Sunday, August 31, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Israel, After 43 Years, Is Ready for Beatlemania
The New York Times
Published: August 27, 2008
JERUSALEM — In 1965, when Israel had no television, and public entertainment consisted largely of kibbutz songfests celebrating the wheat harvest, the Beatles, already international celebrities, were booked for a concert here. To young Israeli fans, it seemed an impossible dream.
The Beatles in London in 1965 before flying to the United States. They were also booked for Israel, but the concert was canceled. The band was deemed to have “an insufficient artistic level.”
And so it was. The official permission required to withdraw precious foreign currency to pay the band was denied because a ministerial committee feared the corrupting influence of four long-haired Englishmen singing about pleasure.
As the committee report put it, “The Beatles have an insufficient artistic level and cannot add to the spiritual and cultural life of the youth in Israel.”
Since then, especially in recent years, Israel has expressed embarrassment about the episode and tried to make amends. Last January, it sent a letter from its London embassy to the remaining Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, asking forgiveness for the “missed opportunity” to have the band that “shaped the minds of a generation, to come to Israel and perform before the young generation in Israel who admired you and continues to admire you.” The artists were asked to consider again coming to perform.
There was little progress until recently, but now Mr. McCartney has been booked for a huge outdoor concert in Tel Aviv on Sept. 25. And nearly everything about the event — the $8 million price tag borne by a high-flying Israeli financier who expects to turn a profit, the tickets selling for hundreds of dollars that are being gobbled up through Internet sales, indeed its very existence — is a parable of a nation transformed.
The promised concert has led many here to reflect on the cocooned simplicity of life only four decades ago.
“I had just gotten my first LP record for my bar mitzvah from my two best friends, and it was by the Beatles,” recalled Yoel Esteron, 55, editor of the daily business newspaper Calcalist. “And then they canceled the concert. We still had no television and only official radio stations. We were living in a cultural ghetto; the country was Bolshevik. Teenagers and their parents debated it for weeks. Every teenager was furious.”
For Yossi Sarid, a leftist former Parliament member and government minister, the arrival of Mr. McCartney is an opportunity to reminisce and set the record straight about his father, Yaakov Sarid, who was the director general of the Education and Culture Ministry and an official involved in canceling the original concert.
In a front-page article in the newspaper Haaretz on Monday, Yossi Sarid said the real cause of the cancellation was a rivalry between impresarios at the time. One had been offered a Beatles concert in 1962, before their star had risen, by the mother of the Beatles’ manager, Brian Epstein, and had turned them down.
“I can assure you that my father had never heard of the Beatles,” Mr. Sarid said in a follow-up telephone conversation. “The promoter of course didn’t come to the government and say, ‘I don’t like this other guy and I don’t want him to get the money.’ He said it is a lousy group and will corrupt the spirit of the wonderful, brilliant, pure Israeli youngsters. He exploited their ignorance.”
Israel’s leaders in the early 1960s knew almost nothing of global popular culture. There is a famous story told of David Ben-Gurion, the founding prime minister, when he read a headline in a mass-selling paper that said Elizabeth Taylor, then among the world’s most famous women, was very ill. “Who’s Elizabeth Taylor?” Ben-Gurion is said to have asked.
A glance at the printed tickets for the canceled 1965 Beatles concert, copies of which still exist as collectors’ items, and can be viewed on the Internet, tell their own story of a bygone era.
The marked price, in the lira currency, then under enormous pressure and now defunct, amounted to about $7.
The Hebrew name for the group printed on the tickets is also worth noting. The performers may have been universally known as the Beatles, but in Israel, then still trying earnestly to create a culture buffered from foreign words and influence, they were Hipushiot Haketzev, or the Beat Beetles (like the bugs).
It was a laborious if endearing effort that no one would bother with today in a country where English permeates daily speech (“sorry,” “whatever”) and advertising logos, and where many official Hebrew names for new developments simply do not enter the mainstream vocabulary.
