Lawmakers say they will press Bush on spying

USA TODAY
Lawmakers say they will press Bush on spying

WASHINGTON (AP) — Several lawmakers said Sunday they will press President Bush to justify his decision to allow domestic eavesdropping, rebuffing GOP suggestions their criticism of broad executive authority puts the nation at risk.

During the Sunday talk shows, lawmakers were responding to efforts by White House aide Karl Rove to make national security the top partisan issue in the November midterm elections. Rove made the comments about the time that new audiotape warnings by Osama bin Laden were released, threatening an upcoming attack on the U.S.

"I think Karl Rove made a big mistake last Friday to use this issue as his opening salvo to Republican operatives," said Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., the senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee.

"The terrorists aren't going to check our party registration before they blow us up. ...We're under attack as America," she said on ABC's This Week.

"The NSA's terrorist surveillance program is targeted at al-Qaeda communications coming into or going out of the United States," White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said in a statement later Sunday. "It is a limited, hot pursuit effort by our intelligence community to detect and prevent attacks."

He accused Democrats of making "misleading and outlandish charges about this vital tool that helps us do exactly what the 9/11 Commission said we needed to do connect the dots."

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., appearing on Fox News Sunday, said the new threats emphasize a greater need for Bush to fully consult with lawmakers from both parties on the best strategy for spy programs within the confines of the law.

"Do I think that the president's leadership has been worthy of support of our party and our leadership? Yes," McCain said.

But McCain questioned efforts to paint Democrats as weak on national security.

"There's too many good Democrats over there who are as concerned about national security and work just as hard as I do," McCain said.

On Friday, Rove outlined a blueprint for Republicans to prevail in the midterm elections, suggesting that Democrats have undermined anti-terror efforts by questioning Bush's authority to allow wiretapping without getting court approval first.

Bush has cited a congressional resolution passed after Sept. 11, 2001 that authorized him to use force in the fight against terrorism as allowing him to order the program. The program allows eavesdropping of international phone calls and e-mails of people deemed a terror risk.

Several lawmakers from both parties, including McCain and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, have questioned the program's legality because Bush did not get court approval nor fully consult with Congress. Specter's committee will hold a hearing Feb. 6.

On Sunday, some Republicans echoed Rove's anti-terror themes, arguing that Bush should have broad power even if the 2001 congressional resolution did not expressly authorize or otherwise notify lawmakers of the domestic spying.

Sen. George Allen, R-Va., who is considered a possible 2008 presidential contender, said there are many security measures he doesn't know — and shouldn't know — because it could risk alerting the enemy.

"Neither did I know what sort of intercepts or communications of financial assistance or other things that I don't know about," he said.

Allen cited in particular the new bin Laden tape which surfaced last week as evidence that the terror cells might exist in the U.S. and might be preparing to attack should law enforcement officials let their guard down.

"I find nothing wrong with having a hearing. This maybe ought to be something that you would ratify — yes, the president has this authority," Allen said on CNN's Late Edition.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. said Rove is being divisive by seeking to exploit the terror threat for political gain. Wartime should not give a president unchecked authority, he said on ABC's This Week.

"You know, Osama bin Laden is going to die of kidney failure before he's killed by Karl Rove and his crowd," Kerry said. "We're prepared to eavesdrop wherever and whenever necessary in order to make America safer. But we need to put a procedure in place to protect the constitutional rights of Americans."

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'Blue' States Tackling Energy On Their Own; Federal Efficiency Rules Fall Short

washingtonpost.com
'Blue' States Tackling Energy On Their Own
Federal Efficiency Rules Fall Short, Some Say

By Justin Blum
Washington Post Staff Writer

Democratic-leaning states increasingly are regulating energy use and emissions, working around a GOP-controlled federal government that state officials say has not done enough.

The states are creating energy efficiency requirements for light bulbs and household appliances, limiting power plant and automobile output linked to global warming, and requiring the use of renewable energy, such as wind and solar.

Leading the effort are "blue" states that voted Democratic in the 2004 presidential election. Even some of those states that have Republican governors, such as California and Connecticut, are making their own rules.

