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McCain booed after trying to calm anti-Obama crowd

2008-10-11
MCCAIN BOOED AFTER TRYING TO CALM ANTI-OBAMA CROWD

By Philip Elliott and Beth Fouhy / Associated Press

LAKEVILLE, Minn. - The anger is getting raw at Republican rallies and John McCain is acting to tamp it down. McCain was booed by his own supporters Friday when, in an abrupt switch from raising questions about Barack Obama's character, he described the Democrat as a "decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States."

A sense of grievance spilling into rage has gripped some GOP events this week as McCain supporters see his presidential campaign lag against Obama. Some in the audience are making it personal, against the Democrat. Shouts of "traitor," "terrorist," "treason," "liar," and even "off with his head" have rung from the crowd at McCain and Sarah Palin rallies, and gone unchallenged by them.

McCain changed his tone Friday when supporters at a town hall pressed him to be rougher on Obama. A voter said, "The people here in Minnesota want to see a real fight." Another said Obama would lead the U.S. into socialism. Another said he did not want his unborn child raised in a country led by Obama.

"If you want a fight, we will fight," McCain said. "But we will be respectful. I admire Sen. Obama and his accomplishments." When people booed, he cut them off.

"I don't mean that has to reduce your ferocity," he said. "I just mean to say you have to be respectful."

Presidential candidates are accustomed to raucous rallies this close to Election Day and welcome the enthusiasm. But they are also traditionally monitors of sorts from the stage. Part of their job is to leaven proceedings if tempers run ragged and to rein in an out-of-bounds comment from the crowd.

Not so much this week, at GOP rallies in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida and other states.

When a visibly angry McCain supporter in Waukesha, Wis., on Thursday told the candidate "I'm really mad" because of "socialists taking over the country," McCain stoked the sentiment. "I think I got the message," he said. "The gentleman is right." He went on to talk about Democrats in control of Congress.

On Friday, McCain rejected the bait.

"I don't trust Obama," a woman said. "I have read about him. He's an Arab."

McCain shook his head in disagreement, and said:

"No, ma'am. He's a decent, family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with (him) on fundamental issues and that's what this campaign is all about."

He had drawn boos with his comment: "I have to tell you, he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States."

The anti-Obama taunts and jeers are noticeably louder when McCain appears with Palin, a big draw for GOP social conservatives. She accused Obama this week of "palling around with terrorists" because of his past, loose association with a 1960s radical. If less directly, McCain, too, has sought to exploit Obama's Chicago neighborhood ties to William Ayers, while trying simultaneously to steer voters' attention to his plans for the financial crisis.

The Alaska governor did not campaign with McCain on Friday, and his rally in La Crosse, Wis., earlier Friday was much more subdued than those when the two campaigned together. Still, one woman shouted "traitor" when McCain told voters Obama would raise their taxes.

Volunteers worked up chants from the crowd of "U.S.A." and "John McCain, John McCain," in an apparent attempt to drown out boos and other displays of negative energy.

The Secret Service confirmed Friday that it had investigated an episode reported in The Washington Post in which someone in Palin's crowd in Clearwater, Fla., shouted "kill him," on Monday, meaning Obama. There was "no indication that there was anything directed at Obama," Secret Service spokesman Eric Zahren told AP. "We looked into it because we always operate in an atmosphere of an abundance of caution."

Palin, at a fundraiser in Ohio on Friday, told supporters "it's not negative and it's not mean-spirited" to scrutinize Obama's iffy associations.

But Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania an author of 15 books on politics, says the vitriol has been encouraged by inflammatory words from the stage.

"Red-meat rhetoric elicits emotional responses in those already disposed by ads using words such as 'dangerous' 'dishonorable' and 'risky' to believe that the country would be endangered by election of the opposing candidate," she said.

___

Beth Fouhy reported from New York. Associated Press writer Joe Milicia contributed to this story from Cleveland.

Anger Is Crowd's Overarching Emotion at McCain Rally

2008-10-10
ANGER IS CROWD'S OVERARCHING EMOTION AT MCCAIN RALLY

By Michael D. Shear and Perry Bacon Jr. / Washington Post

WAUKESHA, Wis. -- There were shouts of "Nobama" and "Socialist" at the mention of the Democratic presidential nominee. There were boos, middle fingers turned up and thumbs turned down as a media caravan moved through the crowd Thursday for a midday town hall gathering featuring John McCain and Sarah Palin.

