Protests grow over digital bill

The Digital Economy bill has sparked a wave of protest among consumers and rights groups.

Soon after the bill began its journey through Parliament on 19 November, many expressed worries about parts of it.

The bill suggests the use of technical measures to tackle illegal file-sharing that could involve suspending the accounts of persistent pirates.

Critics fear this and other powers the bill reserves could damage the UK's growing digital economy.

The Digital Economy Bill is the end result of the consultation and research that went into the creation of the Digital Britain report that was published in June 2009.

As well as trying to tackle illegal file-sharing, the wide-ranging legislation also proposes a shake-up of the radio spectrum and a classification system for video games.

Left out is the proposal for a broadband tax to fund next-generation broadband that will be handled in the Finance Bill due in early 2010.

The proposals on file-sharing have garnered most criticism.

One of the first responses was the creation of a petition on the Number10.gov.uk website. Set up by Andrew Heaney, TalkTalk's head of strategy and development, it calls for the abolition of the proposal to disconnect illegal filesharers.

By 24 November, the petition had gathered more than 16,000 signatures.

The number of signatures got a boost from Stephen Fry who used micro-blogging site Twitter to direct people to it.

Mr Fry wrote: "Dear Mandy, splendid fellow in many ways, but he is SO WRONG about copyright. Please sign and RT {retweet]".

Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, which campaigns on digital issues, said: "It's quite a shocking bill. We're extremely worried about it."

Mr Killock said Section 17 of the Bill was worrying because it gave the Secretary of State "reserve powers" to draft fresh laws to tackle net-based copyright infringement without needing parliamentary approval.

"It could destabilise business and destabilise innovation," said Mr Killock. "It means entirely trusting to bureaucrats and politicians to get it right."

Mr Killock said membership of the Open Rights Group had jumped by 20% in the run-up to the publication of the Bill. He said protests were being co-ordinated in many places such as Facebook and other social media sites.

He predicted that the protests would soon lead to some form of civil unrest, be that lobbying, a protest march or public meetings.

DIGITAL ECONOMY BILL Legal framework for tackling copyright infringement via education and technical measure Oftcom given powers to appoint and fund independently funded news consortia New duties for Ofcom to assess the UK's communications infrastructure every two years Modernising spectrum to increase investment in mobile broadband Framework for the move to digital radio switchover by 2015 Updating Channel 4 functions to encompass public service content, on TV and online Age ratings compulsory for all boxed video games for those over 12 years

US digital rights group The Electronic Frontier Foundation declared that giving the Secretary of State such powers amounted to the creation of a "pirate finder general" that could enact "draconian" copyright enforcement controls.

The Bill envisages that any proposed change to copyright law should be opened up to public comment before it is made.

In a bid to defuse some of the criticisms, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills created a webpage entitled: "Filesharing: some accusations and some answers".

It pointed out that some of the criticisms levelled at the Bill were unfounded. It said it had not been drafted at the behest of the music industries.

It added that "technical measures" to slow down or suspend net connections would not be imposed without those accused going through a tribunal system that assesses their case.

The Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) also issued a statement saying that it "strongly opposes" the measures introduced to tackle file-sharing.

It said: "Rather than focusing blindly on enforcement, the government should be asking rights holders to reform the licensing framework so that legal content can be distributed online to consumers in a way that they are clearly demanding."

Law firm Eversheds said the copyright plans seemed "hurriedly put together and not clearly thought-through" and warned that they could have "unforeseen effects."

It added: "Critics... may have taken some comfort from the fact that the proposals have yet to wend their way through an already congested legislative timetable before the next election, meaning it is questionable whether they will ever become law."

Man Arrested For Not Tweeting

By Stephen Johnson

Police in Garden City, NJ apparently arrested a man this weekend for not sending a tweet.

It all started at The Roosevelt Mall on Long Island, where teen singing sensation Justin Bieber was apparently scheduled to appear. Over 3,000 fans jammed into the shopping center and began chanting and yelling and carrying on. It looked like this:

The cops apparently asked James Roppo, a senior vice president of Island Def Jam Records, to send a tweet letting the fans know that the singer wouldn't show. He apparently failed to tweet and was cited for“endangering the welfare of a minor and obstructing government administration."

Bieber, who got his start after being discovered on YouTube, did tell his fans to go home via twitter, but apparently it didn't work.

Feeling Nervous? 3,000 Behavior Detection Officers Will Be Watching You at the Airport This Thanksgiving

By Liliana Segura

Nearly 100,000 passengers were pulled aside by TSA behavior watchers last year, and it remains to be proven whether you can spot terrorists by the looks on their faces.

Here's a question to ponder the next time you're taking off your shoes at airport security: Can you spot terrorists by the look on their faces?

For the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the answer is yes. For the past few years, airports across the country have been using what many call "behavioral surveillance" to weed out potential hijackers among us, by covertly examining travelers' facial expressions and body language as they go through security. Unlike those airport employees who herd us along as we remove our shoes and relinquish all liquids over three ounces (with dubious results), this new program, named "Screening Passengers by Observational Techniques," or "SPOT," is carried out by TSA employees who have been trained to monitor travelers' faces and movements. As Americans head out of town this holiday season, more than 3,000 "Behavior Detection Officers" will be at 161 airports nationwide, watching our every move.

Tthe TSA boasts that the SPOT program is "derivative of other successful behavioral analysis programs that have been employed by law enforcement and security personnel both in the U.S. and around the world." Yet, the success of the SPOT program remains highly questionable. This month the Washington Post reported that, in 2008 alone, Behavior Detection Officers across the country pulled 98,805 passengers aside for additional screenings, out of which 9,854 were questioned by local police. 813 were eventually arrested.

The cost of the program, according to TSA spokesperson Ann Davis, was $3.1 million.

In an e-mail correspondence with AlterNet, Davis could not say how many of the 813 arrests led to convictions -- or for that matter, whether any terrorists were caught. "Many of the SPOT cases that resulted in arrests remain under active investigation by law enforcement," she said. "TSA doesn't always hear back from the investigative agencies on the outcome of the cases so we cannot track convictions."

But as Stephen Soldz, Director of the Center for Research, Evaluation, and Program Development at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis points out, "Even if the arrests are justified, they are less than 1 percent of the total singled out. What happens to more than 9,000 who are subjected to questioning and released?"

This question cuts to the heart of protests by civil liberties advocates and others who argue that, not only is the SPOT program a violation of people's privacy, but it is actually counterproductive, a wasteful exercise in false positives.

"By the math alone, rare events are impossible to accurately detect," says Soldz. "One will either miss most of what one is interested in [false negatives] or else identify many people falsely [false positives]."

