The increasingly tangled debate over federal surveillance powers reached a new milestone today when a Republican cloture motion failed to pass after receiving only 48 of the required 60 votes. If the cloture motion had passed, it would have blocked all further attempts to remove controversial telecom immunity provisions from a Senate intelligence committee surveillance bill by forcing an immediate vote on the bill itself.

(tags: news)

The "source code defense" has become a popular one, in part because the companies that make the devices are so reluctant to reveal their proprietary code that cases are often dropped instead.

(tags: tech)

The vehemently anti-US leader says Nicaragua, Bolivia, Cuba and Dominica should create one united force.

(tags: imperialism)

For Isabelle Mercier, 44, queuing outside a Société Générale branch in Paris, the ‘rich and the powerful’ always find someone to blame: ‘Anyone who is a threat to them is eliminated one way or another.’ Mohammed Benali, a market trader at the nearby Marché d’Aligre, agreed. ‘It is time the bosses and the rich were taken down a peg,’ he said.

(tags: news)

The memorandum, which has not been previously disclosed, cited a number of “significant points of vulnerability.” Those included: the building’s public access, the center’s location on the 23rd floor, a 1,200-gallon diesel fuel supply for its generator, a large garage and delivery bays, the building’s history as a terrorist target, and its placement above and adjacent to a Consolidated Edison substation that provided much of the power for Lower Manhattan.

(tags: 9/11 Giuliani)

They say the banks will need extra money if bond insurers, who insure the products at the centre of the sub-prime crisis, lose their top credit ratings.

(tags: news)

Analysts are trying to assess whether the trader’s actions contributed to the stock market turmoil and the Fed decision to cut interest rates.

(tags: news)

Even as stocks ended five days of losses with a surprising recovery on Wednesday, officials began moving to defuse another potential time bomb in the markets: the weakened condition of two large insurance companies that have guaranteed buyers against losses on more than $1 trillion of bonds.

(tags: economics)

In March 2000, an undercover officer killed Patrick Dorismond, a security guard, during a fight when the police mistook him for a drug dealer. The outcry infuriated the mayor, who released Mr. Dorismond’s juvenile record, a document that legally was supposed to remain sealed.

The victim, Mr. Giuliani opined, was no “altar boy.” Actually, he was.

(tags: human-rights Giuliani corruption)

French bank Societe Generale has revealed that it has been hit by one of the biggest alleged cases of fraud in banking history. The bank discovered that fraud by one of its traders had led to losses of €4.9 billion.

(tags: news)