Lawmakers outraged as allegations against soldier said to include sexual assault, forced prostitution

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The allegations against the latest military official accused of sexual assault include claims that he may have arranged for a woman to engage in prostitution, sources say. 

The charges have sparked outrage on Capitol Hill, as it emerged the accused soldier, whose name has not been made public, was assigned as a coordinator of a battalion-level sexual assault prevention program at Fort Hood. He has been suspended from all duties but has not been charged with any crime. 

It is the second time in the last month that a military official who led a sexual assault prevention unit was accused of sexual assault. 

The nature of the accusations is still unclear. A source on Capitol Hill told Fox News the investigation includes allegations of forcing one woman into prostitution and sexually assaulting two others. 

A defense official told The Associated Press the allegations include a claim that the soldier may have arranged for one of the women to have sex for money. This official said it's not yet clear whether the woman was forced into that arrangement. 

George Little, spokesman for Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, said Hagel has informed President Obama about the accusations against the Army sergeant first class, and Obama made clear he wants the behavior stopped. 

Little told reporters that Hagel's staff is working on a written directive that will spell out steps aimed at resolving a problem that has outraged lawmakers. 

"The president has made very clear his expectations on this issue," Little said. 

Lawmakers are calling for changes in the wake of the allegations. 

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., on Wednesday called for Hagel to create a tougher review process for individuals applying for sexual assault prevention unit positions. 

"This crisis has reached a breaking point that requires more than the traditional process for filling military jobs," they wrote in a letter Wednesday. 

Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said in a statement: "This latest incident clearly demonstrates that the military's efforts to prevent sexual assault are failing miserably." 

The case, along with another one involving an Air Force officer, highlights a problem that is drawing increased scrutiny in Congress and expressions of frustration from Hagel. 

"This is sickening. Twice now, in a matter of as many weeks, we've seen the very people charged with protecting victims of sexual assault being charged as perpetrators," Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said. 

Hagel said he was directing all the services to retrain, re-credential and rescreen all sexual assault prevention and response personnel and military recruiters, Little said after Tuesday's announcement that the Army sergeant was accused of pandering, abusive sexual contact, assault and maltreatment of subordinates. 

The soldier was being investigated by the Army Criminal Investigation Command. No charges had been filed, but officials say they expect them fairly soon. 

Little said Hagel was angry and disappointed at "these troubling allegations and the breakdown in discipline and standards they imply." He said Hagel had met with Army Secretary John McHugh and ordered him to "fully investigate this matter rapidly, to discover the extent of these allegations and to ensure that all of those who might be involved are dealt with appropriately." 

The Fort Hood soldier had been assigned as an equal opportunity adviser and coordinator of a sexual harassment-assault prevention program at the Army's 3rd Corps headquarters when the allegation arose, the Army said. 

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., said in a statement he was "outraged and disgusted by the reports out of Fort Hood." 

Just last week an Air Force officer who headed a sexual assault prevention office was himself arrested on charges of groping a woman in a Northern Virginia parking lot. 

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said his panel was considering a number of measures to counter the problem, including changes to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and will act on them next month. 

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said she intends to present new legislation on Thursday to overhaul the military justice system by removing chain-of-command influence from prosecution of sex abuse crimes. 

The Pentagon is struggling with what it calls a growing number of sexual assaults across the military. In a report last week, the Defense Department estimated that as many as 26,000 military members may have been sexually assaulted last year, based on survey results. 

Of those, fewer than 3,400 reported the incidents, and nearly 800 of those simply sought help and declined to file formal complaints against their alleged attackers. 

There also is an ongoing investigation into more than 30 Air Force instructors for assaults on trainees at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, as well as the recent arrest of the Air Force's head of sexual assault prevention on charges of groping a woman. 

An Arlington County, Va., police report said Air Force Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski was drunk and grabbed a woman's breast and buttocks in a parking lot earlier this month. The woman fought him off and called police, the report said. A judge has set a July 18 trial date for Krusinski. 

Such cases and two recent decisions by officers to overturn military juries' guilty verdicts in sexual assault cases has precipitated a storm of criticism on Capitol Hill. 

McCaskill is holding up the nomination of Air Force Lt. Gen. Susan Helms, tapped to serve as vice commander of the U.S. Space Command, until McCaskill gets more information about Helms' decision to overturn a jury conviction in a sexual assault case. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Lawmakers say IRS targeted dozens more conservative groups than initially believed

The IRS targeting of conservative groups is far broader than first reported, with nearly 500 organizations singled out for additional scrutiny, according to two lawmakers briefed by the agency. 

IRS officials claimed on Friday that roughly 300 groups received additional scrutiny. Reps. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said Tuesday that the number has actually risen to 471. Further, they said it is "unclear" whether Tea Party and other conservative groups are being targeted to this day. 

The lawmakers disclosed the additional information in a letter Tuesday to Lois Lerner, the IRS official who first disclosed the inappropriate practice. 

The Republican congressmen also revealed that the IRS itself determined their effort was biased against conservatives more than a year ago. 

"The actions of the IRS are unconscionable and appalling," they wrote. 

Given the advance knowledge of the program, Issa and Jordan voiced serious concerns about the honesty of top IRS officials and the lack of disciplinary action. The lawmakers said they've learned nobody has been disciplined and that one employee at the Cincinnati office where this program was supposedly started "received a promotion or 'career enhancement.'" 

They also questioned why top officials never disclosed the targeting effort when the agency conducted an internal review and found, on May 3 of last year, "significant problems in the review process and a substantial bias against conservative groups." 

They said "at no point" did Lerner or anyone else inform Congress of the findings. And they claimed it appeared Lerner "provided false or misleading information on four separate occasions" in 2012 on the program. They were referring to requests made last year to the IRS about its vetting of Tea Party groups. Lerner and other officials did not reveal the internal concern about the effort at the time, they said. 

Lawmakers across Capitol Hill were voicing concerns about the IRS program Tuesday, as independent investigators prepared to release a more complete accounting of what they discovered at the IRS. 

Attorney General Eric Holder said he's ordered the Justice Department to investigate the agency. 

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said what the agency did is "inexcusable," though he said the agency has also inappropriately targeted left-leaning groups in the past. 

Issa and Jordan wrote their letter after receiving a briefing from IRS staff. 

They claimed that the additional scrutiny from the IRS effectively placed Tea Party and other groups "in a state of purgatory where they often languished without action for periods as long as two years." 

Separate documents have indicated the program started as early as 2010.

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Lawmakers rip Justice Department over AP phone record grab

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  In this April 18, 2013 file photo, Attorney General Eric Holder testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. The Justice Department has secretly obtained two months of telephone records of journalists for The Associated Press in what AP's top executive says is an unprecedented intrusion into newsgathering.AP

Lawmakers from both parties sharply questioned the Justice Department late Monday over its reported effort to secretly obtain two months of phone records from Associated Press journalists, with House Speaker John Boehner’s office saying “they better have a damned good explanation.”

The AP disclosed the department’s actions Monday afternoon, revealing that the news service had recently learned the department obtained records listing outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of AP reporters and various AP offices. In all, the government seized the records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012.

Concern about what the AP’s top executive called an “unprecedented intrusion” quickly spanned party lines.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, said he’s “very troubled” by the allegations.  

