what it describes as
a "dynamic entry." Four ATF agents are
killed and 16 are wounded. Inside, Davidian
Perry Jones is killed and David Koresh is
wounded. Within hours, the FBI becomes the
lead agency in the standoff. By afternoon,
the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) arrives.
Telephone negotiations begin with the
Davidians. Michael Dean Schroeder, a Davidian,
is killed that day while attempting to
reenter Mt. Carmel; two others with him are arrested.

March 1, 1993 -- Acting Attorney General
Stuart Gerson, who endorses a negotiated
solution, updates President Clinton on the
situation. By 5 p.m., 10 Davidian children are
allowed to leave Mt. Carmel. Armored
vehicles are deployed around the compound for
the first time.

March 2- 8, 1993 -- Negotiations continue.
During the talks, Koresh rambles about biblical
prophecy, mass suicide, FBI plots to burn
the compound and destroy evidence, etc. The
talks go nowhere.

March 9, 1993 -- At 2:15 P.M., electricity
to the compound is cut off for the first time.
Several restorations and cutoffs will follow.

March 12, 1993 -- Kathy Schroeder, wife of
the slain Michael Dean Schroeder, leaves the
compound. On that day, Janet Reno is sworn
in as U.S. Attorney General. Electricity to
the compound is cut off for a final time.

March 14, 1993 -- The FBI begins to
illuminate the compound with bright lights and loud
music at night.

March 19, 1993 -- The FBI allows legal
documents and other items to be delivered to the
compound. Koresh indicates that he is ready
to come out and face charges. Two
Davidians leave the compound.

March 20-21, 1993 -- A total of seven
Davidians, six of them women, exit the compound.

March 22, 1993 -- The FBI reads a new offer
to Koresh, allowing him, among other things,
to communicate while in jail, provided all
Davidians begin leaving by 10 a.m. March 23.

March 23, 1993 -- Another Branch Davidian
leaves the compound.

March 29, 1993 -- Over the objections of
assistant U.S. attorneys and Texas Rangers, the
FBI decides to allow a face-to-face meeting
between Koresh and his attorney. For almost
two hours, the two men meet at the door of
the compound. Several other meetings will
follow.

April 4, 1993 -- Koresh's attorneys meet
with him and announce that he will leave by
Passover (April 5). However, Koresh refuses
to confirm an exit date.

April 7, 1993 -- The FBI proposes a plan
for tear-gassing the compound.

April 12, 1993 -- FBI Director William
Sessions, Associate Attorney General Webster
Hubbell and other Department of Justice
members confer with Attorney General Reno,
presenting the tear-gas plan. After some
hesitation, she agrees.

April 13, 1993 -- Koresh tells the FBI he
is not coming out until God tells him to do so.
Hubbell meets for 45 minutes in White House
Counsel Bernard Nussbaum's office with top
Clinton aides Bruce Lindsey and Vince
Foster to discuss the CS gas plan.

April 14, 1993 -- A message from Koresh
says that he will not surrender until he has
written a manuscript explaining the Seven
Seals. Attorney General Reno meets with
military officials, including Delta Force,
to discuss the tear-gas plan.

April 17, 1993 -- A non-Davidian, who had
sneaked in earlier, leaves the compound.
Reno approves the FBI's plan but gives the
prepared material only a cursory review,
"leaving tactical decisions to those at
Waco."

April 18, 1993 -- Reno briefs Clinton on
the CS gas plan, and the President "concurs," but
adds, "It is your decision." Armored
vehicles clear Koresh's Chevrolet Camaro and other
vehicles from the front of the compound.
Several Davidians hold their children in the
windows and flash "Flames Await" signs.

THE FINAL DRAMA
April 19, 1993 -- At 5:59 a.m., the FBI
telephones the Davidians, advising them of the
tear-gas assault. An agent then reads a
message over the loudspeaker, telling them that
they are under arrest and should come out.
At 6:02 a.m., two FBI combat engineering
vehicles (CEVs) begin inserting gas into
the compound through spray nozzles attached to
a boom. At 6:04 a.m., according to the FBI,
the Davidians start shooting, and the FBI
begins shooting CS "ferret" rounds through
the windows from Bradley vehicles. At 7:30, a
CEV breaches the front side of the building
on the first floor as it injects gas, and at 7:58
a.m. gas is inserted in the second floor of
the back-right corner of the building. Another
CEV begins enlarging the opening in the
middle-front of the building "from which the
Davidians could escape" and a third CEV,
with a boom but lacking a gas delivery system,
breaches the rear of the building "to
create openings near the gymnasium."

At 11:40 a.m., the last ferret CS rounds
are delivered. At 12:07 p.m., according to the FBI,
the Davidians start "simultaneous fires at
three or more different locations within the
compound." At 12:12 p.m., the FBI calls on
Koresh to lead the Davidians out to safety.
Nine Davidians flee the compound and are
arrested near the warehouse-gymnasium. At
12:25 p.m., the FBI hears "systematic
gunfire" coming from the compound, leaving the
impression with some agents that the
Davidians are either killing themselves or each
other. Fire engulfs the entire compound,
which in a few minutes burns to the ground. At
12:41, fire-fighting equipment arrives and
begins efforts to extinguish the flames.

REFERENCES:
1 "Waco: The Inside Story," PBS Frontline,
originally broadcast on October 17, 1995, ©
PBS and WGBH/FRONTLINE.

2. Justice Department, Report to the Deputy
Attorney General on the Events at Waco,
Texas, February 28 to April 19,1993, by
Richard Scruggs, Assistant to the Attorney
General, et al., October 8, 1993.

3. Justice Department, Evaluation of the
Handling of the Branch Davidian Stand-off in
Waco, Texas February 28 to April 19, 1993,
by Edward S. G. Dennis, Jr., former Assistant
Attorney General, October 8, 1993.

4. Dean M. Kelley, "Waco: A Massacre and
Its Aftermath," First Things 53 (May 1995):
22-37.

* http://www.waco-anewrevelation.com/Waco/WacoP/pages/NwDv.html

New developments.

