I sent an e-mail to Congressman Bob Latta concerning CISPA. Aside from seeing that he was a co-sponsor, and that he has now voted yes on it, I couldn’t find anything online regarding his official position on the bill. If you’re interested in seeing Bob Latta’s stance on CISPA, his reply to my e-mail concerning CISPA is below.
Dear Mr. McBrien,
Thank you for contacting me with your opposition to H.R. 3523, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011. In order to make sound voting decisions, I need to hear from the constituents in the Fifth Congressional District. I appreciate you taking the time to contact me with your thoughts on this issue, as I know how important it is to you.
Over the past decade, cyber attacks have and continue to, harm and threaten the security of the U.S. government and many private sector businesses. In the past five years, cyber attacks on the federal government are up 680%. It is expected that individuals in China, Russia, and Iran are using cyber attacks against the U.S. government, American companies, and American citizens daily.
In response, on November 30, 2011, Representative Mike Rogers (R-MI) introduced H.R. 3523, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) of 2011, which was passed in the House of Representative on April 27, 2012 by a vote of 248-168, and now awaits action in the Senate. This legislation creates a voluntary system whereby the U.S. government and private-sector entities can share information with one another about potential cyber attacks that are about to take place in order to prevent them from occurring and protecting that entities’ security. This voluntary sharing of information will help prevent further attacks by understanding who and where the attacks are coming from and how to protect against them.
It is important to understand that CISPA does not give any new or additional power to the state, local, federal government, or the intelligence community to direct or control the internet or cyber security or block websites. It also specifically prohibits the government from soliciting information from the private sector or compelling a private company to share any information even if it relates to a cyber security threat, and authorizes only the sharing of cyber security threat information that directly pertains to a cyber threat to a system or network or for the purposes of national security. Recently, the Heritage Foundation came out in strong support of CISPA. Please be assured that should this legislation come back to the House Floor for a Concurrence vote, I will keep the thoughts and views you have expressed to me in mind.
It is my great honor to serve as your Member of Congress and it is my number one priority to represent you and the best interests of the Fifth Congressional District. Please do not hesitate to call, write, or e-mail me in the future with any of your concerns or questions. For federal-related issues, you may reach my Washington, D.C. office by phone at (202) 225-6405, or my District office at (800) 541-6446 for constituent services. I encourage you to visit my website at http://latta.house.gov where you can sign up for my e-newsletter and text message updates. The website also provides links to my YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr pages, as well as my blog, the Latta Letter, all of which will help bring my work in Washington, D.C. home to you.
If you read my last post on Planetary Resources, you’ve probably already seen the news from their press conference on Tuesday. Planetary Resources announced their intention to mine near earth asteroids. Phase one will be identifying the best asteroids for mining, which will take a few years. I won’t go into it any further here. I can’t provide any information that isn’t all over the place. Here’s a quick video from Planetary Resources. I can’t wait to see what comes of this.
Following redistricting, I am now a voter of Ohio’s 5th Congressional District. The man currently representing this district is Bob Latta. He can be seen below during a Subcommittee on Communications and Technology hearing, titled “Cybersecurity: Threats to Communications Networks and Private-Sector Responses.”
A quick watch of this video makes it quite clear; Bob Latta doesn’t have a clue what he is talking about when it comes to the internet. Yet as one of 28 members of the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, he is an important legislator on that very subject. Congressman Latta is also one of 23 members of the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade. This subcommittee’s jurisdiction includes: Interstate and foreign commerce, including all trade matters within the jurisdiction of the full committee; Regulation of commercial practices (the FTC), including sports-related matters; Consumer affairs and consumer protection, including privacy matters generally; Consumer product safety (the CPSC); Product liability; Motor vehicle safety; and, Regulation of travel, tourism, and time.
Mr. Latta is a co-sponsor of CISPA.
CISPA (Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act), is a bill currently going through the House which aims “To provide for the sharing of certain cyber threat intelligence and cyber threat information between the intelligence community and cybersecurity entities, and for other purposes.”
While there are supporters of the bill among the technology community, I cannot find many who believe this is a good bill. It’s primary objective is the sharing of information related to ‘cybersecurity’ among private entities (corporations) and government. It doesn’t sound bad up front… but the bills definitions of ‘cyber threat’ and ‘cybersecurity’ are simply too broad, and I can see it easily being abused.
