Is it any wonder there is so little sincere concern or empathy for the citizens of our country and the plight of honest, decent people, such as federal employees or industry workers who find themselves labeled whistleblowers and isolated, or possibly experience adamant denial by their employers that they are legitimate whistleblowers, so that they can be called common criminals and viciously attacked for standing up? What kind of people have the American people allowed to run this administration anyway? GFS

Bush Comment on Food Crisis Brings Anger, Ridicule in India
By Rama Lakshmi
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, May 8, 2008; A18
NEW DELHI, May 7 -- A brief comment by President Bush about the role of India in the world food crisis has set off a firestorm of criticism in this country.
Speaking to employees at a high-tech firm in St. Louis over the weekend, Bush noted that much of the developing world was prospering and that U.S. businesses could benefit. As an example, he cited India, where the "middle class is larger than our entire population."
But "when you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food," he said. "And so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up."
Overnight, Indians reacted with outrage at what they saw as a suggestion that they were to blame for inflation. Politicians lashed out at Bush. Newspapers excoriated him.
"India is not a net food importer. It is a food exporter. The assumption that prices are increasing because of a changed India is completely erroneous," said Manish Tewari, a spokesman for the ruling Congress party.
Defense Minister A.K. Antony called Bush's remark a "cruel joke," while an opposition member called the president the world's new "bread inspector."
In an attempt to clarify Bush's remarks, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said Monday that it was a "good thing" that countries are developing and that "more and more people have higher standards of living." Stanzel also said growing demands in India and China were causing the price of oil to rise.
To Westerners, Bush's comments might seem innocuous. But after decades of slow national growth and forced austerity, middle-class Indians are now extremely proud of their newfound prosperity and are quick to react if they feel picked on by affluent nations.
Bush's comments Saturday came one day after similar comments by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice put Indians on edge. In a speech before Peace Corps country directors, she mentioned various factors behind the food crisis, among them the "improvement in the diets of people, for instance, in China and India."
In the days since, Indian newspapers have published articles citing comparative food consumption statistics for the United States and India. One headline said, "U.S. eats 5 times more than India per capita," and quoted data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
A cartoon in the Times of India on Tuesday showed a couple of overweight American tourists looking at emaciated Indian men rummaging for leftover food in a trash heap. "No wonder we're having food shortages back home in the States -- these guys in India have started eating way too much," they say.
"Bush is shifting the blame to hide the truth. We all know that the food crisis is an outcome of the American policy of diverting huge land area from food to fuel production," said Devinder Sharma, a food policy analyst and chair at the New Delhi-based Forum for Biotechnology and Food Security. "America has the largest land for ethanol production in the world."
Sharma said Bush's remarks are "an expression of racism" because they imply that excess food is permissible for some but not for others.
"If Indians start eating like Americans, the world would have to grow food on the moon," he said.

FBI Backs Off From Secret Order for Data After Lawsuit
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 8, 2008; D01

