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Thursday, December 01, 2005

Report questions Medicare drug benefit oversight

Reuters
Report questions Medicare drug benefit oversight

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Medicare has received thousands of complaints about its temporary drug discount card, according to a congressional report released on Wednesday as the agency grapples with new gripes about the card's replacement program.

The Government Accountability Office said the insurance program for the elderly and disabled received 26,000 complaints and formal grievances about the temporary cards. It took 23 actions against 15 insurers and other card sponsors.

Rep. Henry Waxman of California who requested the GAO report, said the findings call into question how well Medicare will oversee the new permanent drug discount benefit that starts January 1.

"Unless they are corrected, the problems identified by GAO will undermine the new Medicare drug benefit, just as they did the Medicare drug card program," said Waxman, the ranking Democrat on the House of Representatives Government Reform Committee.

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Mark McClellan criticized the report, saying investigators did not take the agency's full enforcement abilities into account and focused "on a snapshot ... rather than the process."

The center also said it has received about 100 complaints about the marketing of the new plans targeted at insurance companies and agents.

"One hundred complaints is a pretty small number when you consider the number of plans, the number of agents out there that are going to be marketing," said agency spokesman Gary Karr. About 40 different plans are offered in most states.

Both the cards and the plans allow private companies to negotiate prices with drug manufacturers and offer discount plans to seniors directly. Medicare is charged with making sure they cover certain types of drugs, and not others, and follow certain marketing rules.

"There are a number of things we can and are very willing to do" if sellers break the law, Karr said. These include monetary penalties or terminating a company's contract to provide a plan.

A second GAO report released on Wednesday found Medicare's efforts to promote the discount cards "did not consistently provide information that was clear, accurate, and accessible."

CMS's McClellan said the agency had learned lessons from the program that would "inform" its planning for next year's benefit.

Alito proposed anti-abortion strategy in 1985

Reuters

Alito proposed anti-abortion strategy in 1985

By Thomas Ferraro and Joanne Kenen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, as a Reagan administration lawyer 20 years ago, outlined ways to limit abortion rights without overturning a 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion, a memo released on Wednesday showed.

This strategy, Alito wrote as an assistant in the U.S. Solicitor General's Office, could curb the landmark ruling without generating headlines about a "stinging rebuke" of it.

The 1985 memo by Alito was a road map on how to expand states' ability to regulate certain aspects of abortion.

President George W. Bush has nominated Alito, 55, to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who often has been the swing vote on the nine-member court on abortion and other hot-button social issues.

A federal appeals judge the past 15 years, Alito could shift the nation's highest court to the right on such matters if confirmed by the full Republican-led Senate.

Memos stemming from Alito's work in the Reagan administration were released on the same day that he said judges must respect previous rulings and be "sensibly cautious" about their own decisions.

But Alito added in a written statement, "Judges should do all these things without shirking their duty to say what the law is and to carry out their proper role with energy and independence."

HEARINGS IN JANUARY

Alito made the comments in response to a questionnaire from the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, which is set to begin his confirmation hearing on January 9.

At the hearing senators are certain to ask Alito to explain his position on the issue now compared with where he stood on it as lawyer in the Reagan administration, which opposed abortion.

But like previous Supreme Court nominees, Alito may decline to answer, saying he does not want to prejudge matters that could come before the court.

Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, called the 1985 abortion memo "stunning."

"These latest revelations cast serious doubt on whether Judge Alito can be at all objective on the right to privacy and a woman's right to choose," Schumer said.

White House spokesman Steve Schmidt responded, "Judge Alito's 15-year record on the federal bench is the best indicator of his judicial philosophy and has shown a deep commitment and respect for precedent." He noted that Alito has ruled in "favor of both abortion rights and abortion restrictions."

Conservatives have rallied around Alito since his nomination last month, while many liberals oppose him, fearing he will move the court to the right.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, said, "Judge Alito's questionnaire and his 15 years and more than 300 cases on the bench reveal a lot more about this brilliant jurist than any individual memo."

"I am pleased that Judge Alito's nomination remains on track for a fair up-or-down vote in January" by the full Senate, Frist said.

Republicans hold 55 of 100 Senate seats. But 60 would be needed to end a procedural roadblock known as a filibuster, though it is unclear if Democrats would try such a tactic.

In response to the Senate questionnaire, Alito made the case against "judicial activism," which critics charge amounts to judges imposing their own will from the bench rather than strictly adhering to the U.S. Constitution.

Alito wrote that judges must have "faith that the cause of justice in the long run is best served if they scrupulously heed the limits of their role rather than transgressing those limits in an effort to achieve a desired result."

(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan and Donna Smith)

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Set a deadline that lets Iraqis prove what they want

Yahoo! News
Set a deadline that lets Iraqis prove what they want

By Philip Gold

There is a process in American political life by which the unthinkable becomes the inevitable and the inevitable becomes, inevitably, a big mess. Central to this process is a peculiarly American inability to ask, let alone answer, the vital questions of any endeavor: an inability empowered by that peculiarly American attitude, "We don't have to understand the world, we only need to know about us."

This is how we got into Vietnam. This is how we left. This is how we got into Iraq. It would be tragic, were we to leave the same way.

In the spring of 2002, a year before the event, I became one of America's first conservatives to oppose the Iraq war. I did so for so many hard military, political, and economic reasons that they amounted to a moral reason. This would be a hideous failure of prudence, that oft-extolled conservative art of applying general principles to specific situations. As a conservative, I knew that we should not mortgage our future to the secular redemption of other countries and civilizations. And although I supported the Bush Doctrine, when I started hearing the phrase, "strategic preemption," I got the same uh-oh as when I first heard, "the fetus ex utero."