‘(2) CYBER THREAT INFORMATION- The term ‘cyber threat information’ means information directly pertaining to a vulnerability of, or threat to, a system or network of a government or private entity, including information pertaining to the protection of a system or network from–
‘(A) efforts to degrade, disrupt, or destroy such system or network; or
‘(B) theft or misappropriation of private or government information, intellectual property, or personally identifiable information.
‘(5) CYBERSECURITY PURPOSE- The term ‘cybersecurity purpose’ means the purpose of ensuring the integrity, confidentiality, or availability of, or safeguarding, a system or network, including protecting a system or network from–
‘(A) efforts to degrade, disrupt, or destroy such system or network; or
‘(B) theft or misappropriation of private or government information, intellectual property, or personally identifiable information.
The bill does not require corporations (such as say, Facebook) to provide cyber security information to the government or any other corporation. It simply ‘encourages’ it.
The problem I foresee is this. Hackers such as Anonymous or Lulzsec, and groups such as Wikileaks are the target of this legislation. I think that is obvious. Unfortunately, what our legislators, including Mr. Latta, fail to recognize is that these hackers will always be a step ahead. They know what they’re doing. You don’t. If the government and various corporate entities begin sharing vast troves of ‘cyber threat’ information amongst each other, the information of millions of American citizens will be stockpiled in numerous locations leaving them far more unprotected. This bill will actually cause more problems than it prevents.
Further bills in congress, such as the Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011 (a far worse and duplicitously titled bill), would further stockpile our personal and private information to include such information as every website we have visited in the last year. This bill would require our internet service providers (ISP’s) to retain records for one year including the IP addresses assigned to corresponding customers. This information cannot be compelled to be given by anyone but the government. But wait! CISPA would then allow the government to share that information with any ‘cybersecurity provider’ they want to.
Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the World Wide Web, HTML, http, and the first web browser has this to say on the subject, ““[It] is threatening the rights of people in America, and effectively rights everywhere, because what happens in America tends to affect people all over the world. Even though the SOPA and PIPA acts were stopped by huge public outcry, it’s staggering how quickly the U.S. government has come back with a new, different, threat to the rights of its citizens.”
When will it stop? What happened to the fourth amendment? These bills, following so quickly after SOPA, PIPA, and ACTA make it clear that the government is intent on creating a cyber police state. It needs to stop. I encourage everyone to write to their representatives and demand an end to these horrible bills that infringe on our rights. Unfortunately, it seems apparent to me that Mr. Latta’s lack of knowledge on the technological front has caused him to completely fail to notice that he is failing to protect the privacy of US Citizens, failing completely in his duties on both the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology and the Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade. I certainly hope it’s his lack of knowledge on the subject. That, at least, can be fixed.
I’m a big fan of space. In the last few years, space exploration has been changing drastically from a purely governmental enterprise into a commercial enterprise. Peter Diamandis was a big part of this. You haven’t heard of him? A graduate of MIT, he has been involved in space related activities all of his life. Most notably, he is the founder and chairman of the X Prize Foundation, which awarded a $10 million prize to the first private sector manned spaceflight in 2004.
Mr. Diamandis has co-founded a new organization, Planetary Resources, with Eric Anderson whom he also works with at the X Prize Foundation and Space Adventures. Just what does this company intend to do? We don’t know yet. They’re saving this for an unveiling next week. On April 18th, they published the following press release:
Join visionary Peter H. Diamandis, M.D.; leading commercial space entrepreneur Eric Anderson; former NASA Mars mission manager Chris Lewicki; and planetary scientist & veteran NASA astronaut Tom Jones, Ph.D. on Tuesday, April 24 at 10:30 a.m. PDT in Seattle, or via webcast, as they unveil a new space venture with a mission to help ensure humanity’s prosperity.
Supported by an impressive investor and advisor group, including Google’s Larry Page & Eric Schmidt, Ph.D.; film maker & explorer James Cameron; Chairman of Intentional Software Corporation and Microsoft’s former Chief Software Architect Charles Simonyi, Ph.D.; Founder of Sherpalo and Google Board of Directors founding member K. Ram Shriram; and Chairman of Hillwood and The Perot Group Ross Perot, Jr., the company will overlay two critical sectors – space exploration and natural resources – to add trillions of dollars to the global GDP. This innovative start-up will create a new industry and a new definition of ‘natural resources’.
The news conference will be held at the Museum of Flight in Seattle on Tuesday, April 24 at 10:30 a.m. PDT and available online via webcast.
I don’t know about you, but it sounds like asteroid mining to me. Not convinced? Check out this TED talk by Peter Diamandis. With an impressive group of investors, I expect amazing things from this venture. Either way, look for more information next week.
