The document, obtained by security researcher Christopher Soghoian, explains how so-called "Hotwatch" orders allow for real-time tracking of individuals in a criminal investigation via credit card companies, rental car agencies, calling cards, and even grocery store loyalty programs. The revelation sheds a little more light on the Justice Department's increasing power and willingness to surveil Americans with little to no judicial or Congressional oversight.

For credit cards, agents can get real-time information on a person's purchases by writing their own subpoena, followed up by a order from a judge that the surveillance not be disclosed. Agents can also go the traditional route - going to a judge, proving probable cause and getting a search warrant - which means the target will eventually be notified they were spied on.

The document suggests that the normal practice is to ask for all historical records on an account or individual from a credit card company, since getting stored records is generally legally easy. Then the agent sends a request for "Any and all records and information relating directly or indirectly to any and all ongoing and future transactions or events relating to any and all of the following person(s), entitities, account numbers, addresses and other matters..." That gets them a live feed of transaction data.

With a straight face, Mr Genachowski suggested that government red tape will increase the "freedom" of online services that have flourished because bureaucratic busybodies have been blocked from tinkering with the Web. Ordinarily, it would be appropriate at this point to supply an example from the proposed regulations illustrating the problem. Mr Genachowski's draft document has over 550 footnotes and is stamped "non-public, for internal use only" to ensure nobody outside the agency sees it until the rules are approved in a scheduled December 21 vote. So much for "openness."

The issue of "net neutrality" is nothing new, but the increasing popularity of online movie streaming services like Netflix have highlighted an area of potential concern. When someone watches a film over the Internet, especially in high definition, the maximum available capacity of the user's connection is used. Think, for example, of the problems that would arise at the water works if everyone decided to turn on their faucets and take a shower simultaneously. Internet providers are beginning to see the same strain on their networks.

In some cases, heavy use of this sort slows the Web experience for everyone sharing the same lines. That has prompted some cable Internet providers to consider either charging the heavy users more or limiting access to the "problematic" services. Of course, if cinema buffs find themselves cut off from their favorite service, they're going to be mad. If companies don't act, they're just as likely to find irate customers who don't want their experience bogged down by others.

"More needs to be done since Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaida, the Taliban, LeT and other terrorist groups," says a secret December 2009 paper signed by the US secretary of state. Her memo urged US diplomats to redouble their efforts to stop Gulf money reaching extremists in Pakistan and Afghanistan. "Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide," she said.

Three other Arab countries are listed as sources of militant money: Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. The cables highlight an often ignored factor in the Pakistani and Afghan conflicts: that the violence is partly bankrolled by rich, conservative donors across the Arabian Sea whose governments do little to stop them.

The problem is particularly acute in Saudi Arabia, where militants soliciting funds slip into the country disguised as holy pilgrims, set up front companies to launder funds and receive money from government-sanctioned charities.

Publicly, the WDL says it is a non-racist organisation. A judge who has examined the evidence in the programme said some were acting to "inflame racial hatred". The WDL - aligned to the English Defence League - was set up last year by an ex-soccer hooligan and author Jeff Marsh in response to Muslim extremists abusing troops returning from Afghanistan. It has attracted hundreds of followers and held demonstrations in Cardiff, Swansea and Wrexham. Posing as a new member of the group, an undercover journalist accompanied a number of Welsh supporters to a protest.

Some were caught on camera and online, making racist comments about Muslims. Two admitted involvement in racist violence at demonstrations organised by the defence leagues in other parts of the country. One invited other WDL followers to join him in burning a Koran and joked online about how best to kill black people. Another talks about driving Muslims out of the south Wales valleys.

Examining the evidence in the special programme, Judge Mark Powell QC said: "It's mindless, it's racist, the purpose of what they are doing is to inflame racial hatred. I think from what you have shown me it is criminal behaviour and no doubt something that the police would want to look at."

Government is talking about raising the Social Security retirement age by three years, freezing payments and offering government guaranteed annuities in exchange for those of you that do have retirement plans. Two-thirds of those in and about to retire have only Social Security for 50% of their income. The money collected since 1935 is all gone, having been spent by past politicians. In fact, if you put all present and future commitments together you have a debt of $105 trillion.

