But when the IT worker showed his mobile phone photos of luggage-crammed aisles and exits he was told it is 'illegal' to take such pictures and threatened with prosecution. The inspector then demanded Mr Roberts' personal details. As soon as he boarded the train he saw the carriages were full of piled-up suitcases, bags and backpacks. Even the overhead racks were stuffed with heavy luggage - and vital passageways to the doors were also blocked.

'The train was full of passengers who had got off cruise liners and aircraft at Southampton who obviously all had luggage,' Mr Roberts said. 'And if the train had to make an emergency stop a 20kg medium-size suitcase travelling at 50mph would probably decapitate any passenger it hits - it would almost certainly kill them. A passenger announcement on the train invited us to raise any concerns with the ticket inspector, which I did because it was not the first time I had seen the problem first-hand on that route. I told him I was going to make a complaint to the Office of Rail Regulation because conditions on the train were unsafe.'

Mr Roberts added: 'But when I told him I had taken some photos he said it was illegal under the Terrorism Act and that I could be arrested and demanded my name and address. He said there were police officers on the train and I may be arrested for taking the photographs.'

'He said he had powers given to him under the Railways Act to ask me for the information and it was an even more serious offence for me not to comply. I FELT AS IF I WAS IN A POLICE STATE. He explained that for some reason it was for my own protection but my argument was that every passenger on the train would have needed protection in the event of an emergency. He told me he would make a note of our conversation so that they could be used in the event of a prosecution. He was pleasant enough but IT WAS A FRIGHTENING AND CHILLING EXPERIENCE FOR ME.'

"A global political recession" is how Tom Melia describes the current state of affairs. Melia is deputy director of Freedom House, a nonprofit that annually measures the state of liberty in every nation - and that has found "more countries seeing declines in overall freedom than gains" in recent years, Melia said last week. The world has transitioned from a "position of going from one breakthrough to another" into a "sustained period in which we are looking at regressions and setback," he said.

Fortunately, there is one factor stronger than all of these: people's desire to be free. Despite new methods of oppression, despite the fecklessness and disunity of democratic governments, despite everything, the impulse for dignity and self-rule emerges again and again. In Lebanon in 2005, in Burma in 2007, in Tibet in 2008, in Iran last year, ordinary people assumed unimaginable risks and confronted mortal danger because they do not want to live as captives.

Each of those movements has failed, for now, but in each of those countries the yearning for freedom has been banked, not extinguished. Over the weekend, democracy activists and democratic officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, gathered in Poland at a conference aimed at helping democracies fashion a reply to the ferocious authoritarian response of recent years. The Iron Curtain has fallen, Clinton noted. "But we must be wary of the steel vise in which many governments around the world are slowly crushing civil society and the human spirit." Recognizing the challenge is a good start.

The one-day increase for June 30 totaled $165,931,038,264.30 - bigger than the entire annual deficit for fiscal year 2007 and larger than the $140 billion in savings the new health care bill will produce over its first 10 years. The figure works out to nearly $1,500 for every US household, or more than 10 times the median daily household income.

Daily debt calculations jump and fall, and big shifts are common. But all three of the biggest one-day debt increases have occurred under the tenure of President Obama, and all of the top six have been in the past two years - an indication of just how quickly the pace of deficit spending has risen under Mr Obama and President George W Bush.

"What matters is the overall trend line, and the overall trend line is shooting up," said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a bipartisan deficit watchdog group, who said it is one more reason for a fiscal wake-up call. The Treasury Department calculates the country's debt position each day, and big rises and falls are not unusual. In fact, since hitting $13.203 trillion on June 30, the figure has since slipped $25 billion to settle at $13.178 trillion as of Tuesday, the latest day for which figures are available.

"Not only did they spring it on us that the process has changed, but the people I've been dealing with for six weeks who've done a good job said, 'We don't know what the process is going to be. We're not authorized to talk to you about it. Someone from BP will contact you,'" he said. But Briet said he hasn't heard from BP or its lawyers. He said the claims people have been given so much conflicting information about the process that they can't provide answers.

