Your Memory Is In Error
Your Memory Is In Error
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
A Flicker Away From a Blackout
washingtonpost.com
A Flicker Away From a Blackout
Canadian Engineers Say Rare Glitch Suggests Ongoing Threat to Power
Grid
By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, June 21, 2005; A15
TORONTO -- At 4:15 p.m. on May 27, the lights flickered across Ontario.
Subway cars in Toronto rolled to a stop while safety signals were
reset. Pizza oven doors flew open on the ground floor of the city's
landmark CN Tower. Cement and steel plants paused while machinery was
restarted. Tens of thousands of computers automatically shut down and
rebooted.
Hydro One, the Toronto-based electric utility, quickly issued a press
statement seeking to reassure the public that the utility's
"equipment protection worked as designed to isolate the fault."
In fact, the situation was much more tenuous. The power blip involved
an extremely rare, still unexplained failure of two protection
systems, according to internal documents of the utility, reports to
oversight agencies and eight engineers. The eight are part of a group
that has been on strike since June 6. By their accounts, the failure
brought the region's power grid to the verge of a blackout like the
one that struck on Aug. 14, 2003, plunging 50 million people in the
United States and Canada into darkness.
"It was very bizarre, very disconcerting. And we may have a major
problem on our hands," said engineer Aaron Cooperberg.
He and other engineers said that because they are striking, the
precise cause of the malfunction has not been identified, and they
say it could happen again. "Fundamentally, we had a very close call,
and we don't know why," said another engineer, one of three who asked
not to be identified, saying they feared retaliation by the company.
The electrical grid handled by Hydro One, which has 17,000 miles of
high-power electric transmission lines throughout Ontario, managed
the blip "very well," said Peter Gregg, vice president for corporate
communications at the utility. Much of its cause is still not
understood and under investigation, he said, and "we continue to be
disappointed with the striking staff who seem to want to scaremonger
on this incident."
Striking engineers said they were not seeking to pressure the company
as part of their labor dispute. They said they were speaking out
because they were worried that a threat remains to a power system
they care about. "We're not pointing fingers," said one. "This isn't
about a strike. It's about reliability of the system."
The May 27 incident set power generators in New York, Massachusetts,
New Brunswick and Ontario swinging in wild oscillation, fighting one
another to try to cope, according to official reports filed with
oversight authorities in Canada and the United States.
The competition among generators produced what experts call a "ring"
on the grid. According to an internal company document submitted to
regulators, "the ringing lasted about 12 seconds." Computer
simulations showed that "the oscillations can grow with time and
result in the breakup of the power system in about 30 seconds," the
internal document noted.
The industry oversight agencies have not yet publicly drawn any
conclusions from the event. Edward Schwerdt, head of the Northeast
Power Coordinating Council, which reviews the system's grids in New
York, New England and eastern Canada, said the May 27 event was an
"extreme contingency" but that no additional precautions to prevent a
recurrence are being taken until an inquiry is complete.
An official of the U.S.-Canada oversight agency, called the North
American Electric Reliability Council, also said they are awaiting a
report. "We could see a change in the system frequency on the
continent. We knew that something big had happened," said Glenn
Brown, who heads a disturbance analysis group for the council. He
compared the irregularity to one that blacked out all of
Jacksonville, Fla., in April 2002.
Two outside experts cited by the strikers confirmed their concerns.
"This had the potential of cascading into a big blackout," said
Puttaveeraiah Prabhakara, an electrical engineering expert in Toronto
who has written standards for electrical grid protection that have
been adopted worldwide.
The symptoms "were indications of a weak system," said Claudio
Canizares, a power systems specialist at the University of Waterloo
in Ontario. "This is a serious concern."
Sixty-six striking engineers sent a petition to Parliament expressing
their concerns. Their affiliated union, the International Federation
of Professional and Technical Engineers, said it would appeal to
lawmakers in Washington on Tuesday to investigate dangers to the
electrical supply.
The system was "a mere 20 seconds from reaching the proportion of the
August, 2003 blackout," Gregory J. Junemann, the union president,
said in a letter to members of Congress.
The problem began after routine maintenance of a huge circuit breaker
at switching substation in Milton, Ontario, 30 miles west of Toronto.
The company, engineers and regulators agree that when the work was
completed, the breaker was inadvertently left switched to a grounded
"test" position. When an operator at the Ontario Grid Control Center
in Barrie threw the switch to resume flow of electricity, it was
diverted into the ground, causing a massive short circuit in a line
carrying 500,000 volts.
Immediately, the protection systems -- high-tech, computerized
circuit breakers -- stopped power to the line that was erroneously
grounded at Milton. That is supposed to happen within 50
milliseconds. Instead, it took about 150 milliseconds -- three times
as long -- leaving massive strain on the system, according to David
McGinn, 54, a senior protection and control specialist for the
utility who has joined the strike.
"We don't design the system for that," said McGinn. "It did survive,
but just by good luck."
It was a "significant shock to the system," said Schwerdt of the
Northeast Power Coordinating Council.
Then, the protection systems for two other massive power-carrying
lines, stretching eight miles to the Trafalgar substation and 20
miles to the Claireville substation, inexplicably tripped, causing
both those 500,000-volt superhighways for power transmission to shut
down, according to the engineers.
Within milliseconds, generators across New York, Massachusetts and
eastern Canada reacted, first accelerating due to the loss of load,
then automatically decelerating to compensate. There were four major
swings before the system stabilized, according to reports filed with
the Northeast Power Coordinating Council.
"We were lucky," said Emeka Okongwu, 61, an operating engineer. Had
the weather been hot that day, said Okongwu, who is also on strike,
the additional strain on the system would likely have produced a
domino effect of failing lines.
This type of cascading from an initial local problem at a power plant
in Ohio caused the huge 2003 blackout in just nine seconds, according
to a U.S.-Canada Task Force report. That failure stranded millions of
office workers and commuters from Pennsylvania to Boston and Toronto.
It left Cleveland without water, shut down 22 nuclear plants, caused
60 fires, required 800 elevator rescues in New York City and cost
businesses billions of dollars.
The May 27 glitch, Cooperberg said, has left him nervous. "If another
line had failed, we would have been in the soup."
"Obviously, that did not happen," said Gregg, of Hydro One. "The
system is robust and resilient and managed this fault very well. An
investigation certainly will give us and all interested parties a
more fulsome answer."
Is this how we support the troops?
salon.com
Is this how we support the troops?
Memo to supporters of George W. Bush: Before you slap another red,
white and blue magnetic ribbon on the rear end of your SUV, why not
take a moment to read a new report from the Marine Corps' inspector
general? It might give you a whole new sense of what it means to
"support the troops" -- and how the current administration isn't doing
so.
According to today's Boston Globe
that U.S. Marines assigned to fight in some of the most dangerous parts
of Iraq haven't been provided the weapons, communications gear or
vehicles they need. The inspector general says that "all" Marine units
currently fighting in Iraq "require ground equipment that exceeds" what
they've got, "particularly in mobility, engineering, communications and
heavy weapons."
The Humvee problem is apparently particularly acute. According to the
Globe, the inspector general found that a quarter of the Humvees
assigned to the Second Marine Expeditionary Force lack the armor needed
to protect against roadside bombs. And the Humvees that have been
retrofitted with armor are wearing out faster than they should because
they weren't designed to carry so much weight.
But it's not just Humvees. The Globe says that the inspector general
found that all -- all -- of the tanks the Marines are using in Iraq
have "passed the normal criteria for replacing them." The Marines need
more .50-caliber machine guns, more M240G machine guns, more MK19
machine guns and more and better communications equipment, too, the
inspector general found.
The report will be the subject of a House Armed Services Committee
hearing today, but its contents are probably old news for parents of
some Marines -- people who have come to understand that "supporting the
troops" sometimes means ponying up the money themselves for military
equipment their kids will need in Iraq.
The Arizona Republic
the weekend: As Marine Pfc. Jeremy Tod prepared to ship out to Iraq
recently, he called home to tell his folks that his superiors were
urging him and his fellow Marines to buy their own armor-plated flak
jackets, knee and elbow pads, special ballistic goggles, a "drop pouch"
to hold ammunition, a load-bearing vest and a Camelbak water carrier.
"We're supposed to have a professional army, the best in the world,"
Tod's father told the newspaper. "And we're not providing them with the
type of gear they need to protect themselves as they do their jobs."
Public Broadcasting Monitor Had Worked at Center Founded by Conservatives
nytimes.com
Public Broadcasting Monitor Had Worked at Center Founded by Conservatives
By STEPHEN LABATON
WASHINGTON, June 20 - A researcher retained secretly by the chairman of
the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, to monitor the "Now" program
with Bill Moyers for political objectivity last year, worked for 20
years at a journalism center founded by the American Conservative Union
and a conservative columnist, an official at the journalism center said
on Monday.
The decision by the chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, to retain the
researcher, Fred Mann, without the knowledge of the corporation's
board, to report on the political leanings of the guests of "Now" is
one of several issues under investigation by the corporation's
inspector general.
At the request of two Democratic lawmakers, investigators are examining
whether Mr. Tomlinson has violated any rules as he has sought, he says,
to ensure that public television and radio provide greater program
balance.
