rawdog

Josh Gerstein over at Politico sent Threat Level his piece underscoring once again President Barack Obama is not the civil-liberties Knight In Shining Armor many were expecting.

Gerstein posts a televised interview of Obama and John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted. The nation’s chief executive extols the virtues of mandatory DNA testing of Americans upon arrest, even absent charges or a conviction. Obama said, “It’s the right thing to do” to “tighten the grip around folks” who commit crime.

When it comes to civil liberties, the Obama administration has come under fire for often mirroring his predecessor’s practices surrounding state secrets, the Patriot Act and domestic spying. There’s also Gitmo, Jay Bybee and John Yoo.

Now there’s DNA sampling. Obama told Walsh he supported the 18 states, including the federal government, that have varying laws requiring compulsory DNA sampling of individuals upon an arrest for crimes ranging from misdemeanors to felonies. The data is lodged in state and federal databases, and has fostered as many as 200 arrests nationwide, Walsh said.

The American Civil Liberties Union claims DNA sampling is different from mandatory, upon-arrest fingerprinting that has been standard practice in the United States for decades.

A fingerprint, the group says, reveals nothing more than a person’s identity. But much can be learned from a DNA sample, which codes a person’s family ties, some health risks, and, according to some, can predict a propensity for violence.

The ACLU is suing California to block its voter-approved measure requiring saliva sampling of people picked up on felony charges. Authorities in the Golden State are allowed to conduct so-called “familial searching” — when a genetic sample does not directly match another, authorities start investigating people with closely matched DNA in hopes of finding leads to the perpetrator.

Wondering whether DNA sampling is legal?

The courts have already upheld DNA sampling of convicted felons based on the theory that the convicted have fewer privacy rights. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that when conducting intrusions of the body during an investigation, the police need so-called “exigent circumstances” or a warrant. That alcohol evaporates in the blood stream is the exigent circumstance to draw blood from a suspected drunk driver without a warrant.

Illustration: hibiotech/Flickr

See Also:

• DNA Testing Firm Goes Bankrupt; Who Gets the Data?
• ACLU Says Extracting DNA From Suspects Unconstitutional
• NY Gov Spitzer Plans to Expand DNA Database
• Scotland Yard Investigator Wants to Collect DNA from School …
• Hacker Adrian Lamo Wins, Won’t Have to Give the FBI his Blood …
• Reiser Prosecution Wobbles Under Police Forensics Gaffe — Update …

The long-lost pal locating site, Classmates.com, has been hit with a class action privacy lawsuit alleging the company violated the law when it decided to make user profiles public in order to compete with Facebook.

The suit alleges that Classmates.com duped its paying customers in late January when it sent them an e-mail saying that members would have to opt-out of new Facebook and iPhone apps to keep their data private. That’s a massive change to the site’s privacy policy and violates federal and Washington State privacy and fairness laws, according to the suit (.pdf) filed in a Washington State federal district court March 5.

Classmates.com has long kept user information non-public, and only paying members can read e-mails sent to them by others, see ‘old friends’ on a map, and see who has been looking at their profile. While the site has some 3 million paying users, it’s been eclipsed by sites like Facebook and MySpace, which have more members, more public profiles and don’t charge.

In order to keep up, Classmates.com decided to make “public Classmates content available to people using a variety of sites and devices, including Facebook and the iPhone,” according to a January 30 e-mail sent to users.

“This content can include your name, photos, community affiliations, and more,” the e-mail continued. “Of course, we care about your privacy as much as we do your ability to catch up with your past. We’re updating our privacy policy to make these new features possible, and you’re able to opt out.”

That’s a move not unlike one Facebook made in December, when it decided to make user profile information and their friend’s list public by default (without the benefit of an opt-out). That landed Facebook with a decent-sized user revolt and a complaint to the FTC from privacy groups.

Building on that, the lawsuit argues that Classmates.com’s switch amounts to “unfair and deceptive practices,” and that having to choose to opt-out is “well-known to be confusing to consumers, and is deceptive.” That amounts to a violation of the Washington State Consumer Protection Act, the suit contends.