"They couldn't tell me," he said. "And I said, 'I've got 500 people I'm meeting on Saturday. They want to know what the process is'." It's not the first time BP has given conflicting information.

On June 11, BP's security contractors tried to keep WDSU from speaking to cleanup workers despite the fact that BP released a statement two days earlier saying the workers could speak to the media. On May 14, St Bernard Parish fishermen were upset with low pay and out-of-towners taking their work. Briet said he's meeting with some fishermen from Moss Point Thursday morning and more on Saturday in Jennings. He said BP hasn't given him any indication when the payments will resume.

The equipment was "at least doubling" current counter-IED capacity as forces did not have all they needed to take on an escalating threat, said Ashton Carter, US undersecretary of defence for acquisition, technology and logistics. The new equipment, including tethered surveillance blimps, heavily armoured vehicles and detection machinery such as robots and mine detectors, would arrive in Afghanistan in the coming months, he told reporters.

Carter said the equipment would be accompanied by about 1,000 counter-IED experts, including laboratory technicians, intelligence analysts and law enforcement officials. "This is an enormous plug of extra effort," he said, adding that the equipment would be shared with coalition and Afghan forces. IEDs are the biggest threat facing troops engaged in the war in Afghanistan, now well into its ninth year.

They are easy and cheap to produce, often using ammonium nitrate fertiliser that is produced in Pakistan and trucked across the border into Afghanistan, Carter said. The bombs are difficult to detect, often buried by roadsides and remotely detonated to devastating effect. Many of the foreign soldiers killed so far this year have died as a result of IED attacks. Others often suffer life-changing injuries.

"This court has determined that it is clearly within the authority of the Commonwealth to recognize same-sex marriages among its residents, and to afford those individuals in same-sex marriages any benefits, rights, and privileges to which they are entitled by virtue of their marital status," Tauro wrote. "The federal government, by enacting and enforcing DOMA, plainly encroaches upon the firmly entrenched province of the state."

Tauro drew on history in his ruling, writing that the states have set their own marriage laws since before the American Revolution and that marriage laws were considered "such an essential element of state power" that the subject was even broached at the time of the framing of the Constitution. Tauro noted that laws barring interracial marriage were once at least as contentious as the current battle over gay marriage.

"But even as the debate concerning interracial marriage waxed and waned throughout history, the federal government consistently yielded to marital status determinations established by the states," Tauro wrote. "That says something. And this court is convinced that the federal government's long history of acquiescence in this arena indicates that, indeed, the federal government traditionally regarded marital status determinations as the exclusive province of state government."

Opponents of same-sex marriage condemned the ruling. Kris Mineau, president of Massachusetts Family Institute called it "another blatant example of a judge playing legislator. Same-sex marriage activists have tried time and time again to win public approval of their agenda, and they have failed each time," Mineau said in a statement. "This is why their strategy is to force same-sex 'marriage' through judicial fiat, as they did here in Massachusetts and other states."

He said he was "confident that an appeals court, and ultimately the Supreme Court, will uphold the government's right to define marriage, strengthening and protecting children and families."

When Mrs Vernon ordered the police from her house, officer Thomas Duran allegedly decided she was being 'aggressive' and gave the order: 'Taser her.' Her alarmed grandson, is then said to have replied: 'Don't taze my granny!' According to a lawsuit filed in US District Court, Tinsley's 'obstructive' behaviour prompted the police to threaten him with their tasers.

He was then assaulted, removed from the room, thrown to the floor, handcuffed, and detained in a police car. At this point, the heroes in blue turned their attention to Lona. According to officer Duran's official report, Mrs Vernon had taken an 'aggressive posture' in her hospital bed.

In order to ensure 'officer safety', one of his men 'stepped on her oxygen hose until she began to suffer oxygen deprivation'. Another of the officers then shot her with a taser, but the connection wasn't solid. A second fired his taser, 'striking her to the left of the midline of her upper chest, and applied high voltage, causing burns to her chest, extreme pain', and unconsciousness.

Lona was then handcuffed with sufficient ruthlessness to tear the soft flesh of her forearms, causing her to bleed. After her wounds were treated at a local hospital, Lona was confined for six days in the psychiatric ward at the insistence of the El Reno Police Department.