The FBI has withdrawn a secret administrative order seeking the name, address and online activity of a patron of the Internet Archive after the San Francisco-based digital library filed suit to block the action.
It is one of only three known instances in which the FBI has backed off from such a data demand, known as a "national security letter," or NSL, which is not subject to judicial approval and whose recipient is barred from disclosing the order's existence.
NSLs are served on phone companies, Internet service providers and other electronic communications service providers, but because of the gag order provision, the public has little way to know about them. Their use soared after the September 2001 terrorist attacks, when Congress relaxed the standard for their issuance. FBI officials now issue about 50,000 such orders a year.
The order against the Internet Archive was served Nov. 26, and the nonprofit challenged it based on a provision of the reauthorized USA Patriot Act, which protects libraries from such requests. The privacy advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation represented the archive in the suit, which was joined by the American Civil Liberties Union.
The archive also alleged that the gag order that accompanied the data demand violated the Constitution.
As part of their settlement, the FBI agreed to drop the gag order and the archive agreed to withdraw the complaint. The case was unsealed Monday. Yesterday, redacted versions of key documents were filed, allowing the parties to discuss the case.
"We see this as an unqualified success," said Brewster Kahle, the archive's co-founder and digital librarian. "The goal here was to help other recipients of NSLs to understand that you can push back."
Every time an NSL has been challenged in court, the FBI has backed off, said Melissa Goodman, an ACLU staff attorney. "That calls into question how much the FBI needed the information in the first place, and finally, whether the FBI needs this kind of sweeping and unchecked surveillance power."
The two other instances of NSL withdrawals involved a library and an Internet consulting business. In February 2004, the FBI served an NSL on the Internet firm. In November 2006, the FBI withdrew the letter, after a lawsuit by the ACLU, but maintained the gag order, which is why the firm has not been publicly identified. The lawsuit, which challenges the constitutionality of the law authorizing NSLs, is still pending.
In July 2005, the FBI served an NSL on Library Connection, a library consortium in Connecticut. That year, the ACLU sued on grounds similar to the other case. In April 2006, the FBI withdrew the gag order. Three months later, it withdrew the NSL as well.
FBI Assistant Director John Miller said the information requested in the Internet Archive NSL was "relevant to an ongoing, authorized national security investigation." NSLs, he said, "remain indispensable tools for national security investigations and permit the FBI to gather the basic building blocks for our counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations."
The Internet Archive, founded in 1996, works with national libraries, museums and universities to offer free access to a variety of materials. One of its unique features is the Wayback Machine, which stores archived versions of Web sites. The FBI, CIA, federal prosecutors and other law enforcement officials have regularly turned to the archive for information, especially from the Wayback Machine.
Last fall, the FBI served the data demand on the archive's attorneys at EFF, a nonprofit in San Francisco. It directed the archive to turn over data, including length of service and all e-mail header information for a particular patron, as identified by an "address." Kahle's attorneys declined to say whether that referred to an e-mail address or an Internet protocol, or IP, address.
The archive, in keeping with longstanding traditions of libraries in the United States, seeks to guard patron privacy, Kahle said. It collects but does not verify the e-mail addresses of patrons wishing to sign up for archive library cards, use its message forums or post materials on the site. It does not keep or track IP addresses. Kahle said the archive has issued about 500,000 library cards.
According to a document filed in the case, the archive does keep records that may include the date a patron's account was opened, the screen names associated with the account, the unconfirmed e-mail addresses and messages of those who communicate with the archive via e-mail.
Because they initially were not allowed to discuss the NSL over the phone, Kahle and his attorneys had to drive to one another's offices whenever they wanted to talk about the case.
"Not being able to talk about it with our board, with my wife, made it very difficult," said Kahle, who is also on EFF's board. "I can imagine a hurried staffer sticking a gag into a hurried bill. But gags don't seem to be necessary, and now, what we've discovered in practice, gagging librarians is horrendous."
The Internet Archive voluntarily provided limited, publicly available information to the FBI, said EFF senior staff attorney Kurt Opsahl. He declined to elaborate.
Under a law enacted in 1986 and modified several times, national security letters may be issued to obtain "subscriber information," "toll billing records information" and e-mail transactional records, but not content. The Justice Department inspector general has documented cases in which providers have supplied more information than was requested, including content.
A bipartisan bill in the House would restore the requirement that NSLs could be used only to collect information that pertains to "a foreign or agent of a foreign power" and would limit the gag order to 30 days, unless a court authorized an extension.

GOP's Davis Urges Bloch to Quit Special Counsel's Office
By Christopher Lee and Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, May 8, 2008; A21

