Free Republic

California corrections officials have begun sending hundreds of foreign national inmates against their will to a private prison in Mississippi as part of a stepped-up, out-of-state transfer plan. The first two flights of prisoners to the Tallahatchie County Detention Facility in Tutwiler, Miss., have taken place without incident, officials said, in spite of fears expressed by the California correctional officers union that the forced transfers would be met with inmate violence. [snip] Excerpt of Sac Bee Article

WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 - Counterterrorism agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have conducted numerous surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations that involved, at least indirectly, groups active in causes as diverse as the environment, animal cruelty and poverty relief, newly disclosed agency records show. F.B.I. officials said Monday that their investigators had no interest in monitoring political or social activities and that any investigations that touched on advocacy groups were driven by evidence of criminal or violent activity at public protests and in other settings. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, John Ashcroft, who was then attorney general, loosened restrictions...

The US government is poised to propose rules that could restrict the ability of Chinese and other foreign nationals to engage in high-level research in the country, a plan that is generating fierce opposition from companies and universities. The move comes amid growing fears in the US that its relatively open rules allowing foreign nationals to work with sensitive technologies leave the country open to espionage.

BAGHDAD (AFP) - US soldiers seized a large cache of weapons when they raided a Sunni mosque in southwestern Baghdad on Thursday and arrested 32 people, including foreign nationals, the coalition's deputy director of operations, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, said. Three packages of TNT explosives, a 60 mm mortar tube, eight improvised grenades, bomb-making equipment, two rocket-propelled grenade launchers, 11 assault rifles and two bags of gunpowder were among the weapons recovered in the raid, he told reporters, showing them a slide presentation. "Over the last several months, the First Armoured Division in Baghdad has received numerous reports from local...

<p>The money, from the National Security Agency, was slated to fund a senior professor in his study of computer architecture. But the NSA demanded to know which foreign students would assist the professor, a US citizen.</p> <p>In a move that reflects growing national concern at universities about heightened government scrutiny of their research, MIT turned down the federal funding and opted to look elsewhere for the money.</p>