Pentagon Sets Stage for U.S. to Respond to Computer Sabotage

[seemslikeadream]

WSJ is on a roll

Cyber Combat: Act of War
Pentagon Sets Stage for U.S. to Respond to Computer Sabotage With Military Force


By SIOBHAN GORMAN And JULIAN E. BARNES

WASHINGTON—The Pentagon has concluded that computer sabotage coming from another country can constitute an act of war, a finding that for the first time opens the door for the U.S. to respond using traditional military force.

The Pentagon's first formal cyber strategy, unclassified portions of which are expected to become public next month, represents an early attempt to grapple with a changing world in which a hacker could pose as significant a threat to U.S. nuclear reactors, subways or pipelines as a hostile country's military.

In part, the Pentagon intends its plan as a warning to potential adversaries of the consequences of attacking the U.S. in this way. "If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks," said a military official.

Reuters
The Pentagon is studying when cyber attacks justify military action. An Air Force security center in Colorado.

Recent attacks on the Pentagon's own systems—as well as the sabotaging of Iran's nuclear program via the Stuxnet computer worm—have given new urgency to U.S. efforts to develop a more formalized approach to cyber attacks. A key moment occurred in 2008, when at least one U.S. military computer system was penetrated. This weekend Lockheed Martin, a major military contractor, acknowledged that it had been the victim of an infiltration, while playing down its impact.

The report will also spark a debate over a range of sensitive issues the Pentagon left unaddressed, including whether the U.S. can ever be certain about an attack's origin, and how to define when computer sabotage is serious enough to constitute an act of war. These questions have already been a topic of dispute within the military.

One idea gaining momentum at the Pentagon is the notion of "equivalence." If a cyber attack produces the death, damage, destruction or high-level disruption that a traditional military attack would cause, then it would be a candidate for a "use of force" consideration, which could merit retaliation.

The War on Cyber Attacks

Attacks of varying severity have rattled nations in recent years.

June 2009: First version of Stuxnet virus starts spreading, eventually sabotaging Iran's nuclear program. Some experts suspect it was an Israeli attempt, possibly with American help.

November 2008: A computer virus believed to have originated in Russia succeeds in penetrating at least one classified U.S. military computer network.

August 2008: Online attack on websites of Georgian government agencies and financial institutions at start of brief war between Russia and Georgia.

May 2007: Attack on Estonian banking and government websites occurs that is similar to the later one in Georgia but has greater impact because Estonia is more dependent on online banking.

The Pentagon's document runs about 30 pages in its classified version and 12 pages in the unclassified one. It concludes that the Laws of Armed Conflict—derived from various treaties and customs that, over the years, have come to guide the conduct of war and proportionality of response—apply in cyberspace as in traditional warfare, according to three defense officials who have read the document. The document goes on to describe the Defense Department's dependence on information technology and why it must forge partnerships with other nations and private industry to protect infrastructure.

The strategy will also state the importance of synchronizing U.S. cyber-war doctrine with that of its allies, and will set out principles for new security policies. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization took an initial step last year when it decided that, in the event of a cyber attack on an ally, it would convene a group to "consult together" on the attacks, but they wouldn't be required to help each other respond. The group hasn't yet met to confer on a cyber incident.

Pentagon officials believe the most-sophisticated computer attacks require the resources of a government. For instance, the weapons used in a major technological assault, such as taking down a power grid, would likely have been developed with state support, Pentagon officials say.

The move to formalize the Pentagon's thinking was borne of the military's realization the U.S. has been slow to build up defenses against these kinds of attacks, even as civilian and military infrastructure has grown more dependent on the Internet. The military established a new command last year, headed by the director of the National Security Agency, to consolidate military network security and attack efforts.

The Pentagon itself was rattled by the 2008 attack, a breach significant enough that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs briefed then-President George W. Bush. At the time, Pentagon officials said they believed the attack originated in Russia, although didn't say whether they believed the attacks were connected to the government. Russia has denied involvement.

The Rules of Armed Conflict that guide traditional wars are derived from a series of international treaties, such as the Geneva Conventions, as well as practices that the U.S. and other nations consider customary international law. But cyber warfare isn't covered by existing treaties. So military officials say they want to seek a consensus among allies about how to proceed.

"Act of war" is a political phrase, not a legal term, said Charles Dunlap, a retired Air Force Major General and professor at Duke University law school. Gen. Dunlap argues cyber attacks that have a violent effect are the legal equivalent of armed attacks, or what the military calls a "use of force."

"A cyber attack is governed by basically the same rules as any other kind of attack if the effects of it are essentially the same," Gen. Dunlap said Monday. The U.S. would need to show that the cyber weapon used had an effect that was the equivalent of a conventional attack.

James Lewis, a computer-security specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who has advised the Obama administration, said Pentagon officials are currently figuring out what kind of cyber attack would constitute a use of force. Many military planners believe the trigger for retaliation should be the amount of damage—actual or attempted—caused by the attack.

For instance, if computer sabotage shut down as much commerce as would a naval blockade, it could be considered an act of war that justifies retaliation, Mr. Lewis said. Gauges would include "death, damage, destruction or a high level of disruption" he said.

Culpability, military planners argue in internal Pentagon debates, depends on the degree to which the attack, or the weapons themselves, can be linked to a foreign government. That's a tricky prospect at the best of times.

The brief 2008 war between Russia and Georgia included a cyber attack that disrupted the websites of Georgian government agencies and financial institutions. The damage wasn't permanent but did disrupt communication early in the war.

A subsequent NATO study said it was too hard to apply the laws of armed conflict to that cyber attack because both the perpetrator and impact were unclear. At the time, Georgia blamed its neighbor, Russia, which denied any involvement.

Much also remains unknown about one of the best-known cyber weapons, the Stuxnet computer virus that sabotaged some of Iran's nuclear centrifuges. While some experts suspect it was an Israeli attack, because of coding characteristics, possibly with American assistance, that hasn't been proven. Iran was the location of only 60% of the infections, according to a study by the computer security firm Symantec. Other locations included Indonesia, India, Pakistan and the U.S.

Officials from Israel and the U.S. have declined to comment on the allegations.

