In the early morning hours of March 13, 1964, a 28-year-old woman by the name of Kitty Genovese was returning home after working late at her job. She was less than 35 yards from her own apartment in an upscale area of Queens, New York, when she was attacked and stabbed by an assailant.. She screamed, lights came on, and a man shouted at the assailant from his window, causing him to withdraw. The assailant ran and hid, then returned within minutes and stabbed Ms. Genovese again. There were more screams, and lights again went on in the apartments all around, and Kitty's assailant again fled. Ms. Genovese managed to get to her feet after this second attack, and stagger to her doorway. A bus passed by but didn't stop--even though she must have been bleeding profusely--and the assailant returned for the third time. After all, no one was seriously assisting the helpless young woman. His third attack was fatal.

Murder is far from unusual in our country. In this case, however, thirty eight individuals were witness to the murder from the safety of their apartments. No doubt many more saw something from the bus that passed, yet only one of Kitty's neighbors called out. Later, too much later, only one neighbor called the police. That call was placed after first calling and conferring with a friend for many long minutes about whether he should "get involved." The police arrived very promptly, too late, within two minutes of this belated call.

All but two of Kitty Genovese's neighbors remained completely silent and took no action whatsoever. Had any one of them been more forceful in rendering assistance of any sort, Kitty Genovese would probably have lived. But, thirty six of Kitty's neighbors weighed the costs of "getting involved" against her life . . . and decided to let her die.

Ms. Genovese's neighbors defined themselves with their inaction and their silence, and clearly demonstrated the real result of their presumed moral training for all to witness. Now, we define ourselves as a nation in exactly the same way.

Now is our time to demonstrate as an entire Nation the result of our presumed moral training --- and we are failing utterly. Americans by the millions stand silently by as our government commits mass murder in our name. Unjustified war, mass murder, and the taking of assets by force is clearly on a moral level lower than robbing a convenience store and shooting a few customers in the process. It is the highest of high crimes both domestically and internationally. It is unquestionably a war crime as defined first at Nuremberg and later at the United Nations. Yet, the silence of Americans is deafening.

Even though those who supported and continue to support Mr. Bush can be worked into a mouth-frothing rage over the personal peccadillos of a previous president, they remain completely silent about our current one's many murders. The representative of the American people, our representative, George W. Bush has murdered far more innocent children than Osama bin Laden has murdered adults. But the citizens supporting these atrocities do not seem to care about this little detail, and add insult to the deep injury they have done the rest of us by laying claim to moral high ground at the same time they sponsor and support these murders. And yet, very few Americans try to correct them. Thus the people of the United States define themselves with their silence as completely lacking any practical morality, just as Kitty Genovese's thirty six neighbors defined their selves.

We have earned the outrage and genuine disgust of the entire world with our inaction, our silence, and our clearly demonstrated absence of morality. Justifiably so, because if we would simply get involved and raise our voices these murders could not happen. Even now we could redeem ourselves partially before the world by shipping those directly responsible for the atrocities and murder off to The Hague for trial. Doing so would demonstrate our intention to participate in the world as law-abiding citizens, and we would thus reclaim some semblance of belated honor for ourselves. But we won't do any such thing. To do so would force us to admit that those Americans who have remained silent for so many years are also guilty. We thus remain an entire nation of Kitty Genovese's neighbors: despicable, dishonored, immoral, and silent.

How did we get ourselves into such a horrible situation?

It did not happen overnight, but had its seeds in the very founding of our country. Monied interests have, throughout our history, used their money to influence politicians in their favor, and their favor has always been about money and power. Under the law, a corporation may not be a charitable organization without violating its duty to provide a profit for its stockholders. Under the law, any corporate campaign contribution must be made with the expectation of a return on that investment. A politician thus accepts money from a corporation or special interest with the clear understanding that he must either pay this money back with favorable legislation or pay it back directly from the public treasury --- with enormous interest . This system has now evolved to the point where no politician can survive without the active support of the corporate interests that support his campaigns, and this fact argues strongly that the great majority of our current politicians are corrupt.