His critics, including some lawmakers and executives of public
broadcasting, say he has sought to tilt the corporation, which provides
$400 million to radio and television stations and producers, toward a
conservative agenda.
One of Mr. Tomlinson's Democratic critics, Senator Frank R. Lautenberg
of New Jersey, called on him to resign on Monday.
"As a result of your recent attempts to inject partisan politics into
the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, I am writing to urge you to
step down as chairman," Mr. Lautenberg wrote. "Your conduct has
undermined the C.P.B. and its mission of quality public broadcasting
free of political interference. Under current circumstances, with
investigations of your conduct pending, it is hardly possible for you
to effectively carry out your duties as chairman of the C.P.B."
Mr. Tomlinson issued a statement saying he would not resign. "While I
respect Senator Lautenberg's strongly held views on this subject, I see
no reason to step down from the chairmanship," he said. "I am confident
that the inspector general's report will conclude that all of my
actions were taken in accordance with the relevant rules and
regulations."
On Monday the board interviewed candidates for the position of
president. The vacancy was created by the resignation of Kathleen Cox,
who stepped down in April after the board did not renew her contract.
Mr. Tomlinson has said his top choice for the job is Patricia Harrison,
an assistant secretary of state and a former co-chairwoman of the
Republican National Committee. He has said that Ms. Harrison would have
strong credibility with the White House and with Republicans in
Congress, some of whom are threatening to cut the corporation's budget
substantially.
Public television and radio stations have opposed that choice, saying
it would further inject politics into public broadcasting at precisely
the wrong time. The three Democratic and independent members of the
board oppose her selection, board members said, as do some
Congressional Democrats.
Until last year, Mr. Mann worked at the National Journalism Center,
which for the last few years has been run by the Young America's
Foundation. The foundation describes itself on its Web site as "the
principal outreach organization of the conservative movement" and as
being committed to the ideas of "individual freedom, a strong national
defense, free enterprise and traditional values."
The Young America's Foundation shares some top officials with its
politically active counterpart, Young Americans for Freedom, although
the two are separate entities.
The National Journalism Center was founded in 1977 by the American
Conservative Union and M. Stanton Evans, a syndicated columnist.
Mark LaRochelle, a top official at the National Journalism Center, said
Mr. Mann told him last year that he was working on the Moyers project
for the broadcasting corporation. He said Mr. Mann had run the alumni
relations, job bank and internship program at the center, where he got
to know Mr. Tomlinson. While Mr. Mann worked at the National Journalism
Center, he helped place interns in the Washington bureau of Reader's
Digest.
The editor in chief of Reader's Digest at the time was Mr. Tomlinson,
and its top editor in its Washington bureau was a friend of Mr.
Tomlinson's, William Schulz. In April, Mr. Tomlinson persuaded the
board of the corporation to appoint Mr. Schulz to be one of two
ombudsmen to monitor public radio and television for objectivity.
There was no response on Monday to voice messages and e-mail messages
left for Mr. Mann.
Mr. Moyers has been a source of agitation for Mr. Tomlinson and other
conservatives. They say that "Now" under Mr. Moyers (who left the show
last year and was replaced by David Brancaccio) was consistently
critical of Republicans and the Bush administration.
Last week Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, said that
in response to a request, Mr. Tomlinson sent data from Mr. Mann's
reports.
Mr. Dorgan said that data concluded in one episode of "Now" that
Senator Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, was a "liberal" because he
questioned the White House policy on Iraq and that a second "Now"
segment on financial waste at the Pentagon was "anti-Defense." Mr.
Hagel is known as a mainstream conservative member of the Senate and a
maverick who has at times been critical of the Bush administration.
The inspector general at the corporation is now looking at steps taken
by Mr. Tomlinson to ensure what he calls greater balance in
programming, including his decision to approve $14,170 in payments to
Mr. Mann without the knowledge of the corporation's board.
Black Market in Stolen Credit Card Data Thrives on Internet
The New York Times
June 21, 2005
Black Market in Stolen Credit Card Data Thrives on Internet
By TOM ZELLER Jr.
"Want drive fast cars?" asks an advertisement, in broken English, atop the Web site iaaca.com. "Want live in premium hotels? Want own beautiful girls? It's possible with dumps from Zo0mer." A "dump," in the blunt vernacular of a relentlessly flourishing online black market, is a credit card number. And what Zo0mer is peddling is stolen account information - name, billing address, phone - for Gold Visa cards and MasterCards at $100 apiece.
It is not clear whether any data stolen from CardSystems Solutions, the payment processor reported on Friday to have exposed 40 million credit card accounts to possible theft, has entered this black market. But law enforcement officials and security experts say it is a safe bet that the data will eventually be peddled at sites like iaaca.com - its very name a swaggering shorthand for International Association for the Advancement of Criminal Activity.
For despite years of security improvements and tougher, more coordinated law enforcement efforts, the information that criminals siphon - credit card and bank account numbers, and whole buckets of raw consumer information - is boldly hawked on the Internet. The data's value arises from its ready conversion into online purchases, counterfeit card manufacture, or more elaborate identity-theft schemes.
The online trade in credit card and bank account numbers, as well as other raw consumer information, is highly structured. There are buyers and sellers, intermediaries and even service industries. The players come from all over the world, but most of the Web sites where they meet are run from computer servers in the former Soviet Union, making them difficult to police.
Traders quickly earn titles, ratings and reputations for the quality of the goods they deliver - quality that also determines prices. And a wealth of institutional knowledge and shared wisdom is doled out to newcomers seeking entry into the market, like how to move payments and the best time of month to crack an account.
The Federal Trade Commission estimates that roughly 10 million Americans have their personal information pilfered and misused in some way or another every year, costing consumers $5 billion and businesses $48 billion annually.
"There's so much to this," said Jim Melnick, a former Russian affairs analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency who is now the director of threat development at iDefense, a company in Reston, Va., that tracks cybercrime. "The story that needs to be told is the larger, long-term threat to the American financial industry. It's a cancer. It's not going to kill you now, but slowly, over time."
No one is willing to estimate how many cards and account numbers actually make it to the Internet auction block, but law enforcement agents consistently describe the market as huge. Every day, at sites like iaaca.com and carderportal.org, pseudonymous vendors do business in an arcane slurry of acronyms.
"Cobs," or changes of billings, are a hot commodity. Typically, a peddler of cobs is offering fresh bank or credit card accounts, along with the ability to change the billing address through a pilfered PIN. In other cases, a vendor selling cobs is offering to change billing addresses himself, as a service. Sometimes the address is changed to a safe "drop," which might be an empty apartment in a local building, or some other scouted locale where goods can be delivered. (Information on reliable drops is also bought and sold.)
Lengthy tutorials posted at online "carding" forums indicate that the cob art form is highly developed. A patient criminal will wait until the day a victim receives a billing statement. "That way you have a full 30 days" before the victim is likely to look over his account again, explained one frank tutorial collected by the F.B.I.
A user going by the name "mindtrip" had cobs for sale recently: "I'm selling cobs from at this time only banks Discover and American Express t'ill further notice," he wrote in brusque English. "The cobs come with full info including MMN" (mother's maiden name). Discover Card cobs with any balance were on special: $50. American Express, a more exclusive and potentially more lucrative account, commanded $85.
Alongside advertisements for cobs are pitches from malicious-code writers, who sell their services to the con artists, known as phishers, who contract with spammers to send out millions of increasingly sophisticated phony e-mails designed to lure victims into revealing their account information.
A successful phishing operation might bring in thousands of fresh account numbers, along with other identifying details: names, addresses, phone numbers, passwords, PIN's, and mothers' maiden names. The richer the detail (and the higher the account balance), the better the asking price.
A user by the nickname Sirota is peddling account information so detailed, and so formatted, that it clearly came from a credit report. He is asking $200 per dump on accounts with available balances above $10,000, with a minimum order of five if the buyer wants accounts associated with a particular bank. "Also, I can provide dumps with online access," he wrote. "The price of such dumps is 5% of available credit."
Every day brings more. "These things have a short shelf life," said Dan Larkin, the unit chief at the F.B.I.'s Internet Crime Complaint Center in West Virginia. "The criminal value of a compromised credit card is very short term, so there's a constant need to keep backfilling their resources."
A Full-Service Black Market
Those buying fresh batches of account numbers may try to make purchases online, having goods delivered to a drop and then fencing them through online auctions.
More sophisticated thieves will seek out a vendor of encoding devices, and others who sell "plastic," or blank credit cards, and "algos," algorithms that are needed to properly encode the magnetic strip and produce a usable card. And "cash out" services can be arranged with those offering to take the encoded plastic to a cash machine and make daily withdrawals until the account is depleted. (The cash-out risk commands a premium - often 50 percent or more of the total balance.)
Traders - whether they deal in plastic, algos, cobs or other booty - build reputations first by earning the right to advertise, and then, in a black-market version of eBay buyer feedback, augment their status by receiving published kudos from other members. No one is permitted to post product or service offers at most of these Web sites without first having their wares vetted by site administrators, or by those who have been selected as trusted "reviewers."