It's been a lonely three years.

But now that Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania has started his firestorm for US troop withdrawal from Iraq, I find myself opposing his prescription. We're still failing to ask the vital question: Do the people of Iraq really want what we're offering?

Forget the elections, important though they were. Forget the polls - or at least remember taqiya, an Arabic word denoting, among other things, the right and duty of Muslims to lie to infidels. Forget the 3.5 million cellphones we've reportedly provided, or how many Iraqi battalions may now be able to tie their boots without American assistance, or any of the "metrics" by which we measure success. Take a look at the vital matter.

The Iraqi people, courtesy of hundreds of ill-guarded ancien régime weapons dumps and a thriving import trade, are among the most heavily armed on earth. The people of Iraq know who and where the bad guys are. This insurgency would have ended in a month, had the Iraqis chosen to wage a people's war against them. They did not. The silence of the armed is the silence of consent.

Put differently: This strange double helix of insurgency and incipient civil war will not be won by us. It will be won if, and only if, the Iraqi government and the scores of (illegal) militias that suffuse the country can find ways to defeat the insurgency while avoiding civil war, then sort out their peacetime relationships later. Therefore, the United States should set a deadline, but not a deadline for withdrawal. The next nine months should show whether the Iraqi people want their new government, and their new freedom, enough to wage a people's war for it. The US should give them that chance, with the clear understanding that next summer we will judge whether or not their commitment justifies ours. If it does, we press on. If it does not, we leave.

Toward that end, all serious and honorable critics of the war should stand down until late next summer. Vietnam protest was, by and large, a carnival superimposed upon a tragedy. We need no more carnivals. But if there is to be another carnival - a circus composed of preening celebrities and wannabes, calculating politicians, high-dudgeon radicals, the blame-America-first crowd, and all who lust for American defeat - let it be seen for what it is.

But a silence of today's serious and honorable dissidents would not mean consent. Should it happen that the Iraqi people, for whatever reasons, do not want what we have so clumsily offered, or if they do, it's time to make Iraq a fundamental issue of the 2006 election. Increasingly, President Bush falls victim to the Year-Six Curse. (The last president to serve more than six years without a major meltdown was Teddy Roosevelt.) Under such circumstances, year-six elections can occasion major political shifts. We may be overdue, perhaps for the greatest course change since 1918.

And a serious 2006 election might have another benefit. We get into mess after mess because we believe that what we know about ourselves matters more than knowing the world. Perhaps it's time to ask whether we know ourselves as well as we think we do. We are a good people. But the things we do are not always just right because we're the ones doing them.

Perhaps, while considering what the people of Iraq want, we might also spend some time on ourselves.

• Philip Gold is author of "Take Back the Right." His next book, "The Coming Draft?" will be published by Presidio in 2006.

President Bush's war, not America's war

Yahoo! News
'President Bush's war, not America's war'

Most Americans now realize we were duped into supporting an unjust invasion of Iraq. It took a long time to realize there were no weapons of mass destruction, no nuclear weapons, no mushroom cloud threats, no uranium from Niger, no link to al-Qaeda. Today, most Americans have figured it out.

Some will tell us mistakes were made, but most of us recognize a lie when we see one. We are in Iraq based on lies, and our military men and women are dying.

This is President Bush's war, not America's war. There is no dishonor for the United States in stopping Bush's war. There is, however, enormous dishonor for America if we don't stop killing, given that we now can conclude the Iraq war is based on lie after lie after lie.

Joseph T. Suste, Medford, Ore.

Bush 'consistently wrong'

USA TODAY reader Jane Kenny, who links the fact that this country hasn't been "attacked since 9/11" to our occupancy in Iraq, apparently has swallowed hook, line and sinker the Bush administration's misleading justification for the Iraq invasion ("President's critics miss war's big picture," Letters, Tuesday).

As many of us now accept, Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack. Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, and, yes, Iraq is now a magnet for terrorists and a frightening showpiece of terrorism in action.

I do agree with the letter writer on one thing: We have to give President Bush credit for being consistent. Amen. He appears to be consistently wrong.

Dorian de Wind, Austin

No turning back

Jane Kenny's letter to the editor assumes we were constantly under attack on our homeland before Sept. 11, 2001. We weren't.

Until 9/11, we were practically invincible on our homeland.

President Bush is consistent in his beliefs, but he has no choice. To change direction now would be political suicide.

Carlos Griffin, Ridgeland, Miss.

'Persevere to the end'

Thanks, USA TODAY, for the editorial view on American troops in Iraq. While I believe the United States has mishandled a number of things in Iraq, the fact remains that we are there: We caused the problem and have to persevere to the end ("Congress finally debates war but finds no easy solution," Our view, Invading Iraq debate, Nov. 21).

Having had the privilege of flying U.S. troops to and from the Middle East for the past two years, in talking with them I've found, almost to a man, they feel they have a mission and want to complete it.

I believe that prematurely pulling troops from Iraq would only lead to the failure of democracy in that region, and further diminish the perception of the United States there. Additionally, failing to guide Iraq through this difficult period would dishonor those who have been injured or killed in fighting this war.

While Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record), D-Pa., indicates that public support is waning, I'd disagree with his conclusion this is a reason to pull out ("Staying is not the answer," Opposing view). The United States has a moral responsibility to bring to completion what it has started, whether popular or not.