Corporate interests are selfish and insular, and proceed with their plutocratic programs without any regard for consequences to the public as a whole. Should they be otherwise leaves those in charge liable to the stockholders for violation of their fiduciary responsibilities. The United States government is now completely controlled by corporate interests via their campaign contributions and these corporations compete among themselves for the spoils we provide. They resemble parasites with no regard for the well-being of their host. So our economy is being trashed to facilitate the profits of a few, and we are now murdering innocent individuals in Iraq so that Haliburton and others gain riches well beyond what they could accrue during peaceful times. And the rest of us will continue to pay the bill with our treasure, the future of our children, and with our blood.

There is no apparent limit to the horrors perpetrated by corporate greed. The mass murder of millions upon millions of innocent babies has been going on for decades to insure corporate profits, and we forced the world to accept these murders and do nothing about them --- but not in the name of the corporations who profit, but in our name.

Hyperbole, you think? I am very much afraid not.

In the late sixties and early seventies I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa. At that time companies that produced baby formula advertised widely in third-world countries with messages designed to convince expectant mothers that their formula was the "modern way" to raise an infant, implying that mothers breastmilk was "old fashioned" and inadequate. To promote their products, companies such as Nestle' would give a new mother enough formula to feed her baby for six weeks as a free trade sample. This was long enough to dry up the mother's own milk and make her completely dependent on baby formula for her child. The baby formula from Nestle' and others was expensive. To try and save money ignorant mothers with no knowledge of bacterial infections would try to extend their baby's formula with water --- which was often contaminated. Bottle-fed babies have no immune system to speak of, they normally get the antibodies for that with their mother's milk. The result was predictable: the babies so treated would sicken and die.

This marketing practice and its result was noted by the United Nations World Health Organization. After an estimated one million babies had died, the issue of whether the practice should be condemned was brought to a vote at the United Nations. All the nations on this earth that were present at the United Nations that day voted to condemn the practice --- except one. On this important day the citizens of one greedy and immoral nation sent the unequivocal message to the rest of the world that killing babies for profit was less reprehensible to them than interfering with the right of the killers to make a profit. American citizens, via their representative at the United Nations, voted against the measure, and thus effectively killed it. (1)

All of the major papers outside of the United States carried the news of our despicable vote, but it was universally absent from the corporate media here. Most Americans I have told this story to have never heard it before, and many simply refuse to believe it. But that is how Americans have been represented by our government to the world . . . as killers of babies for profit. If your baby had died because of this practice how would you feel about the people who simply stood by and allowed it to happen? Does it anger you to know that you are personally responsible for this practice? Because by our silence, our studied ignorance, we most definitely are responsible.

We have forced the rest of the world to allow this practice since 1981, very much against their will. This translates to roughly twenty nine million dead babies that we are responsible for, and many, many more that died before the U.N. vote that the manufacturers of these products are responsible for.

Can you seriously believe that our lone vote in the United Nations was anything but bought and paid for by corporate interests that feared a loss of profits, and abhorred the precedence of international control on those profits? It certainly had nothing to do with any moral stance, and it surely did not promote the interests of the people of the United States, who are generally decent albeit entirely too passive and quiet. If our corporations are willing to kill defenseless babies by the millions for profit, what else are they capable of? Who have they angered in the process? Who's corporate profits are we now paying for with our blood and treasure as those effected fight back or seek revenge?

You can hardly call yourself a human if you are not outraged at being put into the position of supporting and being personally responsible for the mass murder of babies for profit, and the killing of tens of thousands of innocent people in Iraq and too many other places around the world. Which is exactly the position our government has put us all into. And the horror our corporate media know you would feel if you knew the extent of the atrocities done in our name is exactly why most remain completely ignorant. Our corporate media don't want you to think about such things. Their main job is to keep you passive, compliant, and consuming. And they are obviously very good at that job.

The union of corporate and government interests that has been accomplished with corporate control of political funding and public sources of information has led to the looting of our treasury and the sacking of our honor. As citizens, we pay for this system with our moral standing, our treasure, and our blood every day that it exists. We have become the battered spouses of our own government, cringing quietly in a corner as the blows rain down, wondering why we deserve such ill treatment. Ladies and Gentlemen, it is time to stop our passive acceptance of this abuse and act like honorable and moral human beings. We must search for and find our backbones so that we can cast off this despicable silence and start to scream our outrage, for it is our only hope. This is our government, we are not their serfs. For our honor, for our future, for the future of our children, we MUST FIGHT BACK!