The lawsuit, filed by Roger Townsend with Breskin Johnson & Townsend, also accuses Classmates.com of violating the federal “Electronic Data Privacy Act” or EDPA. Unfortunately for the plaintiffs (and the general public), no such law exists. One assumes the plaintiff’s lawyers meant to refer to the “Electronic Communications Privacy Act.” But since that real law is generally about protecting e-mails against eavesdropping, it’s not likely to be relevant in this case.

The suit seeks an injunction against the new policy, damages, and any profits made from the new apps. The putative class action suit seeks to cover all 40 million Classmates.com members.

Classmates.com did not return a call seeking comment. The site, which has been sued before for alleged deceptive marketing, is frequent target of online complaints by users who say the site misleads them and makes it difficult to cancel a membership.

Via Courthouse News.  Screenshot: Flickr/Jason Walsh

See Also:

• Classmates.com User Sues; Schoolmates Weren’t Really Looking for Him
• Classmates.com IPO: What Are These People Thinking?
• United Online Cans Classmates.com IPO
• Facebook’s Point of No Return - Webmonkey

The European Parliament delivered a political blow to Hollywood and the Obama administration, voting Wednesday 663 to 13 in opposition to a proposed and secret intellectual property agreement being negotiated by the European Union, United States and a handful of others.

Wednesday’s developments concerning the Anti-Counterfeiting and Trade Agreement are substantial because the European Union’s 27 countries vastly outnumber the remaining countries negotiating the deal. They are Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland and the United States. Ambassador Ron Kirk, the top U.S. trade official, is spearheading the deal that began being crafted under the George W. Bush administration.

Kirk’s office declined comment.

To be sure, there is a dispute and heavy confusion concerning whether internet service providers under ACTA would be forced to punish customers deemed copyright scofflaws by reducing or eliminating service, according to a string of leaked documents. So parliament members also agreed Wednesday to oppose the measure if it contains so-called “three strikes” or “graduated response” policies — regardless of whether that’s now in the text.

And because of the text’s secrecy, parliament on Wednesday also demanded (.pdf) that the private agreement still under negotiation be publicly released.

Whether parliament’s action scuttles ACTA is another matter.

Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, said in a telephone interview that Wednesday’s resolution also OKs more ACTA global negotiations on behalf of the European Union.

Geist said he expects Europe to participate in the next round of ACTA negotiations to get underway April 12 in New Zealand.

European Union leaks months ago portended Wednesday’s vote.

The leaks underscored that European officials were concerned about the ever-changing pact and were unhappy that the United States’ “overarching objective” was to “facilitate the continued development of industry.” European drafters had said the document needed to “mention culture and individual creators and not only industry.”

In November, meanwhile, the Motion Picture Association of America told the Senate that opponents of ACTA are “actively hostile toward efforts to improve copyright enforcement worldwide.”

(The United States has shown working drafts of the accord to representatives from the MPAA, Recording Industry Association of America, Google and the major software players and even the digital-rights group Public Knowledge. They all are forbidden from disclosing any information about what they saw.)

For its part, the Obama administration, which has five former Recording Industry Association of America lawyers in the Justice Department, has declared ACTA negotiations a national security secret and has refused to publicly divulge the treaty’s contents.

See Also:

• Europe Worries U.S. Bowing to ‘Industry’ in ACTA Talks
• Obama Administration Declares Proposed IP Treaty a ‘National Security’ Secret
• Report: U.S. Fears Public Scrutiny Would Scuttle IP Treaty Talks
• Copyright Treaty Is Policy Laundering at Its Finest
• Details Lacking in Counterfeiting Treaty Paper
• MPAA Says Copyright-Treaty Critics Hate Hollywood
• The Heat Is On for Details of Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement

You may be dying, figuratively, to get off the government’s no-fly list, but death won’t guarantee removal.

The government’s no-fly list includes the names of dead suspects, according to government officials who spoke with the Associated Press, to help catch people who may try to assume the suspect’s identity.

The no-fly list has been shrouded in mystery since it was first developed after the 9/11 attacks. How people get on the list or get off it has been a closely guarded secret, with only bits of information made public during congressional hearings.

The AP has pieced together the broad steps it takes for someone to get on the list, and some of the changes the list has undergone since it was first created nine years ago.