November 9, 2000 - Former Waco federal
prosecutor Bill Johnston, who helped expose a six-year
cover-up of government actions in the
Branch Davidian siege, was indicted Wednesday on federal
charges of obstructing the special counsel'
s investigation that he helped set in motion.

The indictment - including two counts of
obstruction of justice and three counts of lying to
investigators and a federal grand jury -
was returned Wednesday in St. Louis just before Waco
special counsel John C. Danforth released
his final report absolving the government of wrongdoing
in the 1993 siege.

Although it omitted any mention of Mr.
Johnston because of the pending prosecution, Mr. Danforth's
197-page report includes harsh criticism of
the husband-wife federal prosecution team that directed
the criminal case against surviving Branch
Davidians. It concludes that they and two FBI agents
each concealed key information about the
government's use of pyrotechnic tear gas at the end of
the Waco standoff.

The report stated that Mr. Danforth will
ask the Justice Department to fire the two assistant U.S.
attorneys, Ray and LeRoy Jahn of San
Antonio, because they went to such "great lengths" to
conceal their knowledge of that information.

Mr. Johnston's lawyer, Michael Kennedy of
New York, said the indictment is baseless and unfair. He
said Mr. Johnston has freely acknowledged
that he made mistakes in his dealings with the special
counsel's office, adding that the decision
to target only his client after a 14-month, $17 million
investigation amounts to "discrimination
and selective prosecution."

"Danforth seeks to destroy the messenger
and whitewash the governmental excesses of Waco," he
said. "While Bill's mistakes were harmless,
the same cannot be said for so many other government
employees, who today are merely chastised
or ignored completely by Mr. Danforth." (The Dallas
Morning News, November 9,2000)

October 26, 2000 - A federal court in St.
Louis on Wednesday refused to quash subpoenas forcing
five supporters of former Waco prosecutor
Bill Johnston to testify before a federal grand jury
investigating government actions in the
1993 Branch Davidian siege.

Houston attorney Dick DeGuerin, who filed a
motion on behalf of the five Waco men, said U.S.
District Judge Stephen Limbaugh ruled after
an hourlong closed-door hearing that he lacked legal
grounds to throw out the subpoenas. They
were issued late last week at the request of the Waco
special counsel's office.

Judge Limbaugh agreed to grant each of the
five men immunity before they are called on Thursday
before the grand jury, Mr. DeGuerin said.

"He made it clear that he saw what was
going on, but at this point, there was not much he could do,"
Mr. DeGuerin said. "This is retaliation and
punishment of these guys for supporting Bill Johnston, as
well as an effort to chill any other potential support."

His motion on behalf of two deputy U.S.
Marshals, a former Waco city manager a Waco lawyer and a
wealthy Waco businessman had alleged that
the subpoenas were part of an ongoing effort to
intimidate them and Mr. Johnston.

A spokesperson for the special counsel's
office declined to comment.

Two months ago, Mr. Johnston was told that
he was being targeted for prosecution by the office of
Waco special counsel John C. Danforth. Mr.
Johnston was among five federal prosecutors who
helped try surviving Davidians in a
criminal trial arising from the siege. (The Dallas Morning News,
October 26,
2000)

September 22, 2000 - Two attorneys for the
survivors of the Branch Davidian siege and their
relatives say they plan to appeal a federal
judge's ruling that the sect members and not the
government were responsible for the 1993 tragedy.

Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who
represented most of the surviving Davidians, said
Thursday that he was saddened but
unsurprised by the ruling. He said he will appeal the decision,
which he said was most notable for the
judge's undisguised disgust and anger toward members of
the sect.

"It's not what you'd expect in a judicial
opinion," he said. "The thing that we should all comprehend
is that a tragedy like this should never
happen again at the hands of our own government and its
agents. You can almost feel like a sense of
celebration in the way the judge addressed the case.

"But there's nothing decent about
celebrating this. It never should have happened," he said. "What
has happened with this case has also been
an enormous injustice from start to finish, and hopefully,
for the good of the country, will be firmly
corrected."

In a 22-page judgment finalizing an
advisory jury's recommendation, U.S. District Judge Walter S.
Smith Jr. ruled that surviving sect members
and their families who had sought $675 million in
damages would "take nothing" from the
federal agencies involved in the deadly standoff. Judge
Smith's ruling also included a lengthy
rebuke of lead plaintiffs' lawyer Michael Caddell of Houston,
saying he abused the judicial process.

The judge wrote that Mr. Caddell had
attempted "for the past year ... to try their case in the media
through the use of innuendo, distortions
and outright falsehoods, rather than honestly presenting the
true facts of the case."

Mr. Caddell issued a brief statement
Thursday saying he also will appeal. He renewed his criticism
of Judge Smith, saying "it was clear that
soon after the trial commenced that Judge Smith had
made up his mind and he could have written his opinion then.

"The appearance of bias and prejudice on
the part of Judge Smith is profound. It is unfortunate that
this case was not tried before an impartial
fact-finder. The American people deserved a process and
tribunal that were above reproach.
Unfortunately, that did not occur," he said. (The Dallas Morning
News, September 21, 2000)

September 21, 2000 - The Branch Davidians'
long-running wrongful-death lawsuit ended
Wednesday with a federal judge's ruling
that they and not the government were responsible for the
1993 tragedy.

Judge Smith's ruling also included a
lengthy rebuke of lead plaintiffs' lawyer Michael Caddell of
Houston, saying he abused the judicial
process.

Mr. Caddell and other lawyers for the
plaintiffs could not be reached Wednesday evening.
The decision drew praise from Justice
Department officials and FBI director Louis Freeh, who termed
it a "most gratifying" vindication of federal law enforcement.

"No one in the FBI wanted anyone harmed.
Everyone did their best under extraordinarily difficult
circumstances. In the end, no one fired a
shot, the government did not start the fires and the
Davidians were found by the court to be
solely responsible for the unnecessary deaths that occurred,"
Mr. Freeh said.