The key to this fight is the link between campaign contributions and resulting legislation. These contributions are Bribes by any definition of the word, and this fact is their weakness. All States exempt campaign contributions from their Bribery statutes in one way or another, but the very fact that they must be exempted points a revealing finger at their nature. We must stand up and call these Bribes by their rightful name, insist that they not be exempted, and rid ourselves of the practice. This web site is merely a tool to be used in this fight. Ultimately it will be citizens like you that make it work, or not. Please study it carefully.

The immediate cause of the turmoil at the World Bank is the appointment of an adviser to Mr Wolfowitz with close ties to the Republican party as the new director of the internal watchdog that investigates suspected fraud and staff misconduct. His choice has raised questions about the selection of someone so close to the president and whether this was the best person for such a sensitive post. But the ensuing strife has revealed widespread unhappiness among senior bank staff and executive directors over Mr Wolfowitz's management style and performance.

Following his arrival, Mr Wolfowitz made clear his intention to streamline the bank's management structure. His predecessor had appointed five managing directors, four of whom had already left. There were more than 30 vice-presidents below managing director level, whose ranks he planned to thin out.

The fifth managing director left late last year, as did the highly regarded general counsel. Only now is Mr Wolfowitz close to appointing new managing directors, who are unlikely to be in place until the summer - a year after his arrival. Meanwhile power has gravitated to his immediate circle - mainly Republican stalwarts, prompting agitation among the career staff.

Nor has Mr Wolfowitz set a new intellectual agenda for his presidency. Instead, he has appeared more concerned about being seen to respond to criticisms on Capitol Hill over allegations of corruption - allegations that bank staff often see as witch-hunts against them for the sins of those in the countries where the bank operates.

Mr Wolfowitz can reasonably say that he wanted time to assess priorities for the organisation and that 2005 was a year of heavy commitments, such as the Group of Eight summit at Gleneagles. But as time has passed, authority has drained upwards from those beneath him in the hierarchy to his clique of advisers. Decision-making has slowed - made worse by his tendency to take a long time making up his mind.

When Mr Wolfowitz was appointed, the Financial Times urged him to give the bank greater focus and to overhaul its management. He cannot achieve this in an organisation with 10,000 staff operating in more than 100 countries by relying on a handful of trusted aides from his own country. Unless he moves quickly to appoint a team representative of the shareholders that is credible to the staff, his presidency risks ending in paralysis and disappointment.

Funding for the project, more than $369,000, was made possibly by a school safety grant through the National Institute of Justice, a research branch of the U.S.
Department of Justice. "The idea is to improve school safety for the children," said Phil Meara, superintendent, Freehold Borough School District, on Monday. "We had a swipe-card system that operated the doors, but the technology was obsolete."

Installation of the iris technology began in October. The system is now operational after two months of testing. The Teacher-Parent Authorization Security System (T-PASS), a software application developed by Eyemetric Identity Systems, was installed on the front office computers at each of the three schools.

It took software engineers about nine months to develop the platform. Two technicians were hired by the school board to provide IT support for maintenance and updates to the platform. School participation in the 18-month study is voluntary.

Parents who have children that attend any of the three schools in the district, teachers who instruct students attending classes at the locations, and staff employees are assigned access rights. Each child can have up to four adults approved in the system.

The platform provides entry-access controls, visitor management and the capability to scan a driver's license from 50 states and automatically import the information into the database. "The file size created when the camera takes a picture of the iris to match it against records in the database is about 512 kilobytes," said Raymond Bolling, co-founder of Eyemetric Identity Systems, a spin-off of New Jersey Business Systems Inc., which specialized in biometrics identification.

The system takes a digital photograph of the iris, the color portion of the eye, each time a parent, teach or administrative and school employee gains access to the school. "The algorithm can map out up to 242 unique points in the iris," Bolling said. "A good fingerprint patch is anywhere from seven to 22 points."

The algorithms for iris scanning are licensed through a LG Electronics from Iridian Technologies Inc. The software keeps a log and digital record or any visitor entering the school, which replaces a four-column paper spreadsheet.