The no-fly list has grown from 3,400 people to about 6,000 since last December after Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab attempted to bomb a Northwest airlines flight on Christmas day, using explosives packed in his underwear. Abdulmuttalab’s name appeared in a terrorism database after his father tipped off U.S. embassy officials in Nigeria that his son might be involved in extremist activity, but his name never made it to the no-fly list. The government determined thatthe information did not meet the standard for placing him on the list or for revoking his U.S. visa. His father had reported that AbdulMutallab had been expressing radical opinions, had broken ties with the family and might have visited Yemen.

The National Security Agency had also obtained communication intercepts that suggested a Nigerian national might be planning an attack against the United States. But because the dots were never connected, AbdulMutallab was able to slip through airport security.

The new names added to the list since his attempted bombing include people associated with al-Qaida’s Yemen branch — with whom Abdulmuttalab had ties — as well as other people from Nigeria and Yemen who might be connected to Abdulmuttalab.

The current number on the no-fly list represents a pared down version of the list in 2004 when 20,000 people were on it. Those numbers were culled in 2007, and people who were no longer considered a threat were removed. These included, for example, some former members of the Irish Republican Army who were considered no longer active in terrorist activity.

The AP story doesn’t indicate how many Americans are currently on the no-fly list, but the government reported in December, before the new numbers were added, that about 170 U.S. citizens or residents were on the list.

As AP notes, sometimes it takes just minutes to get on the no-fly list; other times it takes days or months, depending on the information amassed on a subject.

There are generally four steps to getting someone on the no-fly list. The first step might be a simple tip to law enforcement or an intelligence agent or may come from information gleaned from a wiretapped conversation. The tip is submitted to the National Counterterrorism Center in Virginia, where it’s entered into a classified database known as Terrorist Identities Datamart Enterprise, or TIDE. The database doesn’t just include a suspect’s name but might also include relatives and associates. About 2 percent of the names in the database belong to Americans.

Here information is datamined to connect dots and flesh out partial names and identities. If enough information can be connected to a Terrorist Watchlist target, it’s escalated to the Terrorist Screening Center, also in Virginia, for more analysis. About 350 names are sent to the screening center daily.

Depending on what this further analysis turns up, a suspect might wind up on the FBI’s terror watchlist, which includes the names of about 418,000 people — including a New Jersey eight-year-old who regularly gets frisked at the airport. In addition to being used by airport security personnel to single out some travelers for extra screening or interrogation, the watchlist is used for, among other things, screening U.S. visa applicants and gun buyers as well as suspects stopped by local police.

To get on this list, there must be “reasonable suspicion” that the person is involved in terrorism, according to the AP. People whose names are on this list are singled out for questioning at U.S. borders, but they can still fly. A Justice Department inspector general report last year found that the FBI was mishandling the watch list and was failing to add legitimate suspects under terrorist investigation to the list while also failing to properly update and remove records from the list, subjecting U.S. citizens to unjustified scrutiny.

In order to get on the no-fly list, authorities must have the suspect’s full name and birthdate and have information indicating that the suspect is a threat to aviation or national security. The final decision for adding a name to the no-fly list lies in the hands of about six people from the TSA.

At this point, a suspect can either be added to a “selectee list,” a list of about 18,000 people who are singled out for extra screening at airports or be put on the no-fly list. Not all people on the no-fly list are prevented from flying, however. Sometimes authorities allow them to travel unimpeded, but place a tail on them to monitor their activity.

Photo: Dan Paluska/Flickr

See also:

• Eight-Year-Old on TSA Terrorist Watchlist Gets Frisked
• Former DOJ Official Caught on Terror Watchlist
• Threshold for Getting onto No-Fly List Lowered
• FBI: 19,000 Matches to Terrorist Screening List in 2009

The U.S. Supreme Court is agreeing to decide how much personal information the federal bureaucracy may acquire on its workers.

The justices, without comment, decided Monday to review a lower-court decision surrounding the concept of so-called “informational privacy.” The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco struck down intrusive background checks last year on nearly three dozen National Aeronautics and Space Administration contractors as being too invasive — calling them an unconstitutional, “broad inquisition.”

The checks sought information from any source surrounding their sex lives, finances and even drug use. The contractors being investigated were not privy to classified information.