Scott Grillo, Lancaster, Pa.

U.S. can't fight all battles

So, USA TODAY thinks that terrorists' opinions are a good reason to continue sending our young men and women to die in Iraq?

The recent editorial notes that Osama bin Laden said that the United States "rushed out of Somalia in shame and disgrace" and that his forces were emboldened as a result. Our "occupation" of Iraq already emboldens terrorists; I don't think ending our occupation would further embolden them. Besides, as I would tell my 5-year-old, you should not "live your life based on what bad people say about you."

Bad people are going to find ways to be bad people and find places to do bad things. But this is the heart of why USA TODAY argues that thousands more ought to be sent to be killed or wounded?

This nation fought its only civil war because it had to. Let other nations fight their own civil wars. Saddam Hussein is gone. We allowed bin Laden to escape. Terrorists will be terrorists. It's an ugly world, and we can't fight all its battles - not at this cost, not when the rationales aren't why most Americans agreed to invade Iraq. When we are attacked, or an attack is imminent, we should annihilate the true perpetrators. Nothing less. But it's not our job to nation-build or police any nation in the world.

Whether it takes six weeks or six months, we need to disengage to the level that Rep. John Murtha outlines. We need to stop building streetlights and remove en masse our police forces from an entire region where the "stability" bar will never be what we'd prefer.

David Gaines, Cherry Hill, N.J.

Stay course in trying times

I have nothing but respect for the comments of Rep. John Murtha, a former Marine, regarding withdrawal from Iraq. And I agree that the entry into Iraq was a very bad mistake. Nonetheless, to withdraw without training the Iraqi troops to defend themselves from the terrorists would be another mistake.

I can feel Murtha's frustration, especially after having to live through the disaster of the Vietnam War. But the ghosts of Vietnam shouldn't bring us to make more mistakes, nor should the mistaken judgments of our leadership drive us to make more errors in judgment.

I cannot forget that during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II - when we were losing the war, after many months of being the victors - how depressing it was to those of us serving overseas in our third year of the war. During the month of the Bulge, 19,000 of our brave servicemembers gave their lives.

Please, let us not rush to make more bad judgments, in these "times that try men's souls." Remember the courage of the soldiers who have risked their lives and the many who have given all.

Orville B. Iverson, Woodside, Calif.

Patriotic to withdraw, too

Soldiers have a duty to follow orders and fight their enemies. But U.S. citizens also have a duty: not to blindly or unquestioningly support a war our leaders tell them to fight - one that, it is becoming increasingly evident, cannot be won.

U.S. soldiers are being killed and maimed in Iraq (and even Afghanistan) every day. While it is true that casualties are not nearly as high as during the Vietnam War or World War II, it is apparent that such casualties are unnecessary. The spreading of democracy is a noble goal worth fighting for, but not necessarily worth dying for.

Our troops have done all that could possibly be expected of them. But now that freedom-loving Iraqis have been released from the chains of brutal dictatorship, it is time for our troops to come home. Our soldiers' feet have been held to the fire, and our troops have performed honorably and well.

How dare any of our country's leaders accuse those protesting the war of being unpatriotic. How dare they say we are dishonoring those soldiers who are still fighting and spilling their blood. True patriotism is knowing when to admit defeat.

We can best honor those who have died by saying to those who are still fighting: "You have performed nobly! Now it is time for you to come home! There is honor to be found even in defeat." True patriotism is a badge that deserves to be worn proudly by us all.

Lawrence Auerbach, Las Vegas

Proud to call Bush president

The commitment of George W. Bush to what is seen as an increasingly unpopular war can be summed up in one word: leadership.

Criticism of war is not unprecedented. Lincoln was bitterly criticized by the minority party, which wanted to surrender in the face of a hard fight and mounting casualties. There were riots in the streets. Lincoln stayed the course and gave his life to free the slaves.

As with Lincoln, history, not the current minority party, will judge President Bush.

If we are able to achieve a measure of success that brings democracy to this troubled region, paid for with the blood of our sons and daughters, history will be kind. I'm proud to call Bush my president.

Peter J. Wickman, Inverness, Ill.

N.C. Judge Declines Protection for Diebold

Yahoo! News
N.C. Judge Declines Protection for Diebold

By GARY D. ROBERTSON, Associated Press Writer

One of the nation's leading suppliers of electronic voting machines may decide against selling new equipment in North Carolina after a judge declined Monday to protect it from criminal prosecution should it fail to disclose software code as required by state law.

Diebold Inc., which makes automated teller machines and security and voting equipment, is worried it could be charged with a felony if officials determine the company failed to make all of its code — some of which is owned by third-party software firms, including Microsoft Corp. — available for examination by election officials in case of a voting mishap.

The requirement is part of the minimum voting equipment standards approved by state lawmakers earlier this year following the loss of more than 4,400 electronic ballots in Carteret County during the November 2004 election. The lost votes threw at least one close statewide race into uncertainty for more than two months.

About 20 North Carolina counties already use Diebold voting machines, and the State Board of Elections plans to announce Thursday the suppliers that meet the new standards. Local elections boards will be allowed to purchase voting machines from the approved vendors.

"We will obviously have no alternative but withdraw from the process," said Doug Hanna, a Raleigh-based lawyer representing North Canton, Ohio-based Diebold.

David Bear, a Diebold spokesman, said the company was reviewing several options after Monday's ruling. "We're going to do what is necessary to provide what is best for our existing clients" in North Carolina, he said.

