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On March 11, 2011, the ground trembled and the sea engulfed the
coastal towns in Japan's Fukushima prefecture. The earthquake and
tsunami led to a nuclear disaster which became synonymous with the
infamous Chernobyl and Three-Mile accidents.
Today, spacious luxury neighbourhoods have been dramatically
transformed into decaying ghost towns, a scene from a post-apocalypse
movie. And two years on, while the country struggles to rebuild itself,
many say the crisis is far from over.
On a stretch of lonely beach in the heavily contaminated no-go zone
surrounding the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, one man is on a lonely
mission. His seven-year-old daughter is the only person unaccounted for
after a five-storey tsunami crushed the nearby town of Okuma in March
2011. The authorities stopped looking for her long ago, but Norio Kimura
has not and never will. It is unlikely he will find his little girl and
yet he trudges on, looking for clues. Among the pieces he has found is a
shoe he says belonged to his dead child.
In a private children's hospital well away from the no-go zone, parents
are holding on tight to their little sons and daughters, hoping doctors
will not find what they are looking for - thyroid cancer.
Tests commissioned by the local authorities have discerned an
alarming spike in the incidence of thyroid cancer in Fukushima children.
Out of 200,000 children screened so far in government-ordered tests,
there are 18 confirmed cases of thyroid cancer and 25 suspected cases.
While specialists and experts are reluctant to draw a definitive link
between the tumours and the nuclear radiation that erupted from the
stricken power station, they are nonetheless deeply concerned.
Former thyroid surgeon, Akira Sugenoya says the spike in numbers
should be taken seriously. He knows the devastation radiation can have
after spending five years operating on hundreds of Chernobyl children
suffering from thyroid cancer. But Professor Geraldine Thomas, a
specialist in the molecular pathology of cancer in Imperial College
London, says the fears are unfounded and have driven Japanese mothers to
make unnecessary choices, including abortions.
It is not just the children who are a cause for concern. Farmer
Kazuya Tarukawa worries that his crops have been contaminated and fears
the radiation effects will be passed down the food chain. His crops may
have passed the government's radioactive safety limits but Tarukawa's
conscience is burning. He believes the government's safety limits are
inaccurate.
What are the long-term effects of Japan's earthquake and tsunami? 101 East investigates the next wave of pain and fear after Japan's nuclear crisis.
When on December 16, 2013, a federal judge in Washington, DC,
described the National Security Agency (NSA) mass surveillance programme
as "likely unconstitutional", journalist Glenn Greenwald called the
ruling "pure vindication" for Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor
who blew the whistle on activities that he considered un-American back
in June 2013. The ruling was a measure of the impact of a debate that,
in a matter of months, has led many to question how far governments
should be allowed to infringe upon the privacy of individuals in the
name of keeping us safe.
For this special edition of Listening Post we look at how
the media has been at the centre of the Snowden story from the
beginning. Initially, many in the mainstream media focused more on the
character of the messenger than the material he brought to light. Later,
certain sectors of the press and political life, especially in the UK,
began accusing the journalists involved in the reporting of the leaks,
of putting national security at risk.
But these reactions did not prevent a drip feed of stories around the world, orchestrated largely by Glenn Greenwald and the Guardian, but also through the Washington Post and international outlets such as Le Monde and Der Spiegel.
Our starting point is Greenwald's home in Rio de Janeiro, launchpad for
the story that has struck deep into the heart of the surveillance
state.
Talking us through this story are three journalists who know the story better than most: James Bamford, author of The Shadow Factory, who has been described by the New Yorker as "the NSA's chief chronicler"; William Arkin, who has been tracking the expansion of the security state in his Top Secret America project; and Holger Stark, a senior correspondent for Der Spiegel,
who has collaborated with Greenwald on stories with international
implications. Media lawyer, Lynn Oberlander and Amie Stepanovich from
the Electronic Privacy Information Center give us further insight.
The second half of the programme is dedicated to an interview with
one of the leading defenders of government surveillance, former NSA
general counsel, Stewart Baker. To him, Glenn Greenwald is an
"ideologue" who is using Snowden's leaks to cause "maximum possible
damage to the US".
Where the Snowden story takes us from now is anyone's guess. What is
certain is that the biggest media story of 2013 is showing no sign of
letting up in 2014. Stay tuned.