“The burden is always on the government when they go after private information -- especially information regarding the press or its confidential sources. I want to know more about this case, but on the face of it, I am concerned that the government may not have met that burden,” Leahy said in a statement.

The AP also reported that the Justice Department got records for the main AP number in the House of Representatives press gallery. One congressional source told Fox News this allegation in particular “is not sitting too well” with congressional leadership.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said he plans to ask Attorney General Eric Holder “pointed questions” on the issue at a hearing Wednesday.

Boehner spokesman Michael Steel also had pointed words for the administration.  

“The First Amendment is first for a reason. If the Obama administration is going after reporters’ phone records, they better have a damned good explanation,” he said.

The allegations come on the heels of a pair of major controversies for the Obama administration. Fresh testimony and newly released documents last week raised questions about whether top administration officials deliberately distorted the details of the Benghazi attack as they first began providing details to the public last September. Then the IRS acknowledged Friday that it singled out conservative groups like the Tea Party for additional scrutiny as it screened applications for tax-exempt status.

House Republican Whip Kevin McCarthy described the AP claims as another blemish for the administration.

"I am deeply concerned by numerous reports of misconduct by the administration, from (whistle-blower) testimony regarding Benghazi to the Internal Revenue Service targeting groups based on political ideology and now the Department of Justice monitoring journalists with the Associated Press,” he said.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney referred questions on the issue to the Justice Department, claiming the White House was not involved.

“Other than press reports, we have no knowledge of any attempt by the Justice Department to seek phone records of the AP. We are not involved in decisions made in connection with criminal investigations, as those matters are handled independently by the Justice Department. Any questions about an ongoing criminal investigation should be directed to the Department of Justice,” he said.

Rules published by the Justice Department require that subpoenas of records of news organizations must be personally approved by the attorney general, but it was not known if that happened in this case. The letter notifying AP that its phone records had been obtained through subpoenas was sent Friday by Ronald Machen, the U.S. attorney in Washington.

William Miller, a spokesman for Machen, said Monday that in general the U.S. attorney follows "all applicable laws, federal regulations and Department of Justice policies when issuing subpoenas for phone records of media organizations." But he would not address questions about the specifics of the AP records. "We do not comment on ongoing criminal investigations," Miller said in an email.

According to the AP, it was not clear if the records obtained also included incoming calls or the duration of the calls.

The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown, but more than 100 journalists work in the offices where phone records were targeted, on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.

In a letter of protest sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt said the government sought and obtained information far beyond anything that could be justified by any specific investigation. He demanded the return of the phone records and destruction of all copies.

"There can be no possible justification for such an over-broad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the news gathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP's news gathering operations and disclose information about AP's activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know," Pruitt said.

The government would not say why it sought the records. Officials have previously said in public testimony that the U.S. attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have provided information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a foiled terror plot. The story disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an Al Qaeda plot in the spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States.

In testimony in February, CIA Director John Brennan noted that the FBI had questioned him about whether he was AP's source, which he denied. He called the release of the information to the media about the terror plot an "unauthorized and dangerous disclosure of classified information."

Prosecutors have sought phone records from reporters before, but the seizure of records from such a wide array of AP offices, including general AP switchboards numbers and an office-wide shared fax line, is unusual.

In the letter notifying the AP, which was received Friday, the Justice Department offered no explanation for the seizure, according to Pruitt's letter and attorneys for the AP. The records were presumably obtained from phone companies earlier this year although the government letter did not explain that. None of the information provided by the government to the AP suggested the actual phone conversations were monitored.

Among those whose phone numbers were obtained were five reporters and an editor who were involved in the May 7, 2012, story.

The Obama administration has aggressively investigated disclosures of classified information to the media and has brought six cases against people suspected of providing classified information, more than under all previous presidents combined.

The American Civil Liberties Union said the use of subpoenas for a broad swath of records has a chilling effect both on journalists and whistle-blowers who want to reveal government wrongdoing. "The attorney general must explain the Justice Department's actions to the public so that we can make sure this kind of press intimidation does not happen again," said Laura Murphy, the director of ACLU's Washington legislative office.

Fox News' Chad Pergram and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Justice Department secretly obtained AP phone records

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Lawmakers begin to fine-tune immigration bill, sponsors offer a few concessions

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• • 

    Gain or drain? Debate over cost of immigration reform

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    Sen. Rubio talks Benghazi hearing, immigration reform

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    Federal benefits key to immigration reform

The authors of a sweeping immigration overhaul agreed Thursday to strengthen border security provisions, while turning back efforts that would likely slow the mass legalization of illegal immigrants, as they began to fine-tune the bill in hopes of creating a product that can pass Congress. 

Lawmakers began the delicate work of amending the legislation during a lengthy Senate committee meeting on Capitol Hill. 

The process could take weeks as they cycle through roughly 300 amendments -- but it is a critical phase, as sponsors try to lure additional supporters to the bill. 

In one concession, the bipartisan authors agreed to an amendment from Republican Sen. Charles Grassley to require that new border security standards in the bill must apply to the entire southern border, not just "high-risk" sectors with the most crossings as the bill now says. 

But the bill's authors stuck together to defeat a separate Grassley amendment that would have barred anyone from seeking citizenship until the U.S.-Mexico border had been secured for six months. Supporters of the bill charged that the real effect of that provision would have been to delay citizenship indefinitely for the estimated 11 million people living here illegally. 

The fate of the immigration bill -- which would be the biggest overhaul since the 1980s -- remains unclear. While the effort has the support of prominent Republicans like Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, other powerful Republicans have spoken out against it. 

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in a testy exchange, claimed the bill has no "teeth" when it comes to border enforcement and warned that the current version would not pass. 

Grassley claimed it merely repeats the mistakes of the past. 

"It falls short of what I want to see in a strong immigration reform bill, so you will hear me say many times that we shouldn't make the same mistakes that we made in 1986," the last time Congress passed a major immigration overhaul bill, Grassley said. "You'll hear me say many times that we ought to move ahead with a bill that does it right this time." 

Supporters of the bill countered that the legislation represents the country's best hope to change the immigration system and a chance to break through the partisanship that's riven Congress and the country. They pleaded with opponents and senators who might be wavering to give the bill a chance and try to improve it -- not just look to kill it. 

"We have come up with a fair bill where no one gets everything they want, but at the end of the day, it will mean dramatic improvement for the American economy, the American people, and will make our immigration policy much more in sync with what is good for jobs and America," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., one of the bill's eight authors. 

The bill would toughen border security, overhaul legal immigration to allow tens of thousands of new high- and low-skilled workers into the country, require all employers to check their workers' immigration status and create a 13-year path to citizenship for the millions already here. 

The hearing room where the senators met was packed with lobbyists and immigration activists, some of whom stood with their hands clasped in prayer before the proceedings began Thursday. 

The vote on the Grassley amendment requiring six-month control of the border before unauthorized immigrants could begin to legalize their status was likely the first of several in which the Republican authors sided with committee Democrats to vote down amendments from their own side. Schumer and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., also are expected to lend their votes to the Republican side to defeat Democratic amendments that could improve the bill for immigrant families but cost Republican support. 