The dispute centers on the state's requirement that suppliers place in escrow "all software that is relevant to functionality, setup, configuration, and operation of the voting system," as well as a list of programmers responsible for creating the software.

That's not possible for Diebold's machines, which use Microsoft Windows, Hanna said. The company does not have the right to provide Microsoft's code, he said, adding it would be impossible to provide the names of every programmer who worked on Windows.

The State Board of Elections has told potential suppliers to provide code for all available software and explain why some is unavailable. That's not enough of an assurance for Diebold, which remains concerned about breaking a law that's punishable by a low-grade felony and a civil penalty of up to $100,000 per violation.

"You cannot have a statute that imposes a criminal violation ... without being clear about what conduct will submit you to a criminal violation," Hanna said.

But because no one has yet to accuse Diebold of breaking the law, Wake County Superior Court Judge Narley Cashwell declined to issue an injunction that would have protected the company from prosecution. Cashwell also declined to offer an interpretation of the law that would have allayed Diebold's concerns.

"We need to comply with the literal language and the statute," Cashwell said. "I don't think we have an issue here yet."

Diebold machines were blamed for voting disruptions in a California primary election last year. California has refused to certify some machines because of their malfunction rate. California officials have agreed to let a computer expert attempt to hack into Diebold machines to examine how secure they are.

On Monday, California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson said his office might seek to expand such testing to all systems seeking certification for use in California's 58 counties.

Diebold shares fell 71 cents, or 1.8 percent, to close at $38.93 Monday on the New York Stock Exchange.

___

Associated Press Writer Tom Chorneau in Sacramento contributed to this report.

Monday, November 28, 2005

The appearance-of-ridiculousness standard

washingtonpost.com
Pride Goeth Before the Court

By Al Kamen

Liberals went into high whine mode when the Supreme Court agreed to hear Republican George W. Bush 's appeal in the 2000 Florida vote dispute. They said the high court lacked grounds to agree to hear the case.

But, as it turns out, it had ample grounds, more grounds than anyone knew. Traditionally, the Supreme Court agrees to hear a case to resolve different lower court rulings, if it is of great importance or if there's an important constitutional question involved.

However, as the late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist noted, granting certiorari is really a "subjective decision," or as the late Justice John Marshall Harlan said, "a matter of feel."

Justice Antonin Scalia cited a heretofore unknown but important criterion: national pride.

Scalia unveiled the new criterion at a supposedly off-the-record chat last week at Time Warner headquarters with Time Inc. Editor in Chief Norman Pearlstine and Time Warner Chairman Richard Parsons and numerous journalists.

(Read on . . .)

On the 5 to 4 ruling in Bush v. Gore that made Bush president, New York Daily News columnist Lloyd Grove reports that Scalia said: "What did you expect us to do? Turn the case down because it wasn't important enough? Or give the Florida Supreme Court another couple of weeks in which the United States could look ridiculous?"

Ah, yes, the old appearance-of-ridiculousness standard.

Advocacy Groups Targeting Vulnerable Senators on Alito Vote

washingtonpost.com
Advocacy Groups Targeting Vulnerable Senators on Alito Vote

By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Fifteen foot soldiers newly recruited to the campaign to derail the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. introduced themselves at a recent meeting not only by name but also by offering their reasons for joining the cause.

Their concerns sounded a lot like an anthology of liberal talking points, bringing faint smiles to the faces of the organizers from Rhode Islanders for a Fair Judiciary, which is working to marshal opposition to Alito across the state. Abortion, gay rights, worker rights -- all are imperiled if Alito receives a lifetime appointment to the nation's high court, the volunteers said.

To prevent that from happening, these activists have joined a growing grass-roots campaign aimed at persuading the state's U.S. senators to oppose Alito. And one of those two senators is foremost in their minds: Republican Lincoln D. Chafee, who is up for reelection next year.

Coming from the small liberal wing of his party, Chafee is a supporter of abortion rights whose future is imperiled from both directions. He is facing a conservative challenge in the primary, and if he survives that he faces a general election battle in a distinctly Democratic-leaning state. Few are weighing Alito's nomination more gingerly -- and these activists know it.

This is the mirror opposite of the vulnerability that Alito's supporters are hoping to exploit in states such as Nebraska and North Dakota, which President Bush won easily last year but where Democrats hold Senate seats.

This gives activists on both sides incentives to plunge into the political trenches -- distributing postcards to be mailed to senators, writing letters to the editor, passing out literature extolling Alito's virtues or warning of the dangers he would present if elevated to the high court.

In Providence, one volunteer even offered to prowl downtown streets with a mobile phone and a script, offering passers-by a chance to call Chafee's office on the spot to register opposition to Alito.

"I know some of you might be wondering: Is this going to make a difference? It's only postcards," said Marti Rosenberg, the lead organizer here, who opposed the 1987 Supreme Court nomination of Robert H. Bork. "In the Bork fight, we got nearly 1,000 cards to Senator [John H.] Chafee, the dad. And we did beat Bork."

Backed by the money and know-how of Washington-based advocacy organizations, activists on both sides are duplicating those efforts in about 25 states. In many cases, the grass-roots campaign is being supplemented with television advertising focused on swaying swing-vote senators.

Opponents of the nomination, who are concentrating on states with moderate Republican senators or conservative Democrats, are trying to drive home the argument that Alito is a threat to long-established rights. His confirmation, they say, will put the judiciary in the hands of conservative extremists, threatening the right to abortion, crippling the power of Congress to pass anti-discrimination or gun-control laws, and resulting in more police power over individuals.