"In a way, the left is controlling that agenda," said Amy Myers Jaffe, associate director of the energy program at Rice University in Houston. "They're just implementing it at the community and state level."

Jaffe and other analysts said some of the policies would have to be adopted nationally to have a significant impact on the environment and energy consumption. But with other policies, such as the auto emissions limits, they said a sufficient number of big states are adopting regulations to make a significant difference nationally. "If all these giant-population states do this, does it matter that we don't have a national policy?" Jaffe asked.

Seven states that voted Democratic in 2004's presidential election have signed on to a regional plan to restrict power plant emissions. Eleven states that went Democratic have adopted, or are in the process of adopting, automobile tailpipe emissions requirements, which face a court challenge before they can be implemented. Nine of the 10 states that have adopted appliance efficiency regulations also voted Democratic.

Requirements that a portion of electricity come from renewable sources have caught on beyond the Democratic-leaning states. Seven states that went Republican in 2004 have joined 13 Democratic-leaning states and the District of Columbia in setting those rules.

Though the new regulations are not necessarily partisan, the activists behind them say their adoption requires lawmakers and constituents who are concerned about global warming and energy-conservation -- issues that Democrats often emphasize.

The Bush administration welcomes state efforts "as long as they do not put Americans out of jobs or move emissions from one state to another or one country to another," said Michele St. Martin, a spokeswoman for the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

State officials say their constituents are demanding new limits on pollution and energy consumption. "What is frustrating is that these things aren't being done on a national basis," said Maine Gov. John E. Baldacci (D).

In some cases, states complain that the federal government has failed to take steps required by law.

The Energy Department has not decided if it should implement some new rules for appliance energy efficiency or update some old ones, for example, even though legal deadlines have passed for numerous appliances, such as home furnaces and boilers. The department says it is working on improving its performance.

Some Republican lawmakers in Washington defended their record on energy matters, noting that they approved an energy bill last year designed to increase energy supplies and promote cleaner energy sources. Lawmakers said they support allowing states to chart their own course, though they may disagree with some of the measures.

"Unless we get involved in a situation . . . where we make it almost impossible for there to be an automobile market in the United States, I don't see anything wrong with the states being involved," said Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.), chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

States are having an impact in a number of ways.

Aggressive action at the state level has forced manufacturers to agree to some national efficiency requirements for appliances. After several states moved to regulate ceiling fans, for instance, manufacturers agreed to national standards to avoid the expense and hassle of customizing products for individual states.

But there are still a number of state appliance restrictions for which there are no federal rules, creating costly complications for manufacturers. The 10 states that have passed their own energy efficiency standards do not always agree on which appliances should be covered or what the standards should be.

California is the only state with separate standards for hot tubs and pool pumps. Only Massachusetts has rules for residential furnaces, boilers and the fans inside. California has standards for televisions, DVD players and recorders, and New York has taken initial steps toward making its own rules for the same products.

The state-by-state standards are "absolutely a nightmare for our members," said Keith McCoy, the National Association of Manufacturers' vice president of resources and environmental policy in Washington. "They create a patchwork of regulatory compliance issues."

Industry has supported some state measures that require energy generation by renewable sources. Even politically conservative states such as Texas have signed on, at least partially because supporters think the new rules could have a positive impact on the environment without creating a negative one on the economy.

With the regional power plant emissions plan, seven Northeastern states have agreed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Environmentalists had lobbied heavily for the measure as a way to limit the release of gasses linked to global warming.

The electric industry opposes the power plant restrictions, saying the result could be a loss of manufacturing jobs to countries where the cost of producing electricity is lower. The industry argues that states acting alone cannot have a significant impact on worldwide greenhouse gas emissions.

"There's not really anything that can be done locally or at a state level or local level to put a significant dent in greenhouse gasses," said Bill Fang, the climate issue director for the Edison Electric Institute, an industry group in Washington.

Another group of states has targeted automobiles, a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. The rules limiting the amount of carbon dioxide and other gasses that can come out of tailpipes would go beyond federal regulations already in place.

Automakers, which are suing to have the rules overturned, say the restrictions would push up prices and reduce sales.