ACLU attorney Jay Stanley concurs. "The problem with the SPOT program," he told AlterNet, "is that it is based on trying to stop terrorism by searching for supposed 'signs of terrorism' that are so commonplace that it results in an increase in the monitoring of individuals to no good end."

"We Need to Use Them Everywhere"

Like the Department of Homeland Security that oversees it, the SPOT program is a post-9/11 phenomenon, partly inspired by the surveillance tapes that showed the 9/11 hijackers making their way through security at Boston's Logan Airport.

According to TSA analyst Carl Maccario, each man kept his eyes low to the ground, avoiding the gaze of the airport security guards. "They all looked away and had their heads down," he told USA Today in 2005. As the federal government looked for new ways to augment its counterterror tools after the attacks, the TSA set out to develop a program that would seek to identify would-be terrorists based on this type of behavior. Like the Pentagon, FBI, and CIA, the TSA sought out an army of psychologists to lend their expertise.

Key among them was Dr. Paul Ekman, a San Francisco-based psychologist and pioneer in the study of deceit and "microexpressions" -- the subtle, involuntary ways in which our faces betray our inner emotions. Ekman received a call from Maccario in 2005. "They were really contacting everyone who was doing any kind of work in this area," he recalled, in an interview with AlterNet. Maccario asked him to come on board as an adviser to the SPOT program.

Ekman visited Logan Airport, where a pilot version of SPOT was being implemented. What he saw impressed him enough that he wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post in 2006, praising the program.

"SPOT's officers, working in pairs, stand off to the side, scanning passengers at a security checkpoint for signs of any behaviors on the officers' checklist, such as repeated patting of the chest -- which might mean that a bomb is strapped too tightly under a person's jacket -- or a micro-expression," he wrote.

Ekman argued that the 9/11 hijackers had deception written all over their faces, but that tragically, no one was in a position to detect it. "The hijackers' lies -- to visa interviewers and airport check-in workers -- succeeded largely because airport personnel weren't taught how to spot liars, he wrote. "They had to rely on their hunches. The people who might have saved the lives of many Americans were needlessly handicapped."

"Observational techniques are not a substitute for all the other techniques we now use to catch would-be terrorists," Ekman concluded. "But they add another layer to transportation security. They are now being used at fewer than one in 10 major U.S. airports. We need to use them everywhere."

Three years later, the SPOT program has been vastly expanded, going beyond airports nationwide. According to Davis, the TSA "regularly deploys SPOT-trained officers to other transportation venues, including mass transit and rail stations."

But if the 2008 data is any indication, even trained officers cannot easily differentiate between a person who is acting nervous because he or she is, say, afraid of flying, and a nervous person who is armed and dangerous. (Even Ekman's Washington Post article described a "fidgety" man, "slumped in line, staring at the ground," who was occasionally gripped with a "momentary look of anguish." He was taken aside and questioned by Boston police, who discovered that the man was no terrorist -- his brother had just died unexpectedly, and he was on his way to his funeral.)

"Real life is not like in a spy thriller where people can magically perceive the people who have something to hide," says Stanley. "When people are asked to detect wrongdoing based on overbroad signs," he adds, "the usual result is racial profiling."

Catching Bad Guys?

The TSA has not released data on the almost 99,000 people who were pulled aside by Behavior Detection Officials, last year, or the 9,854 who were questioned by police. But for the overwhelming majority, who were innocent of any wrongdoing, the result has been harassment, aggravation, and missed flights at best, a violation of their rights at worst.

Not to mention wasted time and resources by security agents and law enforcement.

TSA spokesperson Ann Davis cites the "deterrent value" of the program as something that "cannot be overstated" -- "SPOT adds another layer of security to the airport environment and presents the terrorists with yet one more challenge they need to overcome in attempt to defeat our security system" -- but the claim is fairly impossible to prove.

Also, she argues, "we may not know if the people SPOT caught in the country illegally, using fake passports or IDs or smuggling money or drugs were doing so to assist with a larger plot."

Indeed, critics point out that the relatively small number of arrests that have come out of the SPOT program have been mostly people with fake IDs and undocumented immigrants, but there's not much evidence that any of them had plans to carry out a terrorist attack. Still, the notion that there's anything wrong with detaining these people anyway strikes Ekman as odd. "I would think that the American public would not feel badly that they are catching money or drug smugglers, or wanted felons for serious crimes," he says. "I didn't think that was a bad thing."

But if the primary duty of the TSA is to keep travelers and transportation hubs safe, expending resources on ordinary crime-fighting would seem to be a distraction from weeding out actual potential terrorists.

This, argues Ekman, is just the nature of behavior surveillance. "Nature didn't design us in a way that we have a different appearance if we are a terrorist compared to a wanted rapist," he says. "You're basically catching what they call 'bad guys.' You're not catching a specific type of bad guy."

Can Anyone Be a Human Lie Detector?

One might describe Dr. Paul Ekman as a true believer, both in human capacity to detect deceit -- "Anybody can learn how to recognize concealed emotions," he tells me. "It takes about an hour" -- as well as the need for behavior surveillance in the post-9/11 era. If the TSA SPOT program is not as effective as it could be, he argues, it is because it's underfunded.

"I do not think Congress is taking it as seriously as it should," he says. "I hope we do not have to wait until there's some disaster before [spending on the program] is increased."

More money might mean more Behavior Detection Officers. But ideally it might mean more training as well. The positions require no scientific background; training in the art of lie detection takes place over the course of less than a week -- "four days of classroom instruction in behavior observation/analysis and 24 hours of on-the-job-training in an airport security checkpoint environment," according to Davis. The average Behavior Detection Officer position pays anywhere between $31,411 and $56,964 a year, depending on where they work. "Would more training be better?" asks Ekman. "Probably. But TSA operates within a budget that Congress gives them and they're doing the best they can do given that budget."

Ekman cites Israel, the country that largely pioneered the use of behavior surveillance as one place where similar programs have proven effective. The U.S. program was inspired in large part by Israel's; Ekman himself has been a consultant to the Israeli government for 20 years.

For Jay Stanley, this is nothing to be proud of. "There are real questions about whether the Israeli system is as sophisticated as its boosters say or whether in isn't truly just a system of racial profiling," he says. "… In any case, there are only 6.5 million Israelis, but 300 million Americans … it is doubtful that Israel's system could scale to the U.S. airline transportation system."

Stanley argues that the SPOT program overemphasizes the capacity for people to act as human lie detectors. "Studies show that people are actually very bad at detecting lies and typically overestimate their ability to do so," he says. In an airport, he adds, "people have a million reasons to be nervous or anxious. In fact, if you're in today's airports and you're not a little crazed there's almost something wrong with you."