Alito's supporters, meanwhile, are trying to apply pressure to Democratic senators from more conservative states by portraying him as a brilliant and restrained jurist committed to narrowly interpreting the Constitution. Any senator who opposes him, they warn, is a captive of liberal groups outside the mainstream.

"If you are a Democratic senator from a state that the president won, the last thing you want to do is be aligned with [liberal advocate] Ralph Neas or groups like People for the American Way," said Keith Appell, a Republican strategist working with organizations supporting Alito's nomination.

Groups on both sides began mobilizing supporters hours after Bush announced Alito's nomination on Oct. 31. But the brewing battle has been largely obscured by the decorum of Alito's courtesy calls to senators, to whom he has offered reassuring words about his 15 years as an appeals court judge. The effort has earned praise from many senators, including some Democrats, who are impressed by Alito's intellect, judicial experience and professed respect for legal precedent.

But if the ritual visits to senators are mostly smiles, small talk and carefully calibrated promises to interpret the law, not make it, the street-level campaign is something else altogether. Both sides are framing their arguments in urgent and emotional words -- hoping to sway what polls suggest is substantial but hardly insurmountable sentiment for Alito to be confirmed. With a quarter to a third of Americans still uninformed or undecided, both sides are working hard to win converts.

"Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito has a 15-year history of judicial decisions that are hostile to our rights," reads the opening line of a flier being circulated by anti-Alito activists here. It calls him a right-wing activist interested in undermining a positive role for government, sanctioning discrimination and "threatening our civil liberties."

Alito's supporters are hardly more nuanced in condemning the motives of opponents. "Their agenda is clear," intones an ad sponsored by a coalition of conservative groups. "They want to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance and are fighting to redefine traditional marriage. They support partial-birth abortion, sanction the burning of the American flag."

Rhode Island's other senator, Jack Reed (D), voted against the confirmation of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. in September and is widely assumed to take the same stance toward Alito. That leaves Chafee as the real target.

He has said that he would wait for Alito's hearings, scheduled to begin Jan. 9, before deciding how to vote. The nature of his reelection challenge makes the decision on Alito tricky. The senator's Republican primary opponent, Cranston Mayor Stephen Laffey, is unabashedly conservative. The likely Democratic nominee -- either former state attorney general Sheldon Whitehouse or Rhode Island Secretary of State Matt Brown -- will be more liberal than either Republican.

Chafee "does not have an easy calculation as to how to play this," said Darrell West, a Brown University political scientist. "The problem with being in the center is you end up getting attacked by all sides."

West added that the grass-roots campaign surrounding the nomination only increases the stakes. "I think advocacy campaigns make a big difference because they put the senator on guard that people are paying attention and that this is a vote that matters," he said.

During their meeting here, the fledgling activists started making plans to bring maximum pressure to bear. "I felt like we didn't have a chance with Judge Roberts," said Brooke Huffman, 26, a youth counselor who suggested the mobile phone idea. "But with Alito, he's such an extremist, there is going to be more opposition."

Social worker Lisa Reichstein, 35, said she rarely gets deeply involved in politics. But calling the Alito nomination a special case, she promised to arrange a happy hour or other social event in hopes of drawing more people for their cause.

"I'm scared. I'm very scared," she said, explaining that she worries most about protecting abortion rights and privacy generally. "Putting Alito in there will absolutely change the balance of the court. We have to stop him."

Warner Urges Public Openess From Bush

ABC News
Warner Urges Public Openess From Bush
Sen. John Warner Suggests Bush Use FDR-Style 'Fireside Chats' to Better Inform Public on Iraq
By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Sunday suggested that President Bush use an FDR-style presentation to update people on progress in the war in Iraq.

Sen. John Warner, R-Va., recalled that during World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt often went on the radio in "fireside chats" to explain to the nation in detail the conduct of the war in Europe and Asia.

"I think it would be to Bush's advantage," said Warner, who served in the Navy during the end of World War II and during the Korean war.

"It would bring him closer to the people, dispel some of this concern that understandably our people have, about the loss of life and limb, the enormous cost of this war to the American public," he said.

Bush plans a speech Wednesday at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., on the fight against terrorism.

The Senate voted 79-19 on Nov. 15 to urge the Bush administration to explain publicly its strategy for success in Iraq and to provide quarterly reports on policy and military operations. A call for a plan to set a phased withdrawal of troops, which Bush opposes, was dropped from the nonbinding resolution when Republicans and some Democrats objected.

In an appearance Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," Warner reiterated his opposition to a timetable for troop withdrawal. He sharply disagreed with Delaware Sen. Joe Biden's assertion that the military cannot maintain its baseline troop levels past next year, citing assurances from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Peter Pace.

Biden, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, opposes an immediate withdrawal of troops. He did say the Pentagon would have to draw down forces next year, by as much as 50,000, or extend tours, deploy more National Guard members and take other measures.

Warner responded that Pace told him on Saturday that the military will maintain force levels in part by retraining certain segments of the Army and the Guard to perform basic fighting against the insurgents.

"Artillerymen can become infantrymen, artillerymen can become policemen," he said.

Nearly 160,000 U.S. troops are serving in Iraq. The Pentagon has said that level will drop below 140,000 after Iraqi elections on Dec. 15, if they are no longer needed for additional security.