Last month, Rick Santorum won the Iowa Caucus. I figured he won simply because he was the next Anti-Romney candidate, and once people took a closer look at just who it was they were voting for, Santorum’s numbers would certainly decline. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to have happened. Yesterday he won in Colorado, Missouri, and Minnesota. I really don’t like Rick Santorum, and I believe he would be an absolutely horrible President of the United States. Here’s why.
Rick Santorum Wants to Outlaw Birth Control
“One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country… Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that’s okay, contraception is okay. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”
Rick Santorum is an Exemplary Example of a Corrupt Politician.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) rated Senator Santorum as one of ‘The Most Corrupt Members of Congress’ two years in a row, in 2005 and 2006.
According to Wikipedia, Santorum racked up a $67,000 bill for the Pennsylvania school district his children went to by having them attend the Western Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, while they didn’t even live in the district. He then refused to pay the bill, which was eventually settled by the state Department of Education.
After losing re-election to congress in 2006, Santorum suddenly became wealthy, working for as many as seven different employers offering him six digit compensation for ‘consulting services’.
Barack Obama supposedly encourages all children to go to college. Do I agree? No, I don’t. Many people simply aren’t cut out for college, and frankly, I believe the current and past efforts to promote everyone going to college lessen the benefits of college for those who should go. But this is a facet of public education in America failing throughout the spectrum, not simply in post-secondary education.
Rick Santorum starts off great, pretty much agreeing with all of my points above.
“I have seven kids. Maybe they’ll all go to college. But, if one of my kids wants to go and be an auto mechanic, good for him. That’s a good-paying job – using your hands and using your mind. This is the kind of, the kind of snobbery that we see from those who think they know how to run our lives. Rise up America. Defend your own freedoms.”
But as with most of his otherwise seemingly informed and benign views, he takes it further, to radical extremes. Not only should every child not go to college, but “the left” has set up the American college system as a means to indoctrinate our children and turn them into atheists. It is Obama’s “elitest snobbery” that causes him to say all children should go to college, according to Santorum. See the videos below for the context and content of what Santorum is saying.
I can’t even find any instance where Obama says that all children should go to college. The closest I’ve found is this quote, from the NY Times article linked below:
“It will be the goal of this administration to ensure that every child has access to a complete and competitive education – from the day they are born to the day they begin a career. And so tonight, I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be community college or a four-year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship.”
This is probably the most well-documented of Rick Santorum’s issues, and one he proudly wears as something of a badge of honor. Many American’s agree with him. But Rick Santorum takes it to wild extremes. The following is an excerpt from Wikipedia:
During an interview with the Associated press in 2003, Santorum was asked his views on the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests. Santorum said the priests were engaged in “a basic homosexual relationship”, and remarked, “I have a problem with homosexual acts”. He stated that marriage was “one thing”, a relationship between a man and a woman, in “every society” in history, and so far as he knew it had never included homosexuality in any society. Then, juxtaposing same-sex marriage with the notion of marriage based on pedophilia or bestiality, he commented that “not to pick on homosexuality”, marriage was not any of those things.
Whether you believe homosexuality is a problem or not, I think we can probably all agree that it is considerably different from pedophilia and bestiality. Santorum is equating them to the same level. I think that is a serious issue. Our next President needs to view homosexuals as people in a relationship he might not agree with, not as people having sex with animals or raping children. And to take the leap that legalizing gay marriage is the equivalent of allowing someone to marry his dog is absurd, outlandish, and repulsive.
In a discussion on whether or not he would outlaw homosexuality, Santorum says:
“And if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery.”
Reading between the lines, without saying it directly, Santorum is saying that yes, he would outlaw homosexuality, as well as adultery. I certainly don’t think it’s proper to cheat on my wife, and it’s something I would never do. But I certainly don’t think it should be a criminal offense. My biggest issue with Rick Santorum is the way he spreads hatred, and this is a primary example.
You may have heard of this one. “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money…” Santorum, of course, denies saying this. He says he stumbled over his words and said, “bluh”. Personally, I believe he did both. He was thinking “black people” and at the last second tried to stop, coming out with something along the lines of “bluh”. But it seems to me this man is a racist. See the video below and make your own decision.
Rick Santorum Doesn’t Care About Health Costs, and He is a Jerk About It.