For his part, Ekman seems intent on popularizing the science of lie detection. He is an adviser on the new FOX drama "Lie to Me," which is is based on him and his work; Ekman is an adviser on every script and writes critiques of each episode on his website. He also markets and sells interactive kits on his website, ranging from $20 to $69, that promise to train customers in the finer points of facial and micro-expressions. The kits, he says, are "really for anybody who wants to learn how to recognize emotion: doctors, nurses, salespeople, negotiators, bargainers, suspicious spouses, law enforcement … there are tens of thousands of people who learn that."

"But," he warns, "you can't turn it off once you've learned it. I try to warn people you may not always like what you see."

Do the Ends Justify the Means?

Since 9/11, the FBI has started training all new recruits in non-verbal behavior analysis. The CIA has been conducting research on how to use computers to recognize micro-expressions. Also in the works is a new initiative by the Department of Homeland Security that "uses various ways of measuring your physiology as you walk by in the hopes of picking up signs of people who are intending to do harm." The Orwellian-named "Future Attribute Screening Technology," or FAST, would measure such things as heart rate, breathing, and body temperature. ("It's not being used because it's still in the research phase," says Ekman, "but I'm one of their advisers.") The civil liberties questions raised by such potential programs make the SPOT program look tame by comparison.

One politician who has been an outspoken critic of the TSA's SPOT program is former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr. In a recent column in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, he decried the new initiatives in the works as "yet another step in [the TSA and DHS's] relentless drive to bring '1984' front and center to America's airports."

"Eager always to take advantage of the willingness of passengers to surrender all sense of privacy if made to feel safe, DHS is spending millions of our tax dollars to develop technology that would remotely monitor certain bodily functions and alert TSA employees whenever someone is exuding signs of nervousness," he wrote.

Ekman dismisses concerns that the TSA's officers are violating anyone's rights. "They don't do this in the men's room," he told AlterNet. "They look at you while you're standing in line, which is a very public place. So I don't think it's an invasion of privacy."

Regardless of these questiosn, the SPOT program continues to be expanded. In January, Behavior Detection Officers were dispatched to Tampa, Florida to "look for suspicious behavior," among spectators attending Super Bowl XLIII at Raymond James Stadium. The ACLU raised alarm over the implications. As analyst Barry Steinhardt told USA Today, "If we're going to use this at high-profile sporting events, why not start using it on streets?"

From violations of privacy to racial discrimination, or the ACLU has filed numerous lawsuits seeking to curb the ever-expanding authority of the TSA. Earlier this year, the the ACLU sued the TSA for its detaining of a traveler who was stopped and questioned by officers after he was found to be carrying some $4,700 in cash at the Lambert-St. Louis International Airport in March. The man, Steven Bierfeldt, a former treasurer for the Ron Paul presidential campaign, was taken to a room and questioned about the cash. According to the ACLU, "Bierfeldt repeatedly asked the agents to explain the scope of their authority to detain and interrogate him and received no explanation."

"Instead, the agents escalated the threatening tone of their questions and ultimately told Bierfeldt that he was being placed under arrest. Bierfeldt recorded audio of the incident with his iPhone."

In September the TSA revised its policy to emphasize that "screening may not be conducted to detect evidence of crimes unrelated to transportation security." (Soon thereafter, it added that "traveling with large amounts of currency is not illegal," among other directives.) Earlier this month, the ACLU dropped the suit.

"This new policy provides much needed clarity to TSA screeners and reflects the critical requirement that TSA agents must adhere to their important but limited mandate of protecting flight safety," said Ben Wizner, an attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. "The airport is not a Constitution-free zone, and the price of traveling is not exposure to limitless government searches."

The TSA continues to vigorously defended its policies as "non-intrusive" and critical to national security. TSA spokseperson Suzanne Trevino denied that the low arrest rates from last year reflect poorly on the TSA program. Anyway, "we don't arrest people," she told AlterNet. "If we find something that we are concerned about, we will call over local law enforcement. They're the ones who do the arresting."

Man trapped in 23-year 'coma' reveals horror of being unable to tell doctors he was conscious

By Allan Hall

A car crash victim has spoken of the horror he endured for 23 years after he was misdiagnosed as being in a coma when he was conscious the whole time.

Rom Houben, trapped in his paralysed body after a car crash, described his real-life nightmare as he screamed to doctors that he could hear them - but could make no sound.

'I screamed, but there was nothing to hear,' said Mr Houben, now 46, who doctors thought was in a persistent vegatative state.

'I dreamed myself away,' he added, tapping his tale out with the aid of a computer.

'I dreamed myself away': Rom Houben, now 46, has told of the nightmare of being trapped in a paralysed body, unable to tell doctors that he was awake, for 23 years

Doctors used a range of coma tests before reluctantly concluding that his consciousness was 'extinct'.

But three years ago, new hi-tech scans showed his brain was still functioning almost completely normally.

Mr Houben described the moment as 'my second birth'. Therapy has since allowed him to tap out messages on a computer screen.

Mr Houben said: 'All that time I just literally dreamed of a better life. Frustration is too small a word to describe what I felt.'

His case has only just been revealed in a scientific paper released by the man who 'saved' him, top neurological expert Dr Steven Laureys.

'Medical advances caught up with him,' said Dr Laureys, who believes there may be many similar cases of false comas around the world.

The disclosure will also renew the right-to-die debate over whether people in comas are truly unconscious.

Rom said he wants to enjoy life again - now that his friends and family know he is not in a coma after all

Mr Houben, a former martial arts enthusiast, was paralysed in 1983.

Doctors in Zolder, Belgium, used the internationally accepted Glasgow Coma Scale to assess his eye, verbal and motor responses. But each time he was graded incorrectly.

Only a re-evaluation of his case at the University of Liege discovered that he had lost control of his body but was still fully aware of what was happening.

He is never likely to leave hospital, but as well as his computer he now has a special device above his bed which lets him read books while lying down.

Mr Houben said: 'I shall never forget the day when they discovered what was truly wrong with me - it was my second birth.

'I want to read, talk with my friends via the computer and enjoy my life now that people know I am not dead.'

Dr Laureys's new study claims that patients classed as in a vegetative state are often misdiagnosed.

'Anyone who bears the stamp of "unconscious" just one time hardly ever gets rid of it again,' he said.

The doctor, who leads the Coma Science Group and Department of Neurology at Liege University Hospital, found Mr Houben's brain was still working by using state-of-the-art imaging.

He plans to use the case to highlight what he considers may be similar examples around the world.

Dr Laureys said: 'In Germany alone each year some 100,000 people suffer from severe traumatic brain injury.