But local officials -- tired of waiting on the federal government to beef up its own pollution-control rules -- say they have acted prudently in attempting to take charge of what comes out of the tailpipes and smokestacks in their states.

"The federal standards are simply not good enough," said Gina McCarthy, commissioner of Connecticut's Department of Environmental Protection. "If we can't get the federal government to act, then we have to take action in any way we can."

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Democrats assail Republicans on ethics

Reuters
Democrats assail Republicans on ethics

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats accused Republicans on Saturday of using "doublespeak" and abusing their power in order to help special interest groups.

With Republicans burdened by the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said in the weekly Democratic radio address that years of controlling both the White House and Congress had corrupted the Republican Party.

"There is a price to pay for this Republican abuse of power and it can be seen in the present state of our union," Reid said. "Special interests and the well-connected have been rewarded by Republicans while everyone else has been left behind."

The scandal theme is likely to play a role in the run-up to the November congressional elections. Abramoff entered guilty pleas in a wide-ranging bribery investigation that has prompted calls by both parties for reform.

The scandal has implicated at least one member of Congress, Republican Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio, and some former aides to Rep. Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican who stepped down as majority leader.

Reid accused Republicans of using "doublespeak" to sell their agenda.

"When they wanted to let energy companies release more pollution into the air, they called it the 'Clear Skies Initiative,'" he said. "When they wanted to let loggers cut down more trees and weaken environmental laws, they called it the 'Healthy Forests Initiative.'

"My favorite Republican doublespeak is when they wanted to give tax breaks to their special interest friends even though it meant adding more than $50 billion to our deficit, they called their effort the 'Deficit Reduction Act,'" he said.

Reid's harsh criticism followed an apology he made this week to Republicans senators for a news release outlining reports of ethical problems, singling out individual senators.

Reid apologized for the tone of the document released by his office, saying it went too far.

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The Dishonest Economic Fantasies Screwing Over Ordinary Americans

huffingtonpost.com
The Dishonest Economic Fantasies Screwing Over Ordinary Americans
David Sirota

In my book Hostile Takeover that comes out this Spring, [Editor's note: You can order it now from this link: Hostile Takeover by David Sirota ] I make the point that if you want to really understand the political/media Establishment's bias on economic issues, you have to look at what dishonest, highly-questionable assumptions are regularly portrayed as concrete factual axioms. The biggest and most dangerous assumption that we can see from our current political/media Establishment - and that we can see in today's newspapers - is the one that basically says the so-called "free" market is the only way to address society's challenges (I put "free" in quotes because many supposedly "free" market policies like our current trade deals are chock full of highly restrictive protections for Big Money interests - these policies are not "free" market, they are corporate socialism). These assumptions also portray anyone who challenges this "free" market fundamentalism as out of the mainstream, even as polls show most Americans question that fundamentalism). We see these biased assumption everywhere, and they come not from a Republican or Democratic bias in the media, but from an overall economic bias from the entire Establishment.

To understand this bias and how pervasive it is even in the so-called "liberal" media bastions, let's take a second and look at the New York Times coverage of economic "globalization," both present and past. We can use the Times not to single it out (these trends can be seen in most Establishment media/political communication outlets), but because the paper is arguably the most important news outlet in the world. And because it is widely considered left-of-center, it is a good indicator that these innate biases are not exclusively in right-wing media, but parroted throughout the Establishment - from left to right.

The first place to look at the Times is in the writing of the paper's most famous and revered columnist, Thomas Friedman, who is (incredibly) portrayed on chat shows as either an objective centrist, or even slightly left of center. Yet he is the man who recently urged America to basically eliminate or drastically cut Medicare and Social Security; the man who chastises other countries for having strong worker protections; the man whose entire book, The World is Flat, is one giant glossy justification for shipping U.S. jobs overseas and driving wages into the ground; the man who, thanks to his unflagging efforts to shill for corporate America's agenda, gets billed by elitist rag sheets like Fortune Magazine as "The Oracle of the Global Century." Thanks to the Times, Friedman has become so influential that politicians (including Democrats) regularly regurgitate his exact language when endorsing the outsourcing of U.S. jobs.