You might think the health care industry has a right to set drug costs based on what the free market will pay. Rick Santorum certainly does. But the fact is, not everyone has insurance, not everyone can afford expensive prescription drugs. How this should be dealt with is a real issue that should be debated until we can find an answer, whether it be government subsidized health care, limits to the amount of free market mark-up costs drug companies are allowed to set, or mandating insurance for all American’s and limiting the insurance companies ability to refuse coverage or demand extreme monthly premiums, something needs to be done. I don’t see how we can simply allow poor people to suffer or die because they can’t afford health care.
According to Rick Santorum, drug costs can be as high as the drug company wants to set them because ““People have no problem paying $900 for an iPad. But paying $900 for a drug they have a problem with — it keeps you alive. Why? Because you’ve been conditioned to think health care is something you can get without having to pay for it.” Clearly, all poor American’s who need drugs have decided to forego those drugs and purchase an iPad instead, in Santorum’s mind. It isn’t Santorum’s position on this issue that bothers me. It is a legitmate position held by many Americans. What really bothers me is that he is being such a jerk about it.
Rick Santorum Stands Against American’s Right to Privacy.
The right to privacy is something I am certainly accustomed to. I believe most Americans are. What I do in my own home is my business, and the government has no right sticking its nose in my business. Rick Santorum disagrees.
“It all comes from, I would argue, this right to privacy that doesn’t exist in my opinion in the United States Constitution.”
According to Wikipedia:
In June 2011, Santorum said he would continue to “fight very strongly against libertarian influence within the Republican party and the conservative movement.”[131] In an NPR interview in the summer of 2005, Santorum discussed what he called the “libertarianish right,” saying “they have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do. Government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulation low and that we shouldn’t get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn’t get involved in cultural issues, you know, people should do whatever they want. Well, that is not how traditional conservatives view the world, and I think most conservatives understand that individuals can’t go it alone…”
These quotes disgusts me. Absolutely and completely. Rick Santorum is absolutely not a small government conservative. His goal seems to be a theological police state, much like Iran. Only rather than an Islamic Republic, he wants to turn us into a Christian Republic.
So, I can’t honestly tell you he hasn’t read the constitution. But I can tell you he didn’t care to pay attention to what it says. The First Amendment contains some fairly broad and sweeping language. One piece of that is the Freedom of Religion.
“I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute,” Rick Santorum said. “The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country.”
Clearly he hasn’t read the establishment clause. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” I think that is pretty clear.
Whether you agree with my distaste for Rick Santorum or not, I certainly hope everyone who votes will make an informed decision. Don’t vote for this guy simply because Mitt Romney is a Mormon and Newt Gingrich cheated on his wives. And by the way, I’m voting Ron Paul.
I generally keep up pretty well on the news, and this week the X Prize Foundation announced the winners of the Progressive Automotive X Prize. As you might guess from the title of this post, I wasn’t really impressed. Sure, some companies were able to make some cars that got better than 100 miles per gallon, driving at speeds between 45 and 70 mph. I suppose that could technically make them vehicles that might actually be capable of commercial use. But looking closer, it doesn’t seem likely. Three vehicles reached the mark. One was a really lightweight vehicle that combined high percentage ethanol fuel with some batteries. The others were basically electric motorcycles. None of these vehicles would realistically be looked at by any consumers.
But I was really excited by the Ansari X Prize a few years back, and I’m also super excited about a new one which is just getting started called the Google Lunar X Prize. Let’s begin my explanation of this competition by simply pasting in the description of it on the official website:
The Google Lunar X PRIZE is a $30 million international competition to safely land a robot on the surface of the Moon, travel 500 meters over the lunar surface, and send images and data back to the Earth. Teams must be at least 90% privately funded and must be registered to compete by December 31, 2010. The first team to land on the Moon and complete the mission objectives will be awarded $20 million; the full first prize is available until December 31, 2012. After that date, the first prize will drop to $15 million. The second team to do so will be awarded $5 million. Another $5 million will awarded in bonus prizes. The final deadline for winning the prize is December 31, 2014.
Simply reading that makes it look like the X Prize foundation has gone nuts. A few years ago, they were holding a competition just to get into space, and now they’re trying to get to the moon?!? But wait! This competition isn’t so much about getting there. The Ansari X Prize has already accomplished that feat for them. SpaceX, founded by Paypal millionaire Elon Musk, grew from the Ansari X Prize competition, and has a rocket capable of getting payloads to a lunar orbit, the Falcon 9. The Google Lunar X Prize actually recommends use of SpaceX launch capabilities for the competition, although competitors could choose to go a different route (NASA, Arianespace, among others) if they chose to do so.