The NSA has a secret unit that produces special equipment
ranging from spyware for computers and cell phones to listening posts
and USB sticks that work as bugging devices. Here are some excerpts from
the intelligence agency's own catalog.
Editor's note: This is a sidebar to our main feature story on the NSA's Tailored Access Operations unit. You can read the main text here.
When agents with the NSA's Tailored Access Operations (TAO) division
want to infiltrate a network or a computer, they turn to their technical
experts. This particular unit of the United States intelligence service
is known internally as ANT. The acronym presumably stands for Advanced
Network Technology, because that's what the division produces -- tools
for penetrating network equipment and monitoring mobile phones and
computers. ANT's products help TAO agents infiltrate networks and divert
or even modify data wherever the NSA's usual methods won't suffice. You
can read more about the TAO division, its strengths and tricks in a SPIEGEL feature that was published in English on Sunday.
SPIEGEL has obtained an internal NSA catalog describing ANT's various
products, along with their prices. A rigged monitor cable, for example,
which allows "TAO personnel to see what is displayed on the targeted
monitor," goes for $30 (€22). An "active GSM base station" that makes it
possible to mimic the cell phone tower of a target network and thus
monitor mobile phones, is available for $40,000. Computer bugging
devices disguised as normal USB plugs, capable of sending and receiving
data undetected via radio link, are available in packs of 50, for over
$1 million.
Intelligence agencies, incidentally, are not the only ones using
these types of devices. The same kind of modified USB plug played a
role, for example, in a recent high-tech drug-smuggling case uncovered
at the port of Antwerp, Belgium.
Spying on Allies
It has become clear that the ANT arsenal isn't used exclusively to
track suspected terrorists. GSM base stations, for example, make it
possible to monitor mobile phones, such as that of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Radar systems such as the one known as "DROPMIRE" have also been used to spy on allies, for example EU representatives in Washington. And the hardware "implants" found in the ANT catalog evidently have been used, for example, to tap encrypted faxes.
NSA malware has also been used against international telecommunications companies,
such as partially state-owned Belgian company Belgacom and mobile phone
billing service provider MACH. One internal NSA document dating from
2004 describes a spyware program called "VALIDATOR" by saying that it
provides "unique backdoor access to personal computers of targets of
national interest, including but not limited to terrorist targets."
In the graphic in this article, you can browse nearly 50 pages from
the ANT catalog, sorted by where these devices would potentially be used
and purged of the names and email addresses of agents. There are
"implants," as the NSA calls them, for computers, servers, routers and
hardware firewalls. There is special equipment for covertly viewing
everything displayed on a targeted individual's monitor. And there are
bugging devices that can conduct surveillance without sending out any
measurable radio signal -- their signals are instead picked up using
radar waves. Many of these items are designed for subverting the
technical infrastructure of telecommunications companies to exploit
them, undetected, for the NSA's purposes, or for tapping into company
networks.
Spyware for mobile phones was even on offer in the 2008 version of
the catalog. A Trojan for gaining total access to iPhones, which were
still new at the time, was still in development, though its
specifications are listed in the catalog.
'Implants' for Cisco, Juniper, Dell, Huawei and HP
The catalog is not up to date. Many of the software solutions on
offer date from 2008, some apply to server systems or mobile phone
models no longer on the market, and it is very likely that the portions
SPIEGEL has seen are far from complete. And yet this version still
provides considerable insight both into the tools the NSA has had at its
disposal for years and into the agency's boundless ambitions. It is
safe to assume that ANT's hackers are constantly improving their
arsenal. Indeed, the catalog makes frequent mention of other systems
that will be "pursued for a future release."
The NSA has also targeted products made by well-known American
manufacturers and found ways to break into professional-grade routers
and hardware firewalls, such as those used by Internet and mobile phone
operators. ANT offers malware and hardware for use on computers made by
Cisco, Dell, Juniper, Hewlett-Packard and Chinese company Huawei.
There is no information in the documents seen by SPIEGEL to suggest
that the companies whose products are mentioned in the catalog provided
any support to the NSA or even had any knowledge of the intelligence
solutions. "Cisco does not work with any government to modify our
equipment, nor to implement any so-called security 'back doors' in our
products," the company said in a statement. The company has also since
commented on SPIEGEL's intitial reporting on a Cisco blog.
"We are deeply concerned with anything that may impact the integrity of
our products or our customers' networks and continue to seek additional
information," the company wrote.
