Some key Tea Party races - Boston Globe

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The Tea Party movement has been a defining force in 2010. With its aim zeroed in at the power structure of Washington, this political whirlwind has energized some Republicans and independents and left others shuddering. Some GOP leaders have feared that the movement’s candidates — most have never held high elective office — would cost the party a chance at grabbing control of the Senate. With the exception of Christine O’Donnell’s campaign spectacularly crashing, costing the GOP dearly in Delaware, Tea Party-backed Republicans are either running ahead of Democrats or about even. In Republican-dominant Utah, Mike Lee is expected to easily win. Marco Rubio, one of the first candidates to tap into Tea Party fervor, is cruising in Florida. Here’s a look at six other Tea Party-backed candidates in six races that will keep political junkies on the edge of their seats Tuesday night.

?Grew up in a household of avid Democrats in East Providence, R.I., and graduated from Harvard.

?Business career includes stints as an international currency analyst and co-founder of a string of sports bars.

?Was three-term US representative before becoming president of Club for Growth, which supports fiscally conservative politicians.

Campaign: With his longstanding attacks on business-as-usual in Washington and his fervent push for fiscal conservatism, Toomey had been a Tea Party-type politician before there was a Tea Party. His decision to challenge longtime GOP Senator Arlen Specter sparked a series of decisions that altered the political landscape in Washington. Specter, who barely beat Toomey in 2004, decided he could not win a rematch and switched parties, giving the Democrats a filibuster-proof majority until the election of Scott Brown of Massachusetts. Despite White House backing, Specter still lost the primary to Joe Sestak. Toomey backs replacing the income tax system with either a flat tax or consumption tax and calls for a constitutional amendment to require a balanced federal budget. The success of his campaign depends on the heartland of Pennsylvania, a state that Democratic consultant James Carville once characterized as (liberal) Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, with Alabama in between.

Prospects: Although his numbers have been slipping, Toomey still has a lead of 4 percentage points.*

?Son of US Representative Ron Paul of Texas, the 2008 Republican presidential candidate whose libertarian backers formed a cornerstone of the Tea Party movement.

?Has practiced ophthalmology for 17 years.

?Running for seat of retiring Republican Jim Bunning.

Campaign: “I have a message, a message from the Tea Party, a message that is loud and clear and does not mince words: We have come to take our government back,’’ Paul said in May after he became the first candidate backed by the movement to win a primary. He did so resoundingly, crushing the establishment candidate endorsed by his potential Senate stablemate, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. It did not take long, however, for libertarian views to land Paul in hot water. He suggested that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 should not apply to businesses and questioned whether the federal government should have a role in food or worker safety, prompting a storm of attacks. Yet his tough talk on the need to cut government programs and stiffen eligibility for entitlement benefits has attracted a strong following. The race has turned particularly ugly, with ads by Democratic nominee Jack Conway characterizing sophomoric pranks Paul allegedly did in college as anti-Christian and potentially criminal, a ploy even some Democrats say is desperate. Also, a video of Paul supporters pinning a protester to the ground and stepping on her head has inflamed emotions on both sides.

Prospects: He has maintained a rather sizable lead throughout the fall and is now up by almost 9 percentage points.

?Started an Oshkosh company that makes plastic packaging material.

?A political neophyte, he became drawn to the race after speaking at a Tea Party rally.

?Has pumped $4.4 million of his own money into the campaign.

Campaign: Johnson was catapulted to a primary win when the establishment candidate unexpectedly dropped out and supported him. He started as an underdog against incumbent Russ Feingold, but by pitching himself as an outsider and Feingold as a big-spending, out-of-touch insider, he has become the late favorite. He also has combined a well-regarded quirky ad campaign touting “the Johnson Way” with such provocative quotes as “I absolutely do not believe in the science of man-caused climate change’’ and calling the health care overhaul the ”greatest assault on our freedom in my lifetime.’’

Prospects: Johnson maintains a lead of about 5 percentage points.

?Earned All-Ivy League honors as a punter on the Princeton football team.

?Served as a lawyer and investigator for Dick Cheney, then a US representative, during the Iran-contra hearings and worked as a prosecutor for the Justice Department.

?Served 14 years in the US attorney’s office before becoming district attorney for a county north of Denver.

