A U.S. journalist has been arrested in Iran, and her father said Sunday she told him in a brief phone call she was detained after buying a bottle of wine.
Roxana Saberi, 31, has not been heard from since her last call on Feb. 10, her father, Reza, told The Associated Press on Sunday. "We haven't heard anything," he said. The family decided to go public, he said, "because we wanted to get some information."
Officials in Iran have not publicly confirmed the arrest. A duty officer at the U.S. State Department said Sunday they were looking into an AP request for information on the case.
Human rights groups have repeatedly criticized Iran for arresting journalists and suppressing freedom of speech. The government has arrested several Iranian-Americans in the past few years, citing alleged attempts to overthrow its Islamic regime. The most high-profile case came in 2007, when Iran arrested four Iranian-Americans, including the academic Haleh Esfandiari. The four were imprisoned or had their passports confiscated for several months until they were released and allowed to return to the U.S.
Roxana Saberi is a freelance journalist who has reported for National Public Radio and other media and has lived in Iran for six years.
"She called from an unknown place and said she's been kept in detention," he said of her last phone call. He said she had already been detained 10 days by that point.
"She said that she had bought a bottle of wine and the person that sold it had reported it and then they came and arrested her," he said Sunday. "We asked others and they said 'there's no detention for that. So that's kind of an excuse," he told the AP.
Buying and selling alcohol is illegal in the Islamic republic.
A few minutes after that call, she phone again and asked "Please don't do anything because they'll release me in two days," Reza Saberi said. Reza Saberi told reporters he doesn't know where his daughter is or what charges she faces.
NPR said Iran revoked Saberi's press credentials more than a year ago but apparently let her report short news stories. An NPR spokeswoman said Sunday the latest information they had on Saberi was in the stories on their Web site.
Saberi's father said his daughter was finishing a book on Iran and had planned to return to the United States this year.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: ed ||
03/01/2009 17:25 ||
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Link ||
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A Pennsylvania company that monitors peer-to-peer file-sharing networks discovered a potentially serious security breach involving President Obama's helicopter, Marine One, NBC affiliate WPXI in Pittsburgh reported.
Sensitive information about Marine One was reportedly found by Tiversa employees at an IP address in Tehran.
Tiversa CEO Bob Boback said a defense contractor in Bethesda, Md., had a file sharing program on one of their systems that contained highly sensitive blueprints for Marine One and financial information about the cost of the helicopter. "We found a file containing entire blueprints and avionics package for Marine One," Boback said.
Boback said the issue most likely stemmed from someone downloading the file-sharing program without realizing the problems that could result. "When downloading one of these file-sharing programs, you are effectively allowing others around the world to access your hard drive," Boback told WPXI.
"We found where this information came from. We know exactly what computer it came from. I'm sure that person is embarrassed and may even lose their job, but we know where it came from and we know where it went," Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, an adviser to Tiversa, told WPXI.
To start with, maybe. I doubt you know where it migrated to after that.
#3
but we know where it came from and we know where it went," Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, an adviser to Tiversa, told WPXI
as usual, Mr. Ineffective overestimates himself
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/01/2009 10:40 Comments ||
Top||
#4
We found where this information came from. We know exactly what computer it came from. I'm sure that person is embarrassed and may even lose their job,
MAY loose his job? May? This is bullshit. The person should be fired (at least) and blackballed from _any_ government or sensitive job in the future.
This is simple, basic, network security folks. And no, I am not a security expert, didn't play one on TV and didn't stay in a Holiday Inn last night.
Of course with that idiot Wesley Clark 'advising' them maybe they didn't know (or were told not to worry about) basic network security.
#7
but we know where it came from and we know where it went
This is unf***ing believable. Fine you know where it went the first time. Do you know where it went from there? Did someone dump it on a CD and make copies? Did they put it on a jump-drive and fly to Moscow? of Beijing? or Pyongyong?
We have a troop of incompetent buffoons running things now!!!!!
It's just a matter of time before Wesley Clark raises his visibility again as a replacement for SECDEF Gates as Secretary of Defense, General Petraeus retires and there's a major shake-up in the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2009
Collision Course
Perhaps this was inevitable. Gareth Porter of the Inter Press Service is reporting that President Obama and his CENTCOM Commander, General David Petraeus, are on a collision course over Iraq. Mr. Porter's recent scoop was reprinted by the World Tribune:
CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus, supported by Defence Secretary Robert Gates, tried to convince President Barack Obama that he had to back down from his campaign pledge to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months at an Oval Office meeting Jan. 21.
But Obama informed Gates, Petraeus and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen that he wasn't convinced and that he wanted Gates and the military leaders to come back quickly with a detailed 16-month plan, according to two sources who have talked with participants in the meeting.
Obama's decision to override Petraeus's recommendation has not ended the conflict between the president and senior military officers over troop withdrawal, however. There are indications that Petraeus and his allies in the military and the Pentagon, including Gen. Ray Odierno, now the top commander in Iraq, have already begun to try to pressure Obama to change his withdrawal policy.
A network of senior military officers is also reported to be preparing to support Petraeus and Odierno by mobilising public opinion against Obama's decision.