The judge's decision came two months after
an advisory jury concluded that Branch Davidians alone
instigated a Feb. 28, 1993, shootout with
federal agents and then ended a 51-day standoff by
immolating themselves inside their besieged
building. (The Dallas Morning News, September 21,
2000)

September 1, 2000 - The former prosecutor
who warned last year of a possible cover-up of federal
actions in the Branch Davidian siege has
been told he is being targeted for prosecution by Waco
special counsel John C. Danforth. Friends
and associates of former Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill
Johnston say he has been told that the
charges stem from his withholding of several pages of pretrial
notes from the 1994 federal prosecution of
surviving Branch Davidians. They say that Mr. Johnston's
action was a mistake driven by his concern
that his notes would be misused by others in the U.S.
attorney's office who were angry about his
public criticism of the Justice Department's handling of
the Waco tragedy.

Michael Caddell, a Houston lawyer who led a
recent wrongful-death lawsuit against the government
filed by surviving Davidians and their
families, said the threatened prosecution of Mr. Johnston
raises serious questions about the
integrity of Mr. Danforth's Waco inquiry.

"Why single out Bill Johnston? He's not
even in the government anymore. He basically got recused
from the case, got forced out of the
Justice Department, became a pariah," he said. "There are
going to be a lot of people shaking their heads.

"It says a lot about the misdirection of
the Danforth investigation. It ignores wrongdoing by
government officials and whitewashes what
even Danforth admits was less than a truthful
presentation of what happened at Mount
Carmel, and he seeks to go after the one person who tried
to get the truth out." (The Dallas Morning
News, September 1, 2000)

August 4, 2000 - WASHINGTON – The special
counsel reinvestigating aspects of the 1993 siege
near Waco interviewed President Clinton by
telephone Wednesday, the White House said. In a
three-sentence statement, the White House
press office said the president and special counsel John
Danforth had a brief conversation that
morning. "The president voluntarily agreed to be interviewed
and spoke with Senator Danforth for about
15 minutes," the statement said.

The president, in a transcript released
last week by the White House, said he made a "terrible
mistake" in following the Justice
Department's recommendation to permit the FBI to go ahead with a
final assault designed to end the 51-day
standoff with the Branch Davidians. "I gave in to the people
in the Justice Department who were pleading
to go in early, and I felt personally responsible for
what had happened, and I still do," Mr.
Clinton said in comments made in April. "I made a terrible
mistake."

Asked her reaction to his comments, Ms.
Reno said last week: "I think everybody who has been
touched by Waco would like to be able to
undo it." (The Dallas Morning News, August 4, 2000)

July 27, 2000 - WASHINGTON - The appetite
for more Senate investigation of the government's
conduct surrounding the 1993 Branch
Davidian siege may be waning, lawmakers acknowledged,
now that the special counsel has exonerated
federal agents of "bad acts."

John Danforth, the former Republican
senator from Missouri, appeared Wednesday before his
one-time Senate colleagues to discuss an
interim report he issued last week concluding that federal
agents neither fired on the barricaded sect
members nor contributed to the fire that ended the
51-day standoff and killed about 80 Branch
Davidians near Waco.

"The evidence is absolutely overwhelming,"
said Mr. Danforth, appointed last year by Attorney
General Janet Reno to examine lingering
Waco questions. "The government did not start a fire. The
government did not direct gunfire at the
Branch Davidians. The government did not improperly use
the military. And there wasn't any broad cover-up."

Emerging from the hearing, several senators
said the special counsel's comprehensive findings and
the respect he commands on Capitol Hill may
effectively mean the end of the Senate's inquiry. The
House Government Reform Committee has been
conducting an investigation but has yet to decide
whether to hold hearings. (The Dallas
Morning News, July 27, 2000)

July 26, 2000 - WASHINGTON - In language
far stronger than he has publicly used before, President
Clinton said he "made a terrible mistake"
when he "gave in" to the Justice Department and
authorized the FBI assault on the Branch
Davidian compound in 1993 that resulted in the loss of
more than 80 lives.
"I gave in to the people in the Justice
Department who were pleading to go in early, and I felt
personally responsible for what had
happened, and I still do," the president told investigators earlier
this year. "I made a terrible mistake." The
statement, seemingly indicating disagreement with a
recommendation by Attorney General Janet
Reno to proceed with the FBI operation, differs from Mr.
Clinton's earlier comments.

In the past, the president said he signed
off on the tear-gas plan only after questioning Ms. Reno
about why the operation should proceed."I
was informed of the plan to end the siege," Mr. Clinton
told reporters at a Rose Garden news
conference the day after the 51-day standoff's tragic end. "I
discussed it with Attorney General Reno. I
asked the questions I thought it was appropriate for me to
ask. I then told her to do what she thought
was right, and I take full responsibility for the
implementation of the decision." He
reiterated that view in subsequent statements in 1993 and
1995. His latest statements, suggesting
that he was prodded into approving the operation, were
made during an interview last April with
Justice Department investigators probing campaign
fund-raising controversies.

The transcript of the interview, released
Monday by the White House, comes as Waco special
counsel John Danforth heads to Capitol Hill
on Wednesday to discuss his findings overwhelmingly
exonerating the government of misdeeds
during the 1993 siege. (The Dallas Morning News, July 26,
2000)

July 23rd, 2000 - ST. LOUIS – The Waco
special counsel's report emphatically clears Attorney
General Janet Reno of wrongdoing in the
Branch Davidian siege and its aftermath, but it doesn't
extend that finding to her Department of
Justice. The preliminary report released Friday by special
counsel John Danforth reserved some of its
strongest criticism for the Justice Department's actions in
seven years of inquiries that have followed
the 1993 Waco tragedy. The report details repeated
instances of nondisclosure and resistance
to thorough examination of government actions in Waco -
a pattern that began with the agency's own
1993 post-siege review and continued in Mr. Danforth's
ongoing investigation.