Although the bill allows citizenship to go forward only after certain border security goals have been met, those "triggers" haven't proven convincing enough for many GOP lawmakers, and even one of the bill's authors, Rubio, has said border measures need to be stronger. Although Rubio does not sit on the Judiciary Committee, he has pushed for some changes to be accepted, and the authors of the bill who do sit on the committee were going along with some of them Thursday. 

The committee also agreed to Grassley amendments to require more auditing of money collected under the bill, and to an amendment by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, to add certain forms of trafficking in persons to a the list of violent crimes that must be reported by the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program. 

An amendment by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, to give Congress a bigger role in signing off on border security steps in the bill was defeated, again by a 12-6 vote with Republican Sens. Jeff Flake and Lindsey Graham joining the Democrats on the panel. 

Democrats have the votes to ensure the bill passes the Judiciary Committee, but from its future is less clear, especially in the House. Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, who's been cautious in his public comments on how to proceed on immigration, promised Thursday that the House would act. 

"I just want to say this: the House is going to work its will on immigration reform," Boehner said at a news conference. "This is an issue that has been around far too long and needs to be dealt with. And I intend to see that it is dealt with." 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Lawmakers split on impact of access to benefits for illegal immigrants in Senate bill

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As the Senate prepares to take up comprehensive immigration legislation, one of the most pressing questions is how and when illegal immigrants who set out on the path to citizenship qualify for federal benefits. 

Lawmakers disagree sharply on this front, which could drive debate as they begin formal work on the bill Thursday. 

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., points out that the proposal says applicants would not qualify for at least 10-13 years -- and would not qualify for another five years after getting a green card, under current law. 

Further, Rubio argues that the proposal has "very specific" rules governing anyone who could be considered a "public charge," or someone who would live off the government dole. 

"If you are a public charge, you don't even qualify for renewal of that temporary status that you're getting," Rubio said. 

But Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., another Republican senator who has emerged as one of the chief critics of the bill, says the law does not properly enforce that provision. 

Sessions told Fox News that the so-called "public charge" law, as currently written, has been "totally ignored" to date. And he argued that many immigrants will be eligible for benefits much sooner than proponents claim -- including the so-called "dreamers," young illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. their parents. 

Sessions said 2-3 million illegal immigrants who claim that status will be able to have access to federal benefits in five years. 

And, he added, eventually "everyone who entered illegally will be able to accept any benefits this country offers." 

After the 15-year waiting period, the number accessing federal benefits could be an additional 10 or 11 million. 

Nevertheless, Rubio insists there will be checks at every stage of the process. 

"When you re-apply at the six-year mark, by the way you're not eligible for any public benefits at that point, you have to prove you're not a public charge," he said. 

A controversial report released earlier this week by the conservative Heritage Foundation estimated that, under the bill, the total cost of legalizing 11 million illegal immigrants could approach $6.3 trillion over the course of their lifetimes. The study factored in taxes those immigrants would pay, but also the services and other benefits that would be spent on them. 

It has come under heavy scrutiny from some conservative economists who say it ignored significant factors - like the possibility of some of these illegal immigrants moving up the income ladder after coming out of the shadows, while expanding the economy and boosting federal tax revenue.
Sessions and other critics are unconvinced. 

"We respect people who want to come to America. We believe that we should accept immigrants," Sessions said. "But we've got to be realistic about the impact." 

As the debate wages on, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on Wednesday offered an amendment to end the dispute -- by proposing to let illegal immigrants stay but deny them from ever receiving any "means-tested benefits," or welfare.

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Southern Illinois braces for oil rush as 'fracking' regulations considered by lawmakers

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  April, 8, 2013: Lucy Childers, 6, plays on the rock formations at Ferne Clyffe State Park in Goreville, Ill.AP

VIENNA, Ill. –  This is the Illinois that many people never see -- the sparsely populated southern tip where flat farmland gives way to rolling hills, rocky outcrops, thick forests and cypress swamps.

Blacktopped county roads wend through no-stoplight towns. Locals speak in soft drawls and talk of generations who've lived on the same land or in the same villages. The remote and rugged Shawnee National Forest attracts hikers, campers and horseback riders, and offers a stark contrast to the rest of a state that largely has been plowed, paved or suburbanized.

But many here are beginning to brace for change as the Illinois Legislature considers regulations that could set off a rush among energy companies to drill deep in the southern Illinois bedrock for oil and natural gas. The crews would be using a process known as high-volume hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," that has transformed the landscape in places like North Dakota and Pennsylvania.

After drilling intensively in many states in the last few years, the industry is now preparing to push into new territory, hoping to tap deposits long considered out of reach. Residents here -- and in states like New York and California that also are part of this next frontier -- have heard the angry clamor over fracking elsewhere, but most have little experience with the oil industry.

Already, drillers have leased hundreds of thousands of acres throughout southern Illinois, including in scenic Johnson and Pope counties, which hasn't seen conventional drilling and where people aren't sure what to expect if a fracking rush becomes a reality.

Some envision the kind of economic boom they've heard about in other states: tens of thousands of workers drilling for oil and gas, local businesses barely keeping up with demand and many municipal coffers flush with cash.

Others are spooked by stories of housing shortages, towns overrun with strangers, torn-up roads and claims of polluted water -- and worry that drilling would forever alter the serenity, beauty and very character of an area they consider special.

"This really is a double-edged sword," says Ron Duncan, Johnson County's economic development director, standing on a corner in downtown Vienna, the once-bustling county seat that now has just a handful of businesses and government offices.

"This town could use an economic infusion," he says, pausing to wave to an elderly man riding his lawnmower around the courthouse square. "But it's also where people love the rural life, the natural beauty and knowing their neighbors."

Fracking uses high-pressure mixtures of water, sand or gravel and chemicals to crack rock formations and release oil and natural gas deep underground. Combined with horizontal drilling, it allows access to formerly out-of-reach deposits and has opened large areas of the country for exploration. It has pushed U.S. oil production to its highest level in 20 years, the Energy Department says, and natural gas production to an all-time high, with new estimates that the nation has almost 2,400 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas.

In Illinois, the industry is eyeing the New Albany Shale formation, and could begin drilling as soon as this summer if the legislature passes regulations introduced in February. That's not a problem for many people in Illinois counties where conventional oil and gas drilling has been going on for over a century.

"Where we operate now, people aren't afraid," said Brad Richards, executive vice president of the Illinois Oil and Gas Association, who says fracking is safe and concerns about its environmental impact overblown.

But those in Pope and Johnson counties, areas Richard said might hold significant oil reserves, are divided.

The Pope County Board of Commissioners recently voted to support a 2-year drilling moratorium; bills filed in the Illinois House and Senate calling for a drilling delay have gotten little support.

"We need jobs," says board Chairman Larry Richards. "But will they just bring their own people in, tear our county up, destroy it and then pack up and leave us with a mess?"

Even so, many locals have leased land to oil companies, regarding it as a quick infusion of cash -- a onetime payment of about $50 per acre -- though they'll receive royalties if oil production is successful.

"I don't care whether I get (a well) or not," says 69-year-old Johnson County farmer Thomas Trover, who leased more than 1,300 acres to a Kansas oil company. "I got my $60,000."