"It is absolutely vital that you take it to Obama, that you hit him where it hits, there's a soft spot," said James T. Harris, a local radio talk show host, who urged the Republican nominee to use Barack Obama's controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., and others against him.

"We have the good Reverend Wright. We have [the Rev. Michael L.] Pfleger. We have all of these shady characters that have surrounded him," Harris bellowed. "We have corruption here in Wisconsin and voting across the nation. I am begging you, sir. I am begging you. Take it to him."

The crowd of thousands roared its approval.

In recent days, a campaign that embraced the mantra of "Country First" but is flagging in the polls and scrambling for a way to close the gap as the nation's economy slides into shambles has found itself at the center of an outpouring of raw emotion rare in a presidential race.

"There's 26 days and people are looking at the very serious possibility that there's a chance that Obama might get in, and they don't like that," said Ian Eltrich, 28, as he filed out of the crowded sports complex.

"I'm mad! I'm really mad!" another man said, taking the microphone and refusing to surrender it easily, even when McCain tried to agree with him.

"I'm not done. Lemme finish, please," he said after a standing ovation. "When you have Obama, [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and the rest of the hooligans up there going to run the country, we have to have our head examined.

"It's time that you two represent the rest of us. So go get 'em."

The crowd burst into loud chants of "U-S-A! U-S-A!"

Standing at the center of the crowd, McCain and Palin drew on the crowd's energy as they repeatedly trained their fire on Obama.

"Senator Obama has a clear radical, far-left, pro-abortion record," McCain said after being asked about the issue.

The answer prompted a shower of boos from the crowd members. They booed again when he mentioned William Ayers, who bombed U.S. facilities to protest the Vietnam War as part of the domestic terrorist group the Weather Underground. They booed again at the mention of Rep. Barney Frank, a liberal from Massachusetts.

McCain spends most of his time at his rallies and town hall meetings lambasting his rival, often calling him a "co-conspirator" with congressional Democrats in what he argues are the seeds of the financial crisis at mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

"Will you assure us," one woman asked, "that, as president, you will take immediate action to investigate, prosecute and name the names of the people actually responsible?"

"I will," McCain answered.

"The same people that are now claiming credit for this rescue are the same ones that were willing co-conspirators in causing this problem that it is," he said, raising his voice to be heard over the crowd. "You know their names. You will know more of their names."

The crowds that show up for his rallies these days appear to have little appetite for the talk of bipartisan compromise that had been at the heart of his message around the Republican National Convention. During a rally outside a small airport in Mosinee, Wis., on Thursday, McCain said that "it's time we come together, Democrats and Republicans to work together. That's my record. I'll reach across the aisle."

The crowd stood silent.

At the town hall gathering here, McCain praised Harris for his "courage" in speaking his mind. But, heedful of the economic chaos gripping the country, McCain sought to steer away, at least briefly, from attacks on Obama's character and integrity.

"Yes, I'll do that," he said of the request to "take it to" Obama. "But I also, my friends, want to address the greatest financial challenge of our lifetime with a positive plan for action that Senator Obama and I have. We need to restore hope and trust and confidence in America and have Americans know that our best days are ahead of us. That's the future and strength and beauty of America."

As the crowd filed out, several said they agreed with the man who said he was mad. Others went further.

"No, I'm not mad, I'm pissed," said Joan Schmitz, who owns a plumbing company here. She said she was frustrated with polls showing Obama surging, McCain's performance in a Tuesday night debate, Obama himself, the media, and the liberal group ACORN, which she said was registering voters fraudulently.

Noting Obama's connections with Ayers, she said that "if it was a Republican, it would be nonstop," referring to what she said was the media ignoring the controversial acquaintance.

"I can't stand to look at him, I don't trust him. I don't like the circle of friends he keeps, I don't like his policies," Schmitz said of Obama. "I'm pissed off by it. I'm beyond mad. How is he climbing up in the polls?"

On the way into the event, the Republican Party of Wisconsin handed out fliers reading "Your Vote Is Being Stolen," an anti-ACORN leaflet that concluded, "Why is vote fraud allowed? Vote fraud is allowed since it benefits Democrats."