"The only antidote to … public distrust is
government openness and candor," the former Missouri
senator wrote in the preface to his interim
report. "Instead, and tragically, just the opposite occurred
after Waco. Even in their dealings with
this investigation, some government officials have struggled
to keep a close hold on information." (The
Dallas Morning News, July 23, 2000)

July 22, 2000 - WASHINGTON – Congress wants
to hear from the Waco special counsel who has
emphatically cleared the government of
wrongdoing during the 1993 Branch Davidian siege. Hours
after he issued a report exonerating
federal law enforcement, special counsel John Danforth was
asked Friday to appear next week before a
Senate Judiciary subcommittee reinvestigating the
government's conduct at Waco. "We need to
know obviously more than his conclusions, but the
details of the evidence and what he has
done," Mr. Specter said. "... There is a responsibility on
congressional oversight to make an
independent determination. The starting point is to get the
details as to what Danforth has done."

But in some circles, the report did little
to quell the tenaciously held belief that thegovernment
committed wrongful acts and then covered them up.

"We had received indications from
Danforths' office that they intended to tow the government line
on every issue," said Michael Caddell, the
lead plaintiff's attorney in the civil suit. He said he was
troubled by the fact that the inquiry
accepted the explanations of FBI commanders and other agents
with little criticism, even though "they've
admitted that they lied for seven years," about the
pyrotechnic tear-gas grenades issues. He
said the report also failed to address criticisms that were
raised in depositions of infrared experts
hired by Mr. Danforth and the federal court that is hearing
the civil case.

"There are a number of us, us being Waco
critics, who are dumfounded by his results," said Colorado
filmmaker Michael McNulty, whose two Waco
documentaries popularized the theory that agents
fired on the Davidians, trapping them
inside their burning retreat. "I'm afraid Danforth has not
answered all of the dark questions."

Branch Davidian Clive Doyle said the
findings in Mr. Danforth's report came as no surprise,
especially after the jury's verdict last
week. "It takes somebody with a lot more courage, than
probably most politicians have got, to
stick their neck out and buck the system," said Mr. Doyle, who
survived the fire that consumed the
compound at the end of the siege and who is a plaintiff in the
suit. "His job is make Janet Reno look
good, make the government look good, because ... he is trying
to get people to trust the government
again, so he's got to exonerate them. Otherwise, you still got
the problem." (The Dallas Morning News,
July 22, 2000)

July 22, 2000 - ST. LOUIS - Exonerating the
government of "bad acts" in the Branch Davidian
siege, Waco special counsel John Danforth
said Friday that his 10-month inquiry had found that
David Koresh and his followers were solely
responsible for the 1993 tragedy. Releasing a lengthy
preliminary report of his 10-month
investigation, the former Missouri senator said he found with "100
percent certainty" that the government did
not fire guns at the end of the 1993 siege or cause the
fire that gutted the Branch Davidian
compound with about 80 sect members inside. Although he
said his inquiry focused only on "bad acts
and not bad judgments," the report released Friday made
a point of trying to discount criticisms of
the government's conduct during the incident. The report
concluded that any government wrongdoing in
the incident or its aftermath was limited to the failure
of a few individuals to disclose what they
knew about the FBI's use of pyrotechnic tear gas on the
day the compound burned. (The Dallas
Morning News, July 22, 2000)

July 14, 2000 - WACO - Jurors hearing the
wrongful-death lawsuit over the government's handling of
the Branch Davidian siege found in favor of
the government Friday on all issues. The findings in the
$675 million case are advisory to U.S.
District Judge Walter Smith Jr. He is free to accept or reject
the jury's decision. Judge Smith said he
tentatively planned to issue his ruling on Aug. 2. The jurors
reached their decision after 2 & 1/2 hours
of deliberations on the same day they heard final
arguments from both sides about the botched
raid and the standoff's fiery conclusion. Government
attorney Michael Bradford told the jurors
that the plaintiffs failed to prove the government should
bear responsibility for the deaths of sect
members. "They set this place on fire. They're responsible
for the deaths in there because they burned
this place to the ground, '' Bradford said, referring to the
inferno that brought the standoff to a
deadly end. "This was one of the most terrible and horrible
events in our history and they want to come
into court and ask you to award them a judgment,''
Bradford said. "That would be wrong. It
would not be supported by anything that would be just and
right.'' (The Dallas Morning News, July 14, 2000)

July 14, 2000 - WACO – A plaintiff's
attorney complained Thursday that a federal judge appeared to
be "ignoring the law" and trying to "
engineer a verdict" favorable to the government as both sides
finished presenting evidence in the Branch
Davidian wrongful-death lawsuit. Michael Caddell of
Houston told reporters that the judge's
written instructions and questions for the advisory jury unfairly
lump the Davidians together as a group
instead of allowing separate consideration of the death or
injuries and actions or negligence of each
individual in the case. "I think the jury may surprise the
judge. I think that the judge would like to
engineer a verdict," Mr. Caddell said on the steps of the
federal courthouse in Waco. "I think we can
get a jury verdict anyway. But it's clear that he doesn't
want a verdict with respect to anyone 17 or
older that will be inconsistent with what he wants to do."
(The Dallas Morning News, July 14, 2000)

July 13, 2000 - WACO – An FBI agent
acknowledged Wednesday that he fired three pyrotechnic
tear-gas rounds on the final day of the
Branch Davidian siege but said they didn't go into the sect's
building and were fired hours before it
burned. Agent David Corderman denied sending any of the
gas devices into the sect's kitchen,
insisting that the three rounds he shot into that area of the
building just after noon were all
nonburning, plastic "ferret" gas grenades. He and other agents
involved in an April 19, 1993, tear-gas
assault on the compound have testified in the Branch
Davidian wrongful-death trial that they saw
white smoke wafting out of the kitchen area just after
those rounds were fired. Agent Corderman
acknowledged Wednesday that pyrotechnic gas rounds
expel white smoke when fired, but he said
the smoke he saw in the kitchen was "white smoke from a
fire." A government fire expert also
testified Wednesday that such devices were "very unlikely" to
have started any of the three fires that
leveled the Davidian compound with more than 80 sect
members inside on April 19. (The Dallas
Morning News, July 13, 2000)