Duncan, who raises cattle and hay on about 150 acres, says he also signed a lease, but only to protect himself: His neighbors were leasing, so the drillers could have fracked underneath his land anyway. Plus, he wanted to try to protect a creek that flows through his property.

He worries that fracking could deplete local water supplies, that there already is a shortage of rental housing and that a large stream of strangers might be more than some locals bargained for. But he also understands the wider economic benefit that could come if fracking creates jobs where there are no factories or Wal-Marts --the biggest employers are two prisons near Vienna and the school systems.

The poverty rate in Johnson County is about 15 percent, but it's almost 20 percent among Pope County's 4,400 residents.

So, fracking is a gamble that many are willing to take.

"It could be a real good thing," says 23-year-old Frank Johnson, who lives in the Pope County seat of Golconda, a shrinking Ohio River town of 670. He drives an hour each way to his job as a mechanic, but says many of his friends, "had to go in the military to get out of town," and get a job.

John Towns, who opened the Sweetwater Saloon in Golconda three years ago after a long career as a river captain, says fracking "sure enough wouldn't hurt nothing."

"It wouldn't bother me a bit," says Towns, a 62-year-old who's lived here all his life and watched friends and neighbors move away. "And maybe some of the workers would want to drink a beer."

But 68-year-old Barney Bush, chairman of a Shawnee Indian settlement in northeastern Pope County, near the Garden of the Gods -- ancient rock formations and cliffs in the Shawnee National Forest -- says this area is too special to put at risk for what could be short-term gain.

"This is still a hard place to live in, but it's everything that's left to me," says Bush, who draws his water from a natural spring and hunts the hardwood forests for wild onions, mushrooms and herbs. He fears fracking fluid would spill during drilling and pollute the water, that the sites would destroy forests and bring hundreds of tanker trucks rumbling through the hills.

"If they poison the water here, that's not just for a week, that's for eternity as far as we know," Bush says.

A regulatory bill setting rules for drilling is lingering in a House committee while industry and lawmakers hash out last-minute details.

Wayne Woolsey, the owner of Wichita, Kan.-based Woolsey Energy Corp., has staked out his land, buying leases in Johnson, Pope and eight other counties.

He says he's ready to get going: "If this is as good as I think it is, it will be a tremendous opportunity for the state of Illinois -- which, by the way is in great debt."

View the original article here

Southern Illinois braces for oil rush as 'fracking' regulations considered by lawmakers

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  April, 8, 2013: Lucy Childers, 6, plays on the rock formations at Ferne Clyffe State Park in Goreville, Ill.AP

VIENNA, Ill. –  This is the Illinois that many people never see -- the sparsely populated southern tip where flat farmland gives way to rolling hills, rocky outcrops, thick forests and cypress swamps.

Blacktopped county roads wend through no-stoplight towns. Locals speak in soft drawls and talk of generations who've lived on the same land or in the same villages. The remote and rugged Shawnee National Forest attracts hikers, campers and horseback riders, and offers a stark contrast to the rest of a state that largely has been plowed, paved or suburbanized.

But many here are beginning to brace for change as the Illinois Legislature considers regulations that could set off a rush among energy companies to drill deep in the southern Illinois bedrock for oil and natural gas. The crews would be using a process known as high-volume hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," that has transformed the landscape in places like North Dakota and Pennsylvania.

After drilling intensively in many states in the last few years, the industry is now preparing to push into new territory, hoping to tap deposits long considered out of reach. Residents here -- and in states like New York and California that also are part of this next frontier -- have heard the angry clamor over fracking elsewhere, but most have little experience with the oil industry.

Already, drillers have leased hundreds of thousands of acres throughout southern Illinois, including in scenic Johnson and Pope counties, which hasn't seen conventional drilling and where people aren't sure what to expect if a fracking rush becomes a reality.

Some envision the kind of economic boom they've heard about in other states: tens of thousands of workers drilling for oil and gas, local businesses barely keeping up with demand and many municipal coffers flush with cash.

Others are spooked by stories of housing shortages, towns overrun with strangers, torn-up roads and claims of polluted water -- and worry that drilling would forever alter the serenity, beauty and very character of an area they consider special.

"This really is a double-edged sword," says Ron Duncan, Johnson County's economic development director, standing on a corner in downtown Vienna, the once-bustling county seat that now has just a handful of businesses and government offices.

"This town could use an economic infusion," he says, pausing to wave to an elderly man riding his lawnmower around the courthouse square. "But it's also where people love the rural life, the natural beauty and knowing their neighbors."

Fracking uses high-pressure mixtures of water, sand or gravel and chemicals to crack rock formations and release oil and natural gas deep underground. Combined with horizontal drilling, it allows access to formerly out-of-reach deposits and has opened large areas of the country for exploration. It has pushed U.S. oil production to its highest level in 20 years, the Energy Department says, and natural gas production to an all-time high, with new estimates that the nation has almost 2,400 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas.

In Illinois, the industry is eyeing the New Albany Shale formation, and could begin drilling as soon as this summer if the legislature passes regulations introduced in February. That's not a problem for many people in Illinois counties where conventional oil and gas drilling has been going on for over a century.

"Where we operate now, people aren't afraid," said Brad Richards, executive vice president of the Illinois Oil and Gas Association, who says fracking is safe and concerns about its environmental impact overblown.

But those in Pope and Johnson counties, areas Richard said might hold significant oil reserves, are divided.

The Pope County Board of Commissioners recently voted to support a 2-year drilling moratorium; bills filed in the Illinois House and Senate calling for a drilling delay have gotten little support.

"We need jobs," says board Chairman Larry Richards. "But will they just bring their own people in, tear our county up, destroy it and then pack up and leave us with a mess?"

Even so, many locals have leased land to oil companies, regarding it as a quick infusion of cash -- a onetime payment of about $50 per acre -- though they'll receive royalties if oil production is successful.

"I don't care whether I get (a well) or not," says 69-year-old Johnson County farmer Thomas Trover, who leased more than 1,300 acres to a Kansas oil company. "I got my $60,000."

Duncan, who raises cattle and hay on about 150 acres, says he also signed a lease, but only to protect himself: His neighbors were leasing, so the drillers could have fracked underneath his land anyway. Plus, he wanted to try to protect a creek that flows through his property.

He worries that fracking could deplete local water supplies, that there already is a shortage of rental housing and that a large stream of strangers might be more than some locals bargained for. But he also understands the wider economic benefit that could come if fracking creates jobs where there are no factories or Wal-Marts --the biggest employers are two prisons near Vienna and the school systems.

The poverty rate in Johnson County is about 15 percent, but it's almost 20 percent among Pope County's 4,400 residents.

So, fracking is a gamble that many are willing to take.

"It could be a real good thing," says 23-year-old Frank Johnson, who lives in the Pope County seat of Golconda, a shrinking Ohio River town of 670. He drives an hour each way to his job as a mechanic, but says many of his friends, "had to go in the military to get out of town," and get a job.

John Towns, who opened the Sweetwater Saloon in Golconda three years ago after a long career as a river captain, says fracking "sure enough wouldn't hurt nothing."

"It wouldn't bother me a bit," says Towns, a 62-year-old who's lived here all his life and watched friends and neighbors move away. "And maybe some of the workers would want to drink a beer."