A representative of Hewlett-Packard wrote that the company was not
aware of any of the information presented in the report and that it did
"not believe any of it to be true." Contacted by SPIEGEL reporters,
officials at Juniper Networks and Huawei also said they had no knowledge
of any such modifications. Meanwhile, Dell officials said the company
"respects and complies with the laws of all countries in which it
operates."
TAO's implants, in place around the world, have played a significant
role in the NSA's ability to establish a global covert network
consisting partly of the agency's own hardware, but also of other
computers subverted to serve its purposes.
Intercepting Packages and Manipulating Computers
ANT's developers often seek to place their malicious code in BIOS,
software located directly on a computer's motherboard that is the first
thing to load when the computer is turned on. Even if the hard drive is
wiped and a new operating system installed, ANT's malware continues to
function, making it possible to later add other spyware back onto the
computer.
Along with the BIOS software of computers and servers, the NSA's
hackers also attack firmware on computer hard drives, essentially the
software that makes the hardware work. The ANT catalog includes, for
example, spyware capable of embedding itself unnoticed into hard drives
manufactured by Western Digital, Seagate and Samsung. The first two of
these are American companies.
Many of these digital tools are "remotely installable," meaning they
can be put in place over the Internet. Others, however, require direct
intervention, known in NSA jargon as "interdiction." This means that
brand new products being delivered by mail are secretly intercepted, and
hardware or software implants installed on them. The package is
forwarded to its intended destination only after this has been done.
Windows Error Messages Potential Sources of Information
One example of the creativity with which the TAO spies approach their
work can be seen in a hacking method that exploits frequent errors on
Microsoft Windows. Every user of the operating system is familiar with
the window that pops up on screen when an internal problem is detected,
asking the user to report the error to Microsoft with a click of the
mouse. The window promises this communication will be "confidential and
anonymous."
For TAO specialists, these crash reports either were or continue to
be a welcome source of potential information. When TAO selects a
computer somewhere in the world as a target and enters its unique
identifiers (an IP address, for example) into the corresponding
database, intelligence agents are then automatically notified any time
the operating system of that computer crashes and its user receives the
prompt to report the problem to Microsoft.
The automated crash reports are a "neat way" to gain "passive access" to
a targeted machine, the presentation continues. Passive access means
that, initially, only data the computer sends out into the Internet is
captured and saved, but the computer itself is not yet manipulated.
Still, even this passive access to error messages provides valuable
insights into problems with a targeted person's computer and, thus,
information on security holes that might be exploitable for planting
malware or spyware on the unwitting victim's computer.
Although the method appears to have little importance in practical
terms, the NSA's agents still seem to enjoy it because it allows them to
have a bit of a laugh at the expense of the Seattle-based software
giant. In one internal graphic, they replaced the text of Microsoft's
original error message with one of their own reading, "This information
may be intercepted by a foreign sigint system to gather detailed
information and better exploit your machine." ("Sigint" stands for
"signals intelligence.")
In response to a query from SPIEGEL, NSA officials issued a statement
saying, "Tailored Access Operations is a unique national asset that is
on the front lines of enabling NSA to defend the nation and its allies."
The statement added that TAO's "work is centered on computer network
exploitation in support of foreign intelligence collection." The
officials said they would not discuss specific allegations regarding
TAO's mission.
One trail also leads to Germany. According to a document dating from
2010 that lists the "Lead TAO Liaisons" domestically and abroad as well
as names, email addresses and the number for their "Secure Phone," a
liaison office is located near Frankfurt -- the European Security
Operations Center (ESOC) at the so-called "Dagger Complex" at a US military compound in the Griesheim suburb of Darmstadt.
BY JACOB APPELBAUM, JUDITH HORCHERT, OLE REISSMANN, MARCEL ROSENBACH, JÖRG SCHINDLER AND CHRISTIAN STÖCKER WITH ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY ANDY MÜLLER-MAGUHN
The United States' military expenditures today account for about 40
percent of the world total. In 2012, the US spent some $682bn on its
military - an amount more than what was spent by the next 13 countries
combined.
Now that the war in Iraq is over and the withdrawal of US troops from
Afghanistan will be complete in 2014, the stage might therefore appear
to be set for a decrease in US defence spending. Even in Washington DC,
many have argued that the defence budget can be cut substantially and
the resulting "peace dividend" could be diverted to more pressing
domestic concerns, such as dealing with the nation's continuing economic
problems.
