Good news for once
Unexpected text message blows up suicide bomber in safe house
Jan. 27, 2011 (12:15 pm) By: Matthew Humphries
If proof were needed that suicide bombers are not the most intelligent
people in the world, then this case in Russia is a perfect example.
A range of triggers can be used for setting off the explosives strapped to
a bomber’s body, with cell phones being one of those choices. The bombers
don’t work alone, and a handler likes to be in control of the actual
detonation in case the person carrying the bomb has a change of heart at
the last minute. So a cell phone trigger allows them to watch from a
distance while ensuring the blast happens.
A planned detonation was to happen in Red Square, central Moscow on New
Year’s Eve. The woman who would be the bomber is thought to be from the
same group that successfully bombed Domodedovo International Airport
earlier this week.
The mistake the woman and her terror group made was to use an existing
active cell phone as the trigger. While preparing her suicide belt at a
safe house a few hours before the terrible act was meant to happen, her
mobile operator sent her a Happy New Year text. That was enough to trigger
the detonation killing her and making a real mess of the house.
It doesn’t look as though anyone else was hurt, and her husband is in jail
serving time for being a radical Islamist terrorist. The mistake she made,
and the automated text she received, probably saved tens, if not hundreds
of lives.
http://www.geek.com/...house-20110127/
Should i say i'm surprised it took this long, or so much for competition?
TSA shuts door on private airport screening program
Washington (CNN) -- A program that allows airports to replace government screeners with private screeners is being brought to a standstill, just a month after the Transportation Security Administration said it was "neutral" on the program.
TSA chief John Pistole said Friday he has decided not to expand the program beyond the current 16 airports, saying he does not see any advantage to it.
Though little known, the Screening Partnership Program allowed airports to replace government screeners with private contractors who wear TSA-like uniforms, meet TSA standards and work under TSA oversight. Among the airports that have "opted out" of government screening are San Francisco and Kansas City.
The push to "opt out" gained attention in December amid the fury over the TSA's enhanced pat downs, which some travelers called intrusive.
Rep. John Mica, a Republican from Florida, wrote a letter encouraging airports to privatize their airport screeners, saying they would be more responsive to the public.
At that time, the TSA said it neither endorsed nor opposed private screening.
"If airports chose this route, we are going to work with them to do it," a TSA spokesman said in late December.
But on Friday, the TSA denied an application by Springfield-Branson Airport in Missouri to privatize its checkpoint workforce, and in a statement, Pistole indicated other applications likewise will be denied.
"I examined the contractor screening program and decided not to expand the program beyond the current 16 airports as I do not see any clear or substantial advantage to do so at this time," Pistole said.
He said airports that currently use contractor screening will continue to be allowed to.
Pistole said he has been reviewing TSA policies with the goal of helping the agency "evolve into a more agile, high-performance organization."
Told of the change Friday night, Mica said he intends to launch an investigation and review the matter.
"It's unimaginable that TSA would suspend the most successfully performing passenger screening program we've had over the last decade," Mica said Friday night. "The agency should concentrate on cutting some of the more than 3,700 administrative personnel in Washington who concocted this decision, and reduce the army of TSA employees that has ballooned to more than 62,000."
"Nearly every positive security innovation since the beginning of TSA has come from the contractor screening program," Mica said.
A union for Transportation Security Administration employees said it supported the decision to halt the program.
"The nation is secure in the sense that the safety of our skies will not be left in the hands of the lowest-bidder contractor, as it was before 9/11," said John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees. "We applaud Administrator Pistole for recognizing the value in a cohesive federalized screening system and work force."
Advocates of private screeners say it is easier to discipline and replace under-performing private screeners than government ones.
But Congress members have differed over the effectiveness of private screeners.
Mica said tests show that private screeners perform "statistically significantly better" than government screeners in tests of airport checkpoints. But the Government Accountability Office says it "did not notice any difference" during covert checkpoint testing in 2007. Both groups failed to find concealed bomb components, the GAO said.
Test results are not publicly disclosed.
On Friday, Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the ranking member on the House Homeland Security Committee, lauded Pistole's decision.
"Ending the acceptance of new applications for the program makes sense from a budgetary and counter-terrorism perspective," he said in a statement.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/01/29/tsa.private/index.html?hpt=T2
Better not go to sleep around your doctors, what is going on?
Medical students are performing intrusive exams on unconscious patients
"Examinations performed without consent"
Students face ethical dilemma - study
"Most people would not be pleased"
AUSTRALIAN medical students are carrying out intrusive procedures on unconscious and anaesthetised patients without gaining the patient's consent.
The unauthorised examinations include genital, rectal and breast exams, and raise serious questions about the ethics of up-and-coming doctors, Madison reports.
The research, soon to be published in international medical journal, Medical Education, describes - among others - a student with "no qualms" about performing an anal examination on a female patient because she didn't think the woman's consent was relevant.
Another case outlined in the research describes a man who was subjected to rectal examinations from a "queue" of medical students after he was anaesthetised for surgery.
“I was in theatre, the patient was under a spinal (anaesthetic) as well and there was a screen up and they just had a queue of medical students doing a rectal examination,” a student confessed.
“[H]e wasn’t consented but because ... you’re in that situation, you don’t have the confidence to say 'no' you just do it.”
The author of the study, Professor Charlotte Rees, voiced concerns about senior medical staff ordering students to perform unauthorised procedures, leaving the students torn between the strong ethics of consent in society and the weak ethics of medical staff.
Of students who were put in this position during the research, 82 per cent obeyed orders.
“We think that it is weakness in the ethical climate of the clinical workplace that ultimately serves to legitimise and reinforce unethical practices in the context of students learning intimate examinations,” writes Prof Rees.
The study consists of 200 students across three unnamed medical schools in Britain and Australia. Not all participants agreed to carry out the intimate examinations without permission from the patient.
One student refused to take part in an examination of a woman who was “part spread-eagled on the bed and the nurse is (sic) pulling down her jeans at the same time and it was all very complicated and you could see her, she was about seventeen”.
Carol Bennett, the CEO of the Consumer Health Forum, said the report was a "poor reflection on these medical schools that they are setting these examples".
"Most people would not be pleased about having medical procedures performed on them without it even being mentioned to them," she told news.com.au.
"Patients should never be examined without consent, particularly by a third party."
http://www.news.com.au/national/medical-students-are-performing-intrusive-exams-on-unconscious-patients/story-e6frfkw0-1225996222221
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