'About 20,000 are followed by a coma of three weeks or longer. Some of them die, others regain health.

'But an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 people a year remain trapped in an intermediate stage - they go on living without ever coming back again.'

Supporters of euthanasia and assisted suicide argue that people who have lain in persistent vegetative states for years should be given the opportunity to have crucial medical support withdrawn because of the 'indignity' of their condition.

But there have been several cases in which people judged to be in vegetative states or deep comas have recovered.

Twenty years ago, Carrie Coons, an 86-year-old from New York, regained consciousness after a year, took small amounts of food by mouth and engaged in conversation.

Only days before her recovery, a judge had granted her family's request for the removal of the feeding tube which had been keeping her alive.

In the UK in 1993, doctors switched off the life support system keeping alive Tony Bland, a 22-year- old who had been in a coma for three years following the Hillsborough disaster.

Dr Laureys was not available for comment yesterday and it is not clear why he thought Mr Houben should have the hi-tech screening when so many years had passed.

Atheist student groups flower on college campuses

By ERIC GORSKI

AMES, Iowa – The sign sits propped on a wooden chair, inviting all comers: "Ask an Atheist."

Whenever a student gets within a few feet, Anastasia Bodnar waves and smiles, trying to make a good first impression before eyes drift down to a word many Americans rank down there with "socialist."

Bodnar is the happy face of atheism at Iowa State University. Once a week at this booth at a campus community center, the PhD student who spends most of her time researching the nutritional traits of corn takes questions and occasional abuse while trying to raise the profile of religious skepticism.

"A lot of people on campus either don't know we exist or are afraid of us or hate us," says Bodnar, president of the ISU Atheist and Agnostic Society. "People assume we're rabble-rousing, when we're one of the gentlest groups on campus."

As the stigma of atheism has diminished, campus atheists and agnostics are coming out of the closet, fueling a sharp rise in the number of clubs like the 10-year-old group at Iowa State.

Campus affiliates of the Secular Student Alliance, a sort of Godless Campus Crusade for Christ, have multiplied from 80 in 2007 to 100 in 2008 and 174 this fall, providing the atheist movement new training grounds for future leaders. In another sign of growing acceptance, at least three universities, including Harvard, now have humanist chaplains meeting the needs of the not-so-spiritual.

With the growth has come soul-searching — or the atheist equivalent — about what secular campus groups should look like. It's part of a broader self-examination in the atheist movement triggered by the rise of the so-called "new atheists," best-selling authors who denigrate religion and blame it for the world's ills.

Should student atheist groups go it alone or build bridges with Christian groups? Organize political protests or quiet discussion groups? Adopt the militant posture of the new atheists? Or wave and smile?

___

As teenagers move into young adulthood, some leave God behind. But not in huge numbers.

More than three-quarters of young adults taking part in the National Study of Youth and Religion profess a belief in God. But almost 7 percent fewer believe in God as young adults (ages 18 to 23) than did as teenagers, according to the study, which is tracking the same group of young people as they mature.

What young adults are less likely to believe in is religion. The number of those who describe themselves as "not religious" nearly doubled, to 27 percent, in young adulthood.

Growing hostility toward religion was found, too. About 1 in 10 young adults are "irreligious" — or actively against religion — after virtually none of them fit that description as teenagers.

At Iowa State, most of the club's roughly 30 members are "former" somethings, mostly Christians. Many stress that their lives are guided not by anti-religiousness, but belief in science, logic and reason.

"The goal," said Andrew Severin, a post-doctoral researcher in bioinformatics, "should be to obtain inner peace for yourself and do random acts of kindness for strangers."

Severin calls himself a "spiritual atheist." He doesn't believe in God or the supernatural but thinks experiences like meditation or brushes with nature can produce biochemical reactions that feel spiritual.

When the ISU club began in 1999, it was mostly a discussion group. But it soon became clear that young people who leave organized religion miss something: a sense of community. So the group added movie and board-game nights and, more recently, twice-monthly Sunday brunches to the calendar.

"It's nice to be around people who aren't going to bash me for believing in nothing," said Bricelyn Rector, a freshman from Sioux City who, like others, described community as the club's greatest asset.

Members also seek to engage their peers at Iowa State, a 28,000-student science and technology school where the student body leans conservative. There's a "Brews and Views" night at a local coffee house and talks by visiting speakers common to any college campus.

"This is not a group of angry atheists. It's a group of very exuberant atheists," said faculty sponsor Hector Avalos, a secular humanist and well-known Biblical scholar who used to be a Pentecostal preacher. "Their primary aim is not to destroy the faith of Christians on campus. It's more live and let live."

The "Ask an Atheist" booth is the club's most visible outreach. On a recent Friday, a handful of members stand ready to intercept students on their way to eat lunch or withdraw money from a nearby ATM.

Traffic is slow. Scott Moseley, a Bettendorf, Iowa, senior, stops for a polite conversation.

He explains that he was raised Methodist, has a Buddhist friend and dates a Wiccan.

"My entire concept of one religion is kind of out the window," Moseley says.

Bodnar, an ex-Catholic married to a Buddhist, recommends the local Unitarian Universalist congregation, a haven for a grab bag of religious backgrounds and a few members of the ISU Atheist and Agnostic Society.

The closest thing to a confrontation comes when another student, a baseball cap pulled tight to his brow, talks briefly about heaven before he mutters, "I can't listen to you guys," and walks away.

___

On most college campuses, secular groups take shape when non-believing students arrive and find a couple-dozen Christian groups but no home for them. It isn't that atheism is necessarily growing among students — surveys show no uptick in the number of atheist and agnostic young adults over the last 20 years.

But the greater willingness to speak out, paired with the diversity within the movement, has resulted is a patchwork of clubs across the country united in disbelief but different in mission.

At Texas State University in San Marcos, a group of freethinkers led by a former Lutheran organizes rock-climbing outings and has co-sponsored a debate with a campus Christian group.

The University of South Florida is home to two active clubs: a freethinkers group that held a back-to-school barbecue and an atheist group that protested an anti-abortion group's campus visit.

Still other clubs embrace rituals. At the University of Southern Maine, a secular humanist organization has celebrated HumanLight, a secular alternative to Christmas and Hanukkah.

Just in the past year, the Iowa State club has evolved in new directions. Some are things churches have traditionally done — like the club's first foray into volunteerism, sleeping outside in cardboard boxes to raise money for homeless youth.

Others get at the heart of tensions within the atheist movement. The club worked with a Methodist church on a gay rights candlelight vigil, a gesture that would make some atheists cringe.

"The trouble is, any time you start working with other groups, religion starts coming in," said Victor Stenger, an adjunct professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado and author of "The New Atheism: Taking a Stand for Science and Reason."