Defense officials refuse to discuss potential cyber adversaries, although military and intelligence officials say they have identified previous attacks originating in Russia and China. A 2009 government-sponsored report from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission said that China's People's Liberation Army has its own computer warriors, the equivalent of the American National Security Agency.

That's why military planners believe the best way to deter major attacks is to hold countries that build cyber weapons responsible for their use. A parallel, outside experts say, is the George W. Bush administration's policy of holding foreign governments accountable for harboring terrorist organizations, a policy that led to the U.S. military campaign to oust the Taliban from power in Afghanistan.

Iran Vows to Unplug Internet


By CHRISTOPHER RHOADS and FARNAZ FASSIHI


Andres Gonzalez for The Wall Street Journal
An Iranian engineer who helped design and run the country's Internet filters says he subtly undermined some censorship until fleeing into exile

Iran is taking steps toward an aggressive new form of censorship: a so-called national Internet that could, in effect, disconnect Iranian cyberspace from the rest of the world.

The leadership in Iran sees the project as a way to end the fight for control of the Internet, according to observers of Iranian policy inside and outside the country. Iran, already among the most sophisticated nations in online censoring, also promotes its national Internet as a cost-saving measure for consumers and as a way to uphold Islamic moral codes.

In February, as pro-democracy protests spread rapidly across the Middle East and North Africa, Reza Bagheri Asl, director of the telecommunication ministry's research institute, told an Iranian news agency that soon 60% of the nation's homes and businesses would be on the new, internal network. Within two years it would extend to the entire country, he said.


The unusual initiative appears part of a broader effort to confront what the regime now considers a major threat: an online invasion of Western ideas, culture and influence, primarily originating from the U.S. In recent speeches, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other top officials have called this emerging conflict the "soft war."

On Friday, new reports emerged in the local press that Iran also intends to roll out its own computer operating system in coming months to replace Microsoft Corp.'s Windows. The development, which couldn't be independently confirmed, was attributed to Reza Taghipour, Iran's communication minister.

Iran's national Internet will be "a genuinely halal network, aimed at Muslims on an ethical and moral level," Ali Aghamohammadi, Iran's head of economic affairs, said recently according to a state-run news service. Halal means compliant with Islamic law.

Mr. Aghamohammadi said the new network would at first operate in parallel to the normal Internet—banks, government ministries and large companies would continue to have access to the regular Internet. Eventually, he said, the national network could replace the global Internet in Iran, as well as in other Muslim countries.

A spokesman for Iran's mission to the United Nations declined to comment further, saying the matter is a "technical question about the scientific progress of the country."

There are many obstacles. Even for a country isolated economically from the West by sanctions, the Internet is an important business tool. Limiting access could hinder investment from Russia, China and other trading partners. There's also the matter of having the expertise and resources for creating Iranian equivalents of popular search engines and websites, like Google.

Few think that Iran could completely cut its links to the wider Internet. But it could move toward a dual-Internet structure used in a few other countries with repressive regimes.

Myanmar said last October that public Internet connections would run through a separate system controlled and monitored by a new government company, accessing theoretically just Myanmar content. It's introducing alternatives to popular websites including an email service, called Ymail, as a replacement for Google Inc.'s Gmail.

Cuba, too, has what amounts to two Internets—one that connects to the outside world for tourists and government officials, and the other a closed and monitored network, with limited access, for public use. North Korea is taking its first tentative steps into cyberspace with a similar dual network, though with far fewer people on a much more rudimentary system.

Iran has a developed Internet culture, and blogs play a prominent role—even President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has one.

Though estimates vary, about 11 of every 100 Iranians are online, according to the International Telecommunication Union, among the highest percentages among comparable countries in the region. Because of this, during the protests following 2009's controversial presidential election, the world was able to follow events on the ground nearly live, through video and images circulated on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere.

"It might not be possible to cut off Iran and put it in a box," said Fred Petrossian, who fled Iran in the 1990s and is now online editor of Radio Farda, which is Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Iranian news service. "But it's what they're working on."

The discovery last year of the sophisticated "Stuxnet" computer worm that apparently disrupted Iran's nuclear program has added urgency to the Internet initiative, Iran watchers say. Iran believes the Stuxnet attack was orchestrated by Israel and the U.S.

"The regime no longer fears a physical attack from the West," said Mahmood Enayat, director of the Iran media program at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School of Communications. "It still thinks the West wants to take over Iran, but through the Internet."

The U.S. State Department's funding of tools to circumvent Internet censorship, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent speeches advocating Internet freedom, have reinforced Iran's perceptions, these people said.

Iran got connected to the Internet in the early 1990s, making it the first Muslim nation in the Middle East online, and the second in the region behind Israel. Young, educated and largely centered in cities, Iranians embraced the new technology.

Authorities first encouraged Internet use, seeing it as a way to spread Islamic and revolutionary ideology and to support science and technology research. Hundreds of private Internet service providers emerged. Nearly all of them connected through Data Communications Iran, or DCI, the Internet arm of the state telecommunications monopoly.

The mood changed in the late 1990s, when Islamic hardliners pushed back against the more open policies of then-president Mohammad Khatami. The subsequent shuttering of dozens of so-called reformist newspapers had the unintended effect of triggering the explosion of the Iranian blogosphere. Journalists who had lost their jobs went online. Readers followed.

Authorities struck back. In 2003, officials announced plans to block more than 15,000 websites, according to a report by the OpenNet Initiative, a collaboration of several Western universities. The regime began arresting bloggers.

Iran tried to shore up its cyber defenses in other ways, including upgrading its filtering system, for the first time using only Iranian technology. Until around 2007, the country had relied on filtering gear from U.S. companies, obtained through third countries and sometimes involving pirated versions, including Secure Computing Corp.'s SmartFilter, as well as products from Juniper Networks Inc. and Fortinet Inc., according to Iranian engineers familiar with with the filtering.

Such products are designed primarily to combat malware and viruses, but can be used to block other things, such as websites. Iranian officials several years ago designed their own filtering system—based on what they learned from the illegally obtained U.S. products—so they could service and upgrade it on their own, according to the Iranian engineers.