A veteran Republican lawmaker called on Office of Special Counsel chief Scott J. Bloch to resign yesterday, one day after nearly two dozen FBI agents raided OSC headquarters and carted off boxes of documents and equipment that officials said were related to a probe of Bloch's activities.
"In light of the various investigations into Mr. Bloch's conduct, including the FBI probe revealed yesterday, it's hard to believe he can continue to operate effectively," Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (Va.), the top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said in a statement. "It's time the OSC put this turbulent period behind it."
Bloch, appointed by President Bush in 2003 to protect government whistle-blowers and to enforce prohibitions on political activity in the federal workplace, is facing allegations of political bias, obstruction of justice and mismanagement. The inspector general at the Office of Personnel Management has investigated Bloch since 2005 over alleged mistreatment of employees and his handling of whistle-blower cases, but Tuesday's raid was a significant escalation.
Bloch and more than a dozen current and former OSC employees have been served with subpoenas to appear before a grand jury, which will probably begin hearing testimony the week of May 19, sources familiar with the investigation said. The lead prosecutor is Assistant U.S. Attorney James Mitzelfeld, who works on public corruption cases.
Other critics have also called for Bloch's ouster, including the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility -- both nonprofit groups -- and a lawyer representing several current and former OSC employees.
"The fact is, this office is not functional with him in charge," said Debra S. Katz, who represents several OSC employees who have complained about mismanagement and retaliation.
Bush administration spokesman Scott Stanzel said the White House does not comment on personnel matters. Bloch, who was in his office working yesterday, spent part of the day consulting with his personal lawyer, former U.S. attorney Roscoe C. Howard, said James P. Mitchell, an OSC spokesman.
Bloch did not respond to an interview request. Howard declined to comment.
The subpoenas focused mainly on Bloch's hiring in 2006 of the technology service Geeks on Call to erase his computer hard drive and those of two aides, said a person familiar with the case. Bloch has said he sought to purge a computer virus and protect against hackers. Critics say the move was an attempt to thwart the OPM's investigation.
FBI agents also sought documents relating to Bloch's investigation of Lurita Alexis Doan, forced to resign as General Services Administration chief by the White House last week, and a long-closed OSC investigation into whether the travel of then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice before the 2004 election was for political purposes.
Critics inside Bloch's office have accused him of having the Rice case assigned to himself and then delaying action until after the election. They say that Bloch falsely told Congress that the complaint had never been assigned to him, and that he altered the OSC's computer system to remove information about the handling of the case. Bloch has denied any wrongdoing.
The turbulence is politically awkward for the administration and the OSC. Among the special counsel's ongoing investigations are high-profile probes of White House-sponsored political briefings at federal agencies, politically charged firings of several U.S. attorneys and allegations that the Federal Aviation Administration has been covering up air traffic control errors.
Bloch's critics contend that these probes are little more than an attempt by Bloch to deflect attention from his own troubles. "He's creating his own illusion of an investigation to counter the real one of himself," said Beverley Lumpkin, an investigator at POGO.
In an internal draft memo to Bloch dated Jan. 18, a group of OSC employees overseeing the Justice Department probe and others said OSC investigators turned up no evidence that any of the fired U.S. attorneys had been pressured to take actions meant to affect the 2006 election. That is the main question over which the OSC has jurisdiction. They recommended dropping the matter until Justice concluded an internal probe into the firings.
In the memo, obtained by POGO and made public yesterday, the employees expressed concerns that other probes, such as that involving the political briefings, were overly broad. They also said they had been denied permission to open investigations more squarely in the agency's jurisdiction. Mitchell, the OSC spokesman, said the agency did not have the resources to investigate everything at once.
Staff writer Stephen Barr contributed to this report.

Boeing's Poseidon sub hunter for Navy brings commercial, defense sides together
By Dominic Gates
Seattle Times aerospace reporter