"People bring up Jesus, they're trying to proselytize, trying to get people to go to church," Stenger said. "The atheist groups just can't put up with it. They have to argue against it."

More recently, the ISU club's non-confrontational philosophy has been tested by a debate over the fate of a small chapel at Memorial Union on campus.

The club has avoided taking a position because members are divided. Some want the chapel's religious symbols — including an eight-foot wooden cross — removed on First Amendment grounds. Others fear repercussions and don't think a fight is worth it.

"The point of the club is not to make waves or controversy," said Bodnar, adding that she is uncomfortable with "calling out religion as wrong."

Some club members would like to be more confrontational when circumstances merit. Junior Brian Gress was interested in participating this fall in a nationwide "Blasphemy Day," a stick in the eye to religion. But the club passed and the idea fizzled.

"You should always try to make friends, but there are certain things about religion that can't be tolerated," Gress said. "Basically, the intolerance of religion can't be tolerated."

Most affiliates of the Secular Student Alliance fall somewhere between militant and why-can't-we-all-just-get-along, said Lyz Liddell, senior campus organizer for the Columbus, Ohio-based group.

"College students can be a little more susceptible to the more reactionary anti-religion voices, partly because it's so new to them," she said. "My impression is after a couple of years, they mellow out."

Christian Smith, director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame and a principal investigator on the youth and religion study, said campus atheist groups are better off without militancy. Young adults are taught their entire lives to be nonjudgmental, that different points of views are OK and that there is no one truth, he said.

"Emerging adults are just not into trying to make other people be or do something," Smith said. "If I were advising atheists and humanists, I would say their long-term prospects are much better if they can successfully create this space where people view them as happy, OK, cooperative, nice people."

At Iowa State, what one club member describes as a band of misfits and outcasts is trying to carve out a space where atheists who raise a fist and atheists who wave and smile can coexist peacefully.

By ERIC GORSKI

AMES, Iowa – The sign sits propped on a wooden chair, inviting all comers: "Ask an Atheist."

Whenever a student gets within a few feet, Anastasia Bodnar waves and smiles, trying to make a good first impression before eyes drift down to a word many Americans rank down there with "socialist."

Bodnar is the happy face of atheism at Iowa State University. Once a week at this booth at a campus community center, the PhD student who spends most of her time researching the nutritional traits of corn takes questions and occasional abuse while trying to raise the profile of religious skepticism.

"A lot of people on campus either don't know we exist or are afraid of us or hate us," says Bodnar, president of the ISU Atheist and Agnostic Society. "People assume we're rabble-rousing, when we're one of the gentlest groups on campus."

As the stigma of atheism has diminished, campus atheists and agnostics are coming out of the closet, fueling a sharp rise in the number of clubs like the 10-year-old group at Iowa State.

Campus affiliates of the Secular Student Alliance, a sort of Godless Campus Crusade for Christ, have multiplied from 80 in 2007 to 100 in 2008 and 174 this fall, providing the atheist movement new training grounds for future leaders. In another sign of growing acceptance, at least three universities, including Harvard, now have humanist chaplains meeting the needs of the not-so-spiritual.

With the growth has come soul-searching — or the atheist equivalent — about what secular campus groups should look like. It's part of a broader self-examination in the atheist movement triggered by the rise of the so-called "new atheists," best-selling authors who denigrate religion and blame it for the world's ills.

Should student atheist groups go it alone or build bridges with Christian groups? Organize political protests or quiet discussion groups? Adopt the militant posture of the new atheists? Or wave and smile?

___

As teenagers move into young adulthood, some leave God behind. But not in huge numbers.

More than three-quarters of young adults taking part in the National Study of Youth and Religion profess a belief in God. But almost 7 percent fewer believe in God as young adults (ages 18 to 23) than did as teenagers, according to the study, which is tracking the same group of young people as they mature.

What young adults are less likely to believe in is religion. The number of those who describe themselves as "not religious" nearly doubled, to 27 percent, in young adulthood.

Growing hostility toward religion was found, too. About 1 in 10 young adults are "irreligious" — or actively against religion — after virtually none of them fit that description as teenagers.

At Iowa State, most of the club's roughly 30 members are "former" somethings, mostly Christians. Many stress that their lives are guided not by anti-religiousness, but belief in science, logic and reason.

"The goal," said Andrew Severin, a post-doctoral researcher in bioinformatics, "should be to obtain inner peace for yourself and do random acts of kindness for strangers."

Severin calls himself a "spiritual atheist." He doesn't believe in God or the supernatural but thinks experiences like meditation or brushes with nature can produce biochemical reactions that feel spiritual.

When the ISU club began in 1999, it was mostly a discussion group. But it soon became clear that young people who leave organized religion miss something: a sense of community. So the group added movie and board-game nights and, more recently, twice-monthly Sunday brunches to the calendar.

"It's nice to be around people who aren't going to bash me for believing in nothing," said Bricelyn Rector, a freshman from Sioux City who, like others, described community as the club's greatest asset.

Members also seek to engage their peers at Iowa State, a 28,000-student science and technology school where the student body leans conservative. There's a "Brews and Views" night at a local coffee house and talks by visiting speakers common to any college campus.

"This is not a group of angry atheists. It's a group of very exuberant atheists," said faculty sponsor Hector Avalos, a secular humanist and well-known Biblical scholar who used to be a Pentecostal preacher. "Their primary aim is not to destroy the faith of Christians on campus. It's more live and let live."

The "Ask an Atheist" booth is the club's most visible outreach. On a recent Friday, a handful of members stand ready to intercept students on their way to eat lunch or withdraw money from a nearby ATM.

Traffic is slow. Scott Moseley, a Bettendorf, Iowa, senior, stops for a polite conversation.

He explains that he was raised Methodist, has a Buddhist friend and dates a Wiccan.

"My entire concept of one religion is kind of out the window," Moseley says.

Bodnar, an ex-Catholic married to a Buddhist, recommends the local Unitarian Universalist congregation, a haven for a grab bag of religious backgrounds and a few members of the ISU Atheist and Agnostic Society.

The closest thing to a confrontation comes when another student, a baseball cap pulled tight to his brow, talks briefly about heaven before he mutters, "I can't listen to you guys," and walks away.

___

On most college campuses, secular groups take shape when non-believing students arrive and find a couple-dozen Christian groups but no home for them. It isn't that atheism is necessarily growing among students — surveys show no uptick in the number of atheist and agnostic young adults over the last 20 years.

But the greater willingness to speak out, paired with the diversity within the movement, has resulted is a patchwork of clubs across the country united in disbelief but different in mission.