At iaaca.com, for example, those wishing to sell cobs or cob services "will be required to provide ten (10) change of addresses, to be distributed to two reviewers," who "will test this service by either phone or Internet." New vendors of credit card numbers "will be required to furnish 20 VALID dumps (5 Classics, 5 business, 5 platinums, 5 corporate; 50 percent Visa, 50 percent MasterCard)," according to the site administrators. "The testers will determine the quality, in a percentage of valid numbers."
Once the wares are vetted, a vendor might then pay a fee to peddle them on a site's message boards. Banner ads can also be purchased.
Contacts among deal makers almost always move off the boards and onto ICQ, the instant-messaging program of choice among cyberthieves because of its easy anonymity (no names, no registration, no e-mail required). Payments often change hands in relative anonymity (and with little regulation) by e-gold, an electronic currency that purports to be backed by gold bullion and issued by e-gold Ltd., a company incorporated on the island of Nevis in the Caribbean. (Secret Service agents have expressed skepticism over the gold backing.)
Transactions might also be made in WMZ's, electronic monetary units equivalent to American dollars and issued by WebMoney Transfer, a company based in Moscow.
Plenty of noncriminal entities use such services to move money, Secret Service analysts said - although they added that the agency had conversations with some of the e-currency issuers to discuss ways to address the problem.
Thefts at Data Aggregators
Mark Rasch, the former head of cyberinvestigations for the Justice Department and now the senior vice president of Solutionary, a computer security company, said the numbers taken in the CardSystems breach - at least 200,000 are said to have been in stolen files - are almost certain to end up in one of these trading posts.
CardSystems represented a vital hub through which millions of account numbers passed. ChoicePoint, a data aggregator, was another gold mine; it announced in February that thousands of records had been downloaded from its databases by thieves posing as legitimate business clients (no hacking required).
"The pattern in the last six months is going after aggregators," Mr. Rasch said. "It used to be you'd get a few numbers from a few merchants and aggregate them yourself - a few numbers from a lot of people. But at some point they said, 'Wait a minute, there are other people who aggregate this stuff.' "
And, Mr. Rasch pointed out, it is nearly impossible to stop. For all the information that law enforcement and security experts can glean from sites like iaaca.com, "there are whole marketplaces of bulletin board systems and chats that are invisible," he said.
Still, law enforcement has made inroads. In October, the Justice Department and the Secret Service announced the internationally coordinated arrest of 28 individuals in eight states and several countries, including Sweden, Britain, Poland, Belarus and Bulgaria.
Among those arrested were Andrew Mantovani of Scottsdale, Ariz., David Appleyard of Linwood, N.J., and Anatoly Tyukanov of Moscow. The Justice Department says they are the ringleaders of Shadowcrew.com, the largest English-language Web bazaar trading in everything from stolen credit card, debit card and bank account numbers to counterfeit drivers' licenses, passports and Social Security cards.
The investigation, called Operation Firewall, broke up a 4,000-member underground that, according to the Justice Department, bought and sold nearly two million credit card account numbers in two years and caused over $4 million in losses to merchants, banks and individuals.
But eight months later, the traders have adapted and resumed business. They are a bit more skittish now, said John Watters, the chief executive of iDefense, which generates cybercrime intelligence for government and financial industry clients. Operation Firewall did take out some of the "low-hanging fruit," Mr. Watters said. But that has only caused the pricing models to become more refined, and the characters in this black-market economy to become more sophisticated.
A New Market for New Identities
Mr. Watters said there was also a small but growing market for the type of raw consumer information that has been pilfered from ChoicePoint, LexisNexis and other general data aggregators.
"We've observed people paying for identities," Mr. Watters said, describing Web forms where criminals could tick off the fields they had to sell or wanted to buy: address, date of birth, Social Security number, driver's license number, mother's maiden name. And as the traders slip deeper underground - or onto servers in regions with lax laws, overburdened or uninterested law enforcement and no real working relationship with American authorities - the odds of pulling off another Operation Firewall get worse.
"The next battle will be substantially harder," Mr. Watters said. "It's getting harder for us to do our job."
Asked at a symposium on cybercrime late last month if law enforcement was losing the battle against cybercriminals, Brian Nagel, assistant director for investigations at the Secret Service, said no, according to published reports.
But another panel member, Jody Westby, the managing director of security and privacy practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers, disagreed, insisting that based on Federal Trade Commission statistics on identity and credit card theft, only about 5 percent of cybercriminals are ever caught.
In an interview, Ms. Westby offered an assessment no less bleak. "We're not making an impact," she said. "The criminals are too hard to track and trace, too hard to prosecute, and the information they steal is too easy to use."
At one Russian-language site over the weekend, a user called Lexus celebrated the CardSystems breach, saying that "judgment day has come for the bourgeoisie." Another, Zer0, suggested on the site that the hacked numbers might represent new opportunities in the underground.
"It is a good occasion for us," Zer0 said. "Happy hunting."
UNITED NATIONS: What Is The White House Hiding About Bolton?
The Progress Report
by Judd Legum, Faiz Shakir, Nico Pitney, Mipe Okunseinde and Christy
Harvey
www.progressreport.org
UNITED NATIONS: What Is The White House Hiding About Bolton?
BUSH CONTINUES TO HIDE SYRIA INFORMATION ON BOLTON: At the State
Department Bolton may have "improperly sought to toughen intelligence
assessments
(http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=678501#2)
of Syria as late as the summer of 2003, after the American failure to
find illicit weapons in Iraq had raised alarms about the danger of
inflated intelligence." In light of Bolton's reputation for
"cherry-picking" intelligence
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/11/AR2005051101962.html)
and punishing dissenters
(http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/04/17/news/bolton.html) for
challenging his views, Senators have sought out information on Bolton's actions
with regards to Syria's weapons program. Despite repeated requests, the
Bush adminstration continues to refuse
(http://www.cq.com/display.do?docid=1732194&sourcetype=6) to supply
this key information.
BUSH CONTINUES TO HIDE INDENTITIES OF BOLTON TARGETS: Furthermore,
Bolton then "asked for -- and recieved -- the identities of 10 different
U.S. officials
(http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=574435)
who were either involved in or talked about in top-secret National
Security communication intercepts," a move that some suspect was meant "to
monitor others at State
(http://www.cq.com/display.do?docid=1732194&sourcetype=6) who disagreed
with his views." Sen. Minority Leader Harry Reid has offered a
compromise whereby the Bush administration would only have to share information
if the official appeared on a list of "three dozen names." The
administration has refused to compromise.
STATE DEPT. BECOMES EFFECTIVE...ONCE BOLTON LEAVES: The aftermath of
Bolton's departure from the State Department is clear evidence that he is
a roadblock, not a facilitator. Despite the " heightened threat
perception
(http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=684471)
" after 9/11, "the pace at which fissile materials -- the nuclear
gunpowder that is vital to a terrorist's nuclear bomb -- were secured or
destroyed did not accelerate." As undersecretary of state, Bolton was in
charge of "a key U.S. program
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/19/AR2005061900697.html)
intended to keep Russian nuclear fuel out of terrorist hands." At the
time, Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) blamed Bolton for the various
impasses (http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000375.html) and
questioned if he was even up to the job. Now with Bolton gone from State,
"U.S. negotiators report a breakthrough
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/19/AR2005061900697.html)
with the Russians...clearing the way to eliminate enough plutonium to
fuel 8,000 nuclear bombs." Furthermore, "for many arms-control advocates
and even fellow diplomats, Bolton's departure is a welcome relief and
an opportunity to restore a more pragmatic approach to international
relations."
BOLTON PLAYS POINT-MAN IN ILLEGAL FIRING: The disclosure of John
Bolton's unlawful orchestration of the firing
(http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=1021) of Jose Bustani, head of
the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, shows just how
far he will go to fix intelligence around policy. When the Bush
administration was struggling to justify going to war with Iraq, Bustani was
seen as one of the " foremost obstacles to war
(http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=1025) ." The problem with Bustani
was that he "was trying to send chemical weapons inspectors
(http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=1021) to Baghadad [which] might
have helped defuse the crisis over alleged Iraqi weapons and undermined
a U.S. rationale for war." Bolton decided that Bustani "had to go" and
so, through political and financial pressures, had Bustani ousted. A
United Nations tribunal subsequently rebuked Bolton's maneuvering.
BATTLE OVER BOLTON IS NOT PARTISAN POLITICS: Despite assertions to the
contrary, the fight over the Bolton nomination is not a partisan issue.
In fact, some of the individuals who have provided the strongest case
for why Bolton should not be confirmed are firm supporters of President
Bush and also former colleagues of Bolton. Former Secretary of State
Colin Powell has emerged as a behind-the-scenes force against John
Bolton's nomination, privately telling key lawmakers that Bolton is "a smart
but very problematic
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7420-2005Apr21.html?nav=rss_politics)
government official." And one of the most eye-opening insights into
John Bolton came from Carl Ford Jr., a staunch conservative. As former
intelligence chief at the State Department, Ford worked directly with
Bolton and in congressional testimony described him as "a 'bully' who
abused his authority and power
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46436-2005Apr12.html) ,
intimidated intelligence analysts, and damaged the integrity of the
[Department of State]."