July 12, 2000 - WACO - The tank that ripped
down the rear of the Branch Davidian compound wasn't
trying to demolish the building but was
trying to clear a path to get tear gas into the sect's hiding
place, an FBI agent testified Tuesday. "We
didn't want to just recklessly move through the place,"
said agent Gary Harris, who drove the 60-
ton vehicle on the last day of the 1993 Davidian siege
near Waco. "It wasn't a haphazard, just run
up and smash and crash things. That's not the reason I
was back there in my mind, and that's not
the orders I was given." (The Dallas Morning News, July
12, 2000)

July 11, 2000 - WACO, TEXAS - Branch
Davidians talked about fire in the days before the fatal end
of the Waco siege, at one point joking
about becoming a "charcoal briquette" and at another saying
it was "God's will" to "take us up like
flames of fire." The FBI secretly recorded conversations among
the Davidians during the 1993 siege.
Excerpts were played for a jury on Monday in the Branch
Davidians' wrongful death suit against the
government. The tapes included barely audible passages
from the morning of the fire in which
Davidians passed orders to "spread the fuel," "pour it," "pass
the torch" and "light it." The government
is trying to prove that the Davidians set fire to the complex
and are responsible for the deaths of about
80 people on April 19, 1993. (The St. Louis
Post-Dispatch, July 11, 2000)

July 6, 2000 - WACO – David Koresh grew "
militant" just before his sect's bloody standoff with the
government, ordering followers to make
grenades, silencers and machine guns and predicting a
shootout with authorities, a former Branch
Davidian testified Wednesday. In the months before the
1993 siege, Donald Bunds said in deposition
testimony read to jurors, the self-proclaimed messiah
also taught followers to expect a violent
end and his death at the hands of outside enemies. "He was
almost constantly going through a scenario
where the enemy or the cops or the ATF . . . were going
to come down the driveway with rifles, and
we were going to have to shoot back," Mr. Bunds said. "It
was going to happen to him and his group,
and they were going to join him in his battle." (The
Dallas Morning News, July 6, 2000)

July 7, 2000 - WACO – Government lawyers
Thursday began wrapping up their defense of federal
actions in the gunfight that sparked the
Branch Davidian siege, meticulously detailing the sect's
firepower and its absolute devotion to self-
proclaimed messiah David Koresh. A succession of Texas
Rangers were called to testify Thursday
about their role in recovering more than 300 guns and
hundreds of thousands of rounds of
ammunition from the charred wreckage of the Davidian
compound. The Texas lawmen detailed how 60
M-16 machine guns, 60 AK-47 assault rifles, about
30 AR-15 assault rifles, several .50-
caliber sniper rifles and dozens of pistols were discovered after
the compound burned April 19, 1993. They
told jurors in the Davidian wrongful-death suit how some
weapons were arrayed in what appeared to be
firing positions, and 133 were recovered from the
concrete room where bodies of most of the
sect's women and all of its children were discovered.
(The Dallas Morning News, July 7, 2000)

June 29, 2000 - WACO – Branch Davidian
Clive Doyle acknowledged Wednesday that sect members
considered David Koresh as God incarnate,
but he denied repeatedly that they fired the first shots in
a deadly standoff with the government or
torched their compound to end it. He wept as he told jurors
in the sect's wrongful-death trial about
how his daughter, Shari, died in the compound fire. But he
acknowledged never trying to find the 18-
year-old or even seeing her on the day that the FBI
launched a tear gas assault and the
building burned. Ms. Doyle was among more than 80 sect
members who died in the blaze. Lawyers for
surviving Davidians and the families of those who died
have alleged that FBI tanks started or
contributed to the fire and that FBI commanders were
negligent in failing to have firefighting
equipment available before launching a tank and tear gas
assault. (The Dallas Morning News, June 29, 2000)

June 28, 2000 - WACO - The youngest
survivor of the Branch Davidian fire told jurors in a federal
wrongful-death lawsuit Tuesday that
extensive tank damage on the final day of the 1993 siege
buckled upper floors, blocked stairways and
nearly cut off her escape from the burning building. "I
tried to get out the hallway, but I couldn'
t go that way. . . . That was the only way out," testified
24-year-old Misty Ferguson, describing her
final minutes in the smoke-filled, damaged building. "I
didn't want to be burned." Ms. Ferguson
told jurors that she noticed her hands were badly burned
after leaping from the second story of the
building. She offered mute evidence of her injuries as she
took the witness stand, raising a right arm
to expose the stump of a hand with no fingers. She also
suffered severe facial burns and lost the
fingers on her left hand in the fire that took the lives of 80
Branch Davidians on April 19, 1993. Ms.
Ferguson, a North Carolina resident who was 17 at the time
of the fire, appeared as the final witness
for plaintiffs represented by lead lawyer Michael Caddell.
Speaking in a quiet voice, Ms. Ferguson
testified that she noticed the fire "15 to 25 minutes" after a
tank ripped up much of the second-story
bedroom where she had been waiting out the FBI's tear-gas
assault. (The Dallas Morning News, June 28, 2000)

June 26, 2000 - WACO – Day after day,
Branch Davidian Sheila Martin sat quietly in the back of a
federal courtroom last week, reliving the
tragic events that brought her here. It was the beginning of
the long-awaited trial in the sect's
wrongful-death lawsuit. She has been joined in court by other
Branch Davidians and relatives of the dead,
some who say they came for truth and justice. Her daily
presence in court has been to show that "
this is very important to us and to the families that are not
with us," she said. The sect argues that
government agents used excessive force in their initial 1993
raid on the group's rural compound and also
helped cause the tragic ending of the ensuing 51-day
standoff. But the government asserts that
its agents acted properly and should bear no responsibility
for the final fire that consumed the sect's
home with more than 80 Branch Davidians inside. (The
Dallas Morning News, June 26, 2000)

June 20, 2000 - WACO, Texas - A federal
judge picked a six-member jury to advise him as he hears
a $675 million civil lawsuit brought by
Branch Davidians and their families charging that federal
agents caused the deathsof 80 cult members
in a fiery siege seven years ago. The jury, consisting of
four women and two men, plus one alternate,
will hear the case and advise Federal Judge Walter
Smith on his ruling. Smith will make the
final decisions in the civil case that claims government
agents forced the 51-day-long standoff with
Branch Davidian leader David Koresh and then caused
the fires that destroyed the compound. The
judge ordered Monday that the names of the jurors in
the high profile case be kept confidential
and set opening statements in the case for Tuesday. The
jurors were picked from a pool of 60 and
include a social worker, a homemaker and an elementary
school teacher. (Reuters, June 20,
2000)

