Spam menace drives man to issue death threats

A Silicon Valley computer programmer got so fed up with the daily dose of spam that landed in his inbox and almost rendered his computer unusable for about two months that he threatened to send a "package full of Anthrax spores" to the company he blames for bombarding his computer.

Charles Booker was arrested on Thursday and released on $75000 bond for making threats to the staff of a Canadian company.

He threatened to torture and kill the employees, disable an employee with a bullet and torture him with a power drill and an ice pick, to hunt down and castrate the employees unless they removed him from their email list.

Mr. Booker acknowledged that he had behaved badly but said he had been receiving a barrage of advertising and email for the past two months promising to enlarge his sexual organ.

Whether it offers the chance to enlarge or reduce parts of the body in improbable ways or amazing opportunities to make money without doing any work, spam is now part of a computer user's daily life. It is thought to account for about half of all emails sent over the internet.

Three Indian Air Force Officials have been booked for spying

The CBI has filed two separate complaints under Official Secrets Act against three Indian Air Force officials for indulging in anti-national activities.

Retired Air Vice-Marshal J S Kumar, Sergeant K C Saini and retired Wing Commander Y S Tomar are the three officers.

The CBI conducted a thorough investigation, which revealed that the accused people were allegedly giving out secret and sensitive information from the Air Force headquarters connected with various air force contracts and other vital information.

The complaint alleged that Kumar, with the active support and help of Saini working in the purchase section (foreign purchase) of the air head-quarters, obtained classified information pertaining to IAF from a serving Squadron leader (decoy of Indian Air Force) whom he had paid Rs 50,000 for collecting the information.

The accused persons were caught red-handed while accepting the classified documents.

Tomar collected classified information pertaining to air headquarters and MoD in respect of crash fire tenders and secret contracts between India and Russia.

National Human Rights Commission Chief urges the need to legalize prostitution

Former CBI director and NHRC director-general D R Karthikeyan has stressed the need to legalise prostitution to improve the quality of life of sex workers whom he described as ‘the most exploited section of society.’

It was social and economic pressures that forced women into prostitution. Prostitution would continue to exist and the best that the State could do was to regulate it. Prostitutes live in inhuman conditions without access to basic services, particularly medical facilities.

Supreme Court transfers Jayalalithaa cases to Karnataka fearing failure of justice

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa today suffered a major setback with the Supreme Court directing transfer of the disproportionate assets case against her from a special court in Chennai to a Special Court in Bangalore. Supreme court said that the manner in which the trial was conducted in Chennai would have amounted to failure of justice undermining the public confidence in fair trial.

Besides Ms. Jayalalithaa, others accused in the Rs.66.65-crore wealth case are N. Sasikala, her erstwhile foster son, V. N. Sudhakaran, and Ilavarasi.

Allowing a petition filed by DMK leader K Anbazaghan, seeking transfer of the case outside Tamil Nadu, a Bench comprising Justice S N Variava and Justice H K Sema took strong exception to the fact that Jayalalithaa though an accused in the case had never appeared before the trial Court at Chennai and that a questionnaire was sent to her Poes Garden residence for the purpose of questioning her.

Referring to recalling of over 70 witnesses of whom more than 60 resiled from their earlier statements without any cross-examination from the Public Prosecutor after Jayalalithaa became the Chief Minister, the Bench said the petitioner has made out a case that the public confidence in the fairness of the trial was being seriously undermined.

"As revealed from the facts, great prejudice appear to have been caused to the prosecution which could culminate in grave miscarriage of justice. The witnesses who had been examined and cross-examined earlier should on such a flimsy ground never have been recalled for cross-examination," Justice Sema, writing for the Bench, said.

He said the fact that it was done after Jayalalithaa assumed the power as the Chief Minister of the State and the Public Prosecutor appointed by her Government did not oppose and/or give consent to application for recall of witnesses were indicative of how judicial process was being subverted.

The Apex Court said "if the criminal trial is not free and fair and not free from bias, judicial fairness and criminal justice system would be at stake shaking the confidence of the public in the system and woe would be the rule of law.

"In the present case, the circumstances as recited above are such as to create reasonable apprehension in the minds of the public at large in general and the petitioner in particular that there is every likelihood of failure of justice," it said.

Furniture Package for divorced men

A Belgian furniture shop is offering special packages for divorced men who hate shopping in a country where half of all marriages end in a divorce after five years.

The packages include a living room, a complete bedroom, a dining room and a television set, including a DVD player.

Jayalalithaa forced to comply with the Supreme Court directive

The Hindu today withdrew its request for Central security, in the light of the Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's assurance that the State Police was fully complying with and implementing the orders of the Supreme Court.

This acceptance of the power of judicial review over matters of legislative privilege is institutionally important. This is perhaps the first time that a Chief Minister of a State where the Legislative Assembly has punished anyone for breach of privilege has publicly acknowledged the supremacy of the Constitution and the Supreme Court as the final interpreter and adjudicator of legislative privileges when they come into conflict with Constitutional provisions, especially fundamental rights.