The crowd showed equal disdain for the media, fueled by comments from Palin, who encouraged the Republican supporters to take the campaign's message around the media. "I can't pick a fight with those who buy ink by the barrel," she said. "It's dangerous territory whenever I suggest the mainstream media isn't asking all the questions."

That message was clearly shared among the crowd. Mike Payne, who traveled from Madison, Wis., for the rally, rejected the idea that McCain's supporters are angry, preferring to use the word "frustrated."

"It might have something to do with you guys," he told a reporter.

"It's not anger at all. It's frustration. There's millions of people around the country that think like we do. You guys refuse to acknowledge that, and you insult our intelligence by misreporting the information. You are treating [Obama] like he's Britney Spears and covering him like he's Paris Hilton, instead of the next president of the United States, potentially."

McCain advisers dismissed the crowd's angry tone as an exception and not representative of most of the campaign's events. And they noted that those gathered seemed most upset by the media's handling of the contest, and simply wanted McCain to be more aggressive.

They also noted that many of McCain's events are attended by liberal protesters, who often yell epithets and hold angry signs as McCain's bus drives by. And they recalled angry words from Obama at a rally in Las Vegas last month, in which he urged supporters to talk to their friends and neighbors, saying "I want you to argue with them and get in their face."

Barack 'Osama' on Rensselaer County ballots

2008-10-10
BARACK 'OSAMA' ON RENSSELAER COUNTY BALLOTS

By Bob Gardinier / Albany Times Union

TROY, NY — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's last name is spelled "Osama" on hundreds of absentee ballots mailed out this week to voters in Rensselaer County.

The misspelling, which elections officials on both sides of the aisle insist was simply a typo, is causing embarrassment for the county.

''No question this is an honest mistake innocently done,'' said Edward McDonough, the Democratic commissioner. ''We catch almost everything.''

''This was a typo,'' said Republican Commissioner Larry Bugbee. ''We have three different staff members who proof these things and somehow the typo got by us.''

Officials say the flawed ballots were sent to approximately 300 voters. On row 1A Barack Obama's name is spelled Barack Osama.

Is it a Freudian slip, intentional act or a mistake? Voters are sure to have opinions, and one pol pointed out that the letters 's' and 'b' are not exactly keyboard neighbors.

But even the county Democratic election commissioner is apologizing for what he calls a terrible mistake.

McDonough said the absentee ballots went out to voters in Brunswick, Nassau, Sand Lake, Schaghticoke and Schodack with the error.

So far three people have called to point it out, he said. Those people will get new ballots sent to them.

One Sand Lake resident who caught the misspelling, and who asked to remain anonymous, was skeptical.

''It's a little suspicious and at least grossly incompetent,'' the voter said. "If I crossed out the name and wrote in the right spelling my ballot would be invalid."

States’ Actions to Block Voters Appear Illegal

2008-10-10
STATES’ ACTIONS TO BLOCK VOTERS APPEAR ILLEGAL

By Ian Urbina / New York Times

Tens of thousands of eligible voters in at least six swing states have been removed from the rolls or have been blocked from registering in ways that appear to violate federal law, according to a review of state records and Social Security data by The New York Times.

The actions do not seem to be coordinated by one party or the other, nor do they appear to be the result of election officials intentionally breaking rules, but are apparently the result of mistakes in the handling of the registrations and voter files as the states tried to comply with a 2002 federal law, intended to overhaul the way elections are run.

Still, because Democrats have been more aggressive at registering new voters this year, according to state election officials, any heightened screening of new applications may affect their party’s supporters disproportionately. The screening or trimming of voter registration lists in the six states — Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina — could also result in problems at the polls on Election Day: people who have been removed from the rolls are likely to show up only to be challenged by political party officials or election workers, resulting in confusion, long lines and heated tempers.

Some states allow such voters to cast provisional ballots. But they are often not counted because they require added verification.

Although much attention this year has been focused on the millions of new voters being added to the rolls by the candidacy of Senator Barack Obama, there has been far less notice given to the number of voters being dropped from those same rolls.

States have been trying to follow the Help America Vote Act of 2002 and remove the names of voters who should no longer be listed; but for every voter added to the rolls in the past two months in some states, election officials have removed two, a review of the records shows.

The six swing states seem to be in violation of federal law in two ways. Michigan and Colorado are removing voters from the rolls within 90 days of a federal election, which is not allowed except when voters die, notify the authorities that they have moved out of state, or have been declared unfit to vote.