A Fortinet spokesman said he was unaware of any company products in Iran, adding that the company doesn't sell to embargoed countries, nor do its resellers. McAfee Inc., which owns Secure Computing, said no contract or support was provided to Iran. Intel Corp. recently bought McAfee, which added that it can now disable its technology obtained by embargoed countries. A Juniper spokesman said the company has a "strict policy of compliance with U.S. export law," and hasn't sold products to Iran.

The notion of an Iran-only Internet emerged in 2005 when Mr. Ahmadinejad became president. Officials experimented with pilot programs using a closed network serving more than 3,000 Iranian public schools as well as 400 local offices of the education ministry.

The government in 2008 allocated $1 billion to continue building the needed infrastructure. "The national Internet will not limit access for users," Abdolmajid Riazi, then-deputy director of communication technology in the ministry of telecommunications, said of the project that year. "It will instead empower Iran and protect its society from cultural invasion and threats."

Iran's government has also argued that an Iranian Internet would be cheaper for users. Replacing international data traffic with domestic traffic could cut down on hefty international telecom costs.

The widespread violence following Iran's deeply divisive presidential election in June 2009 exposed the limits of Iran's Internet control—strengthening the case for replacing the normal Internet with a closed, domestic version. In one of the most dramatic moments of the crisis, video showing the apparent shooting death of a female student, Neda Agha-Soltan, circulated globally and nearly in real time.

More Censorship Inc.

U.S. Products Help Block Mideast Web (03/28/2011)
Some of the holes in Iran's Internet security blanket were punched by sympathetic people working within it. According to one former engineer at DCI, the government Internet company, during the 2009 protests he would block some prohibited websites only partially—letting traffic through to the outside world.

Since the 2009 protests, the government has ratcheted up its online repression. "Countering the soft war is the main priority for us today," Mr. Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, said November 2009 in a speech to members of the Basij, a pro-government paramilitary volunteer group. "In a soft war the enemy tries to make use of advanced and cultural and communication tools to spread lies and rumors."

The Revolutionary Guard, a powerful branch of the Iranian security forces, has taken the lead in the virtual fight. In late 2009, the Guard acquired a majority stake of the state telecom monopoly that owns DCI. That put all of Iran's communications networks under Revolutionary Guard control.

The Guard has created a "Cyber Army" as part of an effort to train more than 250,000 computer hackers. It recently took credit for attacks on Western sites including Voice of America, the U.S. government-funded international broadcasting service. And at the telecom ministry, work has begun on a national search engine called "Ya Hagh," or "Oh, Justice," as a possible alternative to popular search engines like Google and Yahoo.

[seemslikeadream]

Ya'alon: Military strike may be needed to stop Iran nukes
By JPOST.COM STAFF
05/30/2011 23:13

Strategic affairs minister calls on "entire civilized world...to take joint action to avert the nuclear threat posed by Iran."

Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon called on the world to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, by all means necessary, including a military strike, the Associated Press reported on Monday. Ya'alon made the comments in an interview to Russian news agency Interfax ahead of a visit to Moscow.

"We strongly hope that the entire civilized world will come to realize what threat this regime is posing and take joint action to avert the nuclear threat posed by Iran, even if it would be necessary to conduct a pre-emptive strike," Yaalon said.

[seemslikeadream]

Obama aides dismiss Seymour Hersh's Iran story

Hersh concluded that the administration is overstating the threat from Tehran.
By JENNIFER EPSTEIN | 5/31/11 9:15 AM EDT Updated: 5/31/11 10:21 AM EDT

There’s no evidence that Iran is building nuclear weapons, Seymour Hersh writes in this week’s New Yorker - but the Obama administration is pushing back strongly, with one senior official saying the article garnered “a collective eye roll” from the White House.

In “Iran and the Bomb,” from the issue dated June 6, Hersh adds up what’s known about the Iranian nuclear program and concludes that the Obama administration is overstating the threat coming from Tehran, just as the Bush administration did nearly a decade ago when sizing up Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq.

But two administration officials told POLITICO’s Playbook that’s not the case.

“[A]ll you need to read to be deeply concerned about Iran’s nuclear program is the substantial body of information already in the public domain, including the most recent IAEA report,” a senior administration official said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency latest report, released to The Associated Press and Reuters last week, says the agency has been given new evidence by its members that Iran is working to develop nuclear weapons.

“There is a clear, ongoing pattern of deception, and Iran has repeatedly refused to respond to the IAEA’s questions about the military dimensions of [its] nuclear program, including those about the covert site at Qom,” the senior administration official added. “These examples and more make us deeply skeptical of Iran’s nuclear intentions.”

And a senior intelligence official also ripped Hersh, saying his article amounted to nothing more than “a slanted book report on a long narrative that’s already been told many times over.”

“We’ve been clear with the world about what we know about the Iranian nuclear program: Tehran is keeping its options open despite the fact that the community of nations demands otherwise,” the official added.

Hersh’s past articles on the Bush administration’s conduct of the Iraq war included allegations that Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld went outside usual intelligence protocol to help make the case for the 2003 invasion. Hersh also did some of the earliest reporting on the mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison by military police.

Hersh has faced criticism for his heavy reliance on anonymous sources, but New Yorker editor David Remnick has repeatedly said he stands by his reporter’s work.

Report: White House Furious With New Yorker's Hersh
| Tuesday, May 31, 2011 At 10:14AM
A new article penned by The New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh, which questions the accuracy of reports indicting Iran for secretly working to develop a nuclear weapon, has angered White House officials, according to Politico.

In his article, entitled, “Iran and the Bomb,” Hersh argues that the evidence to support the Islamic regime’s clandestine nuclear program is uncertain at best. Hersh, who has claimed several times in recent years that the U.S. is quietly looking for reasons to justify military action against Iran, writes that it is false to assume that Iran has resumed working on a weapon.

“Members of the Obama Administration often talk as if this were a foregone conclusion, as did their predecessors under George W. Bush. There’s a large body of evidence, however, including some of America’s most highly classified intelligence assessments, suggesting that the U.S. could be in danger of repeating a mistake similar to the one made with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq eight years ago—allowing anxieties about the policies of a tyrannical regime to distort our estimates of the state’s military capacities and intentions.”

Hersh later asserts that the “two most recent National Intelligence Estimates (N.I.E.s) on Iranian nuclear progress have stated that there is no conclusive evidence that Iran has made any effort to build the bomb since 2003.”

