Network Outage Was the Sun - END OF STORY

Poised to step down, Sen. Mel Martinez spending campaign money

BY BETH REINHARD AND LESLEY CLARK
breinhard@MiamiHerald.com

U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez announced eight months ago that he would not seek reelection but has continued to spend campaign donations on consultants, staff, air fares, meals, cellphones and purchases at the Senate gift shop.

Federal Election Commission records show Martinez has spent $147,642 since his Dec. 2 announcement. He also returned $419,051 to his contributors, with $456,200 remaining in the account as of June 30.

Federal law gives officeholders wide latitude to spend campaign donations on anything related to their election or in connection with their official duties.

``My general advice is, `contributors beware,' '' said Paul Ryan, an election law expert at the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington-based watchdog group. ``The door is close to wide open for what federal officeholders can do with the money in their coffers.''

Martinez's campaign treasurer, Tampa accountant Nancy Watkins, said the senator has adhered to federal law.

``It has to be for the campaign or official business,'' said Watkins, whose firm has received thousands of dollars from Martinez's campaign for accounting services in recent months. ``There's no conversion for personal use, and we don't have any of that going on here.''

Martinez's decision to step down has paved the way for one of Florida's most hectic and unpredictable election cycles in decade. The senator initially pledged to finish his term but last week said he was quitting.

Thousands of campaign dollars in recent months went to pay caterers and restaurants, including $2,549 at the Pour House, a Washington sports bar; $591.85 for catering at the officers' club at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa; $247.14 at the Oceanaire seafood restaurant in Washington, and $197.72 at Le Coq Au Vin in Orlando.

Watkins said Martinez held a holiday party for his congressional staff at the Pour House. She said she did not know the circumstances of the other restaurant and catering bills but suggested they could be for meetings with visiting constituents, fellow senators or campaign staff.

``Yours and my tax dollars don't pay for those things,'' Watkins said.

The campaign spent $425 at the Senate gift shop on Dec. 8 and another $215.75 on Jan. 12. Watkins said the purchases were likely flag pins, key chains or other souvenirs that bear the seal of the Senate and are given to constituents, friends and donors.

The report also shows money taken out of the account for ``petty cash'' -- $300 on Dec. 30 and $233.49 on March 16. Watkins said the money was for inexpensive items, like a roll of stamps or office supplies. Martinez also continues to pay a campaign employee's salary and overhead to wind down his election account, which Watkins compared to ``a battle ship, it takes six months to turn around.''

Some of the expenses were left over from political activities and contracts begun before Martinez announced that he would not run again. Political consultant Tre' Evers of Consensus Communications in Orlando said a Jan. 2 payment of $16,450 was the last of four installments for campaign fundraising in 2008.

``Sen. Martinez was raising money because it takes a lot of money to run a Senate race, and he was planning to make a final decision on whether he would do it later on,'' Evers said. ``It's what everybody does.''

Other vendors that received hundreds of dollars from the campaign include American Express for credit card bills, AT&T Mobility for cell phone services, Chicago-based Restaurant Associates for food and beverages, Aristotle International in Washington for software, Advanced Network Solutions of Orlando for Internet access and technical support, and CVC Productions of Windermere for audio-visual services.

Tallahassee lobbyist Brian Ballard, who was among the dozens of donors who received campaign refunds in late December, said he wasn't concerned about how Martinez spent the money left in his account.

``I have all the faith in the world in him,'' said Ballard, who got a $2,300 check back. ``I was happy to give the money to him, and when he decided he wasn't going to run I was happy to get it back.''

The main restriction on federal campaign donations is that they can't be spent on personal use, such as a home mortgage, school tuition or funeral expenses. Any spending that occurs because of a campaign or public office is ``considered permissible,'' says the FEC's campaign guide.

Federal officeholders may also spend campaign contributions on family travel to an event that relates to their public offices. And they can donate money to charities, political parties or candidates. Martinez gave about $50,000 in June to a slew of Republican members of Congress, including Gov. Charlie Crist, the front runner to replace him in 2010.

Martinez's early exit puts Crist in the unusual position of appointing someone to serve the last 17 months of his term at the same time he is seeking the job himself. Potential candidates include former U.S. Attorney Bob Martinez, former Secretary of State Jim Smith, and George LeMieux, Crist's former chief of staff.

Last year, Martinez paid a $99,000 fine to the Federal Elections Commission for accepting donations that exceeded the legal limits and for other violations in his 2004 campaign. The senator's campaign said the violations were ``inadvertent.''

Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/459/story/1181782.html

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AT&T to cut 12,000 jobs, 4 percent of staff

Thursday, December 4, 2008

NEW YORK - AT&T Inc. joined the recession's parade of layoffs Thursday by announcing plans to cut 12,000 jobs, about 4 percent of its work force.

The Dallas-based telecommunications company - the nation's largest - said the job cuts will take place in December and throughout 2009. The company also plans to reduce capital spending next year.

Spokesman Walt Sharp said the layoffs will be "across the company and across the country," but would not specify what departments and cities would be most affected. These layoffs come on top of 4,600 jobs the company said in April it would eliminate.

The new cuts come as AT&T finds itself pulled by two currents at once. Not only is the recession leading businesses and consumers to curtail spending, but a long-term trend in the telecom industry is also at play: AT&T, which provides local phone coverage in California, Texas and 20 other states, has been seeing many customers defect from landline phones to wireless services. In the last quarter, AT&T basic voice lines in service dropped 11 percent.

Reflecting that shift, the company noted Thursday that even as it slashes some jobs, it would still be hiring in 2009 in parts of the business that offer cell phone service and broadband Internet access. AT&T, whose shares are down about 30 percent this year - while the Dow Jones industrial average is off 35 percent - remains profitable, and benefits from being the sole U.S. wireless carrier for Apple Inc.'s popular iPhone.