You can't do anything about it [because] there's too much political support.
Chuck Spinney, a defence analyst
However, a battle to ward off cuts to the Pentagon's budget has
begun and the way things are going, it seems likely that the US will
have the smallest drawdown or reduction of the military budget after a
period of conflict since World War II - in comparative terms, smaller
than after Vietnam, Korea and the end of the Cold War.
The Pentagon's joint chiefs of staff have appeared before Congress
warning of dire results from the impacts of sequestration, a requirement
to reduce defence spending by $500bn over 10 years that grew out of a
2011 budget deal between President Obama and Congress. In March, sequestration led to a $41bn cut in 2013 defence spending.
Pentagon officials, defence companies, politicians and conservative
commentators argue that defence cuts will be devastating for the
military and the economy. Others point out that after sequestration, the
Pentagon's base defence budget, which does not include additional funds
for the war in Afghanistan - will remain above the Cold War average,
and close to the highest level since World War II.
Chuck Spinney, who worked as an analyst in the US secretary of
defence's office for 26 years, believes it is difficult for the United
States to reap the benefits of a peace dividend because of the workings
of the military-industrial complex that President Dwight Eisenhower
warned about in his final 1961 address.
"It's what in Washington we call an iron triangle," Spinney says, "
you have an alliance between the private sector, the defence
contractors, the executive branch, in this case the Pentagon, and the
legislative branch."
Everyone benefits from expensive procurement projects - the Pentagon
gets weapons, defence companies get to make profits, and politicians get
re-elected by funding armaments that generate jobs for constituents and
campaign contributions from defence companies.
The result, according to Spinney, is a defence budget "that is packed
to the gills with weapons we don't need, with weapons that are
underestimated in their future costs".
The Pentagon and defence contractors low-ball costs and exaggerate
performance in the early stages of a project to "turn on the money
spigot". Then the companies engage in "political engineering," they
spread the contracts and employment for a weapon around to as many
Congressional districts as possible. They do that, Spinney says, so that
once cost-overruns and performance problems become apparent, "you can't
do anything about it [because] there's too much political support".
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is a textbook case of a Pentagon
procurement project that reveals why it is difficult to cut the defence
budget. Three versions of the F-35 are being built for the Air Force,
Navy and Marines by Lockheed Martin, the largest defence contractor in
the US. The F-35 is the most expensive military weapons programme in US
history, bigger than the Manhattan Project that produced nuclear
weapons.
The F-35 was sold as a programme that would cost $226bn for about
2,900 aircrafts. It is now seven years behind schedule, and the price
has increased almost 100 percent to $400bn for only 2,400 fighters. At
least another $1 trillion will be required for operations and
maintenance of the F-35 over its lifetime.
Pierre Sprey, an aircraft engineer and analyst who was one of Defense
Secretary Robert McNamara's 'whizz kids' in the 1960s, believes that
the project should be cancelled or "there will be so little money left
over for anything that's needed, it'll be unbelievable. They'll be
cutting people, pilots, training, everything just to pay for this
thing."
There will be so little money left over for anything that's needed, it'll be unbelievable.
Pierre Sprey, an aircraft engineer and analyst
Sprey played a key role in the design and procurement of the F-16
fighter and the A-10 ground support plane, two mainstays of the current
US Air Force fleet.
Mike Rein, the F-35 spokesman for Lockheed, says that the company saw
the period from 2012 and into 2013 as "a step of great progress for the
programme and [something which is] certainly going in the right
direction". He points to the tests of the F-35 that were completed in
2012. Sprey argues that "they're re-testing stuff they already failed.
So this isn't progress. This is like every day that you're flying,
you're finding new problems. And you're slipping the schedule worse and
worse."
The F-35 was supposed to be operational by 2012, but critics say it is unlikely to be deployed before 2017 at the earliest.
Despite a litany of engineering and performance problems, Congress
continues to support the programme. Lockheed has spread jobs and
contracts to 47 states and Puerto Rico, according to its website.
The company also seems to have an international political engineering
strategy - eight countries besides the US are involved in the
aircraft's development program - including Britain, Italy, Canada,
Australia and Turkey. Meanwhile, Israel, Singapore and Japan have plans
to buy the fighter.