In email responses to Politico, senior White House officials expressed frustration with Hersh’s allegations. One official said the article “was met with a collective eye roll in the White House and in the intelligence community.” A second official called Hersh’s piece a “slanted book report on a long narrative that’s already been told many times over.”

The full version of the article will appear in the June 6 issue of The New Yorker.

[seemslikeadream]

and from the health department

Israeli Billionaire Family Slapped With U.S. Sanctions For Trade With Iran
May. 31 2011 - 12:34 am

The State Department has imposed sanctions on the Ofer Brothers Group and its subsidiary, Singapore-based Tanker Pacific for the sale of a tanker to the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines in September 2010. Companies that conduct business with Iran face penalties for assisting that country in its efforts to develop nuclear capabilities. The State Department stated the following on May 24:

Tanker Pacific (Singapore), Ofer Brothers Group (Israel), and Associated Shipbroking (Monaco): These companies are being sanctioned for their respective roles in a September 2010 transaction that provided a tanker valued at $8.65 million to the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), an entity that has been designated by the United States, and the European Union for its role in supporting Iran’s proliferation activities.

We believe that Tanker Pacific and Ofer Brothers Group failed to exercise due diligence and did not heed publicly available and easily obtainable information that would have indicated that they were dealing with IRISL. The Secretary will hold companies accountable, as required by the ISA, when they know or “should have known” they were providing sanctionable goods or services to Iran. With the imposition of today’s sanctions, Tanker Pacific and Ofer Brothers Group are barred from securing financing from the Export-Import Bank of the United States, from obtaining loans over $10 million from U.S. financial institutions, and from receiving U.S. export licenses.
Associated Shipbroking knowingly acted on behalf of an IRISL front company. Accordingly, with the imposition of today’s sanctions, Associated Shipbroking is now prohibited from U.S. foreign exchange transactions, U.S. banking transactions and all U.S. property transactions.
The Ofers are Israel’s richest family, with a net worth Forbes estimates at $10.3 billion. Now both in their late 80s, brothers Sammy and Yuli founded the conglomerate in 1956, and have interests in shipping, chemicals and energy. Sammy Ofer recently donated $25 million to turn an underground parking lot in Haifa into a hospital in case of chemical warfare.

The management of Tanker Pacific said it was “startled” by the accusations, and on May 28 issued a press release stating that the “announcement was a harsh assessment of our due diligence process. However, in light of this announcement, we have carried out a full investigation of the internal procedures that existed at the time of the sale.”

The timing of the announcement couldn’t have been more embarrassing to Israel, since it coincided on the day Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a speech to Congress, warning about the danger of a nuclear-armed Iran. He praised the U.S. for condemning the Iranian regime. “You’ve passed tough sanctions against Iran…These words and deeds are vitally important,” he said.

Netanyahu denied for the first time yesterday having knowledge of the Ofer trade with Iran.

[seemslikeadream]

and then this from the maybe a coincidence maybe not department

Iran, India still seeking bank to handle oil payments-NIOC
Tue May 31, 2011 12:43pm GMT
NEW DELHI May 31 (Reuters) - Iran and India have not yet found a bank to handle oil payments to the OPEC producer after two days of talks, Seyed Mohsen Ghamsari, executive director for international affairs at NIOC, said on Tuesday.

Iran, facing increased isolation internationally, has offered India various options to end an impasse on payments, including a choice of currencies and paying on a cargo-by-cargo basis, he told reporters.

Ghamsari said the central banks of the two countries were working on finding a bank to handle the payments. He declined to name the potential banks.

Iranian officials are in New Delhi to resolve the payments issue, which was triggered five months ago when India's central bank unilaterally decided to halt use of a regional clearing house mechanism due to U.S. sanction pressure.

Ghamsari added that India's outstanding debts to Iran for oil were currently at about $2 billion. (Reporting by Nidhi Verma and Manoj Kumar; Writing by Jo Winterbottom)

India, Iran to to resolve oil issue by tomorrow
Press Trust Of India
Posted on May 30, 2011 at 05:58pm IST

New Delhi: Five months after the RBI scrapped a long-standing mechanism to pay for crude oil imports from Iran, the oil-rich nation on Monday expressed hope that the issue would be resolved by Tuesday.
"We are optimistic for resolution of oil payment crisis. We hope to resolve the oil payment issue by tomorrow," Deputy Governor, Central Bank of Iran Hamid Borhani told reporters after meeting Finance Ministry officials in New Delhi.
The meeting, chaired by Secretary of Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) R Gopalan, was also attended by Iranian Ambassador to India Seyed Mahdi Nabizadeh.

Iran oil output 'may drop drastically by 2015'
(AFP) – 1 day ago
TEHRAN — Iran's oil production may fall to 2.7 million barrels per day within five years unless 150 billion dollars is invested in its energy sector, a top official said in a report on Monday.
"The national oil company plans to invest 150 billion dollars during the fifth development plan," which ends in 2015, said the deputy oil minister for planning, Mohsen Khojasteh-Mehr, quoted by IRNA state news agency.
"If the investments are not realised..., the country's oil output will drop to 2.7 million barrels per day" from the current production of 3.7 million, he said.
The proposed investment would raise Iran's oil production capacity to 4.7 million pbd by 2015, from the current 4.0 million, while gas production would increase to 1,470 million cubic metres from 600 million, he said.
According to Khojasteh-Mehr, 75 billion dollars would be used to develop gas projects, 34 billion to develop oil fields, and 32 billion to maintain production capacity.
Sixty billion dollars would be financed by foreign investors despite tight economic and financial sanctions which world powers have imposed on Iran over its disputed nuclear programme, he said.
Another 50 billion dollars would come from the oil ministry, and 40 billion dollars would be invested by Iranian banks.
Iran is the second largest crude producer in the oil cartel OPEC and also has the world's second-largest natural gas reserves after Russia.
But the development of its oil and gas projects have been affected by the departure of major Western companies, as well as those from Japan and South Korea, due to international sanctions against the Iranian nuclear programme.
The companies however have been partially replaced by Chinese ones.