Mr. Sarid noted that while the official Hebrew name for the Beatles then was Hipushiot Haketzev, many adults dismissed them as Hipushiot Hazevel, or “dung beetles.”
Mr. Esteron, the editor, like others, said the change in 40 years from an isolated, egalitarian and agrarian society to a market-driven, plugged-in, high-tech haven of enormous wealth — and some alarming poverty — had been dizzying and somehow oddly embodied by the story of its relationship with the Beatles.
Mr. Sarid said he remained grateful to the musicians. Thanks to their canceled concert, he said, his father, a great educator and modest man whose accomplishments would have long ago been forgotten, has earned an eternal place in Israeli history.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Ariav pushes tax exemptions for foreign investors in Israel
Ariav pushes tax exemptions for foreign investors in Israel
The Ariav Committee for capital-market reform is seeking across-the-board tax exemptions for new immigrants, returning Israelis and foreign investors to create a financial center with a competitive tax structure for finance professionals and to be a catalyst for the export of financial services.
Finance Ministry Director General Yarom Ariav.
Photo: Ariel Jerozolimski [file]
"The main issue for creating a finance industry in Israel is that today, foreign investors or private equity firms who want to manage funds and foreign money in Israel will be taxed on capital gains except for direct investments into local companies and venture-capital technology-based investments," said Yitz Raab, the chief financial officer of KCPS & Company, an investment-management and private-equity firm with offices in Tel Aviv and New York that is acting as an adviser to the Ariav Committee.
"To create a local private-equity industry attracting global fund managers and foreign investors, we recommend to the committee to adopt a capital-gains tax exemption for private-equity investments and hedge funds similar to the US model for non-US citizens," he said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post.
The government was already implementing tax benefits for new immigrants and returning Israelis, but only regarding a 10-year tax exemption on foreign-sourced income, Raab said.
"Tax exemption should apply to new business generated inside and outside of Israel to encourage business in Israel," he said. "This is a good time to bring back Israelis and encourage aliya of top-tier finance professionals and investment managers when around the world finance professionals are being laid off. We are getting five to 10 calls a week from finance professionals overseas looking to come here."
The Ariav Committee, headed by Finance Ministry director-general Yarom Ariav, has in recent months been faced with much skepticism, mainly because of Ariav's vision for turning the local financial industry into a global financial center resembling London, New York or Singapore, which has been hailed as a daydream at best.
"It is not about being another Singapore or London," said Ariav. "We have to develop our own model and build up a sophisticated and advanced capital market, with the aim of creating a financial center in the Middle East."
The idea is to repeat the country's success in building up an innovative hi-tech sector and establish Israel as an international financial center - and for finance to become a leading growth engine for Israel's economy. Ariav's goal is to turn Israel into one of the 10 leading financial markets within 10 years, and boost the financial sector to 10 percent of gross domestic product, from the current 4%.
"Global financial market means different things to different markets, and its definition is not more than playing with words," KCPS CEO Tal Keinan told the Post. "Those who are judging the feasibility of the vision of the Ariav Committee on whether Israel can become a financial center akin to London or Singapore are just missing the point.
"London isn't New York and New York isn't London. The government does not and should not make the decision over what defines a financial market. The exact definition of what constitutes a financial center will be dictated by the market."
Keinan believes Tel Aviv can become a financial center, mainly because of the massive concentration of financial minds abroad who want to live in Israel and the potential of human capital in the country.
"What is needed is a structure to attract talent to Israel," he said. "There is a lot of talent - portfolio managers who want to be in Israel but couldn't because of the volumes of capital.
"Our company is an example that this is starting to happen. We have been able to attract a number of investment professionals, immigrants and returning Israelis from top-tier international investment firms, which, if we were in London or New York, we would have not been able to get."