Global biometric revenues are projected to grow from $2.1 billion in 2006 to $5.7 billion in 2010, which includes iris scanning, according International Biometric Group. Iris scanning is emerging, albeit slowly. The research firm said iris recognition revenues are estimated to exceed $250 million by 2008.

Eyemetric developed and deployed the iris recognition system using IrisAccess iris recognition cameras and software from LG Electronics, and Tailgate Detection Alarm Recording (T-DAR) anti-tailgating system from Newton Security. The hardware supporting the application is Hewlett-Packard & Co.'s ProLiant DL140 servers, along with HP dx5150 desktop PCs with Advanced Micro Device (AMD) processor, and Access Point for wireless networking from ProCurve Networking.

The family member has since given her notice to quit the bank.

I found the news alarming and decided to find out more myself. On a trip to my bank here in Houston, I remarked to a young bank employee (who’s new there), "well I guess you’ve been told all that stuff by the manager and the Homeland Security about what to tell your customers" - and to my amazement, the young woman came right out and said yes she’d been through all that, then whispered to me across the counter, "but we’re not supposed to talk about - I could lose my job."

Why haven’t you heard more about this?

First of all, since maybe only banks’ upper management is privy to the new "rules", the information doesn’t trickle down so easily.

Also keep in mind that employees have been told NOT to say anything about this, that it’s a matter of National Security (with an allusion toward arrest if they do). They face possibly losing their job too. Another reason is that bank employees may not think it’s important, or they believe they’re a unique part of the effort towards curtailing "terrorism" and helping America’s internal defenses.

It is also important to realize that not everyone’s a writer, or Internet savvy - even if the employees moved beyond their banks’ warnings & constraints, most people don’t know how to get their experience published on the Web in the public domain - it’s a mystery they are not familiar with so you never hear their story.

How to get the information yourself:

Visit your bank, ask a few well-worded questions, being careful not to arouse suspicion - if that doesn’t work, talk to friends and other family members - maybe they’ve heard something - or as a last resort, just point blank call the bank manager in private and demand to know what’s all this business with the Homeland Security deciding what I can have from my safe deposit box - tell me now or I’ll close my account today.

I’ll bet if you put forth the effort you’ll get the answers you want.

What should you do with this information?

I’m not trying to "scare" anyone - just providing some news I think is relevant to Americans. Each must find his way through this dark forest - you will do with this information what best suits you and your loved ones - me personally, I see this as another indicator of how the criminals in charge over our lives intend to fleece U.S. citizens completely then dispose of them as only refuse.

Be prepared.

"We're playing 'Hamlet' without Hamlet here," said Fidell, an attorney in private practice who teaches military law at American University in Washington. He also represented news organizations in their attempts to open pretrial hearings in Welshofer's prosecution.

Welshofer is charged with murder in the 2003 death of Republican Guard Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush at a detention camp in western Iraq.

Prosecutors say Mowhoush was stuffed headfirst in a sleeping bag and bound with electrical cord, then suffocated with Welshofer sitting atop his chest.

The defense contends a heart condition caused Mowhoush's death, and that Welshofer's commanders had approved the interrogation technique.

In 2004, the CIA said one of its officers may have been involved in Mowhoush's death, but the agency refused to elaborate. Last August, the Washington Post reported that documents it examined said Mowhoush was severely beaten by a CIA-sponsored Iraqi paramilitary group two days before he died.

Testimony at Welshofer's court-martial this past week confirmed that Mowhoush was indeed beaten by Iraqis two days before he died. But the witness, Chief Warrant Officer Todd Sonnek, did not identify the Iraqis.

Then defense lawyer Frank Spinner at one point questioned a witness whose identity is so secret that he was shielded from reporters and others by a green tarp suspended from the ceiling. The witness had said he was alarmed when Welshofer told him he thought the Army's interrogation guidelines were being broken every day.

"And you didn't report it to the CIA?" Spinner asked. The attorney then stopped himself and quickly apologized to the judge.

Welshofer testified that when he left the room where he was questioning Mowhoush, he "noticed other people in the hallway" and that they took control of the session.