The Obama administration, in seeking review of the lower-court decision, told the justices the checks were the same type conducted on all federal government workers -– now numbering about 14 million. The background checks are part of a 2004 security directive from President George W. Bush.

“The ramifications of the decision below are potentially dramatic,” the Obama administration told the justices in its petition to the court. The justices likely will hear the case this fall.

The NASA contractors worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which generally engages in the scientific study of the earth and solar system. They sued, successfully stopping the government from delving so extensively into their backgrounds.

The administration said collecting the information, as opposed to disseminating it, was constitutionally acceptable.

See Also:

• Court’s Steroid Ruling Pumps Up Computer Privacy
• Google Book Plan Hits Privacy Snag
• VeriChip’s Merger With Credit Monitoring Firm Worries Privacy Activists
• Airport Scanners Can Store, Transmit Images
• Court Stiffs Veterans Caught in Privacy Breach

The CEO of Lifelock, Todd Davis, became famous for advertising his Social Security number on television ads and banners painted on trucks promising his $10 monthly service would protect consumers from identity theft.

The company also offered a $1 million guarantee to compensate customers for losses incurred if they became a victim of identity theft after signing up for the service.

But the Federal Trade Commission said Tuesday that the claims were bogus (.pdf) and accused Lifelock, based in Arizona, of operating a scam and con operation. The commission announced, along with 35 state attorneys general, that it had levied a fine of $12 million against the company for deceptive business practices and for failing to secure sensitive customer data. Of that amount, $11 million will go to refund customers who subscribed to the service. Consumers will receive a letter from the FTC and their attorney general explaining how to take part in the settlement.

The FTC said that Lifelock, which advertises itself as “#1 In Identity Theft Protection,” engaged in false advertising by promising customers that if they signed up with its service their personal information would become useless to thieves.

“In truth, the protection they provided left such a large hole … that you could drive that truck through it,” said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, referring to ad trucks painted with the CEO’s Social Security number.

The company, he said, used scare tactics to convince potential customers they would be unprotected from identity theft without its service, and of warning them in letters that they were at a high risk of identity theft.

“I was a recipient of one letter,” Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said.

For the annual subscription fee, Lifelock promised customers that it would place fraud alerts on their credit accounts with the three credit reporting agencies. As a result, the company said, thieves would not be able to open unauthorized credit or bank accounts in their name.

But Leibowitz said the promises were deceptive because thieves could still rack up unauthorized charges on existing accounts — the most common type of identity theft. It also couldn’t protect thieves from obtaining a loan in a Lifelock customer’s name.

In fact, Lifelock CEO Davis was the victim of identity theft in 2007 when a thief used his widely advertised Social Security number to obtain a $500 loan in Davis’ name.

Lifelock also promised customers that sensitive data they provided the company to perform its protection services — such as their Social Security number, name and address and bank card information — would be encrypted and protected in other ways on Lifelock’s servers and accessed only by authorized employees on a need-to-know basis.

“Your documents, while in our care, will be treated as if they were cash,” the company promised.

In truth, the FTC said, until at least September 2007, the company failed to provide “reasonable and appropriate security to prevent unauthorized access to personal information stored on its corporate network” either in transit through the network, stored in a database or transmitted over the internet.

None of the data was encrypted, said the FTC, either in storage or in transit. The company also had poor password management practices for employees and vendors who accessed the information. Lifelock also failed to limit access to sensitive data to only those people who needed access.

What’s more, the company failed to apply critical security patches and updates to its network and “failed to employ sufficient measures” to detect and prevent unauthorized access to its network, “such as by installing antivirus or antispyware programs on computers used by employees to remotely access the network or regularly recording and reviewing activity on the network,” the complaint said.

The latter is particularly ironic. Lifelock often promoted its services to companies that experienced data breaches, convincing them to offer a complimentary Lifelock subscription to people whose data was compromised in a breach. All the while, the FTC claims, Lifelock was making its own customer information vulnerable to a breach.

“As a result of these practices, an unauthorized person could obtain access to personal information stored on defendants’ corporate network, in transit through defendants’ corporate network or over the internet, or maintained in defendants’ offices,” according to the complaint.