KCPS Israel was established in November 2005. It employs 36 finance professionals, half of them Israelis. Its investors include Psagot's controlling shareholder, York Capital Management LLC, and Michael Steinhardt, one of Wall Street's largest investors and considered one of the pioneers of the hedge fund industry. KCPS private equity's first acquisition in Israel was insurance-software company FIS Solutions Ltd.
"Our first choice was to live in Israel and then we looked at what we could do here," Keinan said. "A couple of years ago the feasibility of running a hedge fund out of Tel Aviv would have been just a vision."
The liberalization and reforms of the capital markets in recent years, which reduced regulatory obstacles, has rendered the impossible to be more possible, he said.
"Our work shows that sophisticated clients, who have access to investment managers in London and New York, are choosing to have money managed by a firm in Tel Aviv - a sign that Israel is already exporting financial services," Keinan said. Eighty percent of the firm's managed money is foreign money, he added.
On the domestic level, one of the Ariav Committee's goals is to develop sophisticated and professional "human capital" for the finance industry. For this purpose it is recommending the establishment of an academic institution for financial studies and to broaden finance education at schools.
The committee is also recommending the establishment of a court specializing in economic affairs. The proposed court would be a separate entity, run under the auspices of the Tel Aviv District Court. The members of the committee believe that the inefficiencies of existing courts stem from the judges' lack of understanding of complicated financial matters, which are a major obstacle in the country's attempts to improve its financial system and to become an international financial center. Such a court would have another advantage, as it would enforce the training of judges specializing in economic matters, and would greatly improve the efficiency of the legal system in such matters.
The Ariav Committee includes Supervisor of Banks Rony Hizkiyahu, Supervisor of Insurance and Savings Yadin Antebi, the Israel Securities Authority chairman, the deputy governor of the Bank of Israel, Prof. Zvi Eckstein and other experts in academia and finance. It is expected to submit its recommendations for attracting greater foreign capital and for developing the local market into more of a competitive global player by the end of August.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Palestinian PR Stunt Fails As Israel Allows Gaza Protest
Palestinian PR Stunt Fails As Israel Allows Gaza Protest
A Palestinian "Exodus"?
The only thing missing was Steven Spielberg and democracy.
By Joel Leyden
Israel News Agency
Jerusalem, Israel --- August 23… Israel's PR has always been lacking. One can find three very well substantiated reasons: lack of professional public relations manpower in government, lack of funds and lack of coordinated communications between the Israel Prime Minister's Office, the Israel Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Israel Defense Forces.
But today was different.
The terror group Hamas tried to stage a media PR event and failed big time.
"We knew about this Hamas attempt to create a PR event at sea for weeks," Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesmen Arye Mekel told the Israel News Agency.
"We knew who's on these boats and what they contain, and therefore we decided weeks ago to allow them to come into Gaza. They were not carrying weapons and had only a handful of equipment for the hearing impaired."
It appears that hearing aids for Hamas are needed. So are prescription eyeglasses.
According to the Israel Defense Forces, approximately 300 humanitarian trucks filled with food, medical supplies and fuel pass daily into Gaza. "Gaza has food," says Mekel. "They only thing they lack is freedom and democracy."
Under the security closure imposed by Israel in June 2007 after Hamas violently attacked the Palestinian Authority in Gaza, Israel has allowed tons of UN supplied humanitarian supplies into Gaza.
So as Hamas failed to create an "Exodus" type event at sea, they also failed to please their own people in Gaza. Since leaving Cyprus on Friday, the failed PR event staged by the US - based Free Gaza Movement had always been in doubt.
The residents of Gaza were disappointed by the total lack of food supposed to have been brought in by the two Palestine boats carrying international leftist activists.
"Many people thought these boats would make a significant contribution to break the siege, not only politically but also in terms of bringing in goods, equipment, food, and medicine," one Gazan said. "However, once it turned out these boats contained no food and only activists, most people left the beach disappointed."