Iran sparks diplomatic row with Germany closing airspace to Angela Merkel

Tehran tries to avoid crisis in relations with Egypt

Saudi-Iran Feud Draws Sectarian Line Across Mideast Oilfields


Iran better not mess with Obama

Israel-Iran trade ties thriving
Under American radar, dozens of Israeli companies secretly engage in relations with Islamic Republic through third parties
Ofer Petersburg
Published: 05.31.11, 14:04 / Israel Business

Iranian money appears to be stronger than the Iranian threat, as dozens of Israeli companies have been holding secret trade relations with the Islamic Republic in recent years.

Although the ties have been slightly limited in the past decade following Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's calls for Israel's destruction, trade between the two countries continues.

Tehran's Trade Ministry fights off exporter's claims that Islamic Republic is importing apples, oranges from Israel

The business relations are conducted through companies active in Turkey, Jordan and Dubai, which are registered in Europe and exposed to an American boycott.

"Despite what is seen on the ground, the secret relations with Iran total tens of millions of dollars a year," says Yehoshua Meiri, chairman of the Israeli-Arab Friendship Association, which encourages the development of economic relations as an alternative to a peace process.

"Even when harsh statements are made on both sides, business thrives," says Hemeiri. "Relations with the Iranian colleagues are excellent, and political statements are ignored.

"It's safe to say that the commerce could be extended. The past year has even seen relations which include consultation services on engineering and construction of food factories."

Iranian official visits Tel Aviv
Israeli exports to Iran focus on agricultural production means: Organic fertilizers, pierced irrigation pipes, hormones boosting milk productions and seeds.

The Iranians sell the Israelis pistachio, cashew nuts and mainly marble – one of Iran's biggest industries.

"A lot of marble is brought in from Iran," says Eran Siv, chairman of the Association of Renovation Contractors in Israel and a marble importer. "The marble, which is very popular in Israel, is mined on Iran's mountains and brought to Israel through Turkey."

Siv opposes these trade ties. "The Iranians personally offered to sell me hundreds of tons of marble products which would be transferred to Turkey and polished there for a cheap price, but I refused. I tried to get the importers to launch a consumers' boycott on Iran, but failed."

Another field the Iranians are obviously interested in is security. In a recent exhibition, Iranian representatives even tried to enter the Israeli booth, which was presenting defensive measures against accidents in nuclear reactors. Haim Siboni, a representative of the Israeli company, noticed their suspicious accent and ordered them to leave.

In November 2000, the Iranian government asked an Israeli company, which built Tehran's sewage pipes 30 years earlier, to visit the country for renovations.

Shortly afterwards, the assistant director-general of Iran's Ministry of Agriculture visited Israel secretly and stayed at the Tel Aviv Hilton Hotel. He expressed an interest in purchasing irrigation pipes, pesticides and fertilizers.

[seemslikeadream]

'Islamic Revolution brought US to knees'......or Weiner's Dick
Tue May 31, 2011 10:35AM


Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei says political developments in Iran and the region indicate that the Islamic Revolution has brought the US to its knees.


“The Great Satan, the US, from the beginning of the [Islamic] Revolution, brought its military, financial, propaganda and political [campaign] empire to the scene to defeat the Islamic Revolution and the Iranian nation but the realities of the political arena of Iran and the region indicate that the US has come to its knees in front of the Islamic Revolution,” Ayatollah Khamenei said Tuesday.

The Leader referred to analyses on the failure of US strategies in the Middle East and said, "Thirty years ago, the Great Satan just lost one of its corrupted cronies, the Pahlavi regime, but today the US is witnessing that more regimes dependent on it are collapsing one after another."

Ayatollah Khamenei said that the isolation of the US and the revival of Islam were indications of the realization of God's promises and added that the US failure in the Palestinian issue was yet another indication of US failure in the international arena.

The Leader also said that the Islamic Revolution was on a higher status compared to thirty years ago and called on the Iranian nation and officials to remain steadfast and vigilant in the face of Western plots.

[eyeno]

The Pentagon's first formal cyber strategy, unclassified portions of which are expected to become public next month, represents an early attempt to grapple with a changing world in which a hacker could pose as significant a threat to U.S. nuclear reactors, subways or pipelines as a hostile country's military.

In part, the Pentagon intends its plan as a warning to potential adversaries of the consequences of attacking the U.S. in this way. "If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks," said a military official.

In the last three or four months I am noticing a pattern and large uptick in stories that relate to the U.S. power grid going down from a variety of causes. The causes range from nuclear attack, solar flare, stuxnet, etc...Its sort of a strange buzz almost as if something is afoot but nobody is allowed to say exactly why.

And now the following.

Congressman Warns: “Those Who Can, Should Move Their Families Out Of the City”

There are a whole host of events that can bring the world as we know it today to its knees.

From a hyperinflationary economic collapse to an electromagnetic pulse originating from the sun or a nuclear weapon, there exists a real and present danger that our system may, in the near future experience unrecoverable shocks to the power grid and clean water infrastructure, a halt to just-in-time agricultural transportation systems and a collapse of the currency exchange mechanisms that make the economy function.
http://theintelhub.com/2011/05/28/congr ... %E2%80%9D/

[hanshan]

WSJ is on a roll

Iran Vows to Unplug Internet


By CHRISTOPHER RHOADS and FARNAZ FASSIHI


Andres Gonzalez for The Wall Street Journal
An Iranian engineer who helped design and run the country's Internet filters says he subtly undermined some censorship until fleeing into exile

Iran is taking steps toward an aggressive new form of censorship: a so-called national Internet that could, in effect, disconnect Iranian cyberspace from the rest of the world.

The leadership in Iran sees the project as a way to end the fight for control of the Internet, according to observers of Iranian policy inside and outside the country. Iran, already among the most sophisticated nations in online censoring, also promotes its national Internet as a cost-saving measure for consumers and as a way to uphold Islamic moral codes.

In February, as pro-democracy protests spread rapidly across the Middle East and North Africa, Reza Bagheri Asl, director of the telecommunication ministry's research institute, told an Iranian news agency that soon 60% of the nation's homes and businesses would be on the new, internal network. Within two years it would extend to the entire country, he said.


The unusual initiative appears part of a broader effort to confront what the regime now considers a major threat: an online invasion of Western ideas, culture and influence, primarily originating from the U.S. In recent speeches, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other top officials have called this emerging conflict the "soft war."