According to the terms of an FTC settlement agreement with Lifelock to settle the allegations, the company must inform consumers about the limitations of its service. The company will also have to implement a data security program to protect the customer data it handles.

“As long as the company is honest and up front and lets consumers know what they’re getting and has adequate security safeguards for customer information, we wish them well,” said Leibowitz.

Lifelock said in a statement that, in October, it “rolled out the next generation of identity theft protection services that provide even better and broader protection to its valued members.” The company added that its new-and-improved service, which was not the subject of the FCC inquiry, has prevented more than 5,000 fraudulent credit applications.

The company and its owners have been at the center of controversy for a number of years. According to an investigative report by the Phoenix New Times in 2007, Lifelock co-founder Robert Maynard Jr., was suspected at one time of being an identity thief himself and stealing his father’s identity to obtain an American Express card. He had also been the target of another FTC investigation involving a previous business venture unrelated to Lifelock. Maynard resigned from the company after news of his past was published, but he continued to work for the firm as a contractor.

See also:

• Lifelock Sued for Corproate Identity Theft
• Police Say Lifelock Founder Coerced Unusable Confession From Identity Theif
• Lifelock Founder a Shady Identity Thief?
• Lifelock Founder Resigns Amid Controversy

Pink Floyd and its label, EMI, are battling over online royalties stemming from a contested clause in their decade-old contract.

The developer of The Dark Side of the Moon and other top-selling albums claims its contract with EMI requires its music to be sold as an entire album, not the single tracks that EMI has permitted iTunes to distribute.

The band’s attorney, Robert Howe, told a London court on Tuesday, “It’s a matter of fact that the defendant has been permitting individual tracks to be downloaded online and that therefore they have been allowing albums not to be sold in their original configuration,” Bloomberg News reported.

The case highlights the common dispute between rights holders and publishers over how to deal today with royalties for intellectual property born and contracted prior to the explosion of online digital sales.

Pink Floyd, however, said more was at stake than royalties in the internet age. The psychedelic-music band’s musical craft is being misrepresented when sold in singles, Howe said.

“Pink Floyd is well-known for performing seamless pieces. Many of the songs blend into each other,” Howe told the High Court of Justice, Chancery Division.

EMI told the court that the restrictions do not apply to online sales.

When Pink Floyd’s latest contract was crafted in 1999, “iTunes didn’t even exist,” EMI attorney Elizabeth Jones said.

Photo: oddstock/Flickr

See Also:

• May 12, 1967: Pink Floyd Astounds With ‘Sound in the Round’
• Pink Floyd’s ‘Echoes’ = 2001’s Space Baby?
• RIP: Pink Floyd’s Richard Wright
• Pink Floyd Wins A Polar! Wait, What’s A Polar?
• Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason on Formula 1 Tech
• Pink Floyd Makes Chickens Shiver With Pleasure
• Roger Waters to Israel: Tear Down the Wall
• See You On The Dark Side of the Boat

Citing anti-competitive concerns, the Justice Department sued Election Systems & Software in order to force the company to divest itself of the voting machine assets it obtained from Premier Election Solutions last year.

The department’s antitrust division, along with nine state attorneys general, filed the civil antitrust lawsuit (.pdf) in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., charging that the acquisition threatened competition. The department proposed a settlement that, if accepted, would dissolve the merger and force ES&S to sell its Premier business to a buyer approved by the Justice Department.

“The proposed settlement (.pdf) will restore competition, provide a greater range of choices and create incentives to provide secure, accurate and reliable voting-equipment systems now and in the future,” said Molly S. Boast, deputy assistant attorney general for the antitrust division in a statement.

The nine states that joined the suit are Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Tennessee and Washington.

Last September, Premier (formerly Diebold Election Systems) announced that ES&S had purchased the company for $5 million in cash, plus 70 percent of revenue collected on existing accounts through the end of August 2009.

Even before the sale, ES&S, based in Omaha, Nebraska, was the nation’s largest voting-machine maker, with machines being used in 43 states. ES&S systems were “utilized in counting approximately 50 percent of the votes in the last four major U.S. elections,” according to the company’s website. The company also created statewide voter registration systems used in California, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska and New Mexico.