Israel government sources state that tons of UN, US and Israel humanitarian aid never even reach the citizens of Gaza. The food is confiscated by Hamas, given to their own people, some of the UN and Red Cross supplies are sold on the black market and about 30 percent is simply destroyed to create a PR image of Gazans going hungry.
All the same it was Pallywood, a Hollywood event which begged hundreds of Gazans to come to the beach and greet the leftist activists at the beach.
The two Palestinian boats, carrying 46 international left-wing activists who support Hamas suicide bombers and rocket attacks on Israel towns and cities, reached the Gaza beach at around 6:00 pm today. The 46 activists from 14 countries included an 81-year-old Catholic nun and Lauren Booth, the sister-in-law of international Mideast envoy and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Dozens of Gazans headed out to sea in fishing boats to welcome the Hamas supporters. Among these were a Tunisian, German, US citizens, as well as an Israel activist.
Mekel confirmed that the failed PR stunt was staged by Hamas.
"One cannot place any responsibility on the Palestinian Authority for these theatrics as the PA has no control of Gaza."
What Mekel was stating was that this was not a "Palestinian" public relations event. In fact, the PA and it's forces have been at odds with Hamas for many months with much blood shed between the two. The PA supports the Middle-East peace process, while Iran backed Hamas continues to openly call for the destruction of Israel and attacks Israel city and town with Qassam rockets.
The so called "peace activists" which were on their way to Gaza illustrated a complete and total disregard for innocent Israel terror victims, said MFA Frimet Roth.
The Israel Foreign Ministry exposed the foreign supporters of Hamas saying that they did not deserve to be referred to as "peace activists," labeling them as a "handful of provocateurs seeking a public relations stunt who initiated a political protest aimed at boosting Hamas' regime of horrors in Gaza."
"How does such delusional journey promote peace?" the Israel Foreign Ministry added. "What kind of contribution does this journey make to the promotion of ideas of reconciliation and compromise? None."
Hamas spokesman Sammy Abu Zuhri said that Israel's initial insistence on torpedoing the arrival of boats carrying international activists headed to Gaza "attests to the Israeli distress caused by this international peace initiative." There were also reports that the protesters radio equipment had been jammed by the IDF.
"None of this was true," said Mekel. "They were looking for anything they could find to make a news story out of thin air. Not one IDF ship was ever seen by these protesters."
Mekel pointed out that the decision not to prevent the protesters from reaching Gaza was "made at the highest level of government." Which means that Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, his security cabinet and Israel's Minister of Defense and Foreign Affairs were not going to allow another Pallywood production. In the past, Palestinians have been filmed being shot and appearing to be dead. During Operation Defensive Shield Israel video footage clearly shows Palestinian actors either falling off or getting off first aid stretchers.
While Mekel would not admit that it was clearly a public relations victory for Israel, one can clearly see that Israel has come a long way in its professional and honest approach with the media. Even if the IDF has made a mistake for which they could easily take a spin on, senior officers at the Israel Defense Forces Spokespersons Office will not allow any lies.
"At the end of the day, we do need to lie," said an IDF spokesperson. "If we make a mistake we will be the first to admit it. While the international media sees day after day pure propaganda coming from Gaza. The international media has come to learn the difference between democracy and free speech at work in Israel and Hamas terrorism in Gaza. Journalists have long memories. And many remember Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and the recent kidnappings of journalists in Gaza by Hamas."
Israel officials made a point of highlighting that sincere humanitarian groups could continue to provide humanitarian aid to the Palestinian population with aid to the UN and International Red Cross through existing land crossings. Israel has always drawn and respected the distinction between the civilian population in Gaza and Iran backed Hamas terrorists.
"They are very brave, they are very strong, I am proud of them," said Samira Ayash, a 65-year-old retired school teacher who came to watch the failed Gaza PR event. An European reporter followed Ayash as he returned to Gaza Port. He was greeted by two young men in beards who shook his hand and then took out a wallet and handed Ayash money.