IRAQ: The Public Deception Campaign
The Progress Report
by Judd Legum, Faiz Shakir, Nico Pitney, Mipe Okunseinde and Christy
Harvey
www.progressreport.org
IRAQ: The Public Deception Campaign
On May 1, 2003, President Bush, standing in front of a banner that
proclaimed "Mission Accomplished," declared that " major combat operations
in Iraq have ended (http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/rm/20203.htm) ."
Eight hundred and twenty-five days and $230 billion
(http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/050627/27bush.htm) later,
how's the administration's Iraq policy going? Here's what Sen. Chuck
Hagel (R-NE) thinks: "Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse.
The White House is completely disconnected from reality. It's like
they're just making it up as they go along.
(http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/050627/27bush.htm) The
reality is that we're losing in Iraq." Hagel has a point. This month, for
example, "47 U.S. troops [were] killed in the first 15 days. That's
already five more than the toll for the entire month of June last year."
Instead of a strategy for success
(http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=742277) , the
Bush administration has launched "a renewed public-relations push." But
Bush's "new PR campaign on Iraq seems remarkably similar to one he
launched almost two years ago
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/06/17/BL2005061700481_pf.html)
."
BUSH -- WE WENT TO WAR IN IRAQ BECAUSE OF 9/11: When all else fails,
invoke 9/11. Over the weekend, Bush " defended the war in Iraq, telling
Americans the United States was forced into war because of the September
11 terror strikes.
(http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050618/ts_alt_afp/usiraqbushattacks_050618171549)
" According to Bush, "We went to war because we were attacked, and we
are at war today because there are still people out there who want to
harm our country and hurt our citizens." Too bad that isn't true. In
September, 2003, Bush himself acknowledged "We've had no evidence that
Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11th [attacks].
(http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/09/20030917-7.html) " The
bi-partisan 9/11 Commission found that there was " no collaborative
relationship (http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/06/17/thurs/) " between
Iraq and al Qaeda. Nevertheless, Bush continues to claim that the Iraq
war was a direct result of 9/11 because people continue to believe him.
An October 2004 poll by the University of Maryland found that 75
percent of Bush supporters believe Iraq was providing substantial support to
al Qaeda
(http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Pres_Election_04/Report10_21_04.pdf)
.
RICE -- WE SAID IRAQ WOULD BE A "GENERATIONAL COMMITMENT": Appearing on
Fox News Sunday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that
criticism of the administration was unjustified because "the administration, I
think, has said to the American people that it is a generational
commitment to Iraq (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,160008,00.html) ."
Actually, the administration sold the war to the American people by
promising it would be short and affordable. Vice President Dick Cheney,
3/16/03: "[M]y belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. . .
. I think it will go relatively quickly
(http://www.usatoday.com/educate/war28-article.htm) . . . (in) weeks
rather than months." Donald Rumsfeld, 2/7/03: "It is unknowable how long
that conflict will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six
months. (http://www.usatoday.com/educate/war28-article.htm) " Former
Budget Director Mitch Daniels, 3/28/03: "The United States is committed
to helping Iraq recover from the conflict, but Iraq will not require
sustained aid...
(http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/iraq/1842094) "
CHENEY -- THE INSURGENCY IS IN ITS "LAST THROES": Appearing on Larry
King live late last month, Vice President Dick Cheney said the Iraq
insurgency was in its " last throes
(http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/30/cheney.iraq/) ." Over the last two
days 75 people were killed in Iraq by insurgent attacks
(http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-06-20-sucide-strike_x.htm) . AP
reports that the "rate of insurgent attacks has risen dramatically
since al-Jaafari announced his Cabinet on April 28." Since that time "at
least 1,182 people have been killed" by insurgents. General William
Webster, the U.S. commander for Baghdad, said, " certainly saying anything
about 'breaking the back' or 'about to reach the end of the line' or
those kinds of things do not apply to the insurgency at this point.
(http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&u=/nm/20050619/ts_nm/iraq_dc_37)
"
Monday, June 20, 2005
Protecting Privacy in the Digital Age
americanprogress.org
Protecting Privacy in the Digital Age
American Progress Recommendations on Government's Use of Commercial Databases
May 4, 2005
Overview
The data revolution provides powerful new tools for homeland security. Using commercial databases, law-enforcement officials can search vast amounts of information to instantly locate terrorism suspects. This capability promises to make it more difficult for terrorists to operate within our borders and easier for law enforcement to prevent attacks and save lives.
Yet there are also dangers to personal privacy. Because of ambiguities in the law, government has decided not to apply privacy protections to commercial databases. While a federal agency must conduct a Privacy Impact Assessment if it compiles a new database, it can subscribe to personal data assembled by private companies without considering the privacy implications. There are few limits in place on how this information can be used and no requirement that Congress, let alone the public, be notified of the agency's practices. If information is inaccurate, individuals have no recourse to correct it and could be wrongly targeted for investigation or scrutiny, or suffer other adverse consequences.
The Center for American Progress offers the following recommendations to extend privacy protections to personal information assembled by government contractors (as well as private companies that voluntarily hand over information to the government).[1] Consistent with established privacy principles, we recommend that privacy implications be publicly evaluated up front; that individuals be given the opportunity to correct inaccurate information; and that standards be developed to place limits on the use of personal information. In short, concern for privacy must be an integral part of homeland security. This will help foster public confidence in government actions, avoid the squandering of valuable security resources on misguided projects, and protect personal information from unwarranted intrusion.
Full article here:
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=651807
FBI Managers Admit They Didn't Seek to Hire or Promote Terror Experts for Top Jobs After Sept. 11
ABC News
FBI Says Counterterror Experts Not Crucial
FBI Managers Admit They Didn't Seek to Hire or Promote Terror Experts for Top Jobs After Sept. 11
By JOHN SOLOMON
The Associated Press
Jun. 20, 2005 - The FBI vowed to build national expertise for fighting terrorists after the Sept. 11 attacks, but the supervisors who crafted that war plan now say Middle East and terrorism experience haven't been important for choosing their agents.
"You need leadership. You don't need subject matter expertise," Executive Assistant Director Gary Bald recently testified in a little noticed employment case now catching the eye of Congress. "It is certainly not what I look for in selecting an official for a position in a counterterrorism position."
The lawsuit, brought against the FBI by one of its most accomplished pre-Sept. 11 terror-fighting agents, provides sharp contrasts between the bureau's public promises and the reality of how it has chosen the agents who run its war on terrorism.
In hundreds of pages of sworn testimony obtained by The Associated Press, senior FBI managers argued repeatedly that Middle East and anti-terrorism experience aren't required for promotion and that they see little difference between solving a traditional crime and a terror attack.
"A bombing case is a bombing case," said Dale Watson, the FBI's terrorism chief in the two years after Sept. 11, 2001. "A crime scene in a bank robbery case is the same as a crime scene, you know, across the board."
Watson couldn't describe the difference between Shiites and Sunnis, the two major groups of Muslims. "Not technically, no," Watson answered when asked the question.
Bald, the FBI's current anti-terrorism chief, said his first training in that area came "on the job" when he moved to headquarters to oversee anti-terrorism strategy two years ago. when asked about his grasp of Middle Eastern culture and history, he replied: "I wish that I had it. It would be nice."
FBI agent Bassem Youssef has questioned under oath many of the bureau's top leaders, including Director Robert Mueller and his predecessor, Louis Freeh, in an effort to show he was passed over for top counterterrorism jobs despite his expertise. Testimony from his lawsuit was recently sent to Congress.
Those who have held the bureau's top terrorism-fighting jobs since Sept. 11 often said in their testimony that they and many they have promoted since had no significant anti-terrorism or Middle East experience.
"Probably the strongest leader I know in counterterrorism has no counterterrorism in his background," Bald insisted.
The hundreds of pages of testimony obtained by The Associated Press contrast with assurances Mueller has repeatedly given Congress that he was building a new FBI, from top to bottom, with experts able to stop terrorist attacks before they occurred, not solve them afterward.
"The FBI's shift toward terrorism prevention necessitates the building of a national-level expertise and body of knowledge," Mueller told Congress a year after the suicide hijackings, as lawmakers approved billions of new dollars to fight terrorism.
Despite the testimony of how its managers were chosen, the FBI said it has fundamentally reshaped itself at the field level to ensure the agents who work the cases have the necessary skills, training and background for fighting terrorism. It hired or redeployed more than 1,000 agents to counterterrorism and hired an additional 1,200 intelligence analysts and linguists.
"We fundamentally changed the criteria for hiring special agents and intelligence analysts to ensure that we get the critical skills, knowledge and experience we need to address today's threats," FBI Assistant Director Cassandra Chandler told the AP.
Daniel Byman, a national security expert who worked on both congressional and presidential investigations of terrorism and intelligence failures, reviewed the Youssef case for the court. Byman concluded the FBI overall remains woefully weak in expertise on the Middle East, terrorism and intelligence liaison.
"Many of its officers, including those quite skilled in other aspects of the bureau's work, lack the skills to work with foreign governments or even their U.S. counterparts," Byman concluded.