Welshofer said the Iraqis slapped and pushed Mowhoush, and the session escalated into a beating with rubber hoses after Mowhoush and one of the Iraqis recognized each other.

During his testimony, Welshofer said commanders offered little guidance on how to question detainees.

He said he received an e-mail from his unit's commanders saying there were no rules for interrogations because officials still had not determined how to classify detainees. The e-mail, sent as the insurgency was growing more lethal, claimed officers were "tired of taking casualties and that the gloves were coming off," he said.

And despite the lower marks the firm received when state officials first reviewed the bids, staff members from Texas' state agencies tapped to choose a new lobbyist eventually awarded the firm a $15,000-a-month contract to lobby Congress.

"Cassidy is the best fit for Texas," Office of State-Federal Relations associate director David Pagan said in a May 25, 2004 e-mail to staff. "Firm is (the) leader in DC on approps. (acquiring federal funding)."

The firm now is under fire from Texas House Democrats because of the close ties between Cassidy senior vice president Todd Boulanger and Abramoff, who has pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiracy, tax evasion and mail fraud.

Seven Texas House Democrats also sent a letter to Gov. Rick Perry last Friday demanding that Cassidy's contract be cancelled, because the firm has not bothered to reach out to them.

Perry spokeswoman Kathy Walt said Tuesday that, even though Cassidy was not the top scorer in the bidding process initially, it rose to the top of the list after in-person interviews with the state's selection committee, and after the firm's references were checked.

Walt also said that Cassidy & Associates was not hired to lobby Texas' Democrats, but to reach out-of-state Democrats.

Neither Cassidy & Associates nor any of the other competing firms responded to calls for comment Tuesday. State-Federal Relations executive director Ed Perez did not take questions from a reporter directly, but was in contact with Walt to answer questions.

Ironically, getting more Democrats involved in the state's lobbying efforts was one of the main stated reasons the state hired Cassidy, according to the documents.

In 2004, the Texas Office of State-Federal Relations had terminated its contract with lobbying firm Piper Rudnick, LLP, according to the documents. Piper Rudnick had brought some prominent Democrats to the state's lobbying team.

The state also has a standing, $15,000-a-month lobbying contract with The Federalist Group, which employed embattled former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's former chief of staff, Drew Maloney.

More political balance was needed, the state's office in Washington reasoned in a Dec. 10, 2004 memo. "An additional firm can help ensure (Texas) maintains a bipartisan strategy on certain issues."

The memo was an after-the-fact explanation of how the state had selected Cassidy & Associates, which had beat out competitors that were initially given higher scores, based on seven criteria, including experience, access and quality of prior jobs performed.

"The Federalist Group is seen primarily as a Republican firm," the memo continued. "Cassidy & Associates is headed by a Democrat founding name partner, and is considered to be a bipartisan firm."

The Cassidy team assembled to tackle Texas' needs, had at least two Democrats on staff but became more Republican over time.

The assembled team had Boulanger in the lead. Boulanger had worked closely with Abramoff in a previous job at Greenberg-Traurig, a firm where Abramoff had been a partner.

In its proposal, Cassidy & Associates said Boulanger "has exceptional ties to Republican leaders and can provide access to a broad range of offices."

In a supporting e-mail sent in July, 2004, Boulanger told Pagan, "I don't want to inundate you with names, so here are (a) few from some of the people that would likely be working on the TX team should we get the contract." He then listed a deep bench of access, including Rove and Joshua Bolton, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Boulanger's initial support team included two staffers with Democratic backgrounds and four from Republican offices. By 2005, the team included seven Republicans and two Democrats.

When Cassidy initially competed for the contract, it was one of 17 firms. Those proposals were then rated by a panel of two State-Federal Relation staff members and a staffer from the Texas Department of Transportation.

The panel ranked each proposal based 75 percent on how well the company met the state's criteria and 25 percent on cost. The panel submitted its final recommendation to Perez, who then made his recommendation to Office of State-Federal Relations' Advisory Policy Board, which included Perry, Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick, and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. Both Dewhurst and Craddick have said they had no role in selecting Cassidy & Associates.