Sen. Richard Lugar, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said there was a need for more information about policy and success rather than a change in course in Iraq.

"Our committee hopes to provide a whole lot more so the debate might be enlightened," Lugar, R-Ind., told "Fox News Sunday."

"We want to hear from the administration," he said.

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., who is on the committee, said a public timetable for withdrawal would show the Iraqi people that the U.S. is not set to occupy the country permanently.

"The right thing for the United States right now is to refocus on the fight against terrorism," Feingold said on "This Week" on ABC. "Iraq has ended up being a real distraction. Actually, a problem. I think it's actually made us weaker rather than stronger."

Feingold, considered a presidential hopeful for 2008, voted against giving Bush the authority to go to war in Iraq. He said that, unlike his Democratic colleagues in the Senate, he thought the administration was exaggerating the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

"The Bush administration did a brilliant job, which has continued until today, not in getting us into the war and handling it correctly, but they did a brilliant job of intimidating us into somehow thinking that if we didn't vote for this, we weren't supporting the troops and we were soft on terror," Feingold said.

"I could tell that they were taking every piece of evidence, exaggerating it, pushing everything they could and twisting everything in favor of going into Iraq," he said.

Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have rejected any suggestion that the administration intentionally misled the public as it made the case for invading Iraq and removing Saddam.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

2nd Time Reporter to Testify in Leak Case

The New York Times

2nd Time Reporter to Testify in Leak Case
By DAVID JOHNSTON

WASHINGTON, Nov. 27 - A second reporter for Time magazine has been asked to testify under oath in the C.I.A. leak case, about conversations she had in 2004 with a lawyer for Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, the magazine reported on Sunday.

The reporter, Viveca Novak, who has written about the leak investigation, has been asked to testify by the special counsel in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, about her conversations with Robert D. Luskin, a lawyer for Mr. Rove, the magazine said.

The request for Ms. Novak's testimony is the first tangible sign in weeks that Mr. Fitzgerald has not completed his inquiry into Mr. Rove's actions and may still be considering charges against him. Mr. Rove has long been under scrutiny in the case but has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

So far, Mr. Fitzgerald has brought one indictment, on perjury and obstruction of justice charges, against I. Lewis Libby Jr., the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Libby resigned after the indictment was announced and has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Mr. Fitzgerald's request for Ms. Novak's testimony follows a disclosure by The Washington Post on Nov. 16 that its best-known reporter, Bob Woodward, had testified under oath to Mr. Fitzgerald about matters that lawyers in the case said were unrelated to Mr. Rove.

In an article and a first-person account by Mr. Woodward, the paper reported that an unidentified administration official told Mr. Woodward about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the case in June 2003, making him the first reporter to learn of the intelligence officer.

Time magazine did not make clear what information the prosecutor hoped to obtain from Ms. Novak, whose name has not previously surfaced in the case. She has contributed to articles in which Mr. Luskin was quoted.

Another Time reporter, Matthew Cooper, testified this summer about a July 2003 conversation he had with Mr. Rove, but only after the magazine waged a lengthy legal battle.

Time disclosed the prosecutor's request in a two-paragraph article published on Sunday, reporting that Ms. Novak had been asked to discuss conversations she had with Mr. Luskin, starting in May 2004, when she was covering the investigation.

The article said Ms. Novak was cooperating with the inquiry. It is not known when she will testify; she has not been asked to appear before the grand jury but will instead give a deposition, said Ty Trippet, a Time spokesman.

On Sunday, Mr. Luskin declined to comment, but he has previously said he expects that Mr. Fitzgerald will decide not to prosecute Mr. Rove. Ms. Novak declined to comment, as did Randall Samborn, a spokesman for Mr. Fitzgerald.

The lawyers who discussed the case would do so only if they were not identified by name, citing Mr. Fitzgerald's requests to them not to publicly discuss matters that remain under investigation.

Ms. Novak is not known to have had discussions with Mr. Rove or other White House officials about the C.I.A. officer during the summer of 2003, the time that has been the focus of Mr. Fitzgerald's inquiry.

Nevertheless, the summer and fall of 2004 was a significant time for Mr. Rove, according to lawyers in the case. It was then that Mr. Rove searched for and found an e-mail message he had written that led him to recall the July 2003 conversation with Mr. Cooper, the lawyers said.

Mr. Rove's e-mail message was sent on July 11, 2003, to Stephen J. Hadley, who was then the deputy national security adviser. The message said Mr. Rove had spoken to Mr. Cooper about issues in the leak case.

After its discovery, Mr. Rove provided the message to Mr. Fitzgerald, who had not been aware of it. Mr. Rove testified about the conversation with Mr. Cooper in a grand jury appearance in October 2004.

Even so, Mr. Fitzgerald has investigated Mr. Rove's assertions that he had forgotten the conversation with Mr. Cooper, and why he made no mention of it in his earlier testimony and in meetings with investigators, the lawyers said.

In Ms. Novak's case, the magazine's apparently swift compliance contrasted with the legal battle waged by Time and Mr. Cooper, who for months resisted a subpoena from Mr. Fitzgerald for his testimony.

With his appeals exhausted, Mr. Cooper testified in July that he had spoken with Mr. Rove about Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador who traveled to Africa in early 2002 at the C.I.A.'s request to investigate claims of Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium ore. Mr. Wilson later became an ardent critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policy.