Watson testified he could not recall a single meeting in the aftermath of Sept. 11 in which FBI leaders discussed the type of skills or training needed for counterterrorism.
Youssef's lawyer, Steve Kohn, pressed further.
"What skill sets would they need to better identify, penetrate and/or prevent a future Osama bin Laden-style terrorist attack?" Kohn asked.
Watson answered: "They would need to understand the attorney general guidelines for counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigation."
"Anything else?" the lawyer inquired.
"No," Watson answered.
John Pikus, who held a key supervisory job during the reallocation of agents from traditional crime-fighting to terrorism, testified that the FBI did not create new screening standards to promote terrorism experts to its upper ranks.
"Strengthening up the criteria for selection," Pikus answered when asked where the FBI was deficient in its terrorism hiring.
Pat D'Amuro, one of the FBI's most-experienced senior terrorism managers, testified he didn't conduct a systematic search for the bureau's most talented Middle Eastern and terrorism agents worldwide after Sept. 11. Instead, he said, he brought to Washington the agents he personally knew had worked successfully on al-Qaida and other terrorism cases.
D'Amuro said that in later promotions, Middle East and terrorism experience was helpful but not mandatory. He noted the FBI also must deal with terrorism from domestic sources and the Irish Republican Army.
"It could be a benefit. When you look for managers, you're looking for people that can lead people, manage people, knows how to conduct an investigation, knows how to collect certain intelligence or information, you know," D'Amuro testified.
Youssef, the agent suing the bureau, was credited with improving relations with Saudi Arabia during the late 1990s as bin Laden's threat grew and the bureau struggled to solve the case of the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing that killed 19 U.S. service personnel.
He received a special award from the intelligence community for meritorious work and was singled out by his managers for "continuous creativity and perseverance" in terrorism cases. Saudi officials said they regarded Youssef as the most skilled U.S. agent in conducting lie detector tests on Arabic-speaking suspects.
But after Sept. 11, Youssef repeatedly was passed over for top-level headquarters jobs in terrorism. Instead, he was offered same-rank positions in budgeting or exploiting intelligence from terrorism documents.
Freeh, the former FBI director who left that job three months before Sept. 11, testified that he believed Youssef should have gotten an important terror-fighting job in the post-Sept. 11 era.
"I think, you know, given his experience, certainly his language, you know, domestically he would probably have a much more required role and be of greater help back at headquarters," Freeh said.
One FBI supervisor, just-retired Agent Paul Vick, testified that Youssef had the "many skills that were badly needed" after Sept. 11 and the FBI's failure to utilize him was "inappropriate and a waste of a very important human resource."
On the Net:
FBI: http://www.fbi.gov
Justice Department: http://www.usdoj.gov
Hit by friendly fire
usnews.com
Hit by friendly fire
With his polls down, Bush takes flak on Iraq from a host of critics--including some in his own party
By Kevin Whitelaw
Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel is angry. He's upset about the more than 1,700 U.S. soldiers killed and nearly 13,000 wounded in Iraq. He's also aggravated by the continued string of sunny assessments from the Bush administration, such as Vice President Dick Cheney's recent remark that the insurgency is in its "last throes." "Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse. The White House is completely disconnected from reality," Hagel tells U.S. News. "It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq."
That's strikingly blunt talk from a member of the president's party, even one cast as something of a pariah in the GOP because of his early skepticism about the war. "I got beat up pretty good by my own party and the White House that I was not a loyal Republican," he says. Today, he notes, things are changing: "More and more of my colleagues up here are concerned."
Indeed, there are signs that the politics of the Iraq war are being reshaped by the continuing tide of bad news. Take this month in Iraq, with 47 U.S. troops killed in the first 15 days. That's already five more than the toll for the entire month of June last year. With the rate of insurgent attacks near an all-time high and the war's cost set to top $230 billion, more politicians on both sides of the aisle are responding to opinion polls that show a growing number of Americans favoring a withdrawal from Iraq. Republican Sens. Lincoln Chafee and Lindsey Graham have voiced their concerns. And two Republicans, including the congressman who brought "freedom fries" to the Capitol, even joined a pair of Democratic colleagues in sponsoring a bill calling for a troop withdrawal plan to be drawn up by year's end. "I feel confident that the opposition is going to build," says Rep. Ron Paul, the other Republican sponsor and a longtime opponent of the war.
Sagging polls. The measure is not likely to go anywhere, but Hagel calls it "a major crack in the dike." Whether or not that's so, the White House has reason to worry that the assortment of critiques of Bush's wartime performance may be approaching a tipping point. Only 41 percent of Americans now support Bush's handling of the Iraq war, the lowest mark ever in the Associated Press-Ipsos poll. And the Iraq news has combined with a lethargic economy and doubts about the president's Social Security proposals to push Bush's overall approval ratings near all-time lows. For now, most Republicans remain publicly loyal to the White House. "Why would you give your enemies a timetable?" asks House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. "[Bush] doesn't fight the war on news articles or television or on polls."
Still, the Bush administration is planning to hit back, starting this week, with a renewed public-relations push by the president. Bush will host Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari and has scheduled a major speech for June 28, the anniversary of the handover of power to an Iraqi government from U.S. authorities. But Congress's patience could wear very thin going into an election year. "If things don't start to turn around in six months, then it may be too late," says Hagel. "I think it's that serious."
Bush's exit strategy--which depends on a successful Iraqi political process--got a boost last week when Sunni and Shiite politicians ended weeks of wrangling over how to increase Sunni representation on the constitution-writing committee. Now, however, committee members have less than two months before their mid-August deadline. And given how long it took to resolve who gets to draft the document, it's hard to imagine a quick accord on the politically explosive issues they face.
With Ilana Ozernoy and Terence Samuel
Libraries Say Yes, Officials Do Quiz Them About Users
The New York Times
June 20, 2005
Libraries Say Yes, Officials Do Quiz Them About Users
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
WASHINGTON, June 19 - Law enforcement officials have made at least 200 formal and informal inquiries to libraries for information on reading material and other internal matters since October 2001, according to a new study that adds grist to the growing debate in Congress over the government's counterterrorism powers.
In some cases, agents used subpoenas or other formal demands to obtain information like lists of users checking out a book on Osama bin Laden. Other requests were informal - and were sometimes turned down by librarians who chafed at the notion of turning over such material, said the American Library Association, which commissioned the study.
The association, which is pushing to scale back the government's powers to gain information from libraries, said its $300,000 study was the first to examine a question that was central to a House vote last week on the USA Patriot Act: how frequently federal, state and local agents are demanding records from libraries.
The Bush administration says that while it is important for law enforcement officials to get information from libraries if needed in terrorism investigations, officials have yet to actually use their power under the Patriot Act to demand records from libraries or bookstores.
The library issue has become the most divisive in the debate on whether Congress should expand or curtail government powers under the Patriot Act, and it was at the center of last week's vote in the House approving a measure to restrict investigators' access to libraries.
The study does not directly answer how or whether the Patriot Act has been used to search libraries. The association said it decided it was constrained from asking direct questions on the law because of secrecy provisions that could make it a crime for a librarian to respond. Federal intelligence law bans those who receive certain types of demands for records from challenging the order or even telling anyone they have received it.
As a result, the study sought to determine the frequency of law enforcement inquiries at all levels without detailing their nature. Even so, organizers said the data suggested that investigators were seeking information from libraries far more frequently than Bush administration officials had acknowledged.
"What this says to us," said Emily Sheketoff, the executive director of the library association's Washington office, "is that agents are coming to libraries and they are asking for information at a level that is significant, and the findings are completely contrary to what the Justice Department has been trying to convince the public."
Kevin Madden, a Justice Department spokesman, said that the department had not yet seen the findings and that he could not comment specifically on them. But Mr. Madden questioned the relevance of the data to the debate over the Patriot Act, noting that the types of inquiries found in the survey could relate to a wide range of law enforcement investigations unconnected to terrorism or intelligence.
"Any conclusion that federal law enforcement has an extraordinary interest in libraries is wholly manufactured as a result of misinformation," Mr. Madden said.
The study, which surveyed 1,500 public libraries and 4,000 academic libraries, used anonymous responses to address legal concerns. A large majority of those who responded to the survey said they had not been contacted by any law enforcement agencies since October 2001, when the Patriot Act was passed.
But there were 137 formal requests or demands for information in that time, 49 from federal officials and the remainder from state or local investigators. Federal officials have sometimes used local investigators on joint terrorism task forces to conduct library inquiries.
In addition, the survey found that 66 libraries had received informal law enforcement requests without an official legal order, including 24 federal requests. Association officials said the survey results, if extrapolated from the 500 public libraries that responded, would amount to a total of some 600 formal inquires since 2001.
One library reporting that it had received a records demand was the Whatcom County system in a rural area of northwest Washington.
Last June, a library user who took out a book there, "Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America," noticed a handwritten note in the margin remarking that "Hostility toward America is a religious duty and we hope to be rewarded by God," and went to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Agents, in turn, went to the library seeking names and information on anyone checking out the biography since 2001.