On an assembly line inside Boeing's Renton plant, machinists are putting together a special 737.
The underbelly has a cavernous bomb bay for torpedoes and launching tubes for sonar listening buoys. Missile pylons protrude from its wings. Military antennas bristle on the surface of its nearly windowless fuselage.
This is not the workhorse commercial airliner. It's the first 737 to be transformed into a submarine-hunter jet for a program the U.S. Navy calls P-8A, or Poseidon. On a recent morning, mechanics inside the plane installed wiring, plumbing and other systems. The loud vibrating rhythm of rivet guns came from an adjacent assembly bay where the wings are made.
Poseidon shows off Boeing's new model for how its commercial and military divisions can work as an integrated team — an idea the company would have replicated in Everett had it won the Air Force refueling-tanker program.
In the past, when Boeing converted a commercial airframe into a warplane, military equipment was added later at one of its defense plants.
But on the P-8A, machinists install all the military infrastructure as they assemble the airframe, reaping all the efficiencies that come from a mature commercial production system that rolls out almost 30 civil airliners a month.
Poseidon general manager Mohammad Yahyavi says the P-8A is a full-blown military airplane "designed and built in the heart of Boeing Commercial."
For the government, Boeing's new model should provide cost savings and efficiency.
For this region, it provides jobs. Between 1,200 and 1,300 Boeing employees in Renton and Seattle are working on Poseidon. A few hundred more are in St. Louis at the headquarters of Boeing's Integrated Defense Systems division.
The initial contract to build five test airplanes is worth $3.9 billion. Boeing will build three more test planes, then 108 production jets. And it expects to get orders for a 100 more from foreign buyers, with India and Australia first in line as sales prospects.
From 2012 on, the Renton plant plans to roll out 12 to 18 of these sub hunters a year.
In total, the program should bring in around $40 billion over 25 years.
Seven days a week
Every day, seven days a week, Yahyavi holds reviews with managers and visits the assembly crew to assess progress. A balding man with a warm and humble manner, he exchanges handshakes with the workers, who greet him affectionately as Mo.
The Iranian-born Yahyavi came to the U.S. to study as a young officer in the shah's Imperial Navy, just months before the 1979 revolution in his country. He never returned to Iran.
After 28 years as an engineer and manager at Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Yahyavi is clearly proud that life has circled him back into a Navy program for his adopted country.
He oversees a showcase project for the Puget Sound region's airplane industry.
And unless Boeing's protest overturns the Air Force tanker award, which in February went to an Airbus plane backed by Northrop Grumman, by the middle of the next decade Poseidon could be the defense giant's only fixed-wing military-aircraft program.
The P-8A is designed to fly low and slow over the ocean, searching for enemy vessels on or under the surface.
Because it must fly for extended periods in severe weather commercial airliners would avoid, it eschews the now-common 737 upswept winglets in favor of raked-back wingtips better suited for icy conditions.
The jet has no passenger windows, just one large rectangular observer window on each side.
Five torpedoes
Doors on the underbelly open to reveal attachments for five large torpedoes. Holes in the fuselage behind that bomb bay are the launching tubes for sonobuoys — listening devices that float just under the surface of the sea. Weapon stations on the wings will carry missiles.
A large rigid tube juts down through the cabin right behind the cockpit. It's the receptacle for the boom from an aerial-refueling tanker.
Along the top of the fuselage, small finlike antennas line up like the spines on a stickleback. Elsewhere on the fuselage, telltale bumps and square plates stick out, varieties of other antennas needed to connect with all the other planes, ships and satellites on the Defense Department's global information grid.
"This airplane will communicate on a network much grander than a commercial 737 would ever need to," said Bob Feldmann, co-program manager and Yahyavi's counterpart in Boeing's defense division.
All these decidedly non-civil aviation features will be delivered by Boeing Commercial Airplanes to the defense division factory-installed.
Separate lines
But instead of building P-8As on one of its two commercial 737 assembly lines, Boeing built a whole new 737 line for the P-8A in the building where it once assembled 757s.
That's because the first planes take relatively long to build, and even the later P-8As will require significantly more assembly work than their commercial counterparts.
Having the P-8As interspersed with regular 737s would have slowed the commercial line too much, said Perry Moore, factory manager for the program.
When a P-8A leaves Renton, it will go to a defense facility on the west side of Boeing Field, where the company already services AWACS jets, topped with their distinctive large rotating radar disks. There, Boeing defense workers will install sophisticated military computer stations and avionics.
The first P-8A is due at Boeing Field early next year after extensive ground tests in Renton.
In December 2006, two years into the Poseidon contract, Boeing quietly delayed the program seven months as it struggled to integrate engineering drawings for the new military features into its commercial 737 production system.
Since then, progress has been smooth and assembly of the first P-8A is going well — in contrast to the much-delayed 787 Dreamliner in Everett.
It took less than five months to assemble the first military plane, with a 737-800 fuselage and an advanced 737-900 wing that was attached May 1.
"We got our first fuselage on time, with zero parts shortages and zero work transferred to Boeing" from suppliers, Yahyavi said enthusiastically.
But Capt. Joe Rixey, who manages the Navy's maritime-patrol programs, wasn't about to send roses to Renton.
"They met the schedule. If that were new military construction, that would be impressive," Rixey said. "But they build planes. And that's what we are trying to leverage. ... That's the advantage we were looking for."
Tapping Boeing's efficient, well-integrated production system was why the Navy awarded Boeing the contract in 2004, he said.
Rixey declared himself "very impressed" with the level of integration. And indeed, he may need the expected efficiency of Boeing's production system.
Last December, metal-fatigue problems forced the Navy to ground 39 of the 161 turboprop sub hunters in its fleet, built by Lockheed Martin. That prompted the Navy to ask Boeing if it could speed up the P-8A program.
Rixey said the Navy is "still in the process of negotiating its options" on that score.
Keeping secrets
Inside the Renton P-8A assembly building, a chain-link fence cordons off the production line to protect the military secrets held by Boeing's defense side. A security code and a special badge are needed to pass through. No foreign visitors are allowed in.
But it turns out that Boeing Commercial Airplanes has its own secrets: It won't share cost data and other sensitive information with the defense unit.
"They are not authorized or allowed" to get manufacturing cost details, said Yahyavi about his counterparts on the defense side. "They don't know exactly how many people [the commercial division] brings in to get the job done. All they need to know is when the job will be complete."
That's because the commercial division does not reveal its costs to customers, who negotiate varying and closely guarded prices for every airplane deal.
In contrast, Boeing's defense division sells to the government on a "cost-plus" basis and must lay out detailed estimates.
So on this Navy contract, as on previous programs, the commercial unit delivers a plane to the defense division and gets paid a fixed price for the work — just like any other subcontractor.
Despite working closely together on the Poseidon, Boeing's two divisions must still maintain some boundaries.
Dominic Gates: 206-464-2963 or dgates@seattletimes.com