Petraeus was visibly unhappy when he left the Oval Office, according to one of the sources. A White House staffer present at the meeting was quoted by the source as saying, "Petraeus made the mistake of thinking he was still dealing with George Bush instead of with Barack Obama."
You can almost hear the White House source chuckling as they relayed their version of events. It sounds vaguely reminiscent of Mr. Obama's "I won" comment, during a meeting with Congressional Republicans last week. As the new decider-in-chief, President Obama will chart our policy in Iraq (and other global hotspots).
But dismissing the advice of senior generals is usually a bad idea, as Mr. Obama will eventually discover. If Gareth Porter is correct--and no one has come forward to dispute his version of events-- then President Obama is facing a potential revolt among his senior military advisers. Mobilizing public support is not something that flag officers particularly enjoy, given their collective distrust of the media-- the mechanism that will be used to (quietly) convey their dissatisfaction.
More disturbingly, Mr. Obama's preferred withdrawal plan flies in the face of current realities in the Middle East. As Bret Stephens notes in today's WSJ, Iraq is becoming a U.S. bulwark in the Middle East. The gains achieved by the troop surge are holding, and Iraqi forces are assuming a lead role in securing the country. Last weekend's election was a stunning success, and a model for the Arab world.
Still, the situation in Iraq is not irreversible, one reason that Mr. Gates, General Petraeus and General Odierno favor an extended American draw down. Mr. Stephens observes that American "pillars" in the Middle East have met the test of time. In some cases, the bulwark of yesteryear (think Iran) is today's despotic regime that threatens regional security. Other long-standing American allies, including Pakistan and Turkey) face an uncertain future, at best.
In other words, the U.S. needs all the stable, friendly regimes it can find in the Middle East. But Mr. Obama seems more intent on placating his supporters on the liberal fringe, who've been clamoring for an American pullout since 2003. The President seems willing to risk progress paid for in blood and treasure to fulfill a campaign promise-- with less regard for what happens 17 months down the road.
If this sounds familiar, it should. Just days into his presidency, Mr. Obama signed an executive order to shut down the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay by next year. Just where those suspects will be incarcerated (or face justice) has not been determined. Maybe the administration should change its mantra from "Change We Can Believe In," to "Don't Sweat the Details."
***
ADDENDUM: We should also note that the Obama-Petraeus collision has a political component. General Petraeus's successful strategy in Iraq caused a fair amount of consternation for Obama and his fellow Democrats. Kicking and screaming, they had to finally admit that the troop surge worked, and was eminently preferable to their "cut and run" approach. With the Democrats now in the White House, they can finally tell General Petraeus to "shut up and color."
The friction in the Oval Office is also a prelude to 2012. In some GOP circles, Petraeus is already being mentioned as a potential Senate or Vice-Presidential candidate in four years. By forcing a showdown over Iraq, Obama can tarnish the general's reputation, force him to resign, or even engineer a dismissal. Any of those scenarios would damage the general politically, a calculation that isn't lost on the White House.
#11
Why is there not a separate system for machines that convey classified information? That was the case in all the work areas I was in, including a civilian work area. NOTHING from the outside was supposed to be able to be used on the classified system. There wasn't even a physical connection to the Internet. Security has gone to hell in the last 20 years...
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/01/2009 16:18 Comments ||
Top||
#12
Thumb drives Pappy, it's the bloody thumb drives that hates us!
#14
Gareth Porter, the reporter, is an anti-war journalist of smelly repute. Whatever he writes or has written, from the Viet Nam days to the present, is done to forward a left wing agenda.
Hezbollah demanded on Saturday the freeing of four Lebanese generals who have been held without trial for years in connection with the 2005 murder of former premier Rafiq Hariri. Their continued detention "is for political reasons ... given that they have not even been questioned in three years," said a statement from the powerful Shiite movement. "That confirms the arbitrariness of their detention."
They sound .. unhappy ...
The statement calls on investigating judge Sakr Sakr to "take the right decision of freeing the four generals as quickly as possible and not give in to political pressures."
On Friday, two days before a UN tribunal into the assassination opens in The Hague, Sakr rejected demands to free the generals for the second time this week. A similar request was rejected on Wednesday on the grounds that the authorities had not completed their investigation, a source close to the case told AFP.
But Sakr on Wednesday did free on bail three other suspects held in connection with Hariri's murder in a February 2005 car bombing.
The generals are the former head of the presidential guard Mustafa Hamdan, security services director Jamil Sayyed, domestic security chief Ali Hajj and military intelligence chief Raymond Azar. They were arrested in August 2005, six months after Hariri's assassination. He was killed along with 22 other people when a massive car bomb exploded as his convoy passed by near the Beirut waterfront.
Their lawyers have repeatedly argued that their detention is "illegal" and "unfounded" and that their clients are being held on false testimony that was later retracted.
#2
Was it yesterday that we had a report here that Iran was taking over Hizb'allah because there had been no volunteers to take over for the assassinated operations emir? It sounds like Hizb'allah preferred semi-independence to the new situation.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