According to Spinney, that "makes it even more difficult to cut the
programme because now you're creating an international incident of some
kind. That's no accident. It was done deliberately."
Pork barrel deal-making that goes on in Congress over weapons projects also makes it hard to secure a peace dividend.
According to William Hartung of the Center for International Policy,
"there will be a sort of log rolling process where you know, ‘I'll
support your weapons system if you support my weapons system.' And so
once that horse trading goes on, then it's much harder to cut anything."
Two years ago, the US army announced that it could save close to
$2.8bn by pausing production of the Abrams M1 tank. Ray Odierno, the
army chief of staff, said the M1 fleet was in good shape and no more
tanks were needed. The Pentagon does not see much use for the M1 in
confronting 21st century threats like terrorism and piracy. However,
Congress did not go along. Over the last two years, it has provided
$355bn to keep the M1 production line rolling at the Joint Systems
Manufacturing Center in Lima, Ohio.
General Dynamics, which operates the tank plant, spent $22m on
lobbying Congress over the past two years, and about $2m on campaign
contributions. According to the David Berger, the mayor of Lima, General
Dynamics also put together a study claiming that it would be more
cost-effective to keep the tank plant open now than to reopen the plant
in the future if it was needed.
The company would not send us the cost study, and declined our request for an interview.
Hartung says that Pentagon contractors have "for years used the jobs
argument to revive weapons systems that have been cancelled. To push for
things that even the Pentagon itself has not wanted." For months, a
study has been circulating in Washington, underwritten by the Aerospace
Industries Association, a major defence industry trade group. It claims
that a million jobs would be lost as a result of sequestration cuts to
defence spending.
Hartung, who has analysed the study, says it exaggerates the
potential job loss number by a factor of three, and that many of those
jobs will be replaced. He points out that spending on education, health
care, and infrastructure "can create 1.5 to 2 times as many jobs. So the
economy would be much better off spending on things other than the
Pentagon."
Several recent reports examining ways to cut Pentagon spending call
for changes in the US nuclear weapons posture. They claim that it would
produce hundreds of billions of dollars of savings in coming decades,
and the Obama administration is reportedly considering nuclear weapons
cuts. But they will be difficult to achieve.
The economy would be much better off spending on things other than the Pentagon.
William Hartung, the Center for International Policy
"People are still mired in Cold War thinking and they feel like the
more nuclear weapons we have the better," Hartung says. "And in addition
to that the nuclear weapons industry has some of the biggest strongest
companies in the military industrial complex."
Lockheed Martin builds submarines, launches ballistic missiles, and
runs the nuclear weapons laboratories; General Dynamics builds nuclear
subs; and Northrop Grumman, Boeing and Lockheed Martin are all hoping to
build the next nuclear bomber.
Chuck Hagel, the new US secretary of defence, was a member of a US
Nuclear Policy Commission sponsored by the anti-nuclear arms group
Global Zero. Headed by a former vice chairman of the US joint chiefs of
staff, the commission called for shrinking the number of US nuclear
warheads from 5,000 to 900. Commission members also thought there was
little risk in eliminating ballistic missiles from the US nuclear
delivery triad of submarines, bombers and missiles.
At his confirmation hearing, Hagel was attacked by senators whose
states have a stake in the nuclear weapons business, and subsequently
criticised by the staff of conservative think tanks like the Heritage
Foundation. Steve Bucci, the head of the Center for Foreign Policy
Studies at Heritage, believes that any change in America's nuclear
posture would be "a very foolish thing to do".
Along with two other think tanks, Heritage has launched a campaign
called Defending Defence to ward off cuts to the US defence budget. A
major reason is the potential threat they see from China, which Bucci
says "cannot be underestimated. They are trying to make themselves a
world power, not just a regional power."
In his view, the US needs to keep defence spending high, in case the Chinese become "more aggressive and hostile".
Concerns about China were reflected in the Obama administration's
announcement last year that it is re-positioning US military resources
to the Asia-Pacific region after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is
estimated that China spends about one-fifth to one-quarter as much on
its military as the US. Spinney and others see warnings about China and
the administration's so-called Asia-Pacific "pivot" as a way to bolster
defence spending in the face of pressure for cuts.
"We need a threat," Spinney says, "Al-Qaeda has sort of run out of
strength and we have to have a new threat to justify continued
spending." Spinney believes that there is little chance of a peace
dividend after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "We are going to pivot
to Asia and increase the defence budget," he says.