Boeing, Machinists open contract talks
By Dominic Gates
Seattle Times aerospace reporter

Tom Buffenbarger, the powerful national president of the International Association of Machinists (IAM), is optimistic about his union's chances for agreement with Boeing in the contract negotiations that formally kicked off Friday.
Buffenbarger said he believes the company understands what the union wants, and that Boeing Commercial Airplanes chief executive Scott Carson is someone he can engage with.
"Boeing has certainly indicated to us, without tipping their hand, that they want a successful conclusion to the negotiations," said Buffenbarger. "Chances are good we're going to find our way to getting a contract our members will feel good about."
Speaking at his Seattle waterfront hotel before the opening ceremony for the contract talks, Buffenbarger said that in addition to negotiating wages and benefits, the union will press for contract language on job security and will reject a company proposal to give new hires a 401(k)-style retirement plan instead of a pension.
He insisted he's not out to exploit Boeing's vulnerability to a strike this year.
"I'm about getting good contracts for our members," Buffenbarger said. "I'm not about taking advantage."
Yet he knows as well as anyone that Boeing, whose profits are soaring, cannot afford to trigger a strike in September while it struggles to get the first 787 into the air by the next month. In 2005, the union struck for a month.
Boeing's top labor negotiator, Doug Kight, said Friday afternoon that Boeing will offer a pay package that raises entry-level wages but will seek to negotiate alternative forms of additional compensation for higher-paid employees in lieu of a wage hike.
Boeing will also suggest an incentive pay scheme to reward employees for productivity gains.
The company said IAM-represented employees currently earn an average base wage of nearly $27 per hour, or nearly $56,000 annually before overtime, plus benefits valued at more than $24,000 annually. Boeing estimated average total Machinist compensation — including overtime pay, lump-sum wage payments and benefits — at around $91,500 per year.
But Buffenbarger dismissed out of hand one of Boeing's top goals: a proposal to switch new hires from Boeing's traditional pension plan to a 401(k)-style retirement plan.
He said that idea, outlined recently by Kight, meddles with union members' "very sacred benefits."
He said the move would simply transfer risk from Boeing to employees.
"We are not interested on gambling our pension plans on Wall Street," he said.
Boeing also proposes ending early-retiree medical benefits for new hires, an idea the union rejected in 2005.
Kight said both sides Friday reiterated their commitment "to listening to each other in a spirit of openness" on such issues.
Buffenbarger said the union also will press Boeing to include some job security in the contract.
He wants the company to provide more extensive in-house training for Machinists, backed with contract language that provides "a reasonable expectation that a person can take this skill they've developed through to their retirement years."
In past negotiations, the company has balked at assurances of job security. This time, Kight pointed to a company proposal to "stabilize employment and mitigate layoffs," intended to even out the huge employment swings in the cyclical airplane-building business.
Kight said that could be "a win for Boeing and for employees."
Boeing's global outsourcing strategy will also come up in the talks.
Citing production problems with outsourcing on the 787, Buffenbarger said the union will push hard to have Boeing build its next plane right here. "This is where the best aircraft makers in the world come from," he said. "Why would you abandon that to take a gamble on an unproven site?"
Buffenbarger heads a union that represents some 435,000 working Machinists and more than 200,000 retirees. It has a strike fund of some $150 million.
In January, the IAM and Boeing rival Lockheed Martin concluded a contract that Buffenbarger called "the best [contract] we ever got in 75 years and one of the few times we did it without a strike."
Such an outcome here this summer might satisfy both sides.
Dominic Gates: 206-464-2963 or dgates@seattletimes.com