After his grand jury appearance, Mr. Cooper wrote that Mr. Rove did not identify Mr. Wilson's wife, Valerie Wilson, by name, but told him that she worked at the Central Intelligence Agency on issues related to illicit weapons and might have played a role in sending her husband on the Africa trip.

Ms. Novak is not related to the columnist Robert D. Novak, who first disclosed Ms. Wilson's identity in a column on July 14, 2003.

John Files contributed reporting for this article.

EU warned on 'secret CIA jails'

BBC NEWS
EU warned on 'secret CIA jails'

The European Union's top justice official has warned that any EU state found to have hosted a secret CIA jail could have its voting rights suspended.

Franco Frattini said the consequences would be "extremely serious" if reports of such prisons turned out to be true.

This comes amid an EU investigation into claims the US secret service ran clandestine jails in eastern Europe.

The US has refused to confirm or deny the reports, which surfaced in the US earlier this month.

'No response'

Speaking at a news conference in Berlin, the EU Justice Commissioner said he would call for tough penalties against any involved state.

"I would be obliged to propose to the Council [of EU Ministers] serious consequences, including the suspension of voting rights in the council," he said.

He said a suspension of voting rights would be justified if any country is found to have breached the bloc's founding principles of human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

Such a move would be unprecedented.

A diplomatic source said that to suspend a member state's voting rights in the Council of the European Union, the other 25 member states would have to vote unanimously to take such a step, which would be unlikely to happen in practice.

Mr Frattini said the Bush administration had asked for more time to deliver a response to the accusations after a senior commission official formally raised the issue on a visit to Washington last week.

"Right now, there is no [US] response," he said.

The allegations that the CIA held al-Qaeda suspects in secret prisons in Eastern Europe were first reported in the Washington Post on 2 November.

According to civil liberties group Human Rights Watch, the jails are based in Romania and Poland.

'Secret flights'

Mr Frattini said Romania's Interior Minister, Vasil Blaga, told him there were no such prisons in his country.

The justice commissioner said it was "very, very important to get the truth", but he cautioned that it was "impossible to move only on the basis of allegations".

Meanwhile, Spain, Sweden and Iceland are looking into separate reports that CIA planes stopped in their territory while transporting terror suspects.

The European investigator, Swiss Senator Dick Marty, is looking into what he called the suspicious movement patterns of flights in the region.

The UK Foreign Office has confirmed that Britain will be writing to the US, on behalf the EU, to clarify the reports of secret prisons, which were reportedly set up after the 11 September 2001 attacks.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/4478766.stm

Government lacks ways to gauge wins against terrorism

Reuters
Government lacks ways to gauge wins against terrorism

By Caroline Drees, Security Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration's yardsticks for progress in its fight against terrorism are inadequate and do not show whether the United States is winning or losing, a study by a congressional think tank says.

"Although four years have gone by since September 11, government agencies have still not agreed on criteria to measure progress against terrorism, even though billions of dollars have been spent," said Raphael Perl, author of the internal report by the Congressional Research Service.

"The risk is that without these criteria, we just take action and we measure progress retrospectively against what we've done. And of course since we've done some stuff, we've made progress," he told Reuters in an interview on Monday.

Statistics often cited by U.S. officials -- such as the death or capture of more than two-thirds of top al Qaeda leaders and the seizure of over $200 million in terrorist funds -- do not show how much damage has actually been inflicted on militant groups, the report said.

A copy of Perl's study, which was made available to congressional officials on Friday when Congress was closed for the Thanksgiving holiday, was obtained by Reuters on Monday.

Administration officials were not immediately available for comment.

In the past, the administration has also pointed to developments such as the overthrow of the governments in Afghanistan and Iraq, the death or capture of insurgents in Iraq, Libya's decision to abandon weapons of mass destruction programs and other curbs to proliferation as milestones of progress in the fight against terrorism.

The government also says it has tripled funding for homeland security since the hijacked plane attacks on New York and Washington in 2001.

GOING BEYOND THE NUMBERS

But the study said the rising costs of anti-terrorism efforts had become an increasing problem, with billions of dollars being spent on steps such as developing new technologies and beefing up security staffing without methods to check if they are cost-effective.

Perl said existing yardsticks tended to emphasize quantitative elements, while the government should "go beyond the numbers and look at the meaning of the numbers and their significance, and their significance to us (versus) to the terrorists."

"Right now we are overly focusing on numbers. We kind of go for the low-hanging fruit on the tree. It's easiest to get. We tend to define progress in ways we're familiar with, like numbers and body counts we can quantify," he said.

Militants, on the other hand, may consider lost fighters or greater U.S. security spending a victory, rather than a defeat, because of the symbolic or religious significance of dying in battle, or the damage the heightened costs are having on the United States, Perl said.

Without broader and deeper yardsticks -- which the study says could include the economic and emotional impact of attacks, militants' ability to influence public opinion, trends in recruitment, goals or capabilities -- Perl said it was hard to see if and in what cases progress has been made.

Supreme Court rejects appeal by fired FBI linguist

Reuters
Supreme Court rejects appeal by fired FBI linguist

By James Vicini

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court let stand on Monday the dismissal of a lawsuit by a former FBI linguist who said she had been fired in 2002 for speaking out about possible security breaches, misconduct and incompetent translation work.

Without any comment, the justices rejected an appeal by Sibel Edmonds, who worked as a contract linguist at the FBI's Washington field office from shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks until her dismissal the following March.

A Web site describing her fight with the FBI said that she had been hired "because of her knowledge of Middle Eastern languages."