Indiana, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio seem to be improperly using Social Security data to verify registration applications for new voters.

In addition to the six swing states, three more states appear to be violating federal law. Alabama and Georgia seem to be improperly using Social Security information to screen registration applications from new voters. And Louisiana appears to have removed thousands of voters after the federal deadline for taking such action.

Under federal law, election officials are supposed to use the Social Security database to check a registration application only as a last resort, if no record of the applicant is found on state databases, like those for driver’s licenses or identification cards.

The requirement exists because using the federal database is less reliable than the state lists, and is more likely to incorrectly flag applications as invalid. Many state officials seem to be using the Social Security lists first.

In the year ending Sept. 30, election officials in Nevada, for example, used the Social Security database more than 740,000 times to check voter files or registration applications and found more than 715,000 nonmatches, federal records show. Election officials in Georgia ran more than 1.9 million checks on voter files or voter registration applications and found more than 260,000 nonmatches.

Officials of the Social Security Administration, presented with those numbers, said they were far too high to be cases where names were not in state databases. They said the data seem to represent a violation of federal law and the contract the states signed with the agency to use the database.

Last week, after the inquiry by The Times, Michael J. Astrue, the commissioner of the Social Security Administration, alerted the Justice Department to the problem and sent letters to election officials in Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio. The letters ask the officials to ensure that they are complying with federal law.

“It is absolutely essential that people entitled to register to vote are allowed to do so,” Mr. Astrue said in a press release.

In three states — Colorado, Louisiana and Michigan — the number of people purged from the election rolls since Aug. 1 far exceeds the number who may have died or relocated during that period.

States may be improperly removing voters who have moved within the state, election experts said, or who are considered inactive because they have failed to vote in two consecutive federal elections. For example, major voter registration drives have been held this year in Colorado, which has also had a significant population increase since the last presidential election, but the state has recorded a net loss of nearly 100,000 voters from its rolls since 2004.

Asked about the appearance of voter law violations, Rosemary E. Rodriguez, the chairwoman of the federal Election Assistance Commission, which oversees elections, said they could present “extremely serious problems.”

“The law is pretty clear about how states can use Social Security information to screen registrations and when states can purge their rolls,” Ms. Rodriguez said.

Nevada officials said the large number of Social Security checks had resulted from county clerks entering Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers in the wrong fields before records were sent to the state. They could not estimate how many records might have been affected by the problem, but they said it was corrected several weeks ago.

Other states described similar problems in entering data.

Under the Help America Vote Act, all states were required to build statewide electronic voter registration lists to standardize and centralize voter records that had been kept on the local level. To prevent ineligible voters from casting a ballot, states were also required to clear the electronic lists of duplicates, people who had died or moved out of state, or who had become ineligible for other reasons.

Voting rights groups and federal election officials have raised concerns that the methods used to add or remove names vary by state and are conducted with little oversight or transparency. Many states are purging their lists for the first time and appear to be unfamiliar with the 2002 federal law.

“Just as voting machines were the major issue that came out of the 2000 presidential election and provisional ballots were the big issue from 2004, voter registration and these statewide lists will be the top concern this year,” said Daniel P. Tokaji, a law professor at Ohio State University.

Voting rights groups have urged voters to check their registrations with local officials.

In Michigan, some 33,000 voters were removed from the rolls in August, a figure that is far higher than the number of deaths in the state during the same period — about 7,100 — or the number of people who moved out of the state — about 4,400, according to data from the Postal Service.

In Colorado, some 37,000 people were removed from the rolls in the three weeks after July 21. During that time, about 5,100 people moved out of the state and about 2,400 died, according to postal data and death records.

In Louisiana, at least 18,000 people were dropped from the rolls in the five weeks after July 23. Over the same period, at least 1,600 people moved out of state and at least 3,300 died.

The secretaries of state in Michigan and Colorado did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for the Louisiana secretary of state said that about half of the numbers of the voters removed from the rolls were people who moved within the state or who died. The remaining 11,000 or so people seem to have been removed by local officials for other reasons that were not clear, the spokesman said.

The purge estimates were calculated using data from state election officials, who produce a snapshot every month or so of the voter rolls with details about each registered voter on record, making it possible to determine how many have been removed.