At Texas State University in San Marcos, a group of freethinkers led by a former Lutheran organizes rock-climbing outings and has co-sponsored a debate with a campus Christian group.

The University of South Florida is home to two active clubs: a freethinkers group that held a back-to-school barbecue and an atheist group that protested an anti-abortion group's campus visit.

Still other clubs embrace rituals. At the University of Southern Maine, a secular humanist organization has celebrated HumanLight, a secular alternative to Christmas and Hanukkah.

Just in the past year, the Iowa State club has evolved in new directions. Some are things churches have traditionally done — like the club's first foray into volunteerism, sleeping outside in cardboard boxes to raise money for homeless youth.

Others get at the heart of tensions within the atheist movement. The club worked with a Methodist church on a gay rights candlelight vigil, a gesture that would make some atheists cringe.

"The trouble is, any time you start working with other groups, religion starts coming in," said Victor Stenger, an adjunct professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado and author of "The New Atheism: Taking a Stand for Science and Reason."

"People bring up Jesus, they're trying to proselytize, trying to get people to go to church," Stenger said. "The atheist groups just can't put up with it. They have to argue against it."

More recently, the ISU club's non-confrontational philosophy has been tested by a debate over the fate of a small chapel at Memorial Union on campus.

The club has avoided taking a position because members are divided. Some want the chapel's religious symbols — including an eight-foot wooden cross — removed on First Amendment grounds. Others fear repercussions and don't think a fight is worth it.

"The point of the club is not to make waves or controversy," said Bodnar, adding that she is uncomfortable with "calling out religion as wrong."

Some club members would like to be more confrontational when circumstances merit. Junior Brian Gress was interested in participating this fall in a nationwide "Blasphemy Day," a stick in the eye to religion. But the club passed and the idea fizzled.

"You should always try to make friends, but there are certain things about religion that can't be tolerated," Gress said. "Basically, the intolerance of religion can't be tolerated."

Most affiliates of the Secular Student Alliance fall somewhere between militant and why-can't-we-all-just-get-along, said Lyz Liddell, senior campus organizer for the Columbus, Ohio-based group.

"College students can be a little more susceptible to the more reactionary anti-religion voices, partly because it's so new to them," she said. "My impression is after a couple of years, they mellow out."

Christian Smith, director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame and a principal investigator on the youth and religion study, said campus atheist groups are better off without militancy. Young adults are taught their entire lives to be nonjudgmental, that different points of views are OK and that there is no one truth, he said.

"Emerging adults are just not into trying to make other people be or do something," Smith said. "If I were advising atheists and humanists, I would say their long-term prospects are much better if they can successfully create this space where people view them as happy, OK, cooperative, nice people."

At Iowa State, what one club member describes as a band of misfits and outcasts is trying to carve out a space where atheists who raise a fist and atheists who wave and smile can coexist peacefully.

British government lays out digital plans

The Queen announces the proposed communications bill

The government has laid out its plans to deal with illegal file-sharers as part of its Digital Economy Bill, outlined in the Queen's Speech.

It includes the power to disconnect persistent pirates.

But its controversial broadband tax is not mentioned and will be launched as part of the Finance Bill, due next year.

Other elements of the bill include a shake-up of the radio spectrum and a classification system for video games.

The bill will, according to the government, "ensure communications infrastructure that is fit for the digital age, supports future economic growth, delivers competitive communications and enhances public service broadcasting".

The plans for tackling illegal file-sharing, detailed earlier this year, will be a two-stage process. Initially the government will aim to educate consumers and, those identified as downloading illegal content, will be sent letters.

If this proves insufficient, technical measures which will include the powers to disconnect persistent pirates, will be introduced in the spring of 2011.

Chief executive of music industry body the BPI, Geoff Taylor, welcomed the bill.

"It is good news for fans of British music that government is now introducing legislation to tackle illegal downloading. The creative sector in the UK needs new measures implemented urgently that address this problem for now and the future if the UK is to lead Europe in giving consumers innovative and high quality digital entertainment," he said.

But not everyone believes the plans are a good idea.

Lobby organisation The Open Rights Group is urging people to contact their MP to oppose the plans.

Age ratings

"This plan won't stop copyright infringement and with a simple accusation could see you and your family disconnected from the internet - unable to engage in everyday activities like shopping and socialising," it said.

The government will also introduce age ratings on all boxed video games aimed at children aged 12 or over.

There is, however, little detail in the bill on how the government will stimulate broadband infrastructure.

According to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, there will be more details on the future of broadband networks when the bill is published on Friday.

The plan to introduce universal broadband of at least 2 megabits per second is not included.

"It does not need legislation," a spokeswoman for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said.

Some £170m has been set aside from the digital switch-over budget to help fund the so-called universal service commitment for broadband.

The most controversial part of the Digital Britain report was a broadband tax to fund next-generation networks. This will form part of the Finance Bill, due after the 2010 budget.

The tax will see the government collect an extra 50p per month for all households with a land-line telephone in order to create a next-generation broadband fund for areas of the country deemed uneconomic for other firms to connect.

At a speech at the NextGen broadband conference in Leeds yesterday, Digital Britain minister Stephen Timms reiterated his commitment for next-generation broadband to reach 90% of the population by 2017.

"The UK is on track to seeing half of households having a choice of next-generation service providers within the next three years. The challenge today is to reach more than two-thirds of the population," he said.

California Nudists Refuse to Put Clothes On

By Libby Zay

California beachgoers were officially stripped of their right to bathe nude this past October, but many naturalists are refusing to cover up.

Here's the skinny: For more than 30 years, the far south end of San Onofre State Beach has been a hot spot for those who prefer to spend a day at the coast and leave sans tan lines. The 1,000-foot stretch of shoreline—less than 3.5 per cent of the park—is not only secluded by 300-foot cliffs, but also has had a longstanding, unspoken toleration for nudity. Traditionally, naturists were left to sunbathe in peace unless another beachgoer complained, in which case an official would ask those in the buff to either cover up or leave for the day.

The bare-skinned bliss came to a halt in May 2008, when nudists became vulnerable to fines after California State Parks Director Ruth Coleman encouraged officers to ticket those who go au natural.

According to USA Today: "Park Superintendent Richard Haydon began efforts to halt the nudity after receiving reports of sexual activity and solicitation for sex."

With regard to Haydon's statement, USA Today reported that Allen Baylis—a lawyer who has sunbathed on the beach since the 1970s—said that nudists don’t want sexual activity on the beach either. Baylis pointed out that sex acts take place in other public areas regardless of whether or not there is nude sunbathing nearby.

Baylis, along with two groups of bare-skinned beachgoer advocates—the Naturist Action Committee and Friends of San Onofre Beach—fought back by suing the Department.