June 19, 2000 - WACO, Texas - Jury
selection was scheduled to begin on Monday in a lawsuit by
Branch Davidians and their families
charging the U.S. government caused the deaths of about 80
sect members in a siege of their central
Texas compound seven years ago. At issue is the question,
still hotly debated in America, of whether
the FBI or Branch Davidians are responsible for the deaths
of cult leader David Koresh and many of his
followers.
The plaintiffs, numbering around 100, are
Branch Davidians who survived the siege and relatives of
those who died on April 19, 1993, when the
rural compound went up in flames as FBI agents using
armored vehicles and tear gas tried to end
a 51-day standoff. The $675 million wrongful death
lawsuit alleges that federal agents
triggered the standoff by using excessive force in a raid aimed at
arresting Koresh on weapons charges, caused
the fires that destroyed the compound and kept
firefighters away. The government denies
all those allegations.(Reuters, June 19, 2000)

June 12, 2000 - WACO, Texas - The jury in
the Branch Davidians' wrongful-death trial will not
consider the issue of whether federal
agents shot at members of the sect during the fiery end of the
1993 siege, a judge ruled Monday. Instead,
U.S. District Judge Walter Smith said he will take up the
issue separately when a court-appointed
expert - who is unable to attend the trial set to begin next
week - is available to testify. Attorneys
for both sides said they believe the issue won't be addressed
until August. The jurors will hear
testimony on other issues, including whether federal agents used
excessive force in the initial raid on the
Branch Davidian compound that started the 51-day standoff,
and whether they helped caused fires that
destroyed the compound. (AP, June 12, 2000)

June 9, 2000 - WACO, Tex. – Seven years
after the FBI's siege of the Branch Davidian compound
near here ended in fire and death, the city
of Waco is fed up with the awful images its name evokes.
Who's to blame? Did the religious cult
cause the catastrophe, as federal officials contend? Did the
FBI use grossly excessive force," as a
lawsuit against the government alleges? Waco's citizens aren't
much interested. The disaster is an ugly
memory they'd like to forget. But of course they can't. And
now this central Texas city is wearily
braced for a courtroom replay of the nightmare. The federal
government is scheduled to go on trial here
June 19 as the defendant in a wrongful-death civil case
brought by scores of plaintiffs, most of
them relatives of Branch Davidians who perished in the April
19, 1993, conflagration. (Washington Post, June 9, 2000)

June 6, 2000 - WASHINGTON -- The Supreme
Court on Monday substantially reduced the prison
terms of four men convicted of killing
federal lawmen at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco
in 1993. In their 9-0 decision, the
justices said U.S. District Judge Walter Smith of Waco improperly
lengthened the sentences of the men found
guilty of slaying four Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms agents. (Houston Chronicle
Washington Bureau, June 6, 2000)

May 27, 2000 - DALLAS, Texas - The wrongful
death suit blaming the government for the fire that
ended the 1993 Branch Davidian siege will
be decided by a jury and not a federal judge alone.
The decision Friday by U.S. District Judge
Walter S. Smith comes only weeks before the June 19
start date of the trial. Federal limits on
private lawsuits against the government and its agencies
require that most such cases be heard and
decided by a judge without a jury. But federal judges
have discretion to bring in juries to hear
some civil cases. ``I applaud the judge for doing this,'' lead
attorney Michael Caddell said in Saturday's
editions of The Dallas Morning News. ``I think the
government won't like it.'' (AP, May 27, 2000)

May 17, 2000 - WACO, Texas - The FBI may
have mishandled some key evidence related to the
deadly 1993 Waco siege, but Branch Davidian
lawyers failed to prove the government intentionally
altered or destroyed any items, a federal
judge ruled Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Walter Smith,
who is presiding over a wrongful-death
lawsuit set to begin June 19, said there is ``no basis'' for him
to order the government ``to turn over any
additional evidence or to impose sanction for actions
which apparently occurred over seven years
ago when the evidence was first collected and collated.''
(AP, May 17, 2000)

May 15, 2000 - WASHINGTON - U.S. Attorney
General Janet Reno said on Thursday she has been
questioned by the special counsel
investigating the disastrous 1993 raid at the Branch Davidian
compound near Waco, Texas. A spokesman for
Reno said the questioning by former Sen. John
Danforth, who is investigating whether
federal agents caused any deaths in the assault or covered up
evidence, took place on May 3 and lasted
nearly six hours. (Reuters, May 15, 2000)

May 14, 2000 - WACO, Texas - A lawyer
representing surviving Branch Davidians in a
wrongful-death lawsuit says the death of an
infrared expert who contended that shots were fired by
the government during the Waco siege is a
major setback in the case. ``We're not giving up, but I
don't know how we'll replace Carlos
Ghigliotti,'' said attorney Mike Caddell. (AP, May 14, 2000)

May 10, 2000 - WASHINGTON - An independent
study of aerial infrared tapes taken by the FBI on
the final day of the Branch Davidian
standoff in Waco, Texas, seven years ago found no evidence
that FBI agents shot at the compound. A
British company, Vector Data Systems, analyzed the video
shot on April 19, 1993 and compared it to
footage from a reenactment conducted in March. The
analysis was paid for by Special Counsel
John Danforth, appointed by the Justice Department to
provide an independent investigation of the
governmentactions in the Waco case. (CNN, May 10,
2000)

May 04, 2000 - The FBI rarely admits its
mistakes. But two G-men come clean in an upcoming
documentary linking the 1992 Ruby Ridge
tragedy to the ones that followed in Waco and Oklahoma
City. …"Had the FBI made the admission that
the [Ruby Ridge] case was mishandled from the
beginning, there might not have been the
tragic outcome there was at Waco, because the policies
and the personnel might have been changed,"
said the documentary's producer-director, Craig
Santy. (News and Views, Daily Dish, May 04, 2000)