Palestinians are well paid to speak to the press by Hamas.
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Monday, August 18, 2008
Experts: U.S., Israel At High Risk of Cyber Attacks
U.S., Israel At High Risk of Cyber attacks
Joel Leyden, Israel News Agency
The next large-scale military or terrorist attack on the United States or Israel, if and when it happens, may not involve airplanes or bombs or even intruders breaching American and Israeli borders.
Cyberattackers shut down one Georgian government site and defaced another with images of Adolf Hitler.
Instead, such an assault may be carried out in cyberspace by shadowy hackers half a world away. And Internet security experts believe that it could be just as devastating to the U.S.'s economy and infrastructure as a deadly bombing.Experts say last week's attack on the former Soviet republic of Georgia, in which a Russian military offensive was preceded by an Internet assault that overwhelmed Georgian government Web sites, signals a new kind of cyberwar, one for which the United States is not fully prepared.
"Nobody's come up with a way to prevent this from happening, even here in the U.S.," said Tom Burling, acting chief executive of Tulip Systems, an Atlanta, Georgia, Web-hosting firm that volunteered its Internet servers to protect the nation of Georgia's Web sites from malicious traffic.
"The U.S. is probably more Internet-dependent than any place in the world. So to that extent, we're more vulnerable than any place in the world to this kind of attack," Burling added. "So much of what we're doing [in the United States] is out there on the Internet, and all of that can be taken down at once."
"This is such a crucial issue. At every level, our security now is dependent on computers," said Scott Borg, director of the United States Cyber Consequences Unit, a nonprofit research institute. "It's a whole new era. Political and military conflicts now will almost always have a cyber component. The chief targets will be critical infrastructure, and the attacks will emerge from within our own computer systems."
Hackers mounted coordinated assaults on Georgian government, media, banking and transportation sites in the weeks before Russian troops invaded. Known as distributed denial of service, the attacks employ multiple computers to flood networks with millions of simultaneous requests, overwhelming servers and crippling Web sites.
Hackers shut down the Web site of the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, for 24 hours and defaced the Georgian parliament site with images of Adolf Hitler. Saakashvili blamed Russia for the attacks, although the Russian government said it was not involved.
Web sites and computer networks have been targeted by hackers for decades, although large-scale, coordinated cyberattacks are still a relatively new phenomenon. Some Internet-security experts believe that the Georgia conflict marks the first time a known cyberattack has coincided with a ground war, but others said that similar computer attacks have accompanied military operations in the Middle East and elsewhere.
The challenge to U.S. security experts is that such attacks can be mounted anonymously, and relatively cheaply, from anywhere in the world. Georgia's attackers employed "botnets," or malicious automated programs that take root undetected in far-flung computers and barrage their targets with useless data. By last Friday, some of those botnets were originating from Comcast Internet addresses in the United States, Burling said.
"It only takes a couple of experts; it doesn't take a whole cyber infantry division to pull something like this off," said Don Jackson, director of threat intelligence for SecureWorks, an Atlanta-based computer security firm. "For a very small investment in resources, you can have a huge impact."
In the United States, government computer networks parry millions of attempted intrusions every day, Internet-security experts say. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security created a National Cybersecurity Center this year to coordinate federal cyberdefense efforts and quicken responsiveness. However, a recent Homeland Security Department intelligence report, obtained by The Associated Press, concluded that there are no effective means to prevent a coordinated attack on U.S. Web sites.
"When it comes to our government IT security, we're pretty strong in protecting against [attacks]," Homeland Security spokesman William R. Knocke told CNN. "But I wouldn't say ... we're 100 percent impenetrable."
So what would a cyberattack on the United States look like? And where is the U.S. most vulnerable? It depends on who you talk to.
Borg does not believe that the U.S. is susceptible to the kind of attacks launched at Georgia.