The library's lawyers turned down the request, and agents went back with a subpoena. Joan Airoldi, who runs the library, said in an interview that she was particularly alarmed after a Google search revealed that the handwritten line was an often-cited quotation from Mr. bin Laden that was included in the report issued by the Sept. 11 commission.
The library fought the subpoena, and the F.B.I. withdrew its demand.
"A fishing expedition like this just seems so un-American to me," Ms. Airoldi said. "The question is, how many basic liberties are we willing to give up in the war on terrorism, and who are the real victims?"
The survey also found what library association officials described as a "chilling effect" caused by public concerns about the government's powers. Nearly 40 percent of the libraries responding reported that users had asked about changes in practices related to the Patriot Act, and about 5 percent said they had altered their professional activities over the issues; for instance, by reviewing the types of books they bought.
Representative Bernard Sanders, independent of Vermont, who sponsored the House measure to curtail the power to demand library records, said he was struck by the 40 percent response.
"What this demonstrates is that there is widespread concern among the American people about the government having the power to monitor what they are reading," Mr. Sanders said.
The margin of the vote on Mr. Sanders's measure, which passed 238 to 187, with support from 38 Republicans, surprised even some backers, but Bush administration officials say they are hopeful the decision will be reversed and have threatened a veto of any measure that would limit powers under the Patriot Act.
Carol Brey-Casiano, who runs the library system in El Paso and is president of the library association, said she, too, sensed a public unease.
"We're concerned about protecting people's privacy," she said. "People will say to me, 'I've read about the Patriot Act, and does that mean the government can come in and ask you what I'm reading?' And my answer to them has to be, 'Yes, they can,' and quite frankly, I can't even tell anyone if that happened, because there's a gag order."
Investigators have long had the ability to seek out library records in tracking leads in criminal inquiries. In two of the most noted cases, investigators in the 1990's used library records to search for the Unabomber, who wrote detailed and unusual academic treatises in his string of bombings over almost two decades, and for New York's "Zodiac Killer," who had cited the writing of an obscure occult poet.
Government officials say that while they have no interest in using their expanded powers under the Patriot Act to monitor Americans' reading habits, they do not believe that libraries should be safe havens for terrorists. They point to several cases in which Sept. 11 hijackers and other terror suspects used library computers to send e-mail messages.
Perhaps the fiercest counterattack from the Bush administration on the issue came in 2003 from John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, who said in a speech in Washington that groups like the American Library Association had bought into "breathless reports and baseless hysteria" about the government's interest in libraries.
"Do we at the Justice Department really care what you are reading?" Mr. Ashcroft asked. "No."
Ms. Sheketoff at the library association acknowledged that critics of the study may accuse the group of having a stake in the outcome of the Patriot Act debate. "Sure, we have a dog in this fight, but the other side has been mocking us for four years over our 'baseless hysteria,' and saying we have no reason to be concerned," she said. "Well, these findings say that we do have reason to be concerned."
U.S. Allies Resist Secret Deportations
Yahoo! News
U.S. Allies Resist Secret Deportations
By VICTOR L. SIMPSON, Associated Press WriterSun Jun 19, 7:03 PM ET
U.S. allies have begun to resist Washington's secretive role in spiriting away terror suspects: Italy is investigating the disappearance of one accused militant as a kidnapping, Sweden wrote rules to assert its authority over outside agents and Canada is holding hearings after one of its citizens was sent to Syria.
At least two of the cases bear the hallmarks of the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program — stepped up after Sept. 11 — in which the Bush administration has transferred dozens of suspects to third countries without court approval, subjecting them to possible torture.
In Italy, an Egyptian-born imam identified as Abu Omar had already drawn the attention of Italian anti-terrorism officials when he vanished off the streets of Milan two years ago, reportedly bundled into a van and flown back to Egypt from a joint U.S.-Italian air base.
"The prosecution is certain it was a kidnapping," prosecutor Armando Spataro told The Associated Press last week. He would not say who is suspected, citing judicial secrecy as the investigation is still under way.
Italian news reports say the CIA was believed to have played a role in the disappearance, and opposition politicians have demanded explanations from the government of Premier Silvio Berlusconi, a close ally of President Bush.
Citing conversations recorded by Italian anti-terrorism officials in a wiretap, the Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica newspapers reported that Omar, 42, called his wife and friends in Milan after his release last year. He recounted how he had been seized by Italian and American agents and taken to a secret prison in Egypt, where he was tortured with electric shocks. Italian officials say he is now living in Egypt, although Italian newspaper accounts suggested he was returned to custody in Egypt shortly after his release.
Asked about news reports alleging U.S. involvement, a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Rome, Ben Duffy, said, "We do not comment on intelligence matters."
Egyptian authorities have also refused to comment or discuss whether they cooperated.
Spataro, the prosecutor who usually handles terrorism cases involving Islamic militants, confirmed he visited Aviano, a joint U.S.-Italian base north of Venice, on Feb. 23 but declined to discuss any findings. He met with the Italian base commander, according to Duffy.
Omar was believed to have fought with jihadists in Afghanistan and Bosnia and Italian prosecutors were seeking evidence against him before his disappearance, according to a report in La Repubblica newspaper, which cited Italian intelligence officials.
Spataro said his disappearance damaged an ongoing operation, hurting the war on terror.
Opposition Sen. Tana de Zulueta asked the government whether Italy was involved in the disappearance but said she had not received a reply. The Interior Ministry, in charge of one of Italy's national police forces, referred questions to the prosecutor.
While Italian officials say Omar was abducted, the Swedish government is facing tough criticism at home by international human rights groups for having voluntarily handed over two Egyptian terror suspects to American agents.
Criticism over the case prompted Swedish police to draft new regulations on how to carry out deportation orders. The new rules say only Swedish officers can conduct body searches on Swedish territory and that Swedish officers must remain in charge.
"There is nothing that prevents police from asking for help (from another country), but it must be clear that the Swedish authorities are in charge of the situation," said National Police Board spokesman Hans Pont.
"We know that we will deport suspected terrorists in the future, but even with suspected terrorists you have to act correctly," Justice Minister Thomas Bodstrom told AP.
On Dec. 18, 2001, Swedish security police turned over Ahmed Agiza, 41, and Muhammed Alzery, 35, to U.S. agents at Stockholm's Bromma Airport. The Americans, wearing black masks, took the two into a small room and cut off their clothes with scissors, replacing them with prisoner uniforms, before placing them on a U.S.-registered Gulfstream jet, according to a report by Sweden's chief parliamentary ombudsman, a watchdog of state agencies.
The U.S. agents examined their mouths and ears, handcuffed them and fettered their ankles and placed hoods over their heads, the report said, calling the treatment "inhuman" and inconsistent with Swedish law.
Agiza was convicted by Egypt's Supreme Military Court on April 27, 2004, of belonging to and leading an outlawed group aiming to overthrow the government. He was sentenced to 25 years on the same charge in 1999 while he was in exile in Sweden. Alzery was released from an Egyptian prison last October, where he had been held on terrorism charges.
In Canada, Defense Minister Bill Graham testified at a hearing in Ottawa last month that he was upset Washington did not consult Ottawa's leaders before deporting a Canadian citizen to Syria for questioning on suspicion of terrorism. The case was handled by the Justice Department as an expulsion and not a rendition by intelligence agents.
Graham also expressed surprise that Canadian security officials apparently approved sending Maher Arar, to his native country for questioning about alleged ties to al-Qaida.
Graham told then-U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci it was "totally inappropriate" that Maher Arar was sent to Syria in October 2002 without first checking with Canadian officials.
"His response was that `We were totally entitled to do what we did,'" said Graham.
Arar, 35, holds dual Syrian-Canadian citizenship and was traveling on a Canadian passport when he was stopped in New York during a stopover while returning to Canada from Tunisia. He was held for 12 days before being sent to Syria on suspicion of being a member of al-Qaida, an allegation he denies.
Arar maintains that once imprisoned in Damascus, he was tortured into making false confessions of terrorist activity. Arar said he was held for more than a year in a dark, damp cell, then was released without ever being charged.
The U.S. Justice Department has insisted that it had information linking Arar to al-Qaida, that Syria promised he would be treated humanely and that shipping him there was "in the best interest of the security of the United States." Syria has denied he was tortured.
A U.S. counterterrorism official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the process is classified, said rendition dates back several administrations and is used to get only the most serious terrorists off the streets, where there are only limited options.
In April the Dutch government denied the Netherlands had cooperated in the "extraordinary rendition" program, responding to questions from parliamentarians after the Washington Post reported U.S. intelligence officers had abducted terror suspects from European countries.
Germano Dottori, a political analyst at the Center for Strategic Studies in Rome, said the rendition operations are part of the American strategy of fighting terrorism through preventive action, but that if revealed can cause some damage to relationships between allied countries.
"No country appreciates intrusions into its sphere of national sovereignty and this is a very delicate sphere of sovereignty," he said.
___
Associated Press reporters Karl Ritter in Stockholm; Beth Duff-Brown in Toronto, Ariel David in Rome and Katherine Shrader in Washington contributed to this report.
Asylum detentions 'breaking law'
BBC NEWS
Asylum detentions 'breaking law'
Amnesty International says the UK government is breaking the law by locking up too many asylum seekers before their claims are dealt with.