But 68-year-old Barney Bush, chairman of a Shawnee Indian settlement in northeastern Pope County, near the Garden of the Gods -- ancient rock formations and cliffs in the Shawnee National Forest -- says this area is too special to put at risk for what could be short-term gain.

"This is still a hard place to live in, but it's everything that's left to me," says Bush, who draws his water from a natural spring and hunts the hardwood forests for wild onions, mushrooms and herbs. He fears fracking fluid would spill during drilling and pollute the water, that the sites would destroy forests and bring hundreds of tanker trucks rumbling through the hills.

"If they poison the water here, that's not just for a week, that's for eternity as far as we know," Bush says.

A regulatory bill setting rules for drilling is lingering in a House committee while industry and lawmakers hash out last-minute details.

Wayne Woolsey, the owner of Wichita, Kan.-based Woolsey Energy Corp., has staked out his land, buying leases in Johnson, Pope and eight other counties.

He says he's ready to get going: "If this is as good as I think it is, it will be a tremendous opportunity for the state of Illinois -- which, by the way is in great debt."

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Lawmakers: Syrian's air defense not impenetrable

Published May 05, 2013

Associated Press

Two lawmakers say Syria's air defense system isn't as strong as once thought and add that Israel's recent strikes there show the regime is vulnerable.

Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont said Sunday that Syrian President Bashar Assad's air defense systems were not impenetrable. Israel in recent days has launched airstrikes targeting a shipment of advanced missiles believed to be headed for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

McCain says Syria crossed another "red line" in transferring weapons to U.S. foes. McCain, however, is not advocating U.S. ground forces go into Syria to secure the weapons. Instead, he says, the United States should use its military might from afar.

McCain spoke with "Fox News Sunday." Leahy spoke to NBC's "Meet the Press."

View the original article here

Lawmakers seek clearance to interview Benghazi 'witnesses'

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House Republicans are trying to secure clearance in order to interview a number of "witnesses" for their investigation into the Benghazi terror attack, as potential whistleblowers seek protection against government retaliation, Fox News has learned. 

Fox News has obtained three letters, dated April 16, sent to the top legal counsels at the CIA, State Department and Pentagon. 

The letters were written by Rep. Darrell Issa, R.Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and ask each agency for its official description of the legal steps needed to get clearance for whistleblowers to be able to share classified information about the attacks with their attorneys.

Issa said "numerous individuals" have approached the committee with information on the attack. It's unclear whether these individuals were at the Benghazi compound during the Sept. 11, 2012, assault, or are officials in Washington with knowledge of the situation. He noted that some witnesses might need to retain counsel, which is why he asked for the documentation on that issue. 

He also asked that each agency assure these individuals that they can provide information to Congress. 

“With that in mind, it is important that the Department makes clear to its employees that they are free to furnish information to Congress in accordance with their statutory rights,” the letter states. “Additionally, retaliation against a witness who communicates with the Committee can be considered obstruction of a congressional investigation and is punishable by fine and imprisonment.”

The letters ask for the material to be provided to Issa's office by 5 p.m. April 17, 2013. When contacted by FoxNews.com at 5 p.m., a spokeswoman said they had not received the information yet.

Earlier Wednesday, Secretary of State John Kerry testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the U.S. has identified people it believes were involved in the attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. Kerry testified that investigators from the FBI were still analyzing footage from the Sept. 11, 2012 attack. He did not say if anyone had been arrested or detained by American or Libyan authorities in the seven months since the bombing in Libya.

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Envelope containing ricin sent to Sen. Wicker, lawmakers say

Published April 16, 2013

FoxNews.com

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An envelope containing ricin was sent to the Capitol Hill office of Sen. Roger Wicker, lawmakers told Fox News on Tuesday. 

Milt Leitenberg, a University of Maryland bioterrorism expert, said ricin is a poison derived from the same bean that makes castor oil. According to a Homeland Security Department handbook, ricin is deadliest when inhaled. It is not contagious, but there is no antidote.

The letter to the Mississippi Republican was intercepted at an off-site mail screening facility and never reached the Hill. 

"It is of concern," Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said after learning about the incident in a briefing with other senators late Tuesday. 

Fox News confirmed the envelope tested positive for ricin. 

The envelope had a Tennessee postmark and no return address. 

The letter inside included an implied threat to effect of: "You haven’t listen to me before. Now you will, even if people have to die," Politico also reported.

Sources say officials are familiar with the person believed to have sent the letter as the person has sent other letters before.

FBI Director Robert Mueller and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano were on Capitol Hill on Tuesday for a scheduled talk about cyber security. But that briefing morphed into talks about Boston, after the bombings Monday.

Senate Sergeant at Arms Terry Gainer conducted a separate briefing for senators specifically on ricin.

It's unclear whether the letter had any connection to the Boston attack. 

The mail-screening system was established after the Anthrax attacks of 2001 that closed the Hart Senate Office Building.

Fox News' Chad Pergram and Mike Levine and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

View the original article here

Envelope containing ricin sent to Sen. Wicker, lawmakers say

Published April 16, 2013

FoxNews.com

An envelope containing ricin was sent to the Capitol Hill office of Sen. Roger Wicker, lawmakers told Fox News on Tuesday. 

The letter to the Mississippi Republican was intercepted at an off-site mail screening facility, and never made its way to the Hill. 

"It is of concern," Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said, after learning about the incident in a briefing with other senators late Tuesday. 

Fox News has learned that the envelope tested positive for ricin. 

Lawmakers were apparently gathered for a briefing on the Boston Marathon bombing, but the briefing ended up focusing on the letter threat. The briefing included Senate Sergeant at Arms Terry Gainer, FBI Director Robert Mueller and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. 

It's unclear whether the letter had any connection to the Boston attack Monday. 

It's customary for mail addressed to congressional offices to be screened at an off-site facility.

Fox News' Chad Pergram and Mike Levine and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Blind activist Chen tells US lawmakers China breaking promise

Published April 09, 2013

Associated Press

Blind activist Chen Guangcheng says China is violating its promise not to persecute his family.

Speaking before a congressional panel Tuesday, Chen said his nephew has been threatened by Yinan County officials with life imprisonment if he appeals his three-year sentence for assault.

Chen Kegui was sentenced in November in a summary trial, seen as retaliation by local officials angered by his uncle's daring escape from house arrest last April. That set off a diplomatic tussle between Beijing and Washington before the elder Chen, a self-taught rights lawyer, was allowed to leave for America.

The U.S. has said Beijing gave assurances Chen's relatives would be treated in accordance with Chinese law.

Chen says local authorities have also intimidated his nephew's family.

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Virginia lawmakers approve measure to bar abortion coverage

RICHMOND, Va. –  By a single Senate vote, Virginia's General Assembly on Wednesday prohibited abortion coverage from being offered in insurance policies that would be sold through a federally funded health insurance exchange in the state.

Capping a day of passionate rhetoric and dramatic delays over the emotional issue, the Senate voted 20-19 to accept Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell's amendment to legislation defining how health exchanges -- forums through which people who don't qualify for Medicaid can purchase low-cost coverage -- would function.

Earlier in the day, the House, by a 55-37 vote, approved the amendment. Its real test was destined to be the Senate where Democrats and Republicans each control 20 seats.