"We can command so much bandwidth that it's hard to overwhelm our servers," he said. "We are vulnerable to more sophisticated attacks, but right now most of the people who want to do us harm don't have those capabilities."
The Web sites of key government security agencies, such as the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency, are difficult to bring down, experts said. So are the computer networks of large American banks. But experts say a successful, large-scale attack on U.S. computer systems could hobble electric-power grids, transportation networks and industrial-supply chains.
"You'd see some disruption of essential services, like electricity. You'd definitely see espionage," said James A. Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "Would it be decisive? No. Nobody's going to win a conflict with the United States in cyberspace. But would it be disruptive and irritating? Yes."
Federal researchers who launched an experimental cyberattack last year in Idaho caused a generator to self-destruct, prompting fears about the effect of a real attack on the nation's electrical supply.
And a May report by the Government Accountability Office found that the Tennessee Valley Authority, which supplies power to almost 9 million people in the southeastern U.S., had not installed sufficient cybersecurity measures. Spokesman Jim Allen said the TVA, the nation's largest publicly owned utility company, is "on track" to correct the problems.
What frustrates computer-security experts is that the features that make the Internet such an invaluable resource -- its openness and interconnectedness -- also make it easier for hackers to do harm. As a staple of 21st-century warfare, cyberattacks will become increasingly sophisticated, forcing governments and private industry to build ever-stronger firewalls and other defenses, experts said.
Also, vague international laws and a lack of accountability will continue to make tracking down and prosecuting cyberattackers difficult.
Websites in Israel were recently the targets of many Islamic hackers.
The Likud party's website was hacked on Wednesday by a hacker known as Cold Zero, who is a part of a group of hackers known as Team Hell. The group is known to be as a collection of Muslim hackers, believed to comprise of mostly Palestinian hackers.
The site's main page was replaced with a message, written in Hebrew, with both grammatical and spelling errors, saying "you kill Palestine children in Gaza; we will hack into your websites". Another message on the site said, 'You think Gilad Shalit will be returned? As soon as he is returned, we will kidnap four more like him". They were referring to the Israeli soldier who was kidnapped by Hamas in 2006.
This is not the first time that Cold Zero has hacked the Likud party's website. This would the second time that he has managed to do so. These would not be the only known cases: Between 2003 and 2004 the website has been hacked several times by several different elements.
Despite the media attention given to these hacks, in most cases the damage done is only superficial. The hackers would usually plant their own pages or in some cases change the main page of the site, a practice that is known as defacement.
A spokesperson for the Likud party has said that the problem has been dealt with and that people are welcomed to enter the site again.
Both IsraelInsider and the Israel News Agency were also attacked by Islamic hackers recently.
Databases were corrupted. But both the Israel Insider and the Israel News Agency were well prepared for such attacks and recovered within hours.
The US and Israel are at high risk of Cyber attack. These attacks, though they will not decide victory or defeat, will be annoying and can and will be used in an attempt to sway public opinion.
How does it work?
Enemy states infect millions of computers with Trojans, waiting to attack Israeli websites at the click of one command. Overload takes place. Internet comes to a halt while the enemy commander can free broadband space at will and deliver instructions to infrastructure
related computers.
How do we defend ourselves from such an attack?
Government software should be distributed to governmental, commercial and the public in the same manner that gas masks are handed out.
No different than a condom.
We practice safe safe.
We need to practice safe computing!
Joel Leyden
President
Leyden Communications Group™
International Public Relations / Web 2.0 Marketing / Branding / Crisis Communications / Editorial / SEO Internet Marketing Consultancy
New York, N.Y.
Ra'anana, Israel
www.IsraelPr.com™
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www.EbizMarketSolutions.com™
Publisher
Israel News Agency™
United States News Agency™
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GPS Can Stop Car Thieves In Israel
GPS a high-tech crime-fighting tool or Big Brother?
