The H1N1 virus itself has claimed less lives than a normal flu outbreak would be expected to kill, but the architecture of martial law in the form of draconian measures readied to combat a pandemic has been firmly locked into place.

Health authorities are now toning down their apocalyptic predictions of a swine flu pandemic, after the virus proved to be milder than originally feared, but officials are w

Alan Johnson said that the lesson of past pandemics was that initially mild outbreaks had been followed by something "much more serious".
His comments came as the number of confirmed cases of swine flu in Britain rose to 18, including two children, with as many as 716 possible patients now being tested.

Meanwhile the Health Protection Agency confirmed that a Mexican

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Ever-increasing internet use is causing a drain on energy resources and threatens the future of Google and YouTube, according to experts.

They warn that as people become more reliant on computers and search engines, more power will be required to run websites which could lead to power cuts which cost millions of pounds in lost business

Top Democrats advising President Obama on his first Supreme Court vacancy are urging him not to pick a sitting judge.

"I would like to see more people from outside the judicial monastery - somebody who has had some real-life experience,"Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.)told ABC's "This Week."

Picking up on the outsider theme, brand-new Democrat Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsyl

The US disease prevention center claims the newly-spread potentially-fatal strain of swine flu virus may have originated from California.

The Centers for Disease Control and Protection (CDC) said on Saturday that the state preceded Mexico, the alleged source of the virus, in reporting cases of the affliction.

"As we do our investigations here in the US, we may find that there were cases earlier," CDC spokesman, Scott Bryan was quoted by AFP as saying.

As early as March,

Is this the change you really voted for? President Obama has only been in office for two months. Now we have HR 1388. The Bill was sponsored by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) with 37 others. The Bill was introduced to the floor of the House of Representatives where both Republicans and Democrats voted 321-105 in favor. Next it goes to the Senate for a vote and then on to President Obama.
This bill’s title is called “Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education” (GIVE).

It’s not just right-wing “radical” groups on the Department of Homeland Security’s black list anymore.

Another embarrassing Homeland Security memo (pdf here) detailing those the agency believes are extremists has leaked. The first was sent to police and warned of radic

In little-noticed comments Thursday, the former White House counsel for President Richard Nixon John Dean said Thursday that former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice may have unwittingly admitted to a criminal conspiracy when questioned about torture by a group of student videographers at Stanford.

Rice told students at Stanford that she didn’t authorize torture, she merely forwarded the authorization for it. Dean, who became a poster child for whistleblowing after aidin

Officers were last night accused of abusing their powers after it emerged just one per cent of around 124,000 "suspects" targeted in 2007/08 were arrested - and only a fraction of those were for terrorism related offences.

Nearly 90 per cent of the searches were carried out in London by the Metropolitan Police, which saw a 266 per cent increase

Ministers want to farm out a Big Brother database of everyone's emails, phone calls and internet use to private companies who will be given the job of storing the data on behalf of the state.

The £2bn cost of the plans could add millions of pounds to phone and internet bills to help pay for new systems to collect and sort private information.

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, said the Government had rejected the idea of a centralised database because it would impinge on p