But the bias of its top columnist pales in comparison to the more troubling bias of the Times' "news" reporting - more troubling because it is billed as objective journalism. For instance, take a look at the disdainful tone with which the paper addresses the recent election of working class populists in Latin America. The paper labeled as "radical" one Latin American leader's proposal to reject corporate-written trade policies that have driven his country into sustained poverty - trade policies that polls show the American public opposes. Now that that leader has won office, the paper today continues to try to marginalize the opposition to these trade policies, once again reasserting that free market fundamentalism is, unquestionably, the only possible prescriptions that should be pursued in any economic realm, no matter what.

This propensity to venerate ultraconservative free market fundamentalism as a law of nature can also be seen in the paper's domestic reporting. Just look at the Times today, where it enlisted a writer from the neoconservative New Republic to write a supposedly "objective" review of a book by former Clinton economic adviser Gene Sperling justifying "free" trade policies. Sperling, of course, has every right to push his ideas, because he does not try to hide the fact that he was one of the main architects of neoliberal economic thinking. And his book clearly has some good ideas. What is troubling is that the Times pretends to be "objective" in covering his book, and yet couches Sperling's very subjective, neoliberal opinions as assumed, concrete, unquestionable fact. Just look at these excerpts, not from the book, but from the Times piece in the reporter's supposedly objective voice:

"Democrats have little to lose and everything to gain by embracing the hallmarks of a dynamic economy like freer trade...Yet while Sperling appears to chide both sides equally, his book functions primarily as a useful reproach to progressives who believe that ideological purity requires rejecting market-friendly means...Sperling's ideas are unfailingly sound."

The assumptions by the Times in this passage are so preposterous they can be seen only as rank, deliberate dishonesty in pursuit of a well-defined economic agenda. As mentioned above, polls have consistently shown the public's growing opposition to America's current corporate-written trade policy. America's trade deficit continues to skyrocket, real wages continue to stagnate and higher paying jobs are shipped overseas - all aided and abetted by a corporate-written economic and trade policies that actually encourage these trends. Yet the Times states as fact that the Democratic Party - the party that desperately needs to start winning the very working-class constituencies decimated by these policies - has nothing to gain by articulating anything other than more "free" trade.

Similarly, polls show that on major economic issues like energy and health care, the public rejects free market fundamentalism, and wants the government to play a strong role regulating the market. Parts of the economy with strong market intervention by the government such as publicly-owned energy facilities and Medicare have managed to provide quality services to the general public, while helping stabilize the economy. Yet the Times states as fact that progressives are rightfully "reproached" for demanding anything other than free market fundamentalism, and offers not even a mention of all the factual data about wage, pension and health care cuts encouraged by neoliberal trade/economic policies that clearly call into question all the assumptions. Instead, we are simply told that Sperling's prescriptions are "unfailingly sound."

Remember, this is not out of the ordinary. The Times has, for years, genuflected to ultra-right economic policy and touted its supposedly incredible virtues as fact, even as evidence is presented to the contrary. To see what I mean, let's go back to November 18, 1993 - the day after the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Economic experts, labor leaders, consumer advocates, environmental groups and courageous Democrats in Congress all provided hard evidence that the deal would be a disaster, yet here is how the Times portrayed the pact's passage on its front page:

"Bill Clinton pressed on [in pursuit of the pact], growing more rather than less committed as the days passed. Abandoned by two of the three top Democratic leaders in the House, opposed by usually reliable Democrats in the trade unions and by some important leaders of minority groups and environmental organizations, he kept shoving more and more chips into the pot on an issue that few Americans really understood...It was the most important achievement of his Presidency...Mr. Clinton retreated early on Bosnia, on Haiti, on homosexuals in the military, on important elements of his economic plan; he seemed ready to compromise on all but the most basic provisions of his health-care reforms. Critics started asking whether he had a bottom line on anything. On the trade accord, he did, and that question won't be asked much for a while [after] the President's smashing success...free trade would not be quite so free as it might have been, but more walls came down this week than went up...at least Mr. Clinton has gained credibility, through his tenacity on the trade pact, that will help him in the months ahead. 'This is a great victory,' said Robert S. Strauss, the longtime Democratic power broker."