The Times’s methodology for calculating the purge estimates was reviewed by two voting experts, Kimball Brace, the director of Election Data Services, a Washington consulting firm that tracks voting trends, and R. Michael Alvarez, a political science professor at the California Institute of Technology.

By using the Social Security database so extensively, states are flagging extra registrations and creating extra work for local officials who are already struggling to process all the registration applications by Election Day.

“I simply don’t have the staff to keep up,” said Ann McFall, the supervisor of elections in Volusia County, Fla.

It takes 10 minutes to process a normal registration and up to a week to deal with a flagged one, said Ms. McFall, a Republican, adding that she was receiving 100 or so flagged registrations a week.

Usually, when state election officials check a registration and find that it does not match a database entry, they alert local election officials to contact the voter and request further proof of identification. If that is not possible, most states flag the voter file and require identification from the voter at the polling place.

In Florida, Iowa, Louisiana and South Dakota, the problem is more serious because voters are not added to the rolls until the states remove the flags.

Ms. McFall said she was angry to learn from the state recently that it was her responsibility to contact each flagged voter to clear up the discrepancies before Election Day. “This situation with voter registrations is going to land us in court,” she said.

In fact, it already has.

In Michigan and Florida, rights groups are suing state officials, accusing them of being too aggressive in purging voter rolls and of preventing people from registering.

In Georgia, the Justice Department is considering legal action against the state because officials in Cobb and Cherokee Counties sent letters to hundreds of voters stating that their voter registrations had been flagged and telling them they cannot vote until they clear up the discrepancy.

On Monday, the Ohio Republican Party filed a motion in federal court against the secretary of state to get the list of all names that have been flagged by the Social Security database since Jan. 1. The motion seeks to require that any voter who does not clear up a discrepancy be required to vote using a provisional ballot.

Republicans said in the motion that it is central to American democracy that nonqualified voters be forbidden from voting.

The Ohio secretary of state, Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, said in court papers that she believes the Republicans are seeking grounds to challenge voters and get them removed from the rolls.

Considering that in the past year the state received nearly 290,000 nonmatches, such a plan could have significant impact at the polls.

Former governor Milliken backs away from McCain

2008-10-10
FORMER GOVERNOR MILLIKEN BACKS AWAY FROM MCCAIN

By Pat Shellenbarger / Grand Rapids Press

GRAND RAPIDS -- He endorsed John McCain in the presidential primary, but now former Republican Gov. William Milliken is expressing doubts about his party's nominee.

"He is not the McCain I endorsed," said Milliken, reached at his Traverse City home Thursday. "He keeps saying, 'Who is Barack Obama?' I would ask the question, 'Who is John McCain?' because his campaign has become rather disappointing to me.

"I'm disappointed in the tenor and the personal attacks on the part of the McCain campaign, when he ought to be talking about the issues."

Milliken, a lifelong Republican, is among some past leaders from the party's moderate wing voicing reservations and, in some cases, opposition to McCain's candidacy.

During a stop in Grand Rapids on Thursday, Lincoln Chafee, a former Republican U.S. senator from Rhode Island, said he's voting for Obama and urging others to do likewise.

McCain campaigned for Chafee's unsuccessful re-election bid in 2006, but Chafee said he is concerned McCain has swung to the right, a divisive strategy that could make it difficult for him to govern.

"That's not my kind of Republicanism," said Chafee, who now calls himself an independent. "I saw what Bush and Cheney did. They came in with a (budget) surplus and a stable world, and look what's happened now. In eight short years they've taken one peaceful and prosperous world, and they've torn it into tatters."

As for McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for his running mate, "there's no question she's totally unqualified," Chafee said.

He had similar reservations about Obama's lack of experience, but said the Democrat's handling of the campaign convinced him he's ready to lead.

Chafee said he has spoken with several other moderate Republican leaders, and "there are a whole lot of us deserting."

One of them is Phil Arthurhultz, a former Republican state senator from Whitehall, who was traveling the state with Chafee to drum up support for Obama.

Bob Eleveld is a former Kent County Republican chairman who led McCain's West Michigan campaign in 2000. This year, he has remained mum unless asked.

"I'm not supporting either of them at this point," he said. "Suffice it to say there are a number of people who have been strong Republicans in the past, including party chairs, who feel as I do."

