Digitized US Foreign Policy Decisions.

The University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center, is the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions that have been declassified and edited for publication. They provide quality digital resources from its academic libraries to UW faculty, staff and students, citizens of the state, and scholars at large. The series is produced by the State Department’s Office of the Historian and printed volumes are available from the Government Printing Office.

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Office of the Historian
The Government Printing Office

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Bush Calls For Easier Wiretap Rules

Mr. Bush is calling for Congress to revise FISA in order to ease restrictions on the government's secret communications surveillance of terror suspects. Bush is urging legislators to pass FISA reform at the same time that Alberto Gonzales is being accused of lying regarding the firing of US attorneys and Mr. Gonzales handling of the government's secret warrantless wiretap program to monitor suspect electronic communications to and from the United States without first obtaining warrants from a special secret FISA court.

The White House's proposed reform would loosen restrictions on tapping into emails, phone calls and other communications inside the country and possibly allow the US to freely tap into international communications routed through the United States. It will also protect telecommunications companies who cooperate in the effort. Several major companies have been sued for helping with the wiretaps.

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Credit Triggers.

Companies are now paying to have real-time updates on your credit report so that they can recover uncollected debt. Experian sells your credit history to collection agencies that constantly monitor your credit activity and if you start to pay off your credit and are getting back on your feet, an electronic service lets everyone you owe know when you're making payments so that the companies you owe can jump on the bandwagon.

I also know that credit card companies monitor credit reports in real time and the moment something is reported such as a late payment to another account they jack the customer's rate up to sometimes over 30%.

We all know credit reports are full of errors and allowing the credit card company to double or triple the customer's rate of interest based on one blip on someone's credit report is beyond criminal.

In an effort to help financial services organizations collect on large volumes of uncollected debt,Experian(R), a global information solutions provider, today announced the launch of Collection Triggers(SM). Collection Triggers is a robust and flexible collections solution that monitors a company's portfolio of collections accounts. When new information on one of these accounts becomes available, indicating the possibility of recovering the debt, the organization is notified within 24 hours and can then resume efforts to contact the consumer and collect the outstanding debt.

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