Breaking News Hostage Standoff Reported at Kansas VA Hospital

Devil Denim?

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

ACLU Against TSA

The Transportation Security Administration's effort to train security screeners at 40 major airports to analyze actions instead of race to identify suspicious travelers has come under fire from the ACLU despite previous support for similar proposals. In a letter to Congress last year, the group urged law enforcement to act based "on the observation of an individual's behavior" and one local ACLU branch recently passed a resolution that "sends a clear message to officers that stops and detentions should be based upon behavior, not general characteristics."

But now that the TSA is doing exactly that, the group has filed a lawsuit in Massachusetts to block the use of behavior detection with the ACLU's director of privacy rights saying that "is a code word for targeting brown-skinned males" between the ages of 17 and 45. It's not only racial profiling, he argues, it's ethnic profiling.

Related

Devil Denim?

Some Swedish Christians are feeling blue about the country's hottest new jeans, which their designer calls "an active statement against Christianity." The jeans, named "Cheap Monday," sell for $50 a pair and feature a skull with a cross turned upside down on its forehead.

More than 200,000 pairs have been sold since 2004, leaving some leaders in the Christian community shaking their heads. The vicar of one Stockholm church calls the jeans "a deliberate provocation," adding, "No one wants to provoke Jews or Muslims, but it's totally OK to provoke Christians."

Nevertheless, the director of the Church of Sweden's culture department says that while the designer wants to create public opinion against the Christian faith, "I don't think it's much to be horrified about."

Parents in the Public Eye

Even an ex-CIA agent can have trouble keeping her identity a secret when her kids are involved. Just ask recently retired CIA analyst Valerie Plame and her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who have been at the center of the CIA leak scandal.

When the couple stopped for a brief interview in a Houston airport terminal before a vacation getaway, one of their 5-year-old twins blew their cover... declaring, "My daddy's famous, my mommy's a secret spy."

— FOX News' Aaron Bruns contributed to this report

See Political Grapevine Archive

ADVERTISEMENT

FOX NEWS VIDEOS



uASK|uREPORT

INTERVIEW

Blog Postings


  • Lies, spies and .summits
    Seven Democratic members of the Intelligence Committee wrote CIA director Leon Panetta a letter to ask him to “publicly correct” a statement he made saying that it is not ” the policy or practice of the agency to mislead Congress.” The Democrats say Panetta told Congress that senior CIA officials concealed actions and misled lawmakers [...]

    read post
  • Stimulus the sequel, public option, Palin 2012??, and .the direction of media coverage
    In an interview with Fox News, President Obama said a second stimuluscould still be an option—Major Garrett sat down with the President today in Moscow. President Obama said that he was aware that given the economic crisis recovery would prove to be difficult no matter what, but that unemployment was nearing 10% and he was [...]

    read post
  • Agreements, protests turned deadly andcomedian turned politican (finally)
    President Obama met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev today in Moscow and both menpledged they were on a path to “reset” ties between the United States and Russia. The two leaders signed a statement to reduceeach country’snuclear arsenals. President Obama and President Medvedev held a joint news conference in which Medvedev said his talks with [...]

    read post
twitter
ADVERTISEMENT