The naked beachgoers won their first round in court. However, they were left defenseless in October, when the California Supreme Court unanimously refused to review a lower-court ruling that allows officers to site nude sunbathers.

"Nudity prohibited" signs began popping up along a trail that leads from the parking lot to the beach, but beachgoers are refusing to cover up despite the ban.

According to USA Today, "half a dozen middle-aged men were sunning in the buff one recent November weekday when temperatures were in the 70s. On hot summer weekends, several hundred nude sunbathers may show up."

Baylis told USA Today that nudists are ready to be arrested. "If they really want to come down there and issue citations, we have people willing and able to be cited in order to take it up in the criminal courts as a matter of civil disobedience," he told the publication. "It's a very important issue for a lot of people."

On September 13, more than 100 nudists showed up at San Onofre Beach with signs reading "Nude is Not Lewd" and "Nude is Not a Crime." No citations were issued at the beach rally.

So far, park rangers have not issued any citations—but Haydon has warned park officials could begin slapping naked beachgoers with fines at any time. Tickets could carry a fine of up to $500, and would be considered misdemeanors.

A statement on the Naturist Action Committee Web site reminds nude beachgoers that "lewd activity is never appropriate" and requests that nude beachgoers "speak up for proper clothing-optional beach etiquette."

Indecent Exposure – Black and White

If you are found guilty of indecent exposure among other possible punishments you will most likely find yourself on the registered sex offender list. Here is a map of the U.S. with the number of registered sex offenders by State:

There are several crimes that will end up causing you to get your name added to the registered sex offender list, one crime is indecent exposure and it certainly is not the worst possible offense that will land you on this list. However, it’s an example of one that seems to be very subjective. Last month (October 2009) there were a couple of cases which I think are interesting as they point out that what everyone thinks or assumes is indecent varies pretty wildly. While this can lead to interesting discussions and even heated debates, the reality of the situation is that as a matter of law whether an act is indecent or not varies by State and to a wide degree by the people investigating the situation. Take for example two recent cases that were in the news and posted all over the Internet.

The first case is the case of Eric Williamson, the Virginia man that was arrested for making breakfast and coffee in the nude… okay that’s not the whole story. Apparently he was sipping coffee in clear view of a window that faced a public sidewalk. A mother and child were walking by, took offense and called the police. This resulted in the police arresting Williamson and charging him with indecent exposure. Williamson was in the privacy of his own home true enough, but does that really protect him from an indecent exposure charge? Would a reasonable person do what he did? I don’t think so. It’s one thing to drink coffee naked in an interior room of the house completely out of the view of anyone passing by your house and quite another to stand in front of your window in plain view of the public, butt naked sucking down your favorite home-brewed java.

So I did a little bit of research on the Internet as believe me this could go on for days (the research) if I didn’t cut it off at some point. Let’s just say there are thousands of cases of indecent exposure on the Internet to read about. Anyway here is the most basic legal definition I could find:

Indecent exposure is a crime that is defined as exposing one’s genitals or socially deemed “private parts” (such as behind or breasts) in a public place where others are present and may witness the act. A person who commits indecent exposure does so intentionally with an understanding that his/her conduct will likely alarm and offend others.

Well, that’s a tough one… Did Williamson intentionally expose himself? Does lack of common sense come intoplay here at all? In a case like this how does one exactly prove that Williamson had intent to expose himself to the mother and child walking by the house. Well, I still think he is guilty because a reasonable person would close the blinds, drapes, etc. and simply just not do what this jackass did. I also just have a problem with giving a person a pass because they are a moron.

In a another recent case (October 2009) we have the story of a 33 year-old Pennsylvania man, Michael Parziale. Well if all cases were this clear, everything would be a lot easier. Okay so this idiot allegedly takes pleasure in sitting in his car in public places with his door open and then masturbating while women walk by (well he also is allegedly perfectly comfortable walking up to women and doing the same thing). Okay, so that is a clear case of indecent exposure. This guy is clearly exposing his private parts intentionally in a public place and should be quite certain that this will both alarm and offend just about anyone with a brain. The only question here is… Why? What can cause someone to behave in such a bizarre way? There can be no doubt that the indecent exposure laws were clearly written to protect the public from people like Parizale.

So in this sometimes crazy world where it can be pretty hard to shock people where do we draw the line? Do we arrest everyone that comes close to the line (like Williamson) or do we just go after the people that completely blow past the line and blatantly violate the law (like Parizale)? Obviously, we don’t really have to choose… Breaking the law is breaking the law and there is no such thing as only breaking the law a little bit. Like many things though it is not 100% black and white and there is at least a little bit of gray involved. I guess in either case the judge or jury will take the decision in the cases of Williamson and Parizale. The moral of the story is if in doubt… throw on a pair of pants, a robe, ANYTHING!

Couple Busted for Refusing to Pay Tip

By DAVID CHANG

If you’re frustrated by poor service at a restaurant, think twice before you decide to not tip. You may be in for a bit more than just a dirty look from the waiter.

"Nobody, nobody wants to be forced to pay a tip or be arrested for terrible service," Leslie Pope said when her happy hour ended in handcuffs.

Pope and John Wagner were hauled away by police and charged with theft for not paying the mandatory 18 percent gratuity totaling $16 after eating at the Lehigh Pub in Bethlehem, Pa. with six friends.

Pope claimed that they had to wait nearly an hour for their order and that she had to get napkins and silverware for the table herself.

“At this point I became very annoyed because I had already gone up to the bar myself to have my soda refilled because the waitress never came back,” Pope said.

After the $73 bill came, the group paid for food, drinks, and tax but refused to pay the tip. After explaining the bad service to the bartender in charge, Pope claimed he took their money and called police. The couple was handcuffed and placed in the back of a police car.

“I understand that, you know, we didn’t pay the gratuity, but it was a gratuity, it wasn’t something that was required,” said Wagner.

The owner admitted that the group waited unusually long for their food, but said the pub was extremely busy that night. He said managers offered to comp the food, a claim the couple denies ever happened.

“Obviously we would have liked for the patron and the establishment to have worked this out without getting the police involved,” said Deputy Police Commissioner Stuart Bedics.

Police charged them with theft since the gratuity was part of the actual bill. However, it is doubtful that the charges will hold up in front of a judge. The couple is scheduled to appear in court next month.

CIA Secret 'Torture' Prison Found at Fancy Horseback Riding Academy

ABC News Finds the Location of a "Black Site" for Alleged Terrorists in Lithuania

By MATTHEW COLE and BRIAN ROSS

The CIA built one of its secret European prisons inside an exclusive riding academy outside Vilnius, Lithuania, a current Lithuanian government official and a former U.S. intelligence official told ABC News this week.