So what kind of ghastly chemical plant did the Brouses live next door to in Minnesota? In fact, the facility that was slowly poisoning this hapless family (and thousands like them across America) was a dairy farm. Not, however, a dairy farm as you might imagine, with cows chewing the cud or roaming freely in the fields. This one was called a CAFO - a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation - a 'mega-farm' where cows by the thousand live on concrete and rarely get to see the sun, where they never actually graze, where their lives are shortened from round-the-clock milking.

This is a farm where huge quantities of hormones and antibiotics - administered because their miserable, cramped existences make the cattle prone to disease - are hosed away in the gallons of waste which they produce and stored in vast lagoons by the tens of millions of gallons, ready to be sprayed on to local farmland as fertiliser. And, terrifyingly, this could soon be the future of farming in Britain.

The problem is not with the animal waste per se, but with the concentration of it all in one place, because such large herds are being cramped together. 'One cow makes as much waste as 23 humans,' says Lynn. A farm of 8,100 cows, therefore, (such as the one proposed for Lincolnshire) would produce the same waste as a city of 186,300 people.

'The difference with people is that their waste is treated, ' adds Lynn. ' With CAFOs, the waste is just stored and then spread over surrounding fields. It really is incredible when you think about it. I have a constant hacking cough and both my in-laws have been diagnosed with neurological damage caused by the hydrogen sulphide. You'd have to be crazy to let one of these things anywhere near the English countryside.'

He said the military had to become more agile and adaptable; more mobile; better integrated; and better merged with "other levels of national power and influence, at home and abroad". Some experts and officers believe such a move threatens Britain's independence and could leave the country unable to defend itself if forced to fight alone. His remarks came as Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, confirmed that British troops would be redeployed from the most dangerous areas of Afghanistan.

Nick Harvey, who is the MP for North Devon, made his remarks in a speech to the Royal United Services Institute think-tank, and warned: "Let me be quite clear: change is coming." He said the Forces would "have less emphasis on weight and more accuracy of firepower. They will need to be less focused on scale when contributing to multinational operations, with the emphasis moving to quality. And we should have less duplication of capabilities held in large numbers by our NATO allies."

He did not give details about greater co-operation with allies, but ministers are known to be exploring ways to work together more closely with France, the only other major European military power. There is even speculation in Paris that the UK might offer to share one of the two new Royal Navy aircraft carriers the MoD is planning to buy.

Speaking to the RUSI conference on the Royal Navy, First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope called for closer integration of the UK's sea, air and land forces as well as better partnership with allied navies, in particular those of the US and France. "Defence is a team game and we need to think in those terms when we consider maritime capabilities, how we develop them, and indeed how we use them in the future," he said.

The FED continues to wield power in Congress. Even some co-sponsors of HR1207 voted against it. It seems as if the enemies of freedom and liberty are in a lemming like mode to continue the weakening and hollowing out of what remains of our Constitution.

Their purses are lined and re-election does not really matter any longer. They have done their part to further the betrayal of the Founder's ideals. The promise of comfort and esteem in their transformed nation is enough to salve any thoughts of shame and disgrace.

Sadly, there are few heroes in either political party with the courage to stand up to this along with Congressman Paul. Party agendas dictate just how far even those "on our side" will go in the interest of Original Intent.

The true reality is, our enemies look upon us as weak. Brave men and women have died and sacrificed needlessly for wars we didn't have the stomach to win. That should be a treasonous act. We cut one-sided deals with dictators in countries with nuclear ambitions, who purposely ignore their promises, then take our "goodies" and continue their nuclear programs in the dark of night and in secret. Our stupidity gives them the time to harden their nuclear operations underground, where our bombs can't reach them.

We negotiate in weakness with our enemies, who then stab us in the back at every opportunity. Instead of holding them accountable for not honoring their contracts or treaties, we enter into more worthless contracts and treaties and provide more goodies. It's a shakedown at best and the American taxpayer gets to pay for the egregious mistakes made at the hands of their corrupt and negligent government.