Campaign: His upset win over the GOP establishment candidate put him against Democrat Michael Bennet, who was appointed to replace Ken Salazar when Salazar was named US interior secretary. In this ideologically splintered state, Buck has generally avoided moderating his positions to attract independents. He opposes abortion except to protect the life of the mother and suggests ending Social Security benefits for well-off Americans. He also calls for overturning the new health care law and opposes cap/trade legislation, while backing nuclear energy.

Prospects: Buck’s lead in the polls has been dwindling -- down to less than 1 percentage point.

?Co-founded a K-12 Christian school.

?A grandmother of 10 and a weightlifting aficionado known to carry a .44 Magnum handgun.

?Earned a reputation in the Nevada legislature for opposing nearly all bills, with votes of widely popular legislation becoming known as 41-to-Angle. Led fight in state and federal courts to preserve state rule requiring two-thirds legislative vote to pass tax increases.

Campaign: In an upset, she won the primary over the establishment candidate for the chance to grab one of the top trophies of this election for the GOP: the seat of majority leader Harry Reid. Her campaign, however, has suffered through several misfires of intemperate remarks, awkward run-ins with media and voters, and backpedaling from hard-line views, such as privatizing Social Security and Medicare and eliminating the EPA and departments of education and energy. She has, however, been able to raise a staggering amount of money -- $14 million in last quarter -- and her strident pitch against the Beltway mentality has resonated with Nevadans in one of the states hardest hit by the housing downtown. Reid, on the other hand, has struggled to spark much enthusiasm among independents.

Prospects: After swapping leads with Reid in the polls for much of the late summer, Angle has seemed to regain her footing, up by 3 percentage points. Fans of politics might need plenty of coffee for this one: Returns will probably be coming in through the early morning.

?A West Point graduate, he earned the Bronze Star in the Gulf War.

?A Yale Law graduate, he served as a state judge and federal judge.

?Lost his first attempt for elective office, for state representative in 2004.

Campaign: Propelled by support from fellow Alaskan Sarah Palin, Miller won a stunning upset in primary, edging out GOP incumbent Lisa Murkowski, a body blow to national Republican leaders. That was only Act I in this political drama. Murkowski has bounced back with a write-in campaign that features fliers picturing skis to guide voters on how to spell her name, and Democrat Scott McAdams is showing life in a state where his party had been on the edge of extinction for years. Miller vows to drastically cut the size of government, but the only thing shrinking now is his lead. His campaign has been freighted by controversy recently, with charges that his family had received various federal benefits despite his criticism of such programs. With questions swirling on how to verify Murkowski’s write-in votes and with potential challenges to thousands of ballots expected, campaign watchers say Alaskans could be in for an extended and contentious tallying of ballots.

Prospects: It’s a tossup between Miller and Murkowski, with McAdams about 10 percentage points behind.

*All poll results are from an averaging of recent surveys by political website, fivethirtyeight blog.

SOURCES: New York Times, Washington Post, campaign websites

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MPs accuse Google on wi-fi data - BBC News

29 October 2010 Last updated at 08:48 ET Google grabbed wi-fi data to help with location-based services

MPs have accused Google of deliberately collecting wi-fi data for commercial gain.

It is another twist to events kicked off by the search giant collecting of millions of pieces of sensitive information via its Street View cars.

Discovery of the data triggered investigations around the globe.

Google has always maintained that the data was collected in error because of code being mistakenly included in the Street View software.

The code was created by a Google engineer as part of a wider project to map wi-fi hotspots but should never have found its way into Street View cars, the search giant said.

Google's head of PR told the BBC's Today programme this week that there was code incorporated into Street View which was intended to map wi-fi hotspots in order to improve Google's location-based services.

But it was never the intention that any part of it would also suck up personal and sensitive information relating to unsecured wireless networks, he said.

"This data has never been used in any Google product, was never intended to be used by Google and will never be used," he said.

Continue reading the main story

I find it hard to believe that a company with the creative genius and originality of Google could map the personal wi-fi details, computer passwords and e-mail addresses of millions of people across the world and not know what it was doing”

End Quote Robert Halfon Conservative MP He added that Google had now stopped collecting any wi-fi data, had "isolated" the personal data and wanted to delete it as soon as investigations by information commissions around the world had concluded.