A report by the human rights group estimates 25,000 asylum applicants were held in detention centres during 2004.
It says many of these were vulnerable, such as pregnant women, families with children and torture victims.
The Home Office said detention powers were "essential" to ensure effective immigration controls.
It did not confirm the numbers stated in the report, but said it was committed to ensuring that everyone detained was treated with "humanity and dignity".
Asylum seekers can be held at any time during their application for refuge.
Ministers say the powers are needed to prevent people from absconding in the run-up to removal from the UK, and the government has tripled the number of detention spaces since 1997.
But the Amnesty says the government's use of detention for asylum seekers is a "lottery", dependent on the availability of beds rather than whether it is necessary or appropriate.
It says some people had been held without a final decision on their application for up to two years, a move it says is illegal because the detentions did not appear to be leading to removal from the UK.
The government's detention programme has been beset by problems including a riot that destroyed one centre, multiple incidences of self-harm, sporadic protests and a small number of suicides.
An undercover BBC documentary also exposed racism within the detention arm of the immigration service.
Kate Allen, director of Amnesty International UK, said: "Seeking asylum is not a crime, it is a right."
She said thousands of people who had done nothing wrong were being locked up, and that there was no apparent reason behind many of the detentions.
"We found that languishing in detention with no end in sight had led to mental illness, self-harm and even to people trying to take their own life," she added.
"People who have sought asylum are being denied justice in the UK."
Fast-track detentions
Amnesty said its interviews with detainees found some people were being held for long periods with apparently little chance of removal from the UK for a variety of complex reasons.
It added that more asylum seekers selected for a "fast-track" decision were now being detained for all of their application, a concern echoed earlier this month by a human rights report from the Council of Europe.
A Home Office spokesman said the Amnesty report would be studied in detail, and that the government welcomed the opportunity to have a "sensible debate" about asylum issues.
"The power to detain an individual is an essential part of protecting the integrity and effectiveness of our immigration controls," said the spokesman.
"It is also essential that those we do detain should be treated with humanity and dignity and we are committed to ensuring that this is the case."
'Positive contribution'
But Maeve Sherlock, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said the report's evidence was stark.
"People are being detained arbitrarily, without proper consideration of whether it is appropriate or indeed necessary to do so," she said.
"Today marks the beginning of Refugee Week, when we celebrate the positive contribution refugees make to the UK and also reflect on why people seek sanctuary here.
"It can't be right to lock people up simply because they have asked for safety here - seeking asylum is not a crime."
Sunday, June 19, 2005
The Beginning of the End?
The Nation
The Beginning of the End?
Katrina vanden Heuvel
"We see this as the beginning of the end," said Tom Andrews, a former Democratic representative from Maine who is executive director of the antiwar group Win Without War. "It's the very beginning of a new wave of activism on this war. There's a real sense that something is beginning to move." --Los Angeles Times, Friday June 17, 2005
Earlier that day, a friend and longtime antiwar activist left me a voice mail message. Just ten days earlier he told me that he was more depressed about our politics than at anytime in the last 40 years. "Hello, this is..." he said. "I was in Washington yesterday at the rally and at the Conyers hearings. And since I laid a heavy statement on you last week, I just wanted to make a correction. It's finally over. My despair is over. Something has happened these last ten days that has revived the antiwar issue. It has to do with public opinion polls and casualties and Republicans like Walter Jones and more Democrats standing up. I won't say how optimistic I am. But something is coming together--you can feel it."
You can feel it.
*Every day brings news of public opinion turning against the occupation--and the President's conduct of the war. Last week, a Washington Post-ABC News poll showed that for the first time since the war began, more than half of the public believes the US invasion has not made the US more secure; and nearly 40 percent described the situation there now as analagous to the Vietnam War. A new Gallup survey finds that almost 60 percent of Americans say the US should withdraw some or all of its troops from Iraq, the largest number in that category ever. And for the first time, most Americans say they would be "upset" if President Bush sent more troops. Gallup also found that 56 percent now feel the war was "not worth it," and 73 percent consider the number of casualties unacceptable.
* Every day brings news of more Democrats coming forward, standing up and introducing "exit strategy" resolutions. (Though, as of yet, leadership isn't coming from the leadership.) Lynn Woolsey forced a Congressional vote on bipartisan legislation that would have asked Bush to submit a plan to Congress explaining the outlines of an exit strategy from Iraq. Senator Russell Feingold has introduced a nonbinding resolution calling on the Bush Administration to set specific goals for leaving Iraq.
In the House, the International Relations Committee last week voted overwhelmingly, 32 to 9, to call on the White House to develop and submit a plan to Congress for establishing a stable government and military in Iraq that would "permit a decreased US presence" in the country. Congresswomen Maxine Waters (D/CA)--along with 41 Congressional progressives, including Woolsey, John Lewis, Charles Rangel, Jim McGovern, Rush Holt, Marcy Kaptur and Jan Schakowsky--has just formed the "Out of Iraq Congressional Caucus." Its sole purpose, Waters says, "is to be the main agitators in the movement to bring our troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan." And Rep John Conyers' impassioned efforts to bring attention to the Downing Street Memo--on Thursday he held hearings on Capitol Hill and then delivered to the White House letters that contained the names of more than 560,000 Americans demanding answers to questions raised by the British memo--has reenergized and refocused opposition to the war.
While the Administration and its allies in Congress are trying to make it seem as if these new initiatives merely reflect Democrats' reading of the polls, I say--bring it on. Let's welcome more Democrats--and sane Republicans--giving legislative expression and voice to the majority of Americans who want to see our Iraq policy changed. (In fact, according to the recent Gallup poll, Congress appears to be lagging behind the public on the issue: Some 72 percent of Democrats, 65 percent of independents and 41 percent of Republicans say they favor a partial or complete withdrawal.)
*Every day brings news of another Republican signing on to the bipartisan resolution introduced last Thursday by Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC)--the man who brought us "Freedom Fries"--and Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii). That resolution calls for the Bush Administration to announce a plan for the withdrawal of all US forces from Iraq by the end of the year and to initiate the plan as soon as possible. Maverick Congressman Ron Paul (R/Texas) is already a sponsor, Jim Leach (R/ Iowa) signed on Friday and Howard Coble (R/North Carolina) is considering adding his signature. (With 2006 midterms fast approaching, more Republicans will be hearing from constituents who are growing uneasy about the war. And more GOP members up for reelection may start sounding like Jones, who said in an interview with ABC's George Stephanopolous last weekend that he votes his conscience first, his constituents second, and his party third. )
But much hard and grinding organizing work remains ahead.
On Monday afternoon, Abercrombie and others are going to sit down with Congressman Jones and other House members to discuss options to advance the resolution and build activism against the war.
They'll be supported by a national coalition, that includes Win Without War, MoveOn.org, The National Council of Churches, True Majority, Sojourners, Working Assets and the National Organization of Women, which is planning a grassroots outreach campaign encouraging Members of Congress to sign onto the newly introduced bipartisan resolution.
These organizations are going to be concentrating on those members of Congress who should be particularly susceptible to constituent demand about the war. (As Tom Andrews of the invaluable Win Without War group says, "Take it from one who has been there, in Congress loyalty to one's party leaders and president stops at the 'waters edge' of the voters at home.")
"A prairie fire of activism has started," Andrews argues. "Our job now is to fan these flames and get a conflagration of opposition spreading across the country. We are working with our member groups as well as others on a range of action options to build momentum over the next several months. These will include a major action in Washington in September with what I hope will include a complementary Internet based component. Between those marching in DC and those joining through the Internet around the country I am certain that we could have a million Americans demonstrating against the Bush war in September."
The combination of dropping poll numbers, the grinding images of chaos and violence in Iraq, the daily news of young Americans dying in what seems a senseless war and the increasingly active and visible opposition of constituents is bad news for the president and his Congressional allies.
This really can be the beginning of the end of a disastrous war and a bankrupt national security strategy.
U.S. War Plans Much-Discussed in Memos
vvdailypress.com
Jun 18, 12:08 PM EDT
U.S. War Plans Much-Discussed in Memos
LONDON (AP) -- President Bush's government has been accused of exaggerating the risks of Saddam Hussein's weapons and Iraq's ties to al-Qaida before the war to justify the invasion. That's one reason the most quoted section of the eight secret Downing Street memos that have been leaked to the British and American media are the minutes of a meeting that Prime Minister Tony Blair held with his top officials on July 23, 2002.
During it, Sir Richard Dearlove, then chief of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, discussed his recent visit to Washington.
"There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable," said Dearlove, who's identified as "C" in the secret minutes of the meeting.
"Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
"The NSC had no patience with the U.N. route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action." The NSC is the U.S. National Security Council, which advises the president.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said he would discuss the timing of a possible war with then Secretary of State Colin Powell.
"It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing has not yet decided," the minutes said. "But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."