This competition is about creating a privately funded lunar lander, as well as a rover of some sort. The competition also requires that the lander send over one gigabyte of data from the surface of the moon to the earth in the form of a “mooncast”. The mooncast includes high resolution 360º panoramic photographs taken on the surface of the moon, self portraits of the rover taken on the surface of the Moon, near-real time videos showing the craft’s journey along the lunar surface, and High Definition (HD) video. “Teams will be required to send a Mooncast detailing their arrival on the lunar surface, and a second Mooncast that provides imagery and video of their journey roaming the lunar surface.”
The Google Lunar X Prize excites me because of it’s ability to excite the public about space again. With Congressional infighting about NASA’s future budget, we can no longer look to the government for space exploration. The X Prize Foundation has managed to create a true privately owned space industry, and the Google Lunar X Prize aims to take it beyond low earth orbit. Success here could lead to great advancements in space, and I find that truly exciting.
According to multiple news sources, Wyclef Jean, hip-hop artist and former member of The Fugees, is planning to run for President of Haiti. Is this a case of a celebrity making a mockery of the democratic process to promote his new album? Or is Mr. Jean truly interested in helping Haiti?
It is difficult to tell at this point. Democracy, in the United States and in the rest of the world, has often become a celebrity contest, much like those we can probably all recall from grade school. But Haiti is a different place. According to Wikipedia, Haiti:
“… is an impoverished country, one of the world’s poorest and least developed. Comparative social and economic indicators show Haiti falling behind other low-income developing countries (particularly in the hemisphere) since the 1980s. Haiti now ranks 149th of 182 countries in the United Nations Human Development Index (2006). About 80% of the population were estimated to be living in poverty in 2003. Most Haitians live on $2 or less per day. Haiti has 50% illiteracy, and over 80% of college graduates from Haiti have emigrated, mostly to the United States… Poverty has forced at least 225,000 Haitian children to work as restavecs (unpaid household servants); the United Nations considers this to be a modern-day form of slavery.”
And since the massive earthquake that struck Haiti in January of this year, things have only gotten worse.
Could a celebrity be exactly the type of President that Haiti needs? It certainly wouldn’t hurt to put Haiti back in the minds of the world. Simply by running for president there, Mr. Jean’s celebrity may help to bring Haiti’s problems back into the world news, bringing aid and volunteers to the impoverished nation. Maybe that’s his goal. But what if he not only runs… but wins? Would Wyclef Jean make a good president?
Based on Haiti’s past history with presidents, it would be difficult for him to do any worse than them. Jean-Bertrand Aristide became Haiti’s first democratically elected president in February 1991, but was removed from power before completing even the first year of his 5 year term. Raoul Cédras, a military leader, took power and was in charge of the government until October of 1994, when he was basically exiled by the United States. Aristide returned to power and completed his 5 year term (although he hadn’t been in charge for three of those years). In 1996, René Préval became the second democratically elected President of Haiti and in 2001, he also became the second President of Haiti to leave office at the expiration of an uninterrupted term of office, the first since 1874! And then in 2001, Aristide was again elected president, only to be deposed again in 2004. In 2006, Préval returned to office and has served since.
Préval is barred from re-election by the constitution. It seems, based on Préval actually completing two terms of office, that he has been a good president by Haiti’s standards, but he failed dramatically in his ability to lead the government response to this years earthquake.
Haiti is a country rife with problems. I believe Mr. Jean’s soon-to-be-announced campaign for president will be good for the country. However, I don’t believe his election would be. According to multiple reports, he hasn’t even been able to run his charity, The Yéle Haiti Foundation, without accusations of financial irregularities that he himself has admitted to. It seems to me that his heart is in the right place, but he simply isn’t prepared to run a country. But then… is anyone else in Haiti qualified for the job either?
“Deserves it ! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”
I suspect some that read my blog might recognize that quote. It’s fairly famous. And oddly enough it isn’t really related at all to capital punishment. Those are the words of Gandalf, the wizard from JRR Tolkien’s fantasy epic The Lord of the Rings. But they certainly remind me of capital punishment.
I’m currently reading The Lord of the Rings again (fantastic books, by the way), and when I came across that quote I felt inspired to read a bit more about it. In the course of my inter-web browsing, I came across some articles concerning Frank Spisak, a man who is currently on death row in my home state of Ohio, and currently set to be executed on February 17, 2011.