Opponents -- including the lone Republican to oppose the amendment, Sen. John Watkins -- said McDonnell's measure was so extreme that it will not only interfere with a woman's reproductive rights decisions, it takes the unusual step of dictating to private insurers' policies what they can't cover.

Federal law for more than 35 years has prohibited the use of taxpayer funds for abortion services. But, Democrats noted, McDonnell's amendment even denies firms selling policies through the exchange the opportunity to sell separate riders to cover abortions to customers who don't use government subsidies.

"We've told insurance companies what kind of mandates you have to cover, but we've never told an insurance company that you can't cover something even if you want to cover it," an incredulous Sen. Richard L. Saslaw, a Democrat from Fairfax County, said.

Debate was visceral and sometimes explosive in both chambers.

In the House, the General Assembly's most ardent abortion opponent, Republican Del. Robert G. Marshall, provoked gasps and grimaces within the House chamber when he said the amendment didn't go far enough because it allows what he considers an overly broad exception allowing abortions when a pregnant woman's life is in peril.

Marshall said he would abstain to voice his displeasure, and a fellow anti-abortion legislator, Del. Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah, sought to change Marshall's mind by arguing that McDonnell's amendment does more harm than good.

"If he truly believes this amendment would not save one life, then I certainly understand that that is a valid argument, but if he believes it will save any lives, why then would he not attempt to do that?" Gilbert asked.

"Mr. Speaker, anybody here could go out in front of an abortion clinic and blow it up and probably slow down the number of abortions for a week. I'm not willing to use any means to achieve even a good end," Marshall shot back.

In the Senate, Republican Thomas A. Garrett of Louisa rebutted the Democrats' claim that McDonnell -- a social conservative -- and the GOP were restricting private individuals from using their own money.

"We talk about private contracts, but these private contracts, by the language of the bill, are administered with public funds, therefore it's not a private transaction," he reasoned. "And we talk about this bill as if it's demeaning. It is hard for me to conceive of something more demeaning than a human life tossed into a refuse bin, a garbage can."

The amendment was identical to a provision passed two years ago as part of a law that would have governed the operation of a state-run and state-funded insurance exchange as required under the Affordable Care Act that Congress enacted in 2010.

But McDonnell decided against a state-run exchange, leaving the federal government to operate and fund the exchange in Virginia.

View the original article here

ObamaCare in Trouble? Exchange provision delayed, as lawmakers push to repeal another

• 

• • 

    ObamaCare beginning to crumble?

  • 

    ObamaCare's tax surprise

Parts of ObamaCare are starting to fray, even before full implementation. 

The Obama administration now says a special system of exchanges designed to make it easier for small businesses to provide insurance will be delayed an entire year -- to 2015. 

"Lots of small businesses struggle with providing insurance for their workers so this was supposed to facilitate it and make it easier for small business to do this," said Jim Capretta of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. "It was a huge portion of the sale job. When they passed the law in 2010 there were many senators and members of Congress who were saying 'I am doing this because it's going to help small businesses.'" 

The exchanges were designed to give workers a range of choices supported by dollars from their employers. But now they will have only one choice until 2015, which could mean they can't shop for insurance that includes their current providers. Capretta said the administration is "way" behind schedule. 

Since insurance is more expensive for small businesses, many of which have no obligation under the law to provide coverage, analysts now fear many might just stop trying and let workers go on the soon-to-be-launched state exchanges. 

Sara Teppema of the Society of Actuaries -- which did an exhaustive study of ObamaCare -- said that "even if it's just a small change of people who are leaving the employment-based insurance and coming into the individual insurance market, their costs and their numbers will overwhelm those who are currently uninsured." 

That means costs would increase. 

Meanwhile, 79 senators including several liberal lawmakers recently voted to repeal a new tax on medical devices contained in the health care law following a similar vote in the House. 

"The House and the Senate agreeing? This is a harmonic convergence, it doesn't happen," said former Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh. "But on this it's happened because the adverse consequences to our economy and the quality of health care are so apparent." 

The two separate votes have not become law but show widespread opposition to the 2.3 percent sales tax on medical devices. Critics say the law is unfair to the industry since it's a tax on gross sales -- meaning it adds up to a much bigger percentage of a company's profits. 

But supporters such as Paul Van de Water of the Center for American Progress oppose any repeal. 

"I think that repealing the device tax would be irresponsible. We need the revenue and it's not going to be a job killer," he said. 

The theory was that ObamaCare would insure 30 million more people and that device makers, like pharmaceutical companies, would get lots of new customers and a steady stream of new revenue to make up for the tax. Van de Water predicted that would still happen. 

"These device manufacturers are for the most part going to be getting a large increase in business thanks to health reform, thanks to ObamaCare," he said.  

But the CEO of one company said that's not true for the 7,000 small companies with 400,000 employees who make a wide range of devices. 

Christine Jacobs of Theragenics said: "We make widgets -- hips, knees, stents, pacemakers, and implants, even, for prostate cancer. Those widgets tend to be used by people that are elderly. As the body parts wear out, we're needed." 

But Jacobs notes that most people whose body parts wear out are already on Medicare, so ObamaCare does not provide a new revenue stream for her company -- only financial pain. 

"In the case of a small company, that medical device tax is equal to our R-and-D budget for this year," Jacobs said. 

Bayh said in his own state of Indiana, one company planned to open up to five facilities over the next five years but had to scrap those plans because of the "uncertainty created by this tax." 

Jacobs said the huge multinational device makers might be able to handle the burden but not the small companies. 

"It's just such a disproportionate burden for little guys," she said. "Because we're all being told that it's the little companies that create the jobs. And that's not message that we're getting." 

The tax will even be applied to sutures used on pets that Theragenics developed for the veterinary market. 

She sought FDA approval to demonstrate the quality of her products. But now she said "it's hard for me not to get frosted on this one" -- she explained that whoever wrote the regulations said "if you have FDA approval, you will be taxed."   

President Obama has vowed to veto any repeal of the tax, but Bayh notes that 79 votes in the Senate would be more than enough to override any veto.

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Nebraska lawmakers debate reducing early voting days

LINCOLN, Neb. –  Nebraska lawmakers on Wednesday began whether to reduce the number of days registered voters may cast their ballots in person.

A bill sponsored by Sen. Scott Lautenbaugh would reduce how long before an election voters can cast their ballots, from 35 days to 25. Lautenbaugh said the change is necessary because election officials need more time to program specialized voting machines used by visually impaired voters. Mail-in and absentee ballots would still be accepted 35 days before an election.

The 2002 Help America Vote Act requires the Automark voting machines to be at precincts to assist voters with disabilities in casting their ballots privately.

Nebraskans for Civic Reform filed a complaint with the secretary of state on behalf of a blind woman after she was unable to vote because the machines weren't set up two days after early voting polls opened last year in Lincoln. The woman, Fatos Floyd, said Lautenbaugh's solution is not what she had in mind. She opposes the bill and said she doesn't want others to lose early voting days because of her complaint.

"For me as a blind person, it is a big deal," Floyd said. "If there is a right and we don't fight for it, our rights will be eroded."

Election officials argued in support of the bill at a committee hearing in February, saying they don't have enough time between the Sept. 15 deadline for ballot certification and the start of early voting on Oct. 1 to program the Automark machines.