On Friday, new reports emerged in the local press that Iran also intends to roll out its own computer operating system in coming months to replace Microsoft Corp.'s Windows. The development, which couldn't be independently confirmed, was attributed to Reza Taghipour, Iran's communication minister.

Iran's national Internet will be "a genuinely halal network, aimed at Muslims on an ethical and moral level," Ali Aghamohammadi, Iran's head of economic affairs, said recently according to a state-run news service. Halal means compliant with Islamic law.

Mr. Aghamohammadi said the new network would at first operate in parallel to the normal Internet—banks, government ministries and large companies would continue to have access to the regular Internet. Eventually, he said, the national network could replace the global Internet in Iran, as well as in other Muslim countries.

A spokesman for Iran's mission to the United Nations declined to comment further, saying the matter is a "technical question about the scientific progress of the country."

There are many obstacles. Even for a country isolated economically from the West by sanctions, the Internet is an important business tool. Limiting access could hinder investment from Russia, China and other trading partners. There's also the matter of having the expertise and resources for creating Iranian equivalents of popular search engines and websites, like Google.

Few think that Iran could completely cut its links to the wider Internet. But it could move toward a dual-Internet structure used in a few other countries with repressive regimes.

Myanmar said last October that public Internet connections would run through a separate system controlled and monitored by a new government company, accessing theoretically just Myanmar content. It's introducing alternatives to popular websites including an email service, called Ymail, as a replacement for Google Inc.'s Gmail.

Cuba, too, has what amounts to two Internets—one that connects to the outside world for tourists and government officials, and the other a closed and monitored network, with limited access, for public use. North Korea is taking its first tentative steps into cyberspace with a similar dual network, though with far fewer people on a much more rudimentary system.

Iran has a developed Internet culture, and blogs play a prominent role—even President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has one.

Though estimates vary, about 11 of every 100 Iranians are online, according to the International Telecommunication Union, among the highest percentages among comparable countries in the region. Because of this, during the protests following 2009's controversial presidential election, the world was able to follow events on the ground nearly live, through video and images circulated on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere.

"It might not be possible to cut off Iran and put it in a box," said Fred Petrossian, who fled Iran in the 1990s and is now online editor of Radio Farda, which is Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Iranian news service. "But it's what they're working on."

The discovery last year of the sophisticated "Stuxnet" computer worm that apparently disrupted Iran's nuclear program has added urgency to the Internet initiative, Iran watchers say. Iran believes the Stuxnet attack was orchestrated by Israel and the U.S.

"The regime no longer fears a physical attack from the West," said Mahmood Enayat, director of the Iran media program at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School of Communications. "It still thinks the West wants to take over Iran, but through the Internet."

The U.S. State Department's funding of tools to circumvent Internet censorship, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent speeches advocating Internet freedom, have reinforced Iran's perceptions, these people said.

Iran got connected to the Internet in the early 1990s, making it the first Muslim nation in the Middle East online, and the second in the region behind Israel. Young, educated and largely centered in cities, Iranians embraced the new technology.

Authorities first encouraged Internet use, seeing it as a way to spread Islamic and revolutionary ideology and to support science and technology research. Hundreds of private Internet service providers emerged. Nearly all of them connected through Data Communications Iran, or DCI, the Internet arm of the state telecommunications monopoly.

The mood changed in the late 1990s, when Islamic hardliners pushed back against the more open policies of then-president Mohammad Khatami. The subsequent shuttering of dozens of so-called reformist newspapers had the unintended effect of triggering the explosion of the Iranian blogosphere. Journalists who had lost their jobs went online. Readers followed.

Authorities struck back. In 2003, officials announced plans to block more than 15,000 websites, according to a report by the OpenNet Initiative, a collaboration of several Western universities. The regime began arresting bloggers.

Iran tried to shore up its cyber defenses in other ways, including upgrading its filtering system, for the first time using only Iranian technology. Until around 2007, the country had relied on filtering gear from U.S. companies, obtained through third countries and sometimes involving pirated versions, including Secure Computing Corp.'s SmartFilter, as well as products from Juniper Networks Inc. and Fortinet Inc., according to Iranian engineers familiar with with the filtering.

Such products are designed primarily to combat malware and viruses, but can be used to block other things, such as websites. Iranian officials several years ago designed their own filtering system—based on what they learned from the illegally obtained U.S. products—so they could service and upgrade it on their own, according to the Iranian engineers.

A Fortinet spokesman said he was unaware of any company products in Iran, adding that the company doesn't sell to embargoed countries, nor do its resellers. McAfee Inc., which owns Secure Computing, said no contract or support was provided to Iran. Intel Corp. recently bought McAfee, which added that it can now disable its technology obtained by embargoed countries. A Juniper spokesman said the company has a "strict policy of compliance with U.S. export law," and hasn't sold products to Iran.

The notion of an Iran-only Internet emerged in 2005 when Mr. Ahmadinejad became president. Officials experimented with pilot programs using a closed network serving more than 3,000 Iranian public schools as well as 400 local offices of the education ministry.

The government in 2008 allocated $1 billion to continue building the needed infrastructure. "The national Internet will not limit access for users," Abdolmajid Riazi, then-deputy director of communication technology in the ministry of telecommunications, said of the project that year. "It will instead empower Iran and protect its society from cultural invasion and threats."

Iran's government has also argued that an Iranian Internet would be cheaper for users. Replacing international data traffic with domestic traffic could cut down on hefty international telecom costs.

The widespread violence following Iran's deeply divisive presidential election in June 2009 exposed the limits of Iran's Internet control—strengthening the case for replacing the normal Internet with a closed, domestic version. In one of the most dramatic moments of the crisis, video showing the apparent shooting death of a female student, Neda Agha-Soltan, circulated globally and nearly in real time.

More Censorship Inc.

U.S. Products Help Block Mideast Web (03/28/2011)
Some of the holes in Iran's Internet security blanket were punched by sympathetic people working within it. According to one former engineer at DCI, the government Internet company, during the 2009 protests he would block some prohibited websites only partially—letting traffic through to the outside world.

Since the 2009 protests, the government has ratcheted up its online repression. "Countering the soft war is the main priority for us today," Mr. Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, said November 2009 in a speech to members of the Basij, a pro-government paramilitary volunteer group. "In a soft war the enemy tries to make use of advanced and cultural and communication tools to spread lies and rumors."

