Bush's mystery bulge

[Guest guest]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5035316-114319,00.html

 

 

Bush's mystery bulge

 

The Bush administration insisted on a condition that no cameras be

placed behind the candidates. An official for the Commission on

Presidential Debates, which set up the lecterns and microphones on the

Miami stage, said the condition was indeed real, the result of

negotiations by both campaigns. Yet that didn't stop Fox from setting

up cameras behind Bush and Kerry. The official said that " microphones

were mounted on lecterns, and the commission put no electronic devices

on the president or Senator Kerry. " When asked about the bulge on

Bush's back, the official said, " I don't know what that was. "

 

So what was it? Jacob McKenna, a spyware expert and the owner of the

Spy Store, a high-tech surveillance shop in Spokane, Washington,

looked at the Bush image on his computer monitor. " There's certainly

something on his back, and it appears to be electronic, " he said.

McKenna said that, given its shape, the bulge could be the inductor

portion of a two-way push-to-talk system. McKenna noted that such a

system makes use of a tiny microchip-based earplug radio that is

pushed way down into the ear canal, where it is virtually invisible.

He also said a weak signal could be scrambled and be undetected by

another broadcaster.

 

Mystery-bulge bloggers argue that the president may have begun using

such technology earlier in his term. Because Bush is famously prone to

malapropisms and reportedly dyslexic, which could make successful use

of a teleprompter problematic, they say the president and his handlers

may have turned to a technique often used by television reporters on

remote stand-ups. A reporter tapes a story and, while on camera, plays

it back into an earpiece, repeating lines just after hearing them,

managing to sound spontaneous and error free.

 

Suggestions that Bush may have using this technique stem from a D-day

event in France, when a CNN broadcast appeared to pick up - and

broadcast to surprised viewers - the sound of another voice seemingly

reading Bush his lines, after which Bush repeated them. Danny

Schechter, who operates the news site MediaChannel.org, and who has

been doing some investigating into the wired-Bush rumors himself, said

the Bush campaign has been worried of late about others picking up

their radio frequencies - notably during the Republican Convention on

the day of Bush's appearance. " They had a frequency specialist stop me

and ask about the frequency of my camera, " Schechter said. " The

Democrats weren't doing that at their convention. "

 

Repeated calls to the White House and the Bush national campaign

office over a period of three days, inquiring about what the president

may have been wearing on his back during the debate, and whether he

had used an audio device at other events, went unreturned. So far the

Kerry campaign is staying clear of this story. When called for a

comment, a press officer at the Democratic National Committee claimed

on Tuesday that it was " the first time " they'd ever heard of the

issue. A spokeswoman at the press office of Kerry headquarters refused

to permit me to talk with anyone in the campaign's research office.

Several other requests for comment to the Kerry campaign's press

office went unanswered.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5035316-114319,00.html