AT&T plans to take a charge of about $600 million in the fourth quarter to pay for severance costs. The company noted that many of its non-management employees have guaranteed jobs because of union contracts. All affected workers will receive severance "in accordance with management policies or union agreements," the company said.

Its shares were down 2.5 percent in pre-market trading, at $28.35.


Source: http://home.peoplepc.com/psp/newsstory.asp?cat=TopStories&id=20081204/493763d0_3ca6_1552620081204775336716

Troubling look at U.S. surveillance policy in "The Shadow Factory"

PAUL J.RICHARDS / AFP/GETTY IMAGES
National Intelligence director John Negroponte inside the National Security Agency in 2006. In a new book, journalist James Bamford details President Bush's secret decision that allowed the NSA to spy on U.S. citizens.

James Bamford's third book on the National Security Administration, "The Shadow Factory," reveals how federal security agencies and their private-sector allies have pored over Americans' telephone calls, electronic records and personal data on a gigantic scale.

By Jeffrey Tannenbaum
Bloomberg News

"The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America"
by James Bamford

Doubleday, 395 pp., $27.95

In 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower warned the U.S. that the "military-industrial complex," his term for the armed forces and their suppliers, posed a threat to democracy.
Now journalist James Bamford is sounding a variation on Eisenhower's theme. In "The Shadow Factory," he cautions that the "surveillance-industrial complex" has been undermining the privacy, and potentially the liberty, of Americans.

Federal security agencies and their private-sector allies, such as AT&T, have snooped on telephone calls and e-mail and combed through electronic records of Americans' personal data on a gigantic scale, often in defiance of the law.

Government officials wanted to learn where targeted Americans shopped, "what they bought, what movies they saw, what books they read, the toll booths they went through, the plane tickets they purchased, the hotels they stayed in, and the restaurants where they ate," Bamford writes.

Far from decrying the surveillance, President George W. Bush promoted it, calling it necessary for hunting down terrorists akin to those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks. At the heart of the book is the question of whether such anti-terrorist programs pose a greater risk to American ideals than do the country's enemies.

"There is now the capacity to make tyranny total in America," writes Bamford, the author of three earlier books on U.S. intelligence agencies. "Only law ensures that we never fall into that abyss — the abyss from which there is no return."

Bamford isn't the first to report the central development around which he builds his new book: Bush's secret decision that allowed the National Security Agency to spy on people inside the U.S., including citizens, without first seeking court clearances that were required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.

A special court to approve warrants under FISA had rarely failed to give government investigators the clearances they sought. But the Bush administration, after Sept. 11, didn't want investigators slowed down by the permitting process. Until he finally sought changes in the law, which was amended this year, Bush just chose to defy it.

AT&T and other private companies cooperated as the NSA tapped into Americans' communications, and an industry grew up to supply equipment needed by the spies. For example, Verint Systems, a company founded by a former Israeli intelligence officer, has built "bigger and better bugs," Bamford says.


The eavesdropping drew public scrutiny after leaks from government officials troubled by the program led to news coverage. After sitting on the story for more than a year, according to Bamford, The New York Times broke it in December 2005. The coverage won a 2006 Pulitzer Prize for two Times reporters.

After court battles over the exposed program, the Bush administration said it would follow the FISA law. Instead, the administration sought, and won, amendments from Congress. The changes gave immunity from lawsuits to the telecom companies involved in eavesdropping, weakened the FISA court and provided the NSA a freer hand in some matters, though the agency is still required to seek warrants to target Americans.

While the book has extensive notes, it isn't always clear how the author learned what he reports. He writes that "many courageous people" who aided him must go unnamed. The book also requires patience. The first section, juxtaposing the actions of the intelligence agencies and terrorists before Sept. 11, never builds any suspense because we know what's going to happen.
But at times, as in a chapter called "Extremis," Bamford marshals fascinating detail. Those pages convey not only the horrors of the Iraq war but also the practical challenges faced by intelligence agencies forced to comply with the original FISA law. By the end, Bamford has distilled a troubling chapter in American history.

Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company

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Source: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/books/2008412852_br23bamford.html

AT&T TO CUT ABOUT 4,600 JOBS,...

AT&T to cut about 4,600 jobs, sees $AT&T to cut about 4,600 jobs, sees $374 million 1Q charge

1 hour ago

NEW YORK (AP) — AT&T Inc. on Friday said it plans to cut about 4,600 jobs, or 1.5 percent of its work force, to shift resources to growing parts of its business.

The nation's largest telecommunications provider said most of the layoffs will be among managers, particularly in wireline operations, including local phone service and service for large corporate customers. Jobs in corporate functions in like finance will also be cut.

"Even with the reductions announced today, we expect our head count overall to remain stable this year as we hire additional employees to support growth areas like wireless and TV," said spokesman Michael Coe.

The San Antonio-based company said in a regulatory filing that it plans to take a $374 million first-quarter pretax charge against earnings due to the job cuts. The company reports first-quarter earnings on Tuesday.

The company had 309,500 employees at the end of last year. When it announced the acquisition of BellSouth Corp. in 2006, it has said it would cut 10,000 jobs over three years from the combined company to eliminate overlap. The cuts announced Friday are not part of that reduction, and is the largest announcement of job cuts by the company since then.

Despite the layoffs associated with the BellSouth acquisition, the combined work force grew by 7,000 last year, as the company built up its growing wireless and TV divisions even as land lines shrank in the face of competition from wireless and cable phone service.

Its shares rose 20 cents to $37.77 in morning trading Friday.

Source: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i5j6ka94n-N5MmmXWtlwVQTI2ysAD904BJN00