He declined to name them.

In the past, McCain was more of a moderate known for his straight talk, Eleveld said.

"I think the straight talk is gone," he said, describing himself as a member of the party's moderate wing. "I think he's pandering to the Christian right. That's some straight talk from me."

Whether they represent a widespread movement or a few disenchanted members in the Republican Party is unclear.

"I don't think for one minute John McCain has violated the trust we put in him," said Marge Byington Potter, a former chairwoman of the Kent County Commission, who calls herself a moderate Republican. "I think McCain understands people are in a situation that people are hurting terribly."

Milliken stopped short of saying he will vote for Obama, but said he differs with McCain on the Iraq war and his choice of Palin.

"I know John McCain is 72. In my book, that's quite young," said Milliken, 86, Michigan's longest-serving governor. But he added, "What if she were to become president of the United States? The idea, to me, is quite disturbing, if not appalling.

"Increasingly, the party is moving toward rigidity, and I don't like that. I think Gerald Ford would hold generally the same view I'm holding on the direction of the Republican Party."

Suspected U.S. missile strikes in Pakistan kill 9

2008-10-09
SUSPECTED U.S. MISSILE STRIKES IN PAKISTAN KILL 9

Associated Press

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan and mdash; Suspected U.S. missiles reportedly struck two areas in a militant-riddled Pakistani tribal region near the Afghan border on Thursday, killing at least nine people, intelligence officials said.

The strikes appeared to be part of a surge in U.S. cross-border assaults on alleged militant targets in Pakistan, attacks that have strained ties between the two anti-terror allies.

The two local Pakistani intelligence officials, citing reports from informants and agents, said one strike occurred at a house in Tappi village in North Waziristan tribal region. Some of the nine people killed were believed to be foreigners.

A local tribesman, Shoaib Dawar, said Taliban militants surrounded the house. He said drones were heard in the area before the strike.

A second alleged strike was reported at a house in Dande Darpa Khel.

The site was near a seminary of veteran Taliban commander Jalaluddin Haqqani, considered an archenemy of the U.S. No casualties were immediately reported from the latter strike.

The intelligence officials requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. Army spokesmen could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday night.

North Waziristan is part of Pakistan's semiautonomous tribal belt bordering Afghanistan.

Al-Qaida and Taliban militants have used Pakistan's tribal areas as bases from which to attack U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, spurring U.S. frustration with Pakistan. The tribal regions are also considered potential hiding places for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman Al-Zawahri.

Pakistani officials have protested such strikes as violations of their nation's sovereignty. The U.S. rarely acknowledges such missile strikes, some of which are believed to be carried out by the CIA.

U.S. missile attack kills at least 6 in Pakistan

2008-10-09
U.S. MISSILE ATTACK KILLS AT LEAST 6 IN PAKISTAN

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (Reuters) - A U.S. missile attack by a pilotless drone killed at least six people on Thursday, including 3 Arabs, in a Pakistani tribal region regarded as a safe haven for al Qaeda and Taliban militants, an intelligence official said.

The target was a house in Tappi, a village 20 km east of Miranshah that has been hit before in recent days, according to an intelligence official in the region.

The official identified the owner of the house as Faisal Mohammad Sultan, a tribesman sympathetic to the militants cause.

"He was entertaining guests," the official said.

At least six people had been killed, including three Arabs, according to the official.

A military spokesman said he was unable give official confirmation of the attack.

A Reuters journalist saw and heard the explosion from the rooftop terrace of his house in Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, shortly after 10:00 p.m. (1600 GMT).

"It was huge blast," he said. "The drone is still flying in the area. It fired a missile and I saw the flame coming out of it."

Since the start of September the United States has carried out at least nine missile attacks, including this one, and a commando raid on militant targets in Pakistan's tribal areas.

Pakistan has protested against the U.S. intrusions, particularly after the use of ground troops for the first time on September 3, and the issue has strained relations between the allies in the war on terrorism.

(Reporting by Haji Mujtaba, writing by Zeeshan Haider; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Mich. GOP Rep. Walberg tries to connect Democratic challenger to filmmaker Michael Moore

2008-10-09
MICH. GOP REP. WALBERG TRIES TO CONNECT DEMOCRATIC CHALLENGER TO FILMMAKER MICHAEL MOORE

By Ken Thomas / Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., is trying to link his Democratic challenger to filmmaker Michael Moore in a new television ad.