The US wants to avoid default and devaluation of the dollar. They can raise taxes, cut spending or default on their Social Security and Medicare commitments, and commandeer personal retirement plans. In whole, or in part, these are options for government. If they cannot manage these changes then the Fed will have to increase money and credit, which is now euphemistically labeled quantitative easing. THE POWERS BEHIND GOVERNMENT HAVE LOOTED THE SYSTEM PERPETUALLY, but particularly since August 15,1971, when the gold standard was abandoned and the result of this gutting and its consequences is about to manifest itself.

Unemployment refuses to fall and little is being done to improve the situation. This year five million American workers lost extended unemployment benefits, as Wall Street, bailed out with taxpayer's loans, is showering their employees with hundreds of billions of dollars in bonuses. There is no question THESE ARE THE SEEDS OF WHICH REVOLUTION IS BORN. We can as a result expect demonstrations and unrest, as we are now seeing in Europe, which could end up in rioting and other antisocial behavior.

The only thing that has allowed the dollar to retain value on the USDX is that Europe's banking system is in a state of collapse. Next you will see new stimulus being fed into the euro zone by the ECB, the European Central Bank. It is inevitable that the euro zone and THE EU WILL COLLAPSE and that will be the linchpin which will take THE ENTIRE WORLD DOWN FINANCIALLY.

The economist Dirk Meyer, professor at the Bundeswehr University in Hamburg, suggests that the countries, most hit by the crisis, such as Greece and Portugal, should withdraw from the EU. "For the stability-oriented countries", like Germany, it would be "a great advantage, if the weak countries would voluntarily leave the Euro realm," says Meyer, "provided this takes place in an orderly procedure and not a chaotic collapse," which, "for the time being, is not completely ruled out."

A third of the Greek austerity measures are "basically unrealistic accounting forecasts," explained the economist. Simultaneously the resistance to the austerity programs imposed by Brussels is growing rapidly. In Ireland, trade unions are now calling for nationwide strikes and civil disobedience. The protests are directed, first of all, against the government in Dublin, which bears the responsibility for the social reapportionment in the country, but is also affecting the initiator of the EU's austerity dictate.

"Can Europe endure the Germans being considered the hated 'ringmasters' of a rigid currency regiment?," asked one business commentator. The answer to this question, which will also be decided on the streets of Greece, Ireland and possibly other countries, will play a role in the final decision on the future of the European currency.

At an EU summit in Brussels at the end of October that was dominated by the euro crisis and wrangling over whether to bail out Ireland, Merkel became embroiled in a row with the Greek prime minister, George Papandreou, according to participants at the event's Thursday dinner. Merkel's central aim, which she achieved, was to win agreement on re-opening the Lisbon treaty so a permanent system of bailout funding and investor losses could be established to deal with debt crises that have laid Greece and Ireland low and are threatening Portugal and Spain. The Germans also called for bailed-out countries to lose voting rights in EU councils.

At the Brussels dinner on 28 October attended by 27 EU heads of government or state, the presidents of the European commission and council, and the head of the European Central Bank, witnesses said Papandreou accused Merkel of tabling proposals that were "undemocratic".

"If this is the sort of club the euro is becoming, perhaps Germany should leave," Merkel replied. It was the first time in the 10 months since the euro was plunged into a fight for its survival that Germany, the EU's economic powerhouse and the lynchpin of the euro's viability, had suggested that quitting the currency is an option, however unlikely.

The zone's financial stability is still far from certain and many analysts believe the crisis will worsen before it gets better. ECB head Jean-Claude Trichet is keeping the pressure on governments to fix the debt crisis as the bank buys bonds to win politicians time to cut deficits. The bank snapped up Portuguese and Irish bonds again on Friday after Trichet assured investors that policy makers will delay the withdrawal of emergency liquidity. The ECB's purchases have triggered a surge in bonds across the euro region's periphery.