In short, all the facts and evidence of what was accurately predicted to come (stagnating wages, cross-border environmental degradation, exploitation of worker rights, exporting of good-paying American jobs, etc.) was shoved to the side, substituted by a glowing Times narrative of a "smashing success." A President who was willing to capitulate on everything else was lauded for having the supposed courage required to stand with Big Money interests in screwing over ordinary Americans and pushing more ultra-right-wing neoliberal economics.

Let me be very clear - we can have a debate about all of these core economic issues, and people like Gene Sperling have some good points to make on the neoliberal side. But they have points to be made within the context of a debate. And that's the core problem: when you look at the discourse between politicians or the news coverage of these economic issues, you barely ever see a debate at all, and when you do, the side arguing against the free market fundamentalism and for the positions supported by the majority of ordinary Americans is automatically portrayed by the Establishment as marginal.

What's really going on is obvious: the political/media Establishment is trying to dishonestly create the perception that it is just a fact that the Big Money position on key economic issues (ie. corporate-written trade deals and neoliberal economics) has resulted and always will result in major benefits to society. The Establishment does this even though almost every factual indicator about these policies of import to ordinary people - real wages, trade deficits, health care & retirement benefit levels - are on the negative swing. Oh sure, corporate profits continue to skyrocket - but the indicators that actually matter to the vast majority of hard working Americans in their day-to-day lives are not.

The most interesting question of all is why? Why would the Establishment so deliberately bias its economic coverage? For politicians, the answer is easy - the more they toe the corporate line, push economic policies that screw over ordinary citizens and pad Big Money's bottom line, the more our corrupt, pay-to-play political process rewards them with huge wads of campaign cash. For the media, it is more complex, having partly to do with the fact that the media is owned by corporations with a huge incentive to push ultraconservative economic policies and partly to do with the fact that in today's journalist-as-celebrity era, many of the most important opinion-setting reporters are upper-crust elites who never have to deal with the consequences of the economic prescriptions they push.

The result, as I argue in my upcoming book, is an intense propaganda system that destructively distorts reality and an America that increasingly tunes out the media and politics altogether. The public is not stupid - the public knows that what they read, see and hear from the Establishment is often highly-biased fiction divorced from the average citizen's daily economic challenges, and deliberately designed to make anyone who questions the Establishment's economic agenda feel marginalized. My book shows how these policies are the result of a hostile takeover of our government by Big Money interests. And in doing so, the book aims to be an average citizen's guide to decoding all this B.S. - because the first step towards changing the media/political system is understanding in a very fundamental way how it is being used by the Establishment to wage a merciless class war against ordinary people.

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Not Now, I'm Eavesdropping

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A Great Recruiting Tool

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You're Offering The Americans A Truce?

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As Elections Near, Officials Challenge Balloting Security; In Controlled Test, Results Are Manipulated in Florida System

washingtonpost.com
As Elections Near, Officials Challenge Balloting Security
In Controlled Test, Results Are Manipulated in Florida System

By Zachary Goldfarb
Special to The Washington Post

As the Leon County supervisor of elections, Ion Sancho's job is to make sure voting is free of fraud. But the most brazen effort lately to manipulate election results in this Florida locality was carried out by Sancho himself.

Four times over the past year Sancho told computer specialists to break in to his voting system. And on all four occasions they did, changing results with what the specialists described as relatively unsophisticated hacking techniques. To Sancho, the results showed the vulnerability of voting equipment manufactured by Ohio-based Diebold Election Systems, which is used by Leon County and many other jurisdictions around the country.

Sancho's most recent demonstration was last month. Harri Hursti, a computer security expert from Finland, manipulated the "memory card" that records the votes of ballots run through an optical scanning machine.

Then, in a warehouse a few blocks from his office in downtown Tallahassee, Sancho and seven other people held a referendum. The question on the ballot:

"Can the votes of this Diebold system be hacked using the memory card?"

Two people marked yes on their ballots, and six no. The optical scan machine read the ballots, and the data were transmitted to a final tabulator. The result? Seven yes, one no.