Generals in our military are sick of playing pussy foot with our enemies when they know they have the power to conquer any country on Earth... a power that is denied them by the inept, inexperienced, spineless and pink-panty-wearing leaders of America. General McChrystal finally had it and laid bare the festering anger and frustration that permeates a military rendered almost impotent by a community organizer and the inmates that have taken control of the asylum known as the US Congress.

(President) Obama is a Lilly-livered, weak-kneed village idiot that should have never become president, if the media had exposed the sordid details of his entire socialist/Marxist life, early on in the campaign, or answered, once and for all, laid to rest whether Obama is a natural born citizen of America, as required by the Constitution.

There is one area in which the prevailing power in Washington DC shows great courage. For this deed they have put on their iron jockey shorts and grabbed their swords, spears and body armor. They are not at all reticent about passing law after law to subjugate the American people and take away their liberties. They show no cowardice in giving up American sovereignty by ratifying unconstitutional treaties. They lack no courage when it comes to spending America into bankruptcy, or nationalizing businesses, or destroying the engine that made America the most powerful and generous nation on Earth... Capitalism. Their arrogance and elitism is open and notorious.

The company says that an infrared light is passed through the finger to detect a unique pattern of micro-veins beneath the surface - which is then matched with a pre-registered profile to verify an individual's identity. "This is a substantially more reliable technique than using fingerprints," Peter Jones, Hitachi's head of security and solutions in Europe, told CNN.

"Our tests indicate there is a one in a million false acceptance rate - that's as good as iris scanning, which is generally regarded as the most secure method." Unlike fingerprints, which leave a trace and can be potentially reproduced, finger veins are impossible to replicate, according to Jones, because they are beneath the surface of the skin.

"And before you ask, no - it doesn't work with fingers that have been chopped off," he added. While the technology represents a step forward in reducing cases of identity fraud, Jones said that this is just one of many factors that have encouraged the Polish bank to adopt it.

USGS said that today's earthquake was not an aftershock to the 7.2 Easter Sunday quake. Instead, today's quake occurred on the Coyote Creek strand of the larger strike-slip style San Jacinto fault , the most active system - and possibly most dangerous - in Southern California. The 130 mile system snakes through parts of Imperial, San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, and is considered potentially very dangerous because much of the fault is located near heavily populated areas.

The Coyote Creek stand is capable of producing a 6.9 quake, said Tom Rockwell, a San Diego State University seismologist who studies the San Jacinto system. There was a 6.8 quake on the fault on April 21, 1918. Today's quake "felt like a bomb had exploded," said Bud Perez, a maintenance worker at the Borrego Water District in Borrego Springs.

The surveillance by the National Security Agency, the government's chief eavesdropping agency, would rely on a set of sensors deployed in computer networks for critical infrastructure that would be triggered by unusual activity suggesting an impending cyber attack, though it wouldn't persistently monitor the whole system, these people said.

Defense contractor Raytheon Corp recently won a classified contract for the initial phase of the surveillance effort valued at up to $100 million, said a person familiar with the project. An NSA spokeswoman said the agency had no information to provide on the program. A Raytheon spokesman declined to comment.

Some industry and government officials familiar with the program see Perfect Citizen as an intrusion by the NSA into domestic affairs, while others say it is an important program to combat an emerging security threat that only the NSA is equipped to provide. "The overall purpose of the [program] is our Government... feel[s] that they need to ensure the Public Sector is doing all they can to secure Infrastructure critical to our National Security," said one internal Raytheon email, the text of which was seen by The Wall Street Journal. "Perfect Citizen is Big Brother." Raytheon declined to comment on this email.

The legal complaint identifies several infractions, both against the German Constitution and the EU Treaties, arguing that financial aid would not be "democratically legitimate" and would be "a clear breach of the concept of stability as enshrined in the Constitution and the Treaties". They conclude, "The Constitutional Court will not deny success to this claim, if it follows the law."

Speaking at a press conference today, Professor Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider said: "a Treaty is a Treaty". Professor Wilhelm Hankel added: "have we got a new European Union now, a new Monetary Union, a Transfer Union? That would endanger us with inflation", with Professor Joachim Starbatty saying: "the Constitutional Court should hold the law dear, and not what is politically opportune."