Walberg, a first-term Republican, released a new ad Thursday juxtaposing images of the liberal documentary maker with state Senate Democratic Leader Mark Schauer, who is seeking to oust Walberg in a hotly contested south-central Michigan congressional district.

Walberg's ad says that Moore supports Schauer "and it's easy to see why. They both share radical liberal views." It criticizes Schauer on immigration and taxes and says Moore and Schauer have a "lot in common with each other. But nothing in common with us."

Moore, in a statement, said Walberg "made the mother of all rookie mistakes -- he voted with Bush/Cheney 93 percent of the time!"

"Desperate to insure that his first term won't be his last, he's trying anything he can to save his seat. Showing pictures of me without a ballcap on will do nothing to help him at this point," Moore said.

Moore, who won an Oscar for his 2002 documentary "Bowling for Columbine," is a Flint, Mich., native who maintains a home near Traverse City, Mich. A Moore spokesman said the filmmaker has contributed to Schauer's campaign and two other Michigan Democrats seeking to unseat GOP incumbents.

Walberg's campaign cited a Sept. 2 story in The Hill, a Washington, D.C., newspaper, which reported Moore was helping Democrats running against Walberg and Knollenberg, who represents an Oakland County district. Moore had not made the contributions through the June 30 fundraising period, the most recent records available.

Schauer, in a fundraising e-mail to supporters, called it "yet another desperate attack ad" and countered that Walberg's "bold solution to fix our economy is to blame someone else and talk about a guy who makes movies."

Schauer's campaign released an ad that accused Walberg of admitting that he's "bought and paid for" by the Club for Growth, an anti-tax, pro-business group which pumped more than $1 million into Walberg's successful 2006 primary campaign. The ad contends Walberg has supported free trade deals and the outsourcing of jobs during his first term in Congress.

Justin Roebuck, Walberg's campaign manager, said Schauer's campaign used an impersonator in the ad, which cited comments Walberg made to the Jackson Citizen Patriot, a Jackson, Mich., newspaper. Walberg said in July 2006: "If I go to Congress and lower taxes, reduce pork-barrel spending and kill the tax codes of the IRS ... you can say, 'Yep, I'm bought and paid for by them.'"

Roebuck said Schauer was "clearly willing to say anything and make anything up to try to win a campaign."

Exclusive: Inside Account of U.S. Eavesdropping on Americans

2008-10-09
EXCLUSIVE: INSIDE ACCOUNT OF U.S. EAVESDROPPING ON AMERICANS

U.S. Officers' "Phone Sex" Intercepted; Senate Demanding Answers

By Brian Ross, Vic Walter, and Anna Schecter / ABC News

Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home, according to two former military intercept operators who worked at the giant National Security Agency (NSA) center in Fort Gordon, Georgia.

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), called the allegations "extremely disturbing" and said the committee has begun its own examination.

"We have requested all relevant information from the Bush Administration," Rockefeller said Thursday. "The Committee will take whatever action is necessary."

"These were just really everyday, average, ordinary Americans who happened to be in the Middle East, in our area of intercept and happened to be making these phone calls on satellite phones," said Adrienne Kinne, a 31-year old US Army Reserves Arab linguist assigned to a special military program at the NSA's Back Hall at Fort Gordon from November 2001 to 2003.

Kinne described the contents of the calls as "personal, private things with Americans who are not in any way, shape or form associated with anything to do with terrorism."

She said US military officers, American journalists and American aid workers were routinely intercepted and "collected on" as they called their offices or homes in the United States.

Another intercept operator, former Navy Arab linguist, David Murfee Faulk, 39, said he and his fellow intercept operators listened into hundreds of Americans picked up using phones in Baghdad's Green Zone from late 2003 to November 2007.

"Calling home to the United States, talking to their spouses, sometimes their girlfriends, sometimes one phone call following another," said Faulk.

The accounts of the two former intercept operators, who have never met and did not know of the other's allegations, provide the first inside look at the day to day operations of the huge and controversial US terrorist surveillance program.

"There is a constant check to make sure that our civil liberties of our citizens are treated with respect," said President Bush at a news conference this past February.

But the accounts of the two whistleblowers, which could not be independently corroborated, raise serious questions about how much respect is accorded those Americans whose conversations are intercepted in the name of fighting terrorism.