Lautenbaugh said Wednesday that Automark machines have to be programed with the paper ballots, which can take a long time because every county has a different ballot. He said 25 days of early voting is still above the national average, which is 22 days.

"This is a common-sense solution to avoid an allegedly discriminatory situation," he said.

But several lawmakers said moving the date back 10 days isn't the best solution.

Sen. Russ Karpisek of Wilber suggested changing the ballot certification dates, negotiating with the company to finish programing the voting machines earlier or working with a different voting machine manufacturer. He said the senators try to get more people to vote, but then pass laws that make it harder.

"Just take away 10 days doesn't feel right to me," he said. "I think there has to be a different way to go about it."

Lawmakers are schedule to continue debating the bill Thursday afternoon.

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Lawmakers concerned about 'potential risks' of giving Saudi passengers fast-track status

Published March 28, 2013

FoxNews.com

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Republican lawmakers are voicing concern about the "potential risks" of a Department of Homeland Security decision granting "trusted traveler" status to airline passengers from Saudi Arabia. 

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, and six other lawmakers questioned the program in a letter Wednesday to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. 

They asked for "assurances" about whether Saudi applicants would receive proper screening before being enrolled and what steps would be taken to prevent terrorists from exploiting the system. They noted, as other critics of the decision have, that Saudi Arabia produced 15 of the 19 hijackers behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. 

"Certainly, despite our longstanding relationship with the Kingdom, there are potential risks in opening this program to Saudi Arabia that must be considered," they wrote. 

They noted that Saudi Arabia also was temporarily on a list of countries whose U.S.-bound travelers would face higher scrutiny following the attempted Christmas Day bombing in 2009. 

The Investigative Project on Terrorism issued a report last week on the department's under-the-radar announcement to expand the Global Entry program to Saudi Arabia -- which was first made by Napolitano after meeting in January with her Saudi counterpart. Any Saudi travelers cleared through the program will be able to bypass the normal customs line after providing passports and fingerprints. The status lasts for five years. Applicants are expected to undergo a thorough vetting before they are accepted. 

Only an exclusive handful of countries enjoy inclusion in the Global Entry program -- Canada, Mexico, South Korea and the Netherlands. According to the IPT, some officials were questioning why Saudi Arabia gets to reap the benefits of the program, when key U.S. allies like Germany and France are not enrolled. 

The lawmakers who wrote to Napolitano said they remain "vigilant for vulnerabilities that our enemies can exploit" to get inside U.S. borders. 

"Expanding Global Entry to high-risk countries may represent such a risk," they wrote.

Related Stories

DHS questioned over decision to let Saudi passengers skip normal passport controls

View the original article here

Florida lawmakers advance bill to allow arming school employees

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  Dec. 27, 2012: Clark Aposhian, President of Utah Shooting Sport Council, demonstrates with a plastic gun during concealed-weapons training for 200 Utah teachers.AP

Public and private school principals could designate teachers and other school employees who would carry concealed weapons on campus at all times in an effort to make schools safer, under legislation that won approval Wednesday from a Florida House committee. 

It gives principals the option to designate one or several school employees to carry concealed weapons. The designee would be required to complete the same training that bank and courthouse security guards complete in addition to the statewide firearms training. Principals could also decline the concealed weapons option altogether. 

Proponents of the bill argued that since the state can't afford to put a school resource officer on every campus, the gun legislation is a commonsense alternative. 

"I want my children safe and in our overwhelming desire to protect our children with gun free zones we have inadvertently made them the ideal sterile target for a madman and the unwillingness of people to confront that reality is unacceptable," said the bill's co-sponsor Rep. Dennis Baxley. 

But several lawmakers expressed reservations about placing more guns on school campuses. 

The bill would allow no one to carry a gun on campus, except the principal's designee who has completed the proper training. That person would be required to carry the firearm on them at all times. The principal will determine whether to tell parents who that person is. Several lawmakers expressed concern that local school boards should not be kept in the dark about whether schools in their districts are armed. 

Bill sponsor Republican Rep. Greg Steube cited a 2002 Secret Service and U.S. Department of Education study that said most school shootings were stopped by someone other than law enforcement and most incidents lasted 15 minutes or less. 

Eight other states allow concealed firearms on school campuses, Steube said. 

Steube said he has received numerous phone calls and emails in support of the bill from principals in rural school districts whose schools are 30 to 45 minutes away from a law enforcement response. 

The Florida School Boards Association opposes the bill, saying its members want more funds to hire school resource officers in every school and are worried about liability issues. 

"You're going to send the wrong message to these students ... so they go back into the community and say, `Hey it's OK, coach is carrying a gun, principal is carrying a gun, teacher is carrying a gun, why can't I carry a gun, everybody's carrying a gun," said Executive Director Wayne Blanton. 

But Republican Rep. Dave Hood Jr. argued it's more of a liability not to arm school personnel and continue to put innocent children at risk for school violence. 

Several lawmakers, including Reps. Hood, Gwyndolen Clarke-Reed and Richard Stark, said the bill will have a hard time moving forward unless it has the support of the school boards. 

Joy Frank, general counsel, of the Florida Association of District School Superintendents, also spoke against the bill. 

"I really do not want (my grandkids) to be in a school where someone, no matter how well trained, is carrying a weapon," she said. 

But Rep. Ronald Renuart argued parents worried about having guns in the schools "are the same parents that take their children into banks, shopping malls where there's often somebody less trained and less screened to carry that weapon." 

Stark warned against a knee jerk reaction after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School that left 20 first-graders and six educators dead in Newton, Connecticut last year. 

"Sometimes you have to step back a little bit before you make a decision of this magnitude," the Democrat from Weston said. "Guns are very powerful. It's not BB guns.

View the original article here

Will lawmakers ban Google Glass?

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  Apr. 4, 2012: Google is testing out its new Android-powered augmented-reality glasses.Google

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  Apr. 4, 2012: A model sports Google's augmented reality, "smartphone glasses."Google

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  Apr. 4, 2012: Google's Android-powered, augmented-reality glasses would show maps, video chats, photographs, and even allow the user to shop online -- all at the blink of an eye.Google

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  Google co-founder Sergey Brin demonstrating Google's new Glass -- wearable internet glasses -- at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco in 2012.AP Photo/Paul Sakuma

Next Slide Previous Slide

Google will soon start handing out its high-tech new glasses -- but did they see the backlash coming?

Tuesday evening the tech giant said it was notifying 8,000 beta testers in the Glass Explorer program. They’ll each receive a pair of the augmented reality glasses, high-tech eyewear that can snap photos, text friends and record video of everything the wearer sees. Expect to see Google Glass soon on faces at the coffee shop and local baseball game.

Most tech pundits see it as an important innovation that could even rival the mighty smartphone. Thad Starner, a Georgia Tech professor and Google Project Glass adviser, said it could create a lifestyle change. He envisions widespread consumer adoption.

"I believe products like Project Glass will give us more power and make us efficient and calmer," he told FoxNews.com. "It will help us weed out interruptions."

But as the Glass roll-out begins, privacy experts and lawmakers have begun wondering whether it's a cause for concern as well. In West Virginia, a new law -- aimed squarely at Project Glass -- could make it illegal to drive with the glasses. A San Francisco bar forbade them on patrons. One activist group has even called for an outright ban.