There are signs he could be right.
This month, President Obama released a 2014 federal budget proposal
that called for $526.6bn in funding for the department of defense. It
was widely expected that the defence total would be at least $50bn less.
The White House and the Pentagon chose to ignore the statutory
requirement for a $50bn reduction mandated by sequestration. They
apparently hope that sequestration can be overturned, and defence budget
cuts already agreed to, reversed. Instead of laying the groundwork for a
peace dividend by putting the Pentagon on a glide path to smaller
budgets, the administration's proposal projects increases in America's
base defence budget over the next five years.
TOKYO — Tens of thousands of gallons of radioactive water leaked from a large underground storage pool at Japan’s
crippled nuclear plant, and thousands more gallons could seep out
before the faulty pool can be emptied, the plant’s operator said
Saturday.
About 120 tons, or almost 32,000 gallons, of highly contaminated water
appeared to have breached the inner protective lining of the pool at the
Fukushima Daiichi plant, said the operator, Tokyo Electric Power
Company. It was unclear how much of the water had made it through two
additional layers of lining to reach soil, but radiation levels outside
the pool have risen, a sign that some water is getting out, said the
company, known as Tepco.
The leak highlights the daunting challenge of what to do with the huge
amounts of contaminated water created by makeshift cooling systems at
the plant, after a huge earthquake and tsunami knocked out its regular
cooling systems two years ago in the worst nuclear accident since
Chernobyl. Since then, Tepco has essentially been pouring water onto the
damaged reactor cores and storage ponds to keep them from overheating.
As it is used for cooling, the water becomes so contaminated that it
must be safely stored at the plant. Tepco said it was already storing
more than a quarter-million tons of radioactive water in hundreds of
large silver or blue tanks that seem to fill every available space at
the plant, or in underground pools like the leaking one. With the
decommissioning of the Fukushima plant likely to take decades, Tepco has
said it expects the amount of radioactive water to keep growing, and
possibly more than double within three years. The company has said it is
building more storage space and new filtering facilities to clean the
water.
The company said the leak appeared to be the biggest since the early
months after the March 2011 disaster, when leaks allowed contaminated
water to flow into the nearby Pacific Ocean. Tepco said that this time,
it did not expect any of the toxic water to reach the sea, since the
pool is half a mile from the coast.
Still, Tepco said it had begun pumping the remaining 13,000 tons of
water out of the faulty pool and into a similar pool. The pools are like
large ponds dug into the ground, protected by multiple layers of
plastic sheets and covered with dirt.
Emptying the damaged pool could take five more days, the company said,
during which time an additional 47 tons, or about 12,000 gallons, could
leak.
A version of this article appeared in print on April 7, 2013, on page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: Nuclear Plant In Japan Leaks Toxic Water
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning, everybody. This morning I want to say a
few words about tropical storm Isaac and the steps that we’re taking to
keep people safe and minimize the damage.
I just got an update from Secretary Napolitano, Administrator Fugate,
the head of FEMA, and Dr. Rick Knabb, the director of the National
Hurricane Center, on preparations that underway in the Gulf. This storm
isn’t scheduled to make landfall until later today, but at my direction
FEMA has been on the ground for over a week working with state and
local officials in areas that could be affected -- from Puerto Rico and
the U.S. Virgin Islands to Florida, and more recently, Louisiana,
Alabama and Mississippi.
Yesterday I approved a disaster declaration for the state of Louisiana
so they can get the help that they need right away, particularly around
some of the evacuations that are taking place. And right now, we
already have response teams and supplies ready to help communities in
the expected path of the storm.
As we prepare for Isaac to hit, I want to encourage all residents of
the Gulf Coast to listen to your local officials and follow their
directions, including if they tell you to evacuate. We’re dealing with a
big storm and there could be significant flooding and other damage
across a large area. Now is not the time to tempt fate. Now is not the
time to dismiss official warnings. You need to take this seriously.
And finally, I want to thank everyone who has been working around the
clock to get ready for Isaac. The hardest work, of course, is still
ahead. And as President, I’ll continue to make sure that the federal
government is doing everything possible to help the American people
prepare for and recover from this dangerous storm. And as we get
additional updates from the Hurricane Center as well as from FEMA in
terms of activities on the ground, we’ll be providing continuous updates
both at the local and the national level.