The Revolutionary Guard, a powerful branch of the Iranian security forces, has taken the lead in the virtual fight. In late 2009, the Guard acquired a majority stake of the state telecom monopoly that owns DCI. That put all of Iran's communications networks under Revolutionary Guard control.

The Guard has created a "Cyber Army" as part of an effort to train more than 250,000 computer hackers. It recently took credit for attacks on Western sites including Voice of America, the U.S. government-funded international broadcasting service. And at the telecom ministry, work has begun on a national search engine called "Ya Hagh," or "Oh, Justice," as a possible alternative to popular search engines like Google and Yahoo.

y'know, if revealed religion was so great you wouldn't need a Cotton Mather leading the mind police; & tryin' to jump your bones between catechism classes, gender irrelevant.



...

[8bitagent]

In the last three or four months I am noticing a pattern and large uptick in stories that relate to the U.S. power grid going down from a variety of causes. The causes range from nuclear attack, solar flare, stuxnet, etc...Its sort of a strange buzz almost as if something is afoot but nobody is allowed to say exactly why.

Yep, like the uptick in stories about America's "heartland' in the south and midwest vulnerable to terrorism in the wake of OBL's death. They've long been grooming the public for the advent of cyber attacks, and a low yield nuclear attack in the future. Wasn't Wheeler connected to cyber threat assessments and Mitre? I've often thought there was a cyber element to 9/11, as shown here
http://911blogger.com/news/2009-07-17/d ... ppen-911-0

[seemslikeadream]

The WH/Politico attack on Seymour Hersh
By Glenn Greenwald

Seymour Hersh has a new article in The New Yorker arguing that there is no credible evidence that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons; to the contrary, he writes, "the U.S. could be in danger of repeating a mistake similar to the one made with Saddam Hussein's Iraq eight years ago -- allowing anxieties about the policies of a tyrannical regime to distort our estimates of the state's military capacities and intentions." This, of course, cannot stand, as it conflicts with one of the pillar-orthodoxies of Obama foreign policy in the Middle East (even though the prior two National Intelligence Estimates say what Hersh has said). As a result, two cowardly, slimy Obama officials ran to Politico to bash Hersh while hiding behind the protective womb of anonymity automatically and subserviently extended by that "news outlet":

the Obama administration is pushing back strongly, with one senior official saying the article garnered "a collective eye roll" from the White House . . . two administration officials told POLITICO's Playbook that's not the case. . . . a senior administration official said. . . . "There is a clear, ongoing pattern of deception" from Iran . . ."the senior administration official added" . . . And a senior intelligence official also ripped Hersh, saying his article amounted to nothing more than "a slanted book report on a long narrative that's already been told many times over" . . .

Dutifully writing down what government officials say and then publishing it under cover of anonymity is what media figures in D.C. refer to as "real reporting." But the most hilarious part of this orgy of cowardly anonymity comes at the end, when Politico explains what is supposedly the prime defect in Hersh' journalism:

Hersh has faced criticism for his heavy reliance on anonymous sources, but New Yorker editor David Remnick has repeatedly said he stands by his reporter’s work.

That's the criticism that ends an article that relies exclusively on anonymous government sources, appearing in a D.C. gossip rag notorious for granting anonymity to any powerful figure who requests it for any or no reason. The difference, of course, is that the Pulitzer Prize-winning, five-time-Polk-Award-recipient investigative journalist who uncovered the My Lai massacre and the Abu Ghraib scandal grants anonymity to those who are challenging the official claims of those in power (that's called "journalism"), while Politico uses it (as it did here) to serve those in power and shield them from all accountability as they spew their propaganda (which is called being a "lowly, rank Royal Court propagandist").

An Illegal, Unprovoked Military Attack on Iran?: Anything Less Would Be Uncivilized

by Nima Shirazi / June 2nd, 2011

On May 30, the Associated Press reported that Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon told a Russian new agency that because “an Iran possessing nuclear weapons would be a threat to the entire civilized world,” the Israeli government “strongly hope[s] that the entire civilized world will come to realize what threat this regime is posing and take joint action to avert the nuclear threat posed by Iran, even if it would be necessary to conduct a pre-emptive strike.”

And what’s more civilized than a devastating, coordinated assault on a sovereign nation of over 70 million people that hasn’t attacked any other country in over two centuries and whose military spending per capita is among the lowest in the region?

Last week, on May 27, Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London reiterated his frequent claims that Iran is close to a nuclear breakout capability. Reuters quotes Fitzpatrick as saying “the totality of the evidence indicates beyond reasonable doubt” that Iran was seeking a capability to make such weapons, continuing that “if Iran decided to ‘weaponize’ enrichment, it would need about 16 months to yield the first bomb’s worth of highly enriched uranium at its Natanz enrichment facility, if all centrifuge machines were used for this purpose.”

The report goes on:

At least six months would then be required to fashion the highly-refined uranium into a weapon, Fitzpatrick added. Developing a missile to deliver it would add to the timeline, the former senior U.S. State Department official said.

But one bomb would be insufficient as a credible deterrent.

“It would seem foolhardy for a nation to go for broke, with the international reaction that would entail, before it could manufacture at least a handful of weapons,” Fitzpatrick said.

“Assembling such an arsenal would multiply both the amount of weapons-grade uranium that would be needed and the amount of time it would take Iran to reach the threshold capability.”

Regarding the recent IAEA Safeguards Report, released on May 24, Fitzpatrick repeated the false allegations of Iran hawks like The Atlantic‘s Jeffrey Goldberg and the New York Times‘ David Sanger. “The latest IAEA report includes evidence that what originally were thought to be just paper studies also include actual experiments, including on triggers for a nuclear weapon,” he said, despite the fact that the new report included absolutely no evidence of any actual experiments, not even on triggers.

[seemslikeadream]

Former CIA officer and Antiwar.com contributor Philip Giraldi discusses his new article “Target Iran,” the bogus RAND paper claiming Iran could have a nuke in months and somehow under the IAEA’s nose contrasted with Sy Hersh‘s New Yorker piece on the 2011 NIE, the Ha’aretz article showing more Israeli threats to attack Iran, which would draw in the U.S. timed before September to kill the bid for a Palestinian at the UN.