Its acquisition of Premier, the second-largest voting machine maker with equipment used in 33 states, gave it a near monopoly on election gear and would have had the company providing 70 percent of voting equipment in the country. Premier was a division of Diebold, Inc, which is based in Canton, Oh.

Election integrity activists expressed concern at the time that the purchase would have a detrimental effect on competitive pricing for election districts and would also affect the development of accurate and secure voting systems, since ES&S would have little incentive to improve its voting systems without viable competitors. They were also concerned that ES&S would stop supporting the Premier equipment and try to pressure election officials who owned the equipment into purchasing ES&S machines.

Spokeswomen for Verified Voting and Voter Action declined to comment on the lawsuit or proposed settlement until their organizations have a chance to review the documents and discuss them with the Justice Department.

The settlement would force ES&S to divest itself of all intellectual property and means associated with producing all versions of Premier’s software, firmware and hardware as well as all inventory of parts and components.

ES&S must also grant to whoever acquires the Premier business a “fully paid-up, irrevocable, perpetual license” to use ES&S’s own AutoMark system. The AutoMark is a ballot marking device for disabled voters. Premier had obtained a limited license to sell the device prior to the acquisition. The buyer of the Premier business will be able to modify both the Premier products and the AutoMark system.

The proposed settlement would also require ES&S customers who are currently under contract to use Premier systems the chance to switch to the new buyer or remain with ES&S and obtain ES&S equipment. ES&S would be prohibited from bidding on new contracts for Premier equipment.

To make the transition smooth and avoid disrupting upcoming elections, ES&S must provide existing Premier customers with access to employees who are knowledgeable about the Premier systems and work out a supply agreement until the new buyer is able to take over manufacturing of the equipment.

ES&S said in a statement that it recognized that the acquisition had caused concern.

“With that in mind, we fully cooperated and have been working closely with the antitrust division of
the Department of Justice to address those concerns,” the company said. “We look forward to a resolution of this matter that will allow jurisdictions to move forward immediately in planning for upcoming election events.”

The company added that since the merger, it had provided support for more than 1,000 election events administered by former Premier customers.

Photo: Ben Sutherland/Flickr

See also:

• Diebold Unloads Beleaguered Voting-Machine Division

The Supreme Court agreed Monday to delve into the sensitive question of whether the First Amendment protects anti-gay protesters carrying placards outside military funerals saying “America is Doomed,” “Thank God for 9/11″ and other volatile phrases like “Thank God for dead soldiers.”

The messages and picketing are part of a Kansas church’s belief that the United States’ tolerance for homosexuality is cause for soldiers’ deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The case the justices decided to review Monday tests the boundaries of free speech versus freedom of religion — doctrines embodied in the First Amendment.

Without comment, the justices agreed to review last year’s federal appellate decision overturning a $5 million verdict (.pdf) in favor of a Baltimore father who sued the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka and its pastor, Fred Phelps, in 2006. The father of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder was awarded damages for, among other things, invasion of privacy and emotional distress for the events that occurred outside his son’s funeral at a Catholic church in Maryland.

“Whether the freedom of religion and assembly is subordinate to the freedom of speech is an important question because by necessary implication, one of the tenets of the First Amendment is undermined,” (.pdf) lawyers for the soldier’s father, Albert Snyder, told the high court in a filing.

His lawyers told the justices that the presence of Phelps and a handful of others “created a negative and circus-like atmosphere during a solemn and religious occasion” and “added insult to injury during a time of grief and mourning.” The protesters also displayed a banner depicting two men engaging in anal sex.

Lawyers for Phelps, however, urged the court to stay out of the case, saying the deaths of U.S. soldiers are a matter of public concern and debate.

“How these soldiers are living and dying is a topic of substantial public interest and dialogue, at least nationwide, probably worldwide. The prevailing view is that the soldiers are heroes, and that God is obligated to bless America,” (.pdf) Phelps’ lawyers wrote. “Those views clash with the Bible, in respondents’ sincerely held religious opinion, and when these funerals are used to express those viewpoints, respondents feel duty bound to provide a countervailing message, to wit, if you want God’s blessings, you have to obey him, and if you want the soldiers to stop dying, you have to stop sinning in this nation.”

Photo: Phelps prepares to protest outside the Kansas Statehouse in Topeka, Kan., in 2006. (AP Photo)