US Soldier's 'Phone Sex' Intercepted, Shared

Faulk says he and others in his section of the NSA facility at Fort Gordon routinely shared salacious or tantalizing phone calls that had been intercepted, alerting office mates to certain time codes of "cuts" that were available on each operator's computer.

"Hey, check this out," Faulk says he would be told, "there's good phone sex or there's some pillow talk, pull up this call, it's really funny, go check it out. It would be some colonel making pillow talk and we would say, 'Wow, this was crazy'," Faulk told ABC News.

Faulk said he joined in to listen, and talk about it during breaks in Back Hall's "smoke pit," but ended up feeling badly about his actions.

"I feel that it was something that the people should not have done. Including me," he said.

In testimony before Congress, then-NSA director Gen. Michael Hayden, now director of the CIA, said private conversations of Americans are not intercepted.

"It's not for the heck of it. We are narrowly focused and drilled on protecting the nation against al Qaeda and those organizations who are affiliated with it," Gen. Hayden testified.

He was asked by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), "Are you just doing this because you just want to pry into people's lives?"

"No, sir," General Hayden replied.

Asked for comment about the ABC News report and accounts of intimate and private phone calls of military officers being passed around, a US intelligence official said "all employees of the US government" should expect that their telephone conversations could be monitored as part of an effort to safeguard security and "information assurance."

"They certainly didn't consent to having interceptions of their telephone sex conversations being passed around like some type of fraternity game," said Jonathon Turley, a constitutional law professor at George Washington University who has testified before Congress on the country's warrantless surveillance program.

"This story is to surveillance law what Abu Ghraib was to prison law," Turley said.

Listening to Aid Workers

NSA awarded Adrienne Kinne a NSA Joint Service Achievement Medal in 2003 at the same time she says she was listening to hundreds of private conversations between Americans, including many from the International Red Cross and Doctors without Borders.

"We knew they were working for these aid organizations," Kinne told ABC News. "They were identified in our systems as 'belongs to the International Red Cross' and all these other organizations. And yet, instead of blocking these phone numbers we continued to collect on them," she told ABC News.

A spokesman for Doctors Without Borders, Michael Goldfarb, said: "The abuse of humanitarian action through intelligence gathering for military or political objectives, threatens the ability to assist populations and undermines the safety of humanitarian aid workers."

Both Kinne and Faulk said their military commanders rebuffed questions about listening in to the private conversations of Americans talking to Americans.

"It was just always, that , you know, your job is not to question. Your job is to collect and pass on the information," Kinne said.

Some times, Kinne and Faulk said, the intercepts helped identify possible terror planning in Iraq and saved American lives.

"IED's were disarmed before they exploded, that people who were intending to harm US forces were captured ahead of time," Faulk said.

NSA job evaluation forms show he regularly received high marks for job performance. Faulk left his job as a newspaper reporter in Pittsburgh to join the Navy after 9/11.

Kinne says the success stories underscored for her the waste of time spent listening to innocent Americans, instead of looking for the terrorist needle in the haystack.

"By casting the net so wide and continuing to collect on Americans and aid organizations, it's almost like they're making the haystack bigger and it's harder to find that piece of information that might actually be useful to somebody," she said. "You're actually hurting our ability to effectively protect our national security."

The NSA: "The Shadow Factory"

Both former intercept operators came forward at first to speak with investigative journalist Jim Bamford for a book on the NSA, "The Shadow Factory," to be published next week.

"It's extremely rare," said Bamford, who has written two previous books on the NSA, including the landmark "Puzzle Palace" which first revealed the existence of the super secret spy agency.

"Both of them felt that what they were doing was illegal and improper, and immoral, and it shouldn't be done, and that's what forces whistleblowers."

A spokesman for General Hayden, Mark Mansfield, said: "At NSA, the law was followed assiduously. The notion that General Hayden sanctioned or tolerated illegalities of any sort is ridiculous on its face."

The director of the NSA, Lt. General Keith B. Alexander, declined to directly answer any of the allegations made by the whistleblowers.

In a written statement, Gen. Alexander said: "We have been entrusted to protect and defend the nation with integrity, accountability, and respect for the law. As Americans, we take this obligation seriously. Our employees work tirelessly for the good of the nation, and serve this country proudly."