Edmonds had reported to FBI management concerns about the quality of the translations, accusing fellow translators of willful misconduct and gross incompetence. She also accused a co-worker of possible espionage.

Edmonds said that numerous communications had been left untranslated or had been mistranslated.

The FBI has said that Edmonds was disruptive and that her allegations were not credible.

In July 2002, she sued the FBI, the U.S. Justice Department and various high-level officials in challenging her dismissal.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton dismissed the case after then-Attorney General John Ashcroft invoked the rarely used "state secrets privilege."

He warned that further disclosure of the duties of Edmonds and other translators could cause "serious damage to the national security interests of the United States."

Walton ruled that secret declarations from Ashcroft and a top FBI official demonstrated that the lawsuit could reveal classified information about intelligence-gathering methods and could disrupt diplomatic relations with foreign governments.

A U.S. appeals court, in a three-paragraph judgment, upheld the dismissal.

In appealing to the Supreme Court, attorneys for Edmonds described her as a whistle blower. They said the justices should clarify the proper scope and application of the state secrets privilege.

They also argued that the appeals court violated the First Amendment when it excluded the press and the public from the arguments in the case in April, without any specific findings that secrecy was necessary.

A number of news media companies and groups supported that part of the appeal and said the public's First Amendment right of access to criminal cases should also apply to civil cases, including appellate oral arguments.

Justice Department attorneys said the appeals court's decision upholding the dismissal of the lawsuit was correct and that further review of the case was unwarranted. They said Ashcroft properly invoked the state secrets privilege after personally considering the matter.

US to hold 1,000th execution this week

Reuters
US to hold 1,000th execution this week

By Alan Elsner

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is scheduled this week to witness its 1,000th execution since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, but even as it reaches this milestone opponents said capital punishment may be falling out of favor.

Some 997 people have been put to death since the Supreme Court ended a 10-year moratorium on capital punishment that ran from 1967-1977. With five people scheduled for execution in five different states this week, it seems almost certain that the landmark of 1,000 will be passed.

"This is a time for somber and sober reflection but the United States is slowly turning away from the death penalty," said David Elliot of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

"Death sentences are down 50 percent since the late 1990s to around 150 a year. Executions are down 40 percent from the high of 98 in 1999," he said.

The Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that crimes committed by juveniles could not be punished by death. That resulted in 71 people being taken off death row and followed another Supreme Court decision in 2002 declaring that it was unconstitutional to execute criminals who are mentally retarded.

A Gallup poll last month showed 64 percent of Americans favored the death penalty -- the lowest level in 27 years, down from a high of 80 percent in 1994.

"There's now considerable public skepticism about whether all those being executed are really guilty and that has cast doubt on the whole system," said Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty Information Center.

Texas, Virginia and Oklahoma account for more than half of the 997 executions performed since 1977. Texas alone has carried out 355.

'MEDIA BIAS'

Death penalty proponents argue that biased media coverage has eroded support but that Americans still fundamentally support capital punishment.

"Defense lawyers and appeals courts have made it so expensive and burdensome that prosecutors think twice before filing," said Steven Stewart, prosecuting attorney for Clark County, Indiana.

Republicans in the U.S. Congress are trying to pass legislation to speed up executions, complaining that the time between conviction and execution, which usually exceeds 10 years, is too long.

Stewart has tried four capital cases; twice the jury was hung during the penalty phase, once the judge set aside the sentence and one sentence was overturned during the lengthy appeals process. But Stewart remains committed to the idea of capital punishment.

"There are some defendants who have earned the ultimate punishment our society has to offer by committing murder with aggravating circumstances present," he said. "I believe that life is sacred. It cheapens the life of an innocent murder victim to say that society has no right to keep the murderer from ever killing again."

Among the individuals facing execution this week are Eric Nance in Arkansas, who was convicted of the 1993 murder of an 18-year-old woman, and John Hicks in Ohio, who was convicted of suffocating his 5-year-old stepdaughter in 1985.

If both of these are executed, the 1,000th defendant to die could be Robin Lovitt, scheduled to be executed in Virginia on Wednesday. His case has attracted worldwide attention with several prominent conservatives, including former special prosecutor Kenneth Starr who investigated then-President Bill Clinton's extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky, urging Gov. Mark Warner to commute the sentence.

Lovitt was sentenced to death in 1999 for the murder of a night manager in a pool hall the previous year. He claims another man committed the murder and his lawyers argued he could have proved his innocence if DNA evidence used at his trial had not been illegally destroyed.

Warner, a popular Democrat, is widely seen as a possible presidential candidate in 2008 and his decision will be closely watched. He has denied each of the 11 previous clemency petitions that have come before him as governor.

If Lovitt is not executed, Kenneth Boyd, scheduled to die Friday in North Carolina and Shawn Humphries on the same day in South Carolina, could be the 1,000th and 1,001st executions since the end of what amounted to a voluntary, decade-long moratorium on executions by the states as the Supreme Court wrestled with the issue.

Cunningham pleads guilty to tax evasion

Reuters
Cunningham pleads guilty to tax evasion

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California Republican Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham pleaded guilty in San Diego federal court on Monday to conspiracy and tax evasion for taking money from a defense contractor in exchange for supporting its efforts to secure Defense Department contracts.

Cunningham, 63, an eight term Congressman and decorated Vietnam War veteran, has been under federal investigation for his ties to Washington-based defense contractor MZM Inc. since the summer.

He has said he will not seek re-election in 2006. He is scheduled to be sentenced on February 27.