During a two-hour parliamentary debate on privacy, MPs questioned Google's version of events.

Conservative MP Robert Halfon questioned Google's insistence that the details were sucked up by Street View cars as a result of code being accidentally included in the software.

"I find it hard to believe that a company with the creative genius and originality of Google could map the personal wi-fi details, computer passwords and e-mail addresses of millions of people across the world and not know what it was doing," he said.

"My own feeling is that this data was of use to Google for commercial purposes and that is why it was done.

The question is whether the company underestimated the reaction of the public, and many governments around the world, once it had been revealed what it had done."

Google said that the allegations were "completely untrue".

Graham Cluley, a senior consultant at security firm Sophos, told the BBC that he found it "surprising" that Google staff did not realise that the Street View cars were storing more than just the location of wi-fi hotspots.

"If you were competent then it would be surprising that you wouldn't know that you were storing far more than you actually needed," he said.

Refuge pictures

During the two-hour parliamentary debate, there was wider criticism of the Street View service, which offers detailed maps of the country on a street-by-street basis.

Continue reading the main story The essential step is to turn on the encryption system built in to your router.This will prompt you to set up a password to browse via the router. Choose one that's hard to guess and combines letters and numbers.As a final step, change the default admin password for the router. Again, choose one that is hard to guess.Conservative MP Mark Lancaster cited a women's refuge in his constituency which had asked to be removed from Street View.

"Imagine their great concern when on entering the name of the organisation on Google, a picture of the building the refugees use and also their addresses appear on the search engine," he said.

He said that requests to Google to remove the refuge from the map had received no response.

"I find it staggering that such an invasion of privacy on an organisation whose purpose is to protect others is allowed to occur," he said.

Google told the BBC that it was unaware of this particular case.

"Anyone can request an image for removal using our simple 'report a problem' tool in Street View. When they do we remove the image quickly," said a Google spokeswoman.

No investigation

In June Privacy International made a complaint to the UK Metropolitan police, saying the data collection put Google in breach of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa).

Broadband minister Ed Vaizey revealed during the debate that the police had "decided that it would not be appropriate" to launch a criminal investigation in the matter.

But he said that he planned to meet with Google to discuss the data breaches.

MPs also criticised the way the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) had handled the matter, describing it as "lily-livered".

In July, the ICO said that Google did not harvest "significant" personal details when the data was collected.

But as more details have emerged about the nature of the data it is reassessing its position.

"Earlier this year the ICO visited Google's premises to make a preliminary assessment of the 'pay-load' data it inadvertently collected.

Whilst the information we saw at the time did not include meaningful personal details, we have continued to liaise with, and await the findings of, the investigations carried out by our international counterparts," it said in a statement.

"Now that these findings are starting to emerge, we understand that Google has accepted that in some instances entire URLs and e-mail and passwords have been captured," it added.

In the light of this the ICO said it was "deciding on the necessary course of action, including a consideration of the need to use our enforcement powers".

Investigations conducted by the Canadian information commissioner revealed that Google had collected some highly sensitive information including complete e-mails, lists of names of people suffering from a certain medical conditions, telephone numbers and addresses.

Its findings go against Google's initial assertion that all the information collected was "fragmentary".

The Canadian investigation found that Google was in breach of privacy laws but said no further action would be taken if Google tightened up its internal privacy policies.

Medical conditions

The US Federal Trade Commission ended its investigation yesterday, welcoming changes Google has recently announced to its internal processes.

On Friday Google revealed that it would be creating a director of privacy and offering more training and better procedures regarding privacy.

"Every engineering project leader will be required to maintain a privacy design document for each initiative they are working on," Google said in a statement.

But it still faces on-going investigation in the US, with a lawsuit looming and a large scale enquiry backed by 38 states demanding detailed explanations about the process which led to so much personal data being stored by Google.

It has pressed Google to name the engineer responsible and to explain in full how the code he designed came to be incorporated in Street View.

Google has never publicly named the engineer.

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Last-minute push in governor's race - Cincinnati.com

When the votes are counted on Tuesday night, some races might be blowouts, over and done with not long after the sun has set, but the Ohio governor's race is not likely to be one of those.

That was evident by the frenetic pace of campaigning Saturday by both candidates - Democratic incumbent Ted Strickland and Republican challenger John Kasich.