Although Perry reviews the contracts, his approval is not required, Walt said. "He certainly is aware of who we hired," Walt said. "But decisions are made more at the staff level."

The assessment in 2004, though, did not initially favor Cassidy, which was ranked fourth. Two of the firms ranked ahead of it would have charged Texas between $300 and $833 less per month than Cassidy's initial offer of $15,833 a month. (Once the contract was signed, Cassidy's fee was down to $15,000 plus expenses.)

After the interview rounds in May, the panel started checking references to the remaining firms. Boulanger sent his email about access to Rove that July. By December, after calls had been made to all the firms' contacts, Cassidy stood out, and was recommended.

Tara Copp writes for the Austin American-Statesman. E-mail: tcopp AT statesman.com

The accident occurred about 8 p.m. on I-95 a couple of miles north of the Palm Coast Parkway exit.

The driver of the tanker was identified as Wayne McNeill, 39, of Palatka. He was airlifted to Halifax Medical Center and was listed in fair condition Tuesday morning.

The accident caused some damage to the road surface, said Florida Department of Transportation spokesman Steve Homan.

"It damaged what is called the structure course," Homan said. "It's a base course, not the top layer." The incident occurred on a portion of the road that is being widened and state transportation workers used paving equipment that was stationed nearby to make the road smooth enough to drive on, Homan said.

State road crews were expected to make further repairs Tuesday night, he said.

According to a report from the Florida Highway Patrol, the driver of the tanker truck was in the outside lane when an unidentified car in the inside lane tried to make a lane change. The tanker driver went onto the shoulder and then tried to get back onto the highway when the truck overturned on its right side and exploded into flames.

The only information available about the other vehicle is that it was a brown car, according to the FHP report. The incident remains under investigation.

The fire was extinguished about 9:30 p.m., and authorities opened one lane of traffic in the northbound direction.

Southbound lanes on I-95 were closed for nearly six hours. Southbound traffic north of the Flagler County line was diverted to U.S. 1 in St. Johns County and then back to I-95 just north of Ormond Beach.

In October 2004, documents that the FBI and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) provided in the lawsuit revealed the government has "two primary principles" but no "hard and fast" rules for deciding who gets put on the secret list.

The 301 pages of redacted (i.e. edited or with portions blacked out) documents, lodged in federal court in San Francisco in 2004, also said the secret list grew from 16 names the day of the Sept. 11 terror attacks to 594 by mid-December 2001. The list now is believed to carry thousands of names.

The documents were released as part of a lawsuit brought on behalf of Rebecca Gordon and Janet Adams, who co-publish a newsletter critical of the Bush administration. They were stopped while checking in for a San Francisco flight to Boston three years ago and detained until cleared for travel.

They and the ACLU invoked the Freedom of Information Act to demand that the government explain how people get on and off watchlists.

The FBI did not immediately comment on the settlement, and the TSA did not immediately return messages.

The agencies at first balked at supplying any information to the ACLU, but U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, after privately reviewing secret government data, said the government was making "frivolous claims" about why it could not.

The ACLU decided to seek compensation, allowed under the FOIA, after it obtained all the information it believed it could get from the government.

One heavily redacted document says getting on a list is guided by two "primary" principles: Whether various intelligence agencies view an individual as a "potential threat to U.S. civil aviation," and whether the agency requesting a listing has provided enough information to identify the person to be flagged at check-in.

The documents disclosed that people are regularly removed from lists if the FBI is convinced they are not a threat.

Intellpuke: "I feel obliged to note that a Mr. Moore, who co-authored the book "Bush and His Brain", about Bush and Karl Rove, is still on the no-fly list and has never received an adequate explanation for why he was put on the list.

The suspects, walking around after a scheduled half-day of school, videotaped themselves before the attack as they discussed how they were going to assault a random victim, then took turns holding the camera during the beating, said police Lt. John Walker.

"They were talking about (how) it was an early day (from school), the weather was nice, and what they were going to do," Walker said. "In the beginning, it's almost like a documentary."

"Just pick somebody out, anybody out," one student said to another on the video, according to Walker. He said there were about two minutes of taping before the assault.

Police identified one of the suspects arrested Monday as Tyrez Osbourne, 18. The other, ages 17 and 16, were not identified because of their ages. After their arrests, all four were expelled from University City High School, district officials said.