MP3 here. (20:09)

Target: Iran
by Philip Giraldi, June 09, 2011

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent and successful excoriation of the Palestinians before a receptive American audience made it easy to miss the subplot, which was the alleged threat posed by Iran. Netanyahu took every opportunity to attack the Iranians, tying them into each hostile group in the Middle East and taking them to task for their presumed efforts to become the regional hegemon rather than his beloved Israel. So it comes as no surprise that an Israeli Deputy Prime Minister has now called for war against Iran. Speaking at the end of May in an ‘interview’, Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon urged an attack on Iran, arguing that it is necessary to prevent Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Ya’alon also called on the other countries, by which he meant the United States, to join in because Iran is “a threat to the entire civilized world.”

And it is not just an Israeli government official who would be expected to mouth the party line who is sending up red flags. Respected journalist Amir Oren, writing for Haaretz, ‘opines’ that there is considerable danger that Iran will be surprise attacked between the June departure of Robert Gates from the office of Secretary of Defense and the retirement of Admiral Mike Mullen from the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in September. The timing of the attack is intended to take advantage of the confusion inevitable when there is a change of command in Washington. A regional war would also preempt any Palestinian attempts to declare statehood at the UN in September. And there are many in Washington who would welcome such an enterprise. Sources ‘report’ that the Pentagon is carrying out contingency planning based exercises in which US forces follow-on to the first Israel strikes against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. It is being presumed that President Obama would find it difficult not to do so, in support of “friend and close ally” Israel.

So we are possibly contemplating entering into another war to counter the Iranian “threat,” which this time, per Israel, is directed against the entire civilized world. As everyone knows, the United States has a mandate given by God to deal with all uncivilized behavior, something it has done so successfully in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. But stepping back a bit from the usual Israel rhetoric, there are certain problems with what is being promoted. Israel and its friends in the US have exhibited a tendency to move the goal posts back every time they discuss Iran, so much so that even well informed Americans don’t really understand the issues. For many years now it has been asserted that Iran is either six months or a year away from having a nuclear weapon, but they are no closer to having one now than they have ever been. Intelligence estimates coming from sources other than shills for Israel believe that even if Iran were to make the political and economic decision to proceed towards a weapon, by no means a given, they still could not do so before 2014. And that is assuming that the CIA and Mossad do not succeed in sabotaging parts of their program, as they did when they introduced the Stuxnet computer worm last year.

An ‘article’ by Seymour Hersh that appeared last week in the New Yorker reveals some details of the still classified 2011 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran. To put it succinctly, there is no actual evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapon program. None. Hersh’s article elicited a response from a number of anonymous White House sources who disputed the article’s conclusions, suggesting very clearly that the Obama Administration embraces the Iranian threat narrative, if only to be able to cite Tehran as the reason for the repeated American failures in the region. Hersh also reported that the NIE had been delayed for four months because the White House had wanted a harsher judgment on Iran’s likely intentions. The intelligence community, having been burned once over Iraq, refused to comply.

Israel and Washington have also continuously redefined the red line regarding the precise nature of the Iranian threat. It started reasonably enough with the acquisition of a nuclear weapon, but then became breakout capability meaning that the technology had been developed to such a point that a weapon could be acquired in short order, and now it is any ability to master the uranium enrichment process. It is a series of definitions that constantly move backwards, so Iran can hardly win except by abandoning its perfectly legal and inspected program to provide nuclear energy to generate electricity. Even if Iran were to do so, it would undoubtedly be accused of having a “secret” program.

So it might not be completely illogical to conclude that Iran is not the likely instigator of a regional war in the Middle East — it is much more likely to be Israel, with its extreme right-wing government, an established nuclear arsenal, and a US taxpayer-provided defensive missile system in place to protect it against counter-attack. And lest there be any doubt about what the United States would do, there are two bills in Congress that might provide some enlightenment. They are ‘H. Res. 271′ and ‘H. Res. 1905′ . The former, which is co-sponsored by Tea Party darling Michelle Bachmann and 43 other Republicans, affirms the US commitment to continue arming Israel against its enemies, notes rather oddly along the way that “whereas archeological evidence exists confirming Israel’s existence as a nation over 3,000 years ago in the area in which it currently exists, despite assertions of its opponents,” and concludes by expressing “support for Israel’s right to use all means necessary to confront and eliminate nuclear threats posed by Iran, defend Israeli sovereignty, and protect the lives and safety of the Israeli people, including the use of military force if no other peaceful solution can be found within a reasonable time.”

H. Res 1905 “The Iran Threat Reduction Act of 2011” toughens sanctions against Iran, including establishment of a refined petroleum products embargo, which would have a devastating effect on the Iranian economy. Many would consider it to be an act of war. It is sponsored by the irrepressible Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs committee, and has 95 co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle and including both liberals and conservatives.

The bills in Congress, which do absolutely nothing for the United States and its citizens and instead ratchet up tension in the region while also providing a carte blanche for Israel to start another war, should provide convincing evidence to anyone who cares that Benjamin Netanyahu pretty much calls the shots insofar as America’s legislature is concerned. If the reports from Haaretz are true and we are quite possibly looking at war later this summer, that would mean that the control extends to the White House. Obama, keen to get reelected, would not want to cross the Israel Lobby even if it means sinking farther into the international quagmire that has characterized American foreign policy over the past ten years. Someone should tell him that when you fall in a hole the way out is not to dig deeper.

[82_28]

Has anyone else gotten twinges this is quickly becoming "the summer of the shark attack" and Chandra Levy v. 2.0?

This time it's about BEARS and WEINERS!!!!1!11!

http://news.google.com/news/more?hl=en& ... CDkQqgIwAQ

Bear sightings/stories everywhere here in Seattle too. Constantly on the news. Sharks like bears are always naturally in their habitat, but the news has taken this shit to the extreme -- at least around here. Same way with the sharks 10 years ago. At least IMO.

On edit: Hmmm. SLAD just posted this as an OP:

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=32374

Bruins in game 7 tonight.

Edit 2: Better link:

http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=f ... earch+News

[82_28]

Like clockwork, I'm watching the news and local bear story is being reported now.