Memos Show British Fretting Over Iraq War
WNYC.org
Jun 18, 10:07 PM EDT
Memos Show British Fretting Over Iraq War
By THOMAS WAGNER
Associated Press Writer
LONDON (AP) -- When Prime Minister Tony Blair's chief foreign policy adviser dined with Condoleezza Rice six months after Sept. 11, the then-U.S. national security adviser didn't want to discuss Osama bin Laden or al-Qaida. She wanted to talk about "regime change" in Iraq, setting the stage for the U.S.-led invasion more than a year later.
President Bush wanted Blair's support, but British officials worried the White House was rushing to war, according to a series of leaked secret Downing Street memos that have renewed questions and debate about Washington's motives for ousting Saddam Hussein.
In one of the memos, British Foreign Office political director Peter Ricketts openly asks whether the Bush administration had a clear and compelling military reason for war.
"U.S. scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and al-Qaida is so far frankly unconvincing," Ricketts says in the memo. "For Iraq, `regime change' does not stack up. It sounds like a grudge between Bush and Saddam."
The documents confirm Blair was genuinely concerned about Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction, but also indicate he was determined to go to war as America's top ally, even though his government thought a pre-emptive attack may be illegal under international law.
"The truth is that what has changed is not the pace of Saddam Hussein's WMD programs, but our tolerance of them post-11 September," said a typed copy of a March 22, 2002 memo obtained Thursday by The Associated Press and written to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.
"But even the best survey of Iraq's WMD programs will not show much advance in recent years on the nuclear, missile or CW/BW (chemical or biological weapons) fronts: the programs are extremely worrying but have not, as far as we know, been stepped up."
Details from Rice's dinner conversation also are included in one of the secret memos from 2002, which reveal British concerns about both the invasion and poor postwar planning by the Bush administration, which critics say has allowed the Iraqi insurgency to rage.
The eight memos - all labeled "secret" or "confidential" - were first obtained by British reporter Michael Smith, who has written about them in The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times.
Smith told AP he protected the identity of the source he had obtained the documents from by typing copies of them on plain paper and destroying the originals.
The AP obtained copies of six of the memos (the other two have circulated widely). A senior British official who reviewed the copies said their content appeared authentic. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the secret nature of the material.
The Sunday Times this week reported that lawyers told the British government that U.S. and British bombing of Iraq in the months before the war was illegal under international law. That report, also by Smith, noted that almost a year before the war started, they began to strike more frequently.
The newspaper quoted Lord Goodhart, vice president of the International Commission of Jurists, as backing the Foreign Office lawyers' view that aircraft could only patrol the no-fly zones to deter attacks by Saddam's forces.
Goodhart said that if "the purpose was to soften up Iraq for a future invasion or even to intimidate Iraq, the coalition forces were acting without lawful authority," the Sunday Times reported.
The eight documents reported earlier total 36 pages and range from 10-page and eight-page studies on military and legal options in Iraq, to brief memorandums from British officials and the minutes of a private meeting held by Blair and his top advisers.
Toby Dodge, an Iraq expert who teaches at Queen Mary College, University of London, said the documents confirmed what post-invasion investigations have found.
"The documents show what official inquiries in Britain already have, that the case of weapons of mass destruction was based on thin intelligence and was used to inflate the evidence to the level of mendacity," Dodge said. "In going to war with Bush, Blair defended the special relationship between the two countries, like other British leaders have. But he knew he was taking a huge political risk at home. He knew the war's legality was questionable and its unpopularity was never in doubt."
Dodge said the memos also show Blair was aware of the postwar instability that was likely among Iraq's complex mix of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds once Saddam was defeated.
The British documents confirm, as well, that "soon after 9/11 happened, the starting gun was fired for the invasion of Iraq," Dodge said.
Speculation about if and when that would happen ran throughout 2002.
On Jan. 29, Bush called Iraq, Iran and North Korea "an axis of evil." U.S. newspapers began reporting soon afterward that a U.S.-led war with Iraq was possible.
On Oct. 16, the U.S. Congress voted to authorize Bush to go to war against Iraq. On Feb. 5, 2003, then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell presented the Bush administration's case about Iraq's weapons to the U.N. Security Council. On March 19-20, the U.S.-led invasion began.
Bush and Blair both have been criticized at home since their WMD claims about Iraq proved false. But both have been re-elected, defending the conflict for removing a brutal dictator and promoting democracy in Iraq. Both administrations have dismissed the memos as old news.
Details of the memos appeared in papers early last month but the news in Britain quickly turned to the election that returned Blair to power. In the United States, however, details of the memos' contents reignited a firestorm, especially among Democratic critics of Bush.
It was in a March 14, 2002, memo that Blair's chief foreign policy adviser, David Manning, told the prime minister about the dinner he had just had with Rice in Washington.
"We spent a long time at dinner on Iraq," wrote Manning, who's now British ambassador to the United States. Rice is now Bush's secretary of state.
"It is clear that Bush is grateful for your (Blair's) support and has registered that you are getting flak. I said that you would not budge in your support for regime change but you had to manage a press, a Parliament and a public opinion that was very different than anything in the States. And you would not budge either in your insistence that, if we pursued regime change, it must be very carefully done and produce the right result. Failure was not an option."
Manning said, "Condi's enthusiasm for regime change is undimmed." But he also said there were signs of greater awareness of the practical difficulties and political risks.
Blair was to meet with Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, on April 8, and Manning told his boss: "No doubt we need to keep a sense of perspective. But my talks with Condi convinced me that Bush wants to hear your views on Iraq before taking decisions. He also wants your support. He is still smarting from the comments by other European leaders on his Iraq policy."
A July 21 briefing paper given to officials preparing for a July 23 meeting with Blair says officials must "ensure that the benefits of action outweigh the risks."
"In particular we need to be sure that the outcome of the military action would match our objective... A postwar occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise. As already made clear, the U.S. military plans are virtually silent on this point."
The British worried that, "Washington could look to us to share a disproportionate share of the burden. Further work is required to define more precisely the means by which the desired end state would be created, in particular what form of government might replace Saddam Hussein's regime and the time scale within which it would be possible to identify a successor."
In the March 22 memo from Foreign Office political director Ricketts to Foreign Secretary Straw, Ricketts outlined how to win public and parliamentary support for a war in Britain: "We have to be convincing that: the threat is so serious/imminent that it is worth sending our troops to die for; it is qualitatively different from the threat posed by other proliferators who are closer to achieving nuclear capability (including Iran)."
Blair's government has been criticized for releasing an intelligence dossier on Iraq before the war that warned Saddam could launch chemical or biological weapons on 45 minutes' notice.
On March 25 Straw wrote a memo to Blair, saying he would have a tough time convincing the governing Labour Party that a pre-emptive strike against Iraq was legal under international law.
"If 11 September had not happened, it is doubtful that the U.S. would now be considering military action against Iraq," Straw wrote. "In addition, there has been no credible evidence to link Iraq with OBL (Osama bin Laden) and al-Qaida."
He also questioned stability in a post-Saddam Iraq: "We have also to answer the big question - what will this action achieve? There seems to be a larger hole in this than on anything."
Don't you love this media abundance?
huffingtonpost.com
06.18.2005 Marty Kaplan
Don't you love this media abundance?
I watched Congressman Conyers' Downing Street Memo hearings on Cspan 3. Comcast, my cable provider, doesn't carry Cspan 3 in my Los Angeles neighborhood, so I had to watch it on my laptop. I did a spin of the channels on my television to see if anyone else was showing the hearing. None of the broadcast channels, and none of the cable channels. But three of the 24-hour national cable news channels were giving blanket coverage to an LA freeway chase, which had also taken over several local LA stations.
This splendid situation is what the Republican-dominated FCC calls the age of media abundance. In the bad old days, we had media scarcity: few channels, few choices. But in this golden era, there's plenty for everyone. And here's what plenty looks like: seven different broadcast and cable channels using their free public licenses and monopoly franchises in order to broadcast the same pathetic car chase, and not one channel airing what was arguably the most newsy and historic event of the day.
And the FCC wants me to shout, "Hooray! Diversity!" for the Internet for letting me stream a two-inch screen online.
A few days ago the Supreme Court told the FCC that when it comes to deciding what constitutes media diversity, it had its head up its butt. Two Junes ago, Michael Powell's FCC said there's no problem with two or three television stations in a market having the same owner, because there's such fabulous abundance and diversity these days. To arrive at that conclusion, the FCC came up with a formula -- a "diversity index" -- that paid no attention to the content actually aired by stations, and no attention to how many people actually watched them.
Public interest groups mobilized to undo that in the courts, and finally, last June, the Philadelphia Appeals Court called the FCC diversity index "arbitrary and capricious." Big Media spent tons of dough appealing the Philadelphia decision to the Supreme Court. And now the Supremes have said they won't intervene. The burden is back on the FCC to come up with a diversity index that's not simply a cover for no-holds-barred media consolidation.
In our mediated world, nothing's more important than an abundance of diverse voices doing the storytelling about who we are. In the case of broadcast television and radio, those storytellers get their soapbox licenses from the public, for free, in exchange for promising a diversity of voices. It's now up to the FCC to measure diversity in a way that passes the smell test. Before our tribe reduces the number of storytellers we have, and before we give some of them even louder voices, we'd better know how many different voices there really are out there, and who's able to hear them.
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