Aaron Messing, a technology and information privacy attorney with Olender Feldman, says Google Glass could violate the "two-party consent" law in states like California, Washington and Nevada where it is illegal to record a conversation unless everyone agrees. He says more states might impose anti-HUD driving laws.

"Much of the concern centers around the ease of discreet recording, as well as concerns that such recording may become ubiquitous," he told FoxNews.com. "The proposed West Virginia law only seeks to regulate wearable heads-up displays [while driving]."

'It's possible that nobody, even the wearer of Google Glass, will know when and what is being recording.'

- Arif Mahmood, a social media attorney

Arif Mahmood, a social media attorney in Toronto, says there are no federal laws governing the use of a device like Glass Explorer. He says the trend in society has moved from an obvious video camera recording, to a cell phone, and now to a personal heads-up display. Cities and states may not know how to respond.

"It's possible that nobody, even the wearer of Google Glass or a similar technology, will know when and what is being recording, and how it is being stored or transmitted," he said, adding the GPS location features could also create problems. We might know when the device is recording, but not when it is identifying someone in a crowd.

Starner disagreed, saying Project Glass actually encourages better privacy in public places. The founder of the wearable computing group at the MIT Media Lab decades ago, Starner has worn such devices for 20 years. He says the user is always in control of the device. There's a signal on the glasses that show when it is recording. And, unlike a smartphone in your pocket, you always know someone is wearing the device and using it.

There are laws that prevent people from misusing a device in public as well -- e.g., recording in a "reprehensible" way.

"People will always do reprehensible things with any new technology," he said. "The challenge is to encourage people to do things in a socially responsible way."

Mahmood says lawmakers probably won't react right away to Project Glass. If the glasses become pervasive in society, new laws may be enacted. That said, he wonders what will happen if the U.S. government decides to tap into them for surveillance.

"If the government has a warrant to track a Google Glass device it gets to see and hear everything the target sees (and where they go), but also what people around the target are saying and doing. This is different from cell phones where the point of a surveillance law would be only to listen in on the calls between the target and some third-party."

Other companies already offer wearable heads-up goggles. The Epson Moverio BT-100 Wearable Display costs $600, for example, and is powered by Android. The Motorola HC-1 is designed for industrial use in the field and can show pop-up maps.

Starner says journalists have used hidden cameras and audio recorders for decades. Smartphones can record audio when you have one stashed away in your pocket. He says, if someone is wearing Project Glass, there is an existing social contract that says you should always ask for permission before recording.

He says he is not aware of any feature in Project Glass that can identify someone in your field of view and record the GPS location. As far as wiretapping by the FBI goes, that would be difficult: Project Glass is designed to let everyone around you know when the device is recording.

“It’s a transparent display: What I see, you see,” he noted.

Jay Nancarrow, a Google spokesman, says the purpose of the Glass Explorer program is to find out more about the social factors for using the device in public.

"Glass isn’t the sort of technology you can develop in a conference room -- we really need people to take it out into the world and see what they’d like to do with it across a wide range of hobbies, lifestyles, and environments," he said.

Plans among the 8,000 participants in the project are widespread and intriguing. Sarah Hill would take hers to a VA hospital to let veterans see their war memorials. David Moriarty hopes to improve doctor-patient interaction for clinical trials. And Max Wood is a firefighter who would improve fire safety by using pre-fire planning maps.

Will the new heads-up glasses become pervasive? Judging from the response on Twitter, Project Glass is creating widespread interest. Whether everyone starts wearing them in public -- and whether your lawmaker starts mandating their use -- remains to be seen.

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What your gadget says about you

Google picks 8,000 geeks to try out Google Glass

Illinois supercomputer among world's most powerful

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Arizona lawmakers consider modifying transgender bill

PHOENIX –  Faced with an outcry from advocacy groups, an Arizona lawmaker has changed his proposed legislation that would have made it a crime for a transgendered person to use a bathroom other than his or her birth sex.

The new bill by state Rep. John Kavanagh ditches that effort and instead seeks to shield businesses from civil or criminal liability if they ban people from restrooms that don't match their birth sex. The House committee Kavanagh chairs began meeting at midafternoon on Wednesday, but the so-called "bathroom bill" wasn't expected to be considered until Wednesday evening.

Meanwhile, the hearing room was packed with people from the LGBT community who opposed the bill.

Patty Medway, a transgendered woman who was born a man, said she's been using female bathrooms for years without a problem. She called on Kavanagh to back away from his effort.

"I've been using washrooms for 15 years and I don't want to be discriminated against, and I'm scared to go to a male washroom," she said.

The conservative Republican said he listened to the criticism of what one local television station dubbed the "Show Me Your Papers Before You Go Potty" bill.

The revised bill is designed to shield businesses from lawsuits while protecting people from being exposed to what he described as "naked men in women's locker rooms and showers," Kavanagh said. It doesn't prohibit businesses from allowing transgender people from using the restroom they want.

To Kavanagh's point that he worried about young girls being exposed to transgendered people in restrooms, Medway said that just doesn't happen.

"In ladies washrooms, they're all stalls, they are segmented," she said.

The changes to his bill don't make rights groups feel any better.

"These sort of tabloid attacks around bathroom behavior are largely overblown," said Andre Banks, a New York-based spokesman for All Out, a group that advocates for LGBT rights. "Often these sort of great fears that people bring up never come to fruition. But what is very real is the kind of violence, discrimination and intimidation that transgender people face all across this country."

Rep. Stefanie Mach, a Tucson Democrat on Kavanagh's Appropriations Committee, called the proposal "an unnecessary response."

"It's just over the top," she said.

View the original article here

TSA dismisses GOP lawmaker's claim disabled Marine humiliated at Arizona airport

Published March 21, 2013

FoxNews.com

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  A GOP lawmakers claims TSA agents humiliated a marine at Sky Harbor Airport.myfoxphoenix.com

A California lawmaker is slamming the TSA after he says they humiliated a Marine who lost his legs to an explosive device, but the agency says security footage proves the claims are false. 

MyFoxPhoenix.com reports Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., says in a letter to the TSA that the security screening the unnamed Marine was forced to undergo at Phoenix's Sky Harbor airport was excessive.

Hunter claims the Marine was traveling to a spring training game when he underwent the security screening. The Marine, who lost his legs in an IED explosion but is still on active duty, was reportedly forced to remove his prosthetic legs and stand so agents could check his wheelchair for explosives.

Hunters says the Marine was told he must walk to a different screening area, despite being physically unable to do so.

"While I recognize the necessity to appropriately screen passengers, I am concerned by the apparent lack of situational awareness and respect among TSA officers... specifically when it comes to the treatment of war wounded," Hunter said according to MyFoxPhoenix.com.

However, the TSA said in a statement Hunter's version of the events is false.

"No prosthetic was removed," a spokesperson tells MyFoxPhoenix.com after reviewing video footage from the airport. "Screening was complete in less than 8 minutes and carried out by two military veterans."

The spokesperson says they are also working to make the screening process smoother for wounded veterans. 

Click for more from MyFoxPhoenix.com.

View the original article here