Frank Spisak, fairly obviously, is a bad man. He killed three people and shot two others in what he called a guerrilla war against his enemies — blacks and Jews. He is such a bad man, in fact, that at his trial his defense lawyer said the following as part of his closing argument:
“Ladies and gentlemen, when you turn and look at Frank Spisak, don’t look for good deeds, because he has done none. Don’t look for good thoughts, because he has none. He is sick, he is twisted. He is demented, and he is never going to be any different.”
Also worth noting — he dressed like Hitler at his trial, carried a copy of Mein Kampf, confessed to the murders, and showed no remorse. When asked if he could think of any reason the jury would not recommend the death penalty, he replied, “Not offhand. Can you?”
Frank Spisak has twice appealed his case as high as the Supreme Court, most recently claiming his attorneys did not adequately represent him at his trial, in an attempt to stave off the death penalty. I am not denying that Frank Spisak deserves to die. But I am with Gandalf when it comes to capital punishment. I believe capital punishment should be done away with. Even men such as Frank Spisak could yet have something to give to the world from behind bars. I recently read an article concerning the Son of Sam and his contributions to various religious groups since his jailhouse conversion to Christianity. Who is to say that Frank Spisak won’t someday profoundly affect the life of some poor child going through some of the same problems that he has gone through in his madness?
“Deserves it ! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”
– Gandalf (from the Fellowship of the Rings, by JRR Tolkien)
The Polish equivalent of Air Force One crashed today in Russia, killing 96 people, including the Polish President Lech Kaczynski. The Russian designed Tupolev 154 crashed as it descended toward Smolensk Airport in a dense fog. While the Tu-154 has largely been replaced in Russia, the older plane isn’t the reason for the crash. According to ITAR-TASS news agency, flight controllers recommended the plane divert to Minsk due to the dense fog, but the pilot chose to attempt to land in Smolensk any way.
Among the 96 killed were President Lech Kaczynski, his wife Maria, Wladyslaw Stasiak (Chief of the President’s Chancellery), Aleksander Szczyglo (Chief of the National Security Office), Slawomir Skrzypek (Chairman of the National Bank of Poland), Jerzy Szmajdzinski (Deputy Speaker of the Lower House), Andrzej Kremer (Foreign Ministry’s Undersecretary of State), Stanislaw Komorowski (Deputy Minister of National Defence), Przemyslaw Gosiewski (Deputy Chair of the Law and Justice Party), Franciszek Gagor (Chief of the General Staff of the Polish military, Andrzej Przewoznik (Head of Poland’s Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites), and Tomasz Merta (Chief Historical Conservator).
The sad irony of the crash is that they were heading to Katyn forest in Russia to recognize the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Forest Massacre, in which the Soviet Union killed approximately 22,000 Polish officers in 1940, during World War II, in an effort to entirely wipe out the Polish officer corps. Due to Poland’s conscription policies at the time, all university graduates were required to serve as officers, it had the effect of wiping out many of their brightest young citizens. The Katyn Forest was already a dreadful place for the Polish people, and now it has claimed 96 more of Poland’s best.
President Kaczynski’s predecessor, Aleksander Kwasniewski, summed up what must be the overwhelming feeling in Poland today, “This is unbelievable — this tragic, cursed Katyn.”
WikiLeaks, an organization which according to their website, “publishes and comments on leaked documents alleging government and corporate misconduct”, released a video today which was taken from onboard a US Army Apache helicopter which attacked a group of insurgents on July 12, 2007, in the process killing two Iraqi reporters working for Reuters news agency. Reuters had been attempting to gain access to this video via the Freedom of Information Act since the attack, without success.
The video is fairly damaging to the US cause in Iraq, as it shows not only the deaths of two unarmed reporters, but the injury of two children who were wounded in a van that stopped to attempt to help one of the injured reporters. The soldiers aboard the Apache can be heard speaking to one another, one saying “well it’s their fault for bringing their kids to a battle,” the other replying, “that’s right.”
While I certainly don’t approve of all of the conduct of the Apache pilots as seen in this video, it is fair to point out that several of the men do appear to be armed, and I can easily see how the camera could have been mistaken for a weapon, especially as the reporter is crouched at a corner, reportedly pointing it in the direction of US troops. However, I find it extremely disturbing the way they attacked the van which seemed intent only on helping a survivor of the attack. And if a weapon was pointed at US troops (did they mean the helicopters?) why did it take so long for those troops to arrive? Couldn’t they have fired a warning shot or a flare to warn off the van instead of shooting it? That part of the video really bothered me.
Overall, the entire video shows an unfortunate tragedy.