Every poll in the past two weeks - and the sense among party leaders on both sides - is that the race is too close to call and will come down Tuesday to one thing and one thing only - which candidate and his party organizations can push the most voters out to the polls.

That is why, on Saturday, both candidates raced around like men whose hair was on fire, targeting key areas where they hope to fire up the masses, Republican and Democrat.

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For Strickland, that meant a swing through the Youngstown suburb of Boardman, the northeast Ohio city of Canton and a rally in Columbus, with the one Democrat many believe is most likely to light a fire under Democratic voters - former President Bill Clinton.

And, Sunday, in Cleveland, Strickland will campaign with President Obama; and later in the day, with Vice President Biden, in a further effort to gin up excitement among Democrats.

In Columbus late Saturday afternoon, at a Teamsters local hall, Clinton outlasted a group of college Republicans who heckled him and Strickland, waiving signs saying "Failure".

"That's a metaphor for what's wrong with this election,'' Clinton said, gesturing toward a protestor with a megaphone. "If I didn't have anything to say, I'd scream too."

Clinton told the Columbus crowd of about 600 that, during Strickland's term, Ohio increased its higher education rating from 27th to 5th in the nation, and now boasts the lowest business taxes in the Midwest.

"This man is a great governor, and you have to re-elect him,'' Clinton said. "He is a great governor and a great man."

For his part, Strickland said his GOP opponent wants to get rid of renewable energy standards - an example, the Democratic governor said, of the choice between moving "into the future or retreat back into the past."

While Clinton and Strickland were stumping for Democratic votes, Kasich - the former Columbus-area congressman and House Budget chairman - spent his entire day in the southwest corner of the state, the one area that any Republican running statewide must win and win big to seal a victory on election night.

Kasich - with his wife Karen and their 10-year-old twin daughters, Reese and Emma in tow - raced around southwest Ohio in an SUV, stopping at Republican Party get-out-the-vote centers in Butler County's Fairfield Township, Kenwood in Hamilton County, and in Lebanon, the seat of Warren County.

And, in the middle of the day, the Kasich SUV roared down I-71 to Cincinnati's riverfront park at Sawyer Point, to make a previously unscheduled stop at a tea party "Remember in November" rally.

Each one of those areas will be critical for Kasich on Tuesday.

Six years ago, it was those very areas that saw a pumped-up GOP turnout at the polls. That gave President George W. Bush the edge to win Ohio's electoral votes and a second term in the White House.

"When people come and tell you have to keep working, that's kind of insulting to you,'' Kasich told a group of about 60 volunteers at the Fairfield Township office, most of whom have been working for weeks calling thousands of like-minded voters.

"I know you have been working,'' Kasich said. "I am as grateful as a person can be for the faith and trust you have placed in me."

David Kern, the Liberty Township resident who became Butler County GOP chairman earlier this year, said he has seen "literally hundreds of people who have never been involved in politics before come forward. These people have a fire in their belly."

At all of his get-out-the-vote center stops Saturday, Kasich spoke only briefly and then lingered for a while posing for pictures with GOP volunteers before hopping in the SUV to be driven to the next stop.

At the Hamilton County GOP Victory office behind the Kenwood Towne Center on Galbraith Road, Kasich struck briefly on what has become a theme lately of his campaign - that he has been the victim of unfair attacks by Strickland and his Democratic allies.

"They are running a campaign of fear; we are running a campaign of hope,'' Kasich told the GOP volunteers at Kenwood.

The one stop Saturday that was not on the Kasich campaign's announced schedule was the trip to Sawyer Point for a short speech that closed the Cincinnati Tea Party's "Remember in November" rally, which drew about 200 people.

"I love the tea party!" he proclaimed to the applauding crowd, saying the movement "gets a rap because we don't take cues from the elite."

While Strickland is campaigning in Cleveland and Toledo Sunday with Obama and Biden, Kasich will be in the Columbus area, going door-to-door with local Republican candidates in strong GOP suburbs like Worthington and New Albany.

Monday, Kasich will return to Cincinnati for an election-eve rally at a Lunken Airport hangar with U.S. Senate candidate Rob Portman and House Minority Leader John Boehner, who will become House speaker if the GOP takes control of the House Tuesday.

Reporter Quan Truong contributed.

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