Bedbugs make their return in UK and perhaps US.

Hacker fells Area 51 Web site

Feds Try Odd Anti-Porn Approach: “The U.S. Department of Justice is quietly recruiting critics of filtering software to help it

defend a controversial anti-pornography law in court.

Government attorneys are asking librarians and academics who have published criticisms of the

controversial filtering products to testify in an expected trial over the Child Online Protection Act. The Justice Department’s reasoning is simple: If products like Cyberpatrol and Surfwatch are

so badly flawed that they don’t block what they should, then the judge in the case should

uphold a federal law making it a crime to post erotica online instead.” [Wired]

FBI works to head off plans to pardon Leonard Peltier: ‘FBI officials across the nation are mobilizing to prevent a presidential pardon for Leonard

Peltier, the American Indian activist imprisoned for murder whose claim of innocence has inspired a two-decade protest movement in his behalf.

(Officials)… say they fear that Peltier, in prison for killing two FBI agents will be freed by President Clinton on his way out of office.

“Recently, information has been received to indicate that Leonard Peltier, who has been convicted for his direct participation in the murders of

two Special Agents of the FBI, will be considered for release from prison as a result of executive intervention,” David Williams, special agent in

charge of Milwaukee’s FBI office, wrote in a letter to the Journal Sentinel, one of a number of letters the FBI sent to newspapers around the

country….Amnesty International considers Peltier to be a political prisoner who should be unconditionally released. Gina Chiala, a coordinator for the

Leonard Peltier Defense Committee in Lawrence, Kan., said “the Justice Department has been pretty tight-lipped” about any possible plans for

Peltier’s release.

With Peltier’s growing status as a political prisoner in Native-American circles, the FBI appears to be taking the unusual step of entering into a

public relations battle to affect the possible actions of the executive branch. ‘ Fascinating development, as is the fact that for the first time an Administration might finally be listening to the longstanding fervent advocacy on Peltier’s behalf.

Pot Calls Kettle Black: “They said they were going to do this in a sensitive way. What does this do to this little boy? What have

they done to this boy? He lost his mother, and now this.”

I realize that I seem to be posting more stuff recently related to my interests as a physician. I’m thinking about recent days’ items such as the feuding addictionologists, the research findings about face recognition in autistic-spectrum disorders, and the comparative ratings of state medical boards. Is this stuff meaningful to you lay people or would you rather see it shifted to a second weblog geared more for medical or mental health professionals? I’ve toyed with the idea of separating it out. [Of course, then I could have two weblogs nobody reads instead of just one!] Comments?

“Mafiaboy” wiretaps also land his father: Police allege that surveillance in international hacking case turned up plans for assault. [Montreal Gazette]

How Stuff Works!

Showdown With The Pinkertons

“…Jim told me something I hadn’t quite grasped: the anonymous reporting culture is a growing

business, now deeply entrenched in the United States, a result of the victimization movement

and lawsuit epidemic rampant for nearly a generation. Encouraged by federal and local

governments, and many corporate and educational institutions, hotlines operate all over the

country to report date rape, sexual harassment, abuse, and other forms of brutality and

insensitivity. Since so many institutions in the United States are now presumed to be

unresponsive to the needs of one group or another, privately-administered anonymous

reporting hotlines are spreading. Pinkerton itself runs more than 800 such lines. It was

inevitable, said Jim, that they would move into schools…”