'The refusal to be more aggressive reflects a belief at the ECB that Europe's debt woes can only be solved by governments embracing austerity and that providing more liquidity would only delay the day of reckoning,' said Peter Dixon, an economist at Commerzbank AG in London. 'The ECB is effectively putting a sticking plaster over many of the problems in order to ensure that markets continue to function, but this requires governments to sit down and think much more clearly.'

Many Germans who embraced the EU after WW2, seeing it as a way to preserve peace and forge new business opportunities, now view it as a vast, unaccountable, bloated bureaucracy that stole their beloved D-mark and gave them the struggling euro. The recent crises in Greece and Ireland have contributed to further disillusion among them. The euro is now known in Germany as the 'Teuro' - a play on the word Teuer meaning expensive.

Most Germans still calculate prices in their heads in marks. They nurture their resentment against the hated currency with venom and it is a 'constant source of irritation,' said a commentator on Radio Berlin this week.

His Excellency Ali Abdullah Saleh, the first and so far only president of the Republic of Yemen, ruler over 23 million inhabitants and 50 million firearms, is not a good man to have as an enemy - but having him as a friend is even worse. In Yemen he is called "The Boss." Since 2004, The Boss has been fighting a ruthless war against the Houthi rebels in the north. They are Shiites - and politically marginalized. In August 2009, this conflict entered a new phase when the Yemeni army launched a new offensive designed to wipe out all Houthi resistance.

The president categorically rejects negotiations with the rebels: "The war will never stop no matter how much money or martyrs it costs," he said a year ago. Saleh appears indifferent to the ravages of the war, the civilian casualties, the streams of refugees and the devastating damage to the region's infrastructure. He is pouring an increasing number of weapons into the battle against the Houthi stronghold of Sadah, and sending in an increasing number of soldiers into his deadlocked conflict with the rebels. He is also paying less and less attention to the fight against the terror group known as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

"We are fighting on behalf of you, the Americans, and Israel," he said in a conversation with the US ambassador, according to one of the tens of thousands of US diplomatic dispatches that have now been made public by WikiLeaks. Saleh maintains that the war against the Houthis is actually a proxy war between Iran and the US. The Americans, however, feel that the Yemeni president is fighting a senseless war, a viewpoint that is made crystal clear by hundreds of reports that the US Embassy in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa has sent to Washington over the past few years. Nevertheless, the Americans play a role in the war.

During a confirmation hearing Friday, Kim warned that South Korea would launch air strikes on the communist North if it stages another attack. "If North Korea carries out a military provocation on our territory and people again, we must retaliate immediately and strongly until they completely surrender," Kim Kwan-jin said in a speech Saturday to senior military officials.

Kim also called for military readiness, saying North Korea would plot new provocations. He later visited the island targeted by the North Korean attack. He said the military would quickly hold firing drills if the weather permits, according to the Yonhap news agency. Skirmishes occur periodically along the two Koreas' disputed maritime border, but the latest assault was the first since the 1950-53 Korean War to target a civilian area.

Also Friday, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she will meet with her South Korean and Japanese counterparts on Monday in Washington "to review the approach we should be taking" toward North Korea. "What we object to is a pursuit of nuclear weapons that can be used to threaten and intimidate their neighbors and beyond," Clinton said in Bahrain. "That is unacceptable, and it is destabilizing."

MK Yaakov Katz (Ketzaleh) of the National Union was the first leader Thursday to publicly give voice to the possibility that the fire was a terror attack - "an act of arson that turned into a massacre," in his words. Most of the large forest fires in Israel are set by hostile Arabs, Katz said. He noted that he had proposed a bill for minimum punishment of terror arsonists nine months ago, and blamed Justice Minister Yaakov Ne'eman for torpedoing it.

Member of Knesset Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) called on Prime Minister Netanyahu Thursday evening to recruit "the entire Shin Bet" (Israel Security Agency) to investigate the Carmel Mountain fire and what he described as "the ongoing arson activity in the Galilee in general." MK Ben-Ari said, "Fires are not decrees from above and the people of Israel must receive an answer regarding what's behind this great tragedy."

The fire spread from three locations simultaneously - making arson a likely possibility.