May 3, 2000 - Special counsel John C.
Danforth has asked the U.S. Marshals Service to collect the
computer hardware and software used by
Carlos Ghigliotti to analyze infrared tapes of the Waco
incident in 1993. Ghigliotti, an infrared
expert, was found dead last week in his home in Laurel, Md.
(The Post-Dispatch, May 3, 2000)

May 2, 2000 - The lead lawyer in the Branch
Davidians' wrongful death lawsuit asked a federal
judge Monday to impound all information
relating to the 1993 siege of the sect's compound from a
Washington-area office where an infrared
expert was found dead last week. (Dallas Morning News,
May 2, 2000)

April 25,2000 - The Supreme Court on Monday
questioned the way a judge sentenced Branch
Davidians who are seeking to cut 25 years
from their prison terms for the deadly 1993 raid near
Waco. (Dallas Morning News, April 25,
2000)

April 24, 2000 - A federal judge in Waco,
Texas, said Monday the question of whether FBI agents
shot at members of the Branch Davidians on
the final day of the 1993 siege remains unanswered,
despite a finding by independent experts
that no shots were fired. Judge Walter Smith said he will
wait to hear all the evidence and other
expert testimony before determining if the agents shot at the
Davidians. (CNN, April 24, 2000)

April 24, 2000- Lawyers for surviving
Branch Davidians urged a federal judge on Monday to rule that
the U.S. government tampered with evidence
from the 1993 Waco siege. The sect's lawyers contend
there are gaps in surveillance videos,
photographs and wiretap tapes from the last day of the siege.
After the hearing, Waco U.S. District Court
Judge Walter Smith said he would make a decision soon
on whether evidence was tampered with and,
if so, whether to impose sanctions on the government.
(Reuters, April 24, 2000)

April 22, 2000 - A simulation of the deadly
1993 Branch Davidian siege showed that flashes caught
on videotape were most likely sunlight
reflecting off debris, not government gunfire as claimed in a
wrongful death lawsuit, according to a
preliminary report.
Vector Data Systems, the British firm that
conducted the March 19 simulation at an Army base in
Texas, submitted its report earlier this
month to U.S. District Judge Walter Smith Jr., who is presiding
over the Branch Davidian lawsuit, the St.
Louis Post-Dispatch reported Saturday, citing unidentified
informed sources. Vector found that flashes
produced by sunlight reflecting off debris lasted
considerably longer than flashes produced
by gunfire, the newspaper said.
But an attorney for Branch Davidian
survivors and relatives, Michael Caddell, insists he does not
have to prove government gunfire caused the
deaths of more than 80 members of the sect. And he
said his own experts will contradict the
conclusion that the flashes were reflections.(AP, April 22,
2000)

April 22, 2000 - The lead lawyer in the
Branch Davidians' wrongful-death case charged Friday that
the Justice Department is "misrepresenting
the law [and] the facts" to avoid being assessed even
partial responsibility for the 1993 Waco tragedy.
His lengthy motion alleges that government
officials from Attorney General Janet Reno on down
were "continuing their seven-year spin" as
they seek dismissal of legal complaints that the
government and its agents were negligent in
failing to bring in adequate firefighting equipment
before launching a tear-gas assault on the
sect's home and prematurely ordering tanks to start
demolishing it. (The Dallas Morning News, April 22, 2000)

April 19, 2000 - Organizers of a new Branch
Davidian church dedicated the modest one-story
structure today on the seventh anniversary
of the government siege that ended in the deaths of
some 80 people. Nearly 300 people, most of
them volunteers, survivors and their family members,
packed into the church on the site of the
Branch Davidians' former Mount Carmel compound to
remember those who died and to celebrate a
new beginning. (AP, April 19, 2000)

April 19, 2000 - The smoke has cleared, but
nagging questions linger. Seven years after the Branch
Davidian fire, a battle rages over who was
responsible for the deadly end to the 51-day standoff
between federal agents and a little-known
religious sect holed up in a ramshackle collection of
plywood buildings 10 miles east of Waco,
Texas.
With attorneys for the two sides watching [
on March 19th, 2000], men playing the part of ATF agents
fired a variety of weapons into the "
compound" as a British helicopter equipped with a
forward-looking infrared (FLIR) video
camera recorded the scene from high above. Comparisons
were made between the 1993 tape and the
2000 tape and, within a day, both sides were eager to
publicize the results. (ABC News Internet
Ventures, April 19, 2000)

April 6, 2000 - Attorney General Janet Reno
acknowledged in a videotaped deposition last week
that FBI agents operating near Waco, Tex.,
lacked authority to use potentially flammable tear gas
devices or to demolish the Branch Davidian
compound that went up in flames in April 1993, leaving
75 people dead. (Washington Post, April 6, 2000)

April 6, 2000 - Armed with new testimony
from Attorney General Janet Reno defending the FBI's
actions at the end of the Branch Davidian
siege, Justice Department lawyers again asked a federal
judge Wednesday to dismiss most of the sect'
s lawsuit against the government. (Dallas Morning
News, April 6, 2000)

March 31, 2000 - The federal wrongful-death
case arising from the Branch Davidian siege will be
delayed until mid-June to allow more time
to study results from a field test aimed at determining
whether government agents fired at the end
of the 1993 incident, sources said Thursday. (Dallas
Morning News, March 31, 2000)

March 28, 2000 - The lead attorney
representing the Branch Davidians in a wrongful death lawsuit
against the government said he believes
Attorney General Janet Reno was "less than candid" in a
portion of her two-hour deposition Tuesday. (CNN, March 28, 2000)

March 20, 2000 - Lawyers on opposing sides
of the legal battle over the FBI's 1993 assault on the
Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Tex.,
both claimed yesterday that the results from Sunday's
live-fire exercise supports their version
of events.
The experiment, carried out at an Army
base, involved eight shooters firing a variety of weapons
while two aircraft with heat-sensing
cameras recorded the activity. The tapes will be scientifically
compared with images recorded by a similar
camera on an FBI plane during the 1993 raid to
determine whether agents fired gunshots at
the religious sect's burning building. (Washington Post,
March 21, 2000)

January 26, 2000 -- Government lawyers
formally denied Tuesday that anyone in federal law
enforcement or the U.S. military shot at
the Branch Davidian compound at the end of the deadly
1993 siege.