"Was it possible for a disgruntled employee to do this and not have the elections administrator find out?" Sancho asked. "The answer was yes."

Diebold and some officials have criticized Sancho's experiments and said his conclusions about the vulnerability of electronic voting systems are unfounded.

What Sancho did "is analogous to if I gave you the keys to my house and told you when I was gone," said David Bear, a Diebold spokesman. As Bear sees it, Sancho's experiment involved giving hackers "complete unfettered access" to the equipment, something a responsible elections administrator would never allow.

Questions about the security of electronic voting machines have been circulating widely in recent years. But many of the concerns have been dismissed as the fantasies of Internet conspiracy theorists or sore-loser partisans who could not accept that their candidates simply got fewer votes. Critics have not demonstrated that any real elections have had returns altered by the manipulation of electronic voting systems.

But the questions raised by Sancho, who has held his post since 1989, show how the concerns are being taken more seriously among elections professionals.

"While electronic voting systems hold promise for improving the election process," the Government Accountability Office said in a report to Congress last year, there are still pressing concerns about "security and reliability . . . design flaws" and other issues.

The questions about electronic balloting have become widespread as states and counties move to upgrade equipment, as required by the 2002 Help America Vote Act. The law and new state regulations were enacted to make voting more accessible and more accurate, a response to the controversy generated by the contested outcome in Florida in the 2000 presidential election.

Since the federal law was passed, though, a hodgepodge of federal and state requirements and debates over the best technology have complicated the task of upgrading. In a recent survey by the National Association of Secretaries of State, 17 of 43 states that responded said they expected to miss a congressionally imposed Jan. 1, 2006, deadline to upgrade voting systems. Election officials have repeatedly clashed with voting-machine manufacturers.

In Connecticut, for example, Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz said she would scrap her plans to replace her state's lever machines after the company she planned to buy from "misrepresented" itself in negotiations about how accessible the machines would be for people with disabilities.

In Miami-Dade County, Fla., the elections chief -- the third in five years -- is thinking about tossing out touch-screen systems installed after 2000. The concern is that they do not leave a paper trail that auditors could examine in a disputed election and are expensive to use.

In California, the secretary of state recently asked Hursti to investigate whether Diebold machines the state was considering had similar vulnerabilities.

The events that set in motion Hursti and Sancho meeting, and a new wave of concern over today's voting technologies, started in 2003, when a Seattle-based activist named Bev Harris released thousands of Diebold documents she said she found on an unsecured portion of the company's Web site. Some computer scientists said the documents showed Diebold's systems were vulnerable to attack. Today, more than 800 jurisdictions use their technology, Harris said.

She wanted to find a way to test whether those vulnerabilities could be exploited. Sancho volunteered his equipment to be tested by experts Harris would select.

Harris recruited computer expert Herbert Thompson, and on Feb. 14, 2005, in Tallahassee, Thompson met with Sancho and tried to crack the Diebold system remotely. The first attempt failed. On a second attempt, by directly accessing a computer where the votes are counted in a final tally, he manipulated returns. They used a local high school election for the experiment.

In May, two more tests were held, this time with Hursti present. Using a device bought for about $200, he was able to easily alter the final vote by changing the program stored on the memory card.

"You have to admit these systems are vulnerable and act accordingly," Hursti said.

Diebold took a dim view of the experiments. On June 8, a senior company lawyer faxed Sancho: "You have willfully and intentionally allowed the manipulation of memory cards related to your elections. . . . We believe this to have been a very foolish and irresponsible act."

The response frustrated Sancho. "More troubling than the test itself was the manner in which Diebold simply failed to respond to my concerns or the concerns of citizens who believe in American elections," he said. "I really think they're not engaged in this discussion of how to make elections safer."

He is also critical of state officials who he believes should have caught the vulnerabilities earlier. He said that vendors such as Diebold have too much influence in the administration of elections, a view that resonated with Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, the founder of the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition. Sancho is "truly an advocate for voters," she said. "What he is doing in Leon County goes completely against the grain of county election commissioners elsewhere, who are allowing vendors to dictate how to run their own elections."