Can GPS Stop Car Thieves in Israel?
CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- It's the stuff crime movies are made of: Determined police officers shadowing their suspect as he drives around town, watching and waiting for his next move, always careful not to lose him.
David Lee Foltz Jr. faces trial on abduction and sexual battery charges after police tracked him using GPS.
But now, investigators can track a potential bad guy without ever leaving their desks, thanks to the Global Positioning System, or GPS.
The technology is easy to use and the devices are hard to detect.
All police have to do is attach a GPS receiver to a suspect's car and they easily go along for the ride online, tracking the individual's exact location in real time from their computer.
"I think it's a good use of resources. It doesn't put any officers in danger, which is a good thing," said Mike Brooks, a CNN security enforcement analyst and a former Washington police detective.
"You can sit at a computer and find exactly where [a suspect] goes."
But because investigators often track without a warrant, privacy advocates say the tactic threatens to monitor innocent people as well.
Watch the debate over police using GPS »
"Law enforcement has a legitimate right to try to solve crimes and track suspects, provided that there are protections so that the innocent are not improperly snooped upon," said Norman Reimer, executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
Don't Miss
He wondered how many people would be comfortable knowing that police could attach something to their car and be able track their whereabouts 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week.
A recent case illustrates how investigators use the technology.
Court documents show Fairfax County, Virginia, police followed David Lee Foltz Jr. without a warrant in February by placing a GPS device inside the bumper of his van. 
See how GPS works »
Police began watching Foltz, who had previously been convicted of rape, after 11 attacks on women in the area where he lived, The Washington Post reported.
Foltz is facing trial, charged with abduction and sexual battery. He is charged in connection with an attack that happened after the monitoring began, according to the Post.
The attacks stopped after his arrest in February, the newspaper reported.
Foltz's attorney tried to get the GPS evidence thrown out of court. Chris Leibig wouldn't discuss the case with CNN, but said the tracking constituted illegal search and seizure, a violation his client's Fourth Amendment right.
"Our main point with this is that before installing a GPS tracking device secretly on someone's vehicle, a judicial officer should make the decision about how much evidence is good enough, how long the tracking can be for, and the parameters of the tracking," Leibig said.
"I want to point out it's very easy to get a warrant if the police have a good reason, it doesn't take a long time, and if there is a real reason, the warrant will be granted."
Leibig described GPS tracking as more intrusive than just an investigator following someone down the street.
"It's a lot more like a police officer tagging along inside your car, an invisible police officer inside your car," Leibig said.
Despite Leibig's motion to suppress, a judge has allowed the evidence to be used at Foltz's trial this October, The Washington Post reported.
Police involved in the case would only say there is an internal review before GPS tracking can be used. Many privacy advocates say that's not enough.
The Supreme Court has yet to address GPS tracking without warrants, so the legal standards vary from state to state. Most allow it or haven't ruled on it. Courts in Washington and Oregon, however, have ruled police need a warrant before using GPS.
"It's a wonderful tool for law enforcement," Reimer said.
"The question always comes down to how much are we willing to give up in freedom and privacy for how much marginal increase in our security."
Saturday, August 16, 2008
YouTube Video Captures Usain Bolt 100 Meter Beijing Olympics World Record Race
Israel News Agency
Beijing, China ---- August 16, 2008 .......Usain Bolt set a world record in the 100 meter sprint this afternoon in the Beijing, China Olympics.
Usain Bolt, who was born in Jamaica in 1986, became the current world record holder at the Beijing Olympics 2008, securing a time of 9.69 seconds. Bolt's name and achievements in sprinting have earned him the nickname "Lightning Bolt".
Bolt had power to spare as he pounded his chest and outstretched his arms for the cameras before crossing the finish line.
Bolt broke his own record, set in May in New York, by .03 second and became the first sprinter to set the world record in the Olympics since Donovan Bailey ran 9.84 at the 1996 Atlanta US Olympic Games.