Their four-page federal court filing,
including sworn statements by Defense Department and U.S.
Treasury Department lawyers, came a week
after lawyers for the Branch Davidians complained to a
federal judge in Waco about the government'
s refusal to answer that key question (Dallas Morning
News, January 26, 2000).

January 25, 2000 -- The federal prosecutor
who warned Attorney General Janet Reno of a possible
government cover-up after the 1993 Branch
Davidian siege resigned Tuesday. Assistant U.S.
Attorney Bill Johnston, has been at odds
with Justice officials since he paved the way last year for
independent filmmakers to review evidence
sifted from the charred ruins of the Davidians'
compound.

Filmmaker Michael McNulty's discovery of a
spent pyrotechnic tear gas canister forced the FBI to
recant its longstanding denials that
potentially incendiary devices were fired on April 19, 1993.
Johnston, 40, acknowledged mounting
frustration with Justice officials, whom he called ``less than
forthright.'' (AP, January 25, 2000)

January 19, 2000 -- Relatives suing the
government over the deadly Branch Davidian standoff claim
they are getting stonewalled on a key
question in their wrongful death case - whether anyone under
the direction of U.S. authorities fired
shots on the compound. (AP, January 19, 2000)

December 30, 1999 -- FBI tactical missteps
in the first weeks of the Waco siege hopelessly fouled
negotiations with the Davidians, according
to previously undisclosed Justice Department memos
(Dallas Morning News, December 30, 1999).

December 22, 1999 -- The Justice Department
reverses course, agreeing to an infrared film test that
could help determine whether federal agents
shot at the Branch Davidians in the 1993 standoff
(Dallas Morning News, December 23, 1999).

December 20, 1999 -- Government lawyers
argue that field tests cannot re-create the last day of the
Branch Davidian siege, proposing instead
studies of what gunfire might look like on the infrared
camera used by the FBI at Waco (Dallas Morning News, December 23, 1999).

December 15, 1999 -- Government lawyers ask
a federal judge to block release of documents
surrendered to lawyers for Branch
Davidians, arguing that disclosure poses security risks for federal
agents and military personnel (Dallas Morning News, December 17, 1999).

November 15, 1999 -- Justice Department
officials, facing possible contempt of court charges, turn
over files demanded by U.S. District Judge
Walter S. Smith Jr. in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by
Branch Davidians (UPI, November 15, 1999).

November 8, 1999 -- FBI marksman Lon
Horiuchi, present at both Waco and Ruby Ridge, is depicted
by a major news magazine as "the most
controversial law enforcement officer in America" (U.S.
News, November 8, 1999).

November 3, 1999 -- The film Waco: A New
Revelation is screened in Washington for press and
government officials, showing alleged
shooting by federal agents and demolition of the Davidian
"bunker" by high explosives (Fort Worth Star-Telegram, November 4, 1999).

October 29, 1999 -- Documents released
under the Freedom of Information Act show that the
military was for the most part a reluctant
participant at Waco, agreeing only after a bitter internal
struggle (Waco Tribune-Herald, October 29, 1999).

October 8, 1999 -- The FBI turns over to
investigators thousands of newly- discovered documents that
paint a detailed picture of aggressive
federal tactics used during the 51-day siege at Waco
(Washington Post, October 8, 1999).

October 5, 1999 -- An infrared-image expert
retained by the House Government Reform Committee
says he believes that an FBI agent fired
shots during the Branch Davidian siege (Washington Post,
October 6, 1999).

September 13, 1999 -- A document detailing
an FBI sniper's assertion that an agent fired at the
Branch Davidians is among 25 motions,
rulings and exhibit lists filed in the multimillion-dollar
Davidian lawsuit (Fort Worth Star-Telegram, September 13,1999).

September 8, 1999 -- Former Republican Sen.
John Danforth of Missouri is chosen by Attorney
General Janet Reno to direct an independent
investigation of the FBI siege of the Mt. Carmel
compound (Dallas Morning News, September 8, 1999).

September 1, 1999 -- Federal marshals enter
the FBI's headquarters and impound previously
undisclosed Waco evidence, including
infrared videotapes taken at the scene (Associated Press,
September 1, 1999).

August 30, 1999 -- Assistant U.S. Attorney
Bill Johnston of Waco warns Attorney General Janet Reno
that evidence may have been withheld from
her by "individuals or components" within the Justice
Department (Dallas Morning News, August 31, 1999).

August 26, 1999 -- Attorney General Janet
Reno says she was "misled" by the FBI about devices
used in the final assault, which she
believed were not incendiary (Washington Post, August 27,
1999).

August 25, 1999 -- Former CIA officer Gene
Cullen says he learned from Delta Force commandos
that members of that secret Army unit were "
present, up front and close" in the final assault at Waco
(Dallas Morning News, August 26, 1999).

August 24, 1999 -- A former senior FBI
official admits the agency fired two pyrotechnic tear gas
grenades on the last day of the Waco siege (
Dallas Morning News, August 24, 1999).

July 27, 1999 -- The head of the Texas
Department of Public Safety says that evidence held by the
Texas Rangers calls into question the FBI's
claim that its agents used no incendiary devices (Dallas
Morning News, July 28, 1999).

July 14, 1999 -- Federal judge Walter S.
Smith Jr. clears the way for a $100 million civil lawsuit by
Branch Davidian survivors and relatives,
alleging that the FBI was reckless and negligent in its tank
and tear-gas assault at Waco (Washington Post, July 14, 1999).

* InaccurateProbablyDx.
Data tagged with this phrase has been determined,
by comparison with other data, to be as the phrase describes.

Alphabetical Site Index

Inbox

Get the latest updates from MSN

MSN Home

My MSN

Hotmail

Shopping

Money

People & Chat

Feedback | Help

� 2006 Microsoft TERMS OF USE Advertise TRUSTe Approved Privacy Statement GetNetWise Anti-Spam Policy