Wary of an erring Chief Minister, Centre offers to guard The Hindu

The Central Industrial Security Force will provide security to The Hindu office and guard residences of five of its journalists, who were awarded 15 days simple imprisonment by the Tamil Nadu Assembly last for breach of privilege.

Freedom of Indian Press under attack from a mis- adventurous Legislature

The Indian Press is reputed to be one that enjoys the highest freedom in the world. This is especially significant when viewed in the backdrop of the blatant media misuse by the US government during the Iraq conflict.

Article 19 of the Indian Constitution guarantees this freedom and judicial interpretation has strengthened this. This freedom was shamefully violated on November 7 by a decision by the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, in the name of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly.
The police sought to enforce the decision in a blatantly illegal and offensive manner by raiding the offices of the newspaper as well as the homes of four of its five senior management and editorial representatives whom the Assembly had sentenced to 15 days simple imprisonment.
The persons targeted were S. Rangarajan, Publisher; N. Ravi, Editor; Malini Parthasarathy, Executive Editor; V. Jayanth, Associate Editor and Chief of the Tamil Nadu Bureau; and Radha Venkatesan, Special Correspondent.

About 30 minutes after the Assembly passed its order this evening, police jeeps carrying about two dozen policemen, some of them in riot gear, arrived at the head office of The Hindu here to arrest the journalists.

When Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, N Ram asked the police on what authority they entered the premises, and if they had any papers, they turned tail. The half a dozen jeeps also rolled out as silently as they had come in, while the uniformed personnel melted away. Television crews had started arriving at the scene, hearing of the police entry into the offices of The Hindu and Mr. Ram made a statement condemning the police action as an assault on the freedom of the press.
Well after the Supreme Court's dusk deadline on arresting women, two male police officers landed at The Hindu office here to arrest the Executive Editor, Malini Parthasarathy. After 8-30 p.m., they searched the room of Ms. Parthasarathy.

This ran contrary to the statement of the Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, that the then Chief Minister, M. Karunanidhi had no alternative but to arrest her in the morning in December 1996. "The laws of this land are very clear that no woman should be arrested and kept in police custody between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m."

Late in the evening, Mr. Ram spoke to the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and apprised him of the day's happenings. Mr. Vajpayee expressed his concern over the developments.
All this was done in the name of protecting the privileges of the Legislative Assembly.

The Hindu, determined to expose the Jayalalithaa dispensation's grave misadventure factually and truthfully and to face the latest challenge to its freedom and independence and to the fundamental rights and personal liberties of five of its senior and valued representatives with every resource at its command, has decided immediately to take the matter to court.

The Tamil Nadu Assembly based its action on a total misreading of the Constitution. The power of legislative privilege was aimed at strengthening the independent functioning of the legislature; it was certainly not meant to intimidate and stifle criticism and to create a `chilling effect' on the freedom of the press.

The articles that earned the wrath of the Tamil Nadu Assembly's Privileges Committee, dominated by the AIADMK, were three news reports and an editorial titled " " published in April this year. Quite extraordinarily, the allegedly offensive portions in the reports were descriptive words such as "fumed", "incensed", "stinging", "diatribe", and "high-pitched tone" employed to give a feel of Ms. Jayalalithaa's speeches on a few occasions.

The editorial was a well-reasoned and upstanding response to the decision to refer these reports to the Assembly's Privileges Committee. It made the important point that privilege must be invoked only when there is a material obstruction of the functioning of a legislature and that the power must not be used to insulate legislators against comments or criticism.

The Privileges Committee's decision comes against the disturbing backdrop of a systematic attempt by the Jayalalithaa Government to harass and browbeat the independent press. Since the AIADMK came to power in May 2001, the Tamil Nadu Government has filed a large number of defamation cases, criminal and civil, against an array of publications. The Hindu faces 16 criminal defamation cases and one civil defamation suit, all of them completely baseless.
As Mr. Ram escorted the police to their car after the search, about 200 employees mobbed them, shouting slogans, "Down with police high-handedness," "Down with Jayalalithaa" and "Long live the press".

Pacifying the crowd, Mr. Ram said: "The authors of this outrageous misadventure will pay heavily for this."

Microsoft declares a price of 5 million dollars for hackers' heads

In a most unusual step, Microsoft Corporation has created a $5-million (U.S.) fund to track down malicious hackers that target the software giant's popular Windows operating systems.

Microsoft offered two $250,000 rewards for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the Blaster worm and the SoBig.F e-mail virus, which infected more than half a million computers, crashed thousands of systems, and snarled Internet traffic across the globe in August and September.

The world's largest software company - which last month admitted that security concerns have begun to affect its bottom line - also said it had earmarked an additional $4.5 million for future rewards.

The announcement was made in Washington by Microsoft representatives, flanked by agents of the cybercrime divisions of the federal bureau of investigations, secret service and interpol.