Bolt had a perfect start from the blocks and then secured a huge lead halfway through the race. Bolt, who had run confident and relaxed, did not even tilt his head forward as he finished the race upright.
As Bolt blazed across the finish line, millions could see that his left shoe was untied. But that presented no obstacle for the world's fastest human being.
Within minutes, Bolt victory was placed onto YouTube for millions to view on the Internet and through Web 2.0 sites such as Facebook and MySpace. YouTube made the search for the Bolt Olympic victory into something of a challenge as it took down several videos which it claimed were breaking copyright rules.
"It wasn't planned," said a smiling Bolt. "My aim was to come out and win. When I saw the time, I'm celebrating. I'm happy."
Bolt easily outran Richard Thompson of Trinidad and Tobagoby more than a body length as American Walter Dix placed third.
The 100 meter Olympic race marked the first time that six runners broke 10 seconds in the Olympic games.
Bolt's was known for the 200 meters, and he will be the favorite to win that race in China next week.
Bolt, who is a tall 6-foot 5, had both the speed and reach to become a champion.
As the new 100 meter world record holder, Usain Bolt arrived at the Beijing Summer Olympics as the favorite in both the 100 meter and 200 meter sprints. Bolt finished his quarterfinals and semifinals in 9.92 and 9.85, today, far ahead of second place finisher Richard Thompson (who finished in 9.89).
Bolt began to make track history on May 31, 2008 on a rainy night in New York. It was a wet track at the Icahn Stadium on Randalls Island as the runners entered the blocks for the 100 meter.
A false start from Michael Rodgers but the second time round everything was clean.
Jamaica's Usain Bolt made headlines around the world with a stunning new world record of 9.72secs as he underlined his credentials as a serious gold medal contender at the upcoming Beijing Olympics.
In related news, Michael Phelps is now only one gold medal away of beating swimmer Mark Spitz's record seven at an Olympics. Spitz, who won his seven gold medals in Munich in 1972, congratulated the 23-year-old Phelps in a televised interview with NBC, calling his performance "epic."
Israel is expected to contend in sailing and Athens gold medalist Gal Fridman could be in the medal mix in windsurfing. Pole vaulter Alexsandr Averbukh will attempt to win Israel's first Olympic medal in track and field. Israel secured its first two Olympics medals in the 1992 Barcelona Games: a silver by women's half middleweight judoka Yael Arad and a bronze by men's lightweight judoka Shay Oren Smadga.
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Thursday, August 14, 2008
What to do when your car is stolen!
I parked my car in the parking lot of a large shopping center in an area called Gash.
When I finished the meeting I came out looking for my car.
Just could not find it. Perhaps Alzheimers was setting in.
Used my car alarm button to set off the alarm - but heard nothing but silence.
I went back into the office and came back out with a business associate.
But first I called the police to report a stolen car.
We drove around looking for my car.
And then I remembered.
I remembered how we operate in the IDF Border Police (MAGAV).
I then searched for the "look-out car".
These are highly professional operations.
They don't just do just one car.
And sure enough just about 100 meters away was a brand new white van sitting by itself.
We drove over to the van. I got out.
I took out my phone camera and started to shoot.
They sped off leaving tracks.
This van had two drivers with more radio and phone equipment than the IDF Signal Corp.
I called the police again and gave a detailed description.
They said they would set up road blocks.
I may have lost my car today - but those thieves also lost theirs ;>
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Herzylia Israel Brush Fire
Fireman quickly responded and put out the huge blaze.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Monday, August 4, 2008
Mayor of Tel Aviv is on Facebook
Just met with the mayor of Tel Aviv - the Honorable Ron Huldai. My first question: "Are you really on Facebook, or is that an assistant?" Ron responded that he is on Facebook, that the account is his and that he responds to all who contact him. Now that is a mayor who is touch with his city! - Joel Leyden mobile post