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Outside Lithuania the CIA used a former barn to interrogate al Qaeda members.

Where affluent Lithuanians once rode show horses and sipped coffee at a café, the CIA installed a concrete structure where it could use harsh tactics to interrogate up to eight suspected al-Qaeda terrorists at a time.

"The activities in that prison were illegal," said human rights researcher John Sifton. "They included various forms of torture, including sleep deprivation, forced standing, painful stress positions."

Lithuanian officials provided ABC News with the documents of what they called a CIA front company, Elite, LLC, which purchased the property and built the "black site" in 2004.

Lithuania agreed to allow the CIA prison after President George W. Bush visited the country in 2002 and pledged support for Lithuania's efforts to join NATO.

"The new members of NATO were so grateful for the U.S. role in getting them into that organization that they would do anything the U.S. asked for during that period," said former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, now an ABC News consultant. "They were eager to please and eager to be cooperative on security and on intelligence matters."

Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaite declined ABC's request for an interview.

ABC News first reported that Lithuania was one of three eastern European countries, along with Poland and Romania, where the CIA secretly interrogated suspected high-value al-Qaeda terrorists, but until now the precise site had not been confirmed. Read that report here.

Until March 2004, the site was a riding academy and café owned by a local family. The facility is in the town of Antaviliai, in the forest 20 kilometers northeast of the city center of Vilnius, near an exclusive suburb where many government officials live

A "Building Within A Building"

In March 2004, the family sold the property to Elite, LLC, a now-defunct company registered in Delaware and Panama and Washington, D.C. That same month, Lithuania marked its formal admission to NATO.

The CIA constructed the prison over the next several months, apparently flying in prefabricated elements from outside Lithuania. The prison opened in Sept. 2004.

According to sources who saw the facility, the riding academy originally consisted of an indoor riding area with a red metallic roof, a stable and a cafe. The CIA built a thick concrete wall inside the riding area. Behind the wall, it built what one Lithuanian source called a "building within a building."

On a series of thick concrete pads, it installed what a source called "prefabricated pods" to house prisoners, each separated from the other by five or six feet. Each pod included a shower, a bed and a toilet. Separate cells were constructed for interrogations. The CIA converted much of the rest of the building into garage space.

Intelligence officers working at the prison were housed next door in the converted stable, raising the roof to add space. Electrical power for both structures was provided by a 2003 Caterpillar autonomous generator. All the electrical outlets in the renovated structure were 110 volts, meaning they were designed for American appliances. European outlets and appliances typically use 220 volts.

The prison pods inside the barn were not visible to locals. They describe seeing large amounts of earth being excavated during the summer of 2004. Locals who saw the activity at the prison and approached to ask for work were turned away by English-speaking guards. The guards were replaced by new guards every 90 days.

Former CIA officials directly involved or briefed on the highly classified secret prison program tell ABC News that as many as eight suspects were held for more than a year in the Vilnius prison. Flight logs viewed by ABC News confirm that CIA planes made repeated flights into Lithuania during that period. In November 2005, after public disclosures about the program, the prison was closed, as was another "black site" in Romania.

Lithuanian Prison One of Many Around Europe, Officials Said

The CIA moved the so-called High Value Detainees (HVD) out of Europe to "war zone" facilities, according to one of the former CIA officials, meaning they were moved to the Middle East. Within nine months, President Bush announced the existence of the program and ordered the transfer of 14 of the detainees, including Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, Ramzi bin al Shihb and Abu Zubaydah, to Guantanamo.

In August 2009, after ABC News reported the existence of the secret prison outside Vilnius, Lithuanian president Grybauskaite called for an investigation. "If this is true," Grybauskaite said, "Lithuania has to clean up, accept responsibility, apologize, and promise it will never happen again."

At the time, a Lithuanian government official denied that his country had hosted a secret CIA facility. The CIA told ABC News that reporting the existence of the Lithuanian prison was "irresponsible" and declined to discuss the location of the prison.

On Tuesday, the CIA again declined to talk about the prison. "The CIA's terrorist interrogation program is over," said CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano. "This agency does not discuss publicly where detention facilities may or may not have been."

Former CIA officials told ABC News that the prison in Lithuania was one of eight facilities the CIA set-up after 9/11 to detain and interrogate top al-Qaeda operatives captured around the world. Thailand, Romania, Poland, Morocco, and Afghanistan have also been identified as countries that housed secret prisons for the CIA. President Barack Obama ordered all the sites closed shortly after taking office in January.

The Lithuanian prison was the last "black" site opened in Europe, after the CIA's secret prison in Poland was closed down in late 2003 or early 2004.

"It obviously took a lot of effort to keep [the prison] secret," said John Sifton, whose firm One World Research investigates human rights abuses. "There's a reason this stuff gets kept secret."

"It's an embarrassment, and a crime."

In Trying to Prevent Gay Marriage, Texas May Have Accidently Abolished it for Everyone

by Liz Langley

It's rare a story about banning gay marriage actually has a silver lining.

When I was a kid in Catholic school, probably around 6th grade, I remember reading a short story about a little girl who studied the violin. The details are hazy but someone, I think her teacher, told her that another student was getting the gift of a new violin and that there were two to choose from but he didn't know which to pick. He asked the student to help him out by trying both and telling him which one was better.

After playing both the girl knew that the first violin was far and away the superior intstrument, but knowing she would soon be in a competition with the other student she said the second, lower-quality violin was better and that that one should be the gift.

The gift turned out to be for her. She ended up getting the bum deal she was trying to give someone else.

The nuns didn't use the word "karma" but that's what the story was about. Do unto others. Etcetera. You seldom see morality plays as swiftly and compactly played out in real life but when you do it's delicious.

And there may such an instance in store for Texas where, in trying to deprive some people of marriage ... the state may have abolished it for everyone.

A Texas lawyer and candidate for attorney general, Barbara Ann Radnofsky, has found a little screw-up in the legal wording of some 2005 anti-equality legislation that passed overwhelmingly in the state. Here's the skinny from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

The amendment, approved by the Texas Legislature and overwhelmingly ratified by Texas voters, declares that "marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman." But the trouble-making phrase, as Radnofsky sees it, is Subsection B, which declares: "This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage."

Radnofsky says the wording "eliminates marriage in Texas."

It may be waved away as a piffling error made by lawyers who are too highly paid to make such mistakes but I hope it stirs up a hornets nest of problems and that the people who voted for such childish, no-I-won't-share end up with their "sacred" unions treat as null-and-void, exactly as they'd like to do unto others.

Maybe we can get the girl in the story to play them the world's tiniest violin.