The British state, which did little to hamper this takeover, now stands to lose millions of pounds in corporation tax, thanks to a surreptitious restructuring which will relocate much of the Bournville factory's profits to Switzerland. This is only the latest sign that all is not well with this deal. Kraft broke its pledge to retain Cadbury's Somerdale factory near Bristol as soon as it actually gained control.

Its chief executive, Irene Rosenfeld, simply declined to appear in front of MPs investigating the takeover - an interesting contrast to the US Senate's bullying treatment of BP, whose sins against the environment were much exaggerated. FOREIGN COMPANIES NOW OWN NEARLY 40 PER CENT OF BRITAIN'S INFRASTRUCTURE - ports, rail services, water and energy supplies.

The more this proportion grows, the more we have to fear from businessmen to whom our tax revenues and employment levels are a minor matter. British politicians need to look far more carefully at overseas takeover bids in future. They should also cease to be so easily won over by the smiling reassurances of multinationals.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said two people suspected of starting the blaze through negligence had been arrested. Israel Radio said the suspects were 16-year-old boys from a village bordering on the Carmel region woodlands where the fire was focused. Regional police commander Roni Atiya said he believed the blaze had spread from a campfire that was not properly extinguished. "It looks as though this is the result of negligence," said Atiya, adding there was no evidence of any link to terrorism.

Foreign firefighting planes joined the battle to contain the blaze after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appealed for help because of a shortage of such aircraft in Israel. Planes and helicopters from the United States, Spain, Azerbaijan and Switzerland were expected to join those from Russia, Turkey, Greece, Britain, France and Cyprus, already dumping water on the flames.

Citing the cables, the Times said China made repeated and often successful hacking attacks on the US government, private enterprises and Western allies as far back as 2002. Google, the world's top Internet search engine, closed its China-based search service in March, two months after it had said it would stop censoring search results in response to what it said was a sophisticated cyber attack that it traced to China and increasing limits on freedom of expression.

The dispute was resolved in July after Google tweaked the way it directs users to an unfiltered search engine. The Times quoted one cable dated earlier this year as saying: "A well-placed contact claims that the Chinese government coordinated the recent intrusions of Google systems. According to our contact, the closely held operations were directed at the Politburo Standing Committee level."

The paper added that the cable quoted the contact as saying the hacking of Google "had been coordinated out of the State Council Information Office with the oversight" of two members of the Communist Party's Politburo: Li Changchun and Zhou Yongkang. It said Zhou is China's top security official.

I have just read William Oddie's blog on Pakistan, its blasphemy laws and the appalling injustice done to Asia Bibi, who has now been released. The case he highlights is very disturbing and makes me raise the question: is violence intrinsic to Islam? Or is it really - as its defenders say - a peaceable religion, regrettably distorted by Islamist terrorists such as Anwar al-Awiaki, who believes jihad is an obligation for every Muslim?

This same question was posed by Pope Benedict in his famous (or should I say 'notorious'?) Regensburg Address in 2006. I know he has been widely criticised for raising the subject at all, but personally I think he was right to do so. Referring to a dialogue in 1391 by the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus to an educated Persian, the Pope said, "The Emperor touches on the theme of a holy war. He addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness, a brusqueness that we find unacceptable on the central question concerning the relationship between religion and violence..."

Note that it is the 'brusqueness' that is unacceptable, not the question itself. The Christian Emperor's point (and Pope Benedict's) is that to spread one's faith through violence ('the sword' preached by Mohammed) is incompatible with the nature of God. The Pope went on to say, "The truly divine God is the God who has revealed himself as logos (the word). Christian worship is worship in harmony with the eternal Word and with our reason."

Commenting on the Regensburg Address in the Sunday Telegraph at the time of the papal visit, Mona Siddiqui, Professor of Islamic Studies at Glasgow University, wrote, "Benedict... quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor who had strongly criticised Islam and its propensity for violence. Tragically, many Muslims around the world did react violently, demanding an apology and fuelling the growing frustration within Western society that Muslims tolerate free speech only as long as it doesn't offend them'.

Moderate and sensible though her article was, nowhere in it did the Professor actually repudiate the idea that violence, holy war or jihad might be intrinsic to Islam.