Osbourne's mother said he was an innocent bystander who happened to be nearby and caught on tape.

"He ain't that kind of guy," she told The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The father was arrested for gun offenses, and court documents outlined an extensive criminal record. The boy also was charged, but authorities said that was done only so he could be helped by juvenile authorities.

The boy had the weapon in a backpack and was playing with it when it went off, said Montgomery County police spokesman Derek Baliles.

The girl was taken to a Washington hospital with a wound that was not considered life-threatening.

There were six children at the For Kids We Care Inc. day care center at the time of the shooting, authorities said. Police said the boy had found the gun, a .38-caliber Taurus revolver, in a container in his father's closet.

Police charged the 56-year-old father with leaving a firearm in a location accessible by an unsupervised minor, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and possession of a firearm by a felon.

Montgomery County State's Attorney Douglas Gansler declined to give any details of the charges against the boy because of his age. The boy was to have his case reviewed by the Department of Juvenile Services, according to a police news release.

Neither youngster's name was released.

The father has an extensive criminal record dating to the 1960s, according to court documents. It includes several convictions of assault with intent to maim and gun charges. He could be sentenced to five years in prison if convicted of being a felon in possession of a handgun and three years on the delinquency of a minor charge, authorities said.

The documents said there were "numerous" other weapons in the father's apartment that his son had access to. The man was in custody and could not immediately be reached for comment.

Gansler said the boy knowingly brought the gun to the day care center and that the charges filed against him were in the "best interest of the 8-year-old to make sure he gets the help he needs" from the state.

"I just want answers," said Battisti, 41, a single mother of four. "I had the operation to feel better, not get sick."

Battisti joins a burgeoning list of potential victims.

Authorities believe two men paid off funeral homes so they could take bone and skin from the dead without their families' knowledge. Worse, some body parts came from elderly people and perhaps victims of infectious diseases, and the paperwork was doctored to say they had been younger and healthier, investigators say.

The Brooklyn district attorney's office has opened a criminal case focusing on scores of funeral homes in the New York City area and hundreds of looted bodies, including that of "Masterpiece Theatre" host Alistair Cooke. No arrests have been made.

At the same time, the Food and Drug Administration is trying to trace the tissue, which was sold to medical facilities across the country and in Canada.

Both the FDA and hospital officials, while suggesting certain patients should get tested for viruses as a precaution, insisted the risk of becoming ill from tainted tissue is minuscule.

But some of those patients are not comforted, said Battisti's attorney, Jeffrey S. Lisabeth.

"It really freaks them out," he said.

Also disturbed are families who recently learned of evidence that their dead relatives were secretly carved up before being buried or cremated.

A lawsuit filed in Brooklyn accuses a now-defunct New Jersey tissue bank, Biomedical Tissue Services, of stealing parts from a 43-year-old woman who died of ovarian cancer in 2003. The business allegedly forged a signature on a consent form, and listed the cause of death as head trauma.

Authorities also found paperwork indicating Cooke's bones had been removed by the tissue bank before he was cremated. Cooke died of cancer last year at 95, but authorities say documents listed the cause of death as heart attack and lowered his age to 85.

The operators of the tissue bank have denied any wrongdoing.

Battisti's ordeal began in December, when North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System warned her and 41 other patients that they were at risk for HIV, hepatitis B and C and syphilis. The letters explained that tissue products used for surgical repairs came from body parts that were removed without permission or medical safeguards.

Doctors implanted bone in Battisti's back to relieve pain from a car accident injury. Her lawyer said a recent blood test indicated she had been exposed to syphilis; she is awaiting the results of further tests.

The hospital's attorney, Anthony Sola, argued the tissue banks were responsible for screening and sterilizing their products, which arrive at hospitals ready for use in sealed containers. He also claimed anyone getting syphilis from a bone graft would be "a medical first."

Unfounded allegations, he warned, could "create undue fear in patients who need treatment."

Both Lisabeth and the attorney who filed the lawsuit in Brooklyn said they have been contacted by other lawyers and possible victims nationwide.

"The number of potential plaintiffs is virtually limitless," Lisabeth said.