Johns Hopkins University computer sciences professor Avi Rubin, who is leading a group that has received a $7.5 million grant from the National Academy of Sciences to research election technology, said the vulnerabilities of electronic systems -- including new touch-screen voting machines -- point to the need for a paper trail in any election. "The more I see, I say we need voting to rely on paper," he said. About 26 states require paper ballots, according to Verified Voting, an advocacy group.

Jenny Nash, a spokeswoman for Florida's secretary of state, said in the end the integrity of any voting system must be protected by the local officials who administer elections. "Machines are designed and certified to operate in a secure environment and under secure procedures that each supervisor puts in place and follows directly," she said.

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TIME magazine says Bush photographed with Abramoff

Reuters
TIME magazine says Bush photographed with Abramoff

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - At least five photos show U.S. President George W. Bush with the lobbyist at the center of a corruption scandal, TIME magazine reported on Sunday.

The White House has tried to play down any contact with Jack Abramoff, who pleaded guilty to fraud charges this month and agreed to help prosecutors in a congressional corruption investigation.

TIME did not publish the photographs, saying its source refused to provide them for publication. Most look like those taken at presidential receptions, it said.

The White House has said Bush does not know Abramoff and does not recall meeting him, and that the lobbyist attended two Hannukah receptions and a few staff-level meetings at the White House.

"Mr. Abramoff admitted being involved in outrageous wrongdoing," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said on Sunday.

"The president does not recall meeting him. We have previously indicated, however, it would not be surprising if the president met him at some of the widely attended events we know they both attended," she said. "The president has taken tens upon thousands of pictures at such events."

TIME said in one photograph Bush appears with Abramoff and Raul Garza, then chairman of the Kickapoo Indians, which owned a casino in Texas and were represented by the lobbyist. It also included several other unidentified people.

TIME quotes White House spokeswoman Erin Healy as saying that available records show Abramoff was not at the event attended by Garza.

Another photo shows Bush shaking hands with Abramoff in front of a window and a blue drape, the magazine said. The photo carries Bush's signature, which may have been machine-made, it said.

Three other photos show Bush, Abramoff and one of the lobbyist's sons, the magazine said.

Prosecutors are investigating whether members of Congress gave the lobbyist and his clients favorable treatment in return for campaign contributions or gifts. The scandal broke as Republicans try to retain control of Congress in mid-term elections in November.

Republican Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio, who has denied wrongdoing, is under investigation in the scandal. Rep. Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican who stepped down as majority leader, has been under a cloud due to his association with Abramoff.

The Republican National Committee has said Bush's re-election campaign was giving to charity $6,000 in contributions linked to Abramoff.

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Activists Seek to Evict Souter From Home

Yahoo! News
Activists Seek to Evict Souter From Home

By KATHY McCORMACK, Associated Press Writer

Angered by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that sided with a Connecticut city that wanted to seize homes for economic development, a group of activists is trying to get one of the justices who voted for the decision evicted from his own home.

The group, led by a California man, wants Justice David Souter's home seized for the purpose of building an inn called "Lost Liberty Hotel."

They submitted enough petition signatures — only 25 were needed — to bring the matter before voters in March. This weekend, they're descending on Souter's hometown, the central New Hampshire town of Weare, population 8,500, to rally for support.

"This is in the tradition of the Boston Tea Party and the Pine Tree Riot," organizer Logan Darrow Clements said, referring to the riot that took place during the winter of 1771-1772, when colonists in Weare beat up officials appointed by King George III who fined them for logging white pines without approval.

"All we're trying to do is put an end to eminent domain abuse," Clements said, by having those who advocate or facilitate it "live under it, so they understand why it needs to end."

Bill Quigley, Weare deputy police chief, said if protesters show up, they're going to be told to stay across the street from a dirt road that leads to Souter's brown farmhouse, which is more than 200 years old. It isn't known if Souter will be home.

"They're obviously not going to be allowed on Justice Souter's property," he said. "There's no reason for anybody to go down that road unless they live on that road, and we know the residents that live there. The last time (Clements) showed up, they had a total of about three or four people who showed up to listen to him."

Clements, of Los Angeles, said he's never tried to contact Souter.

"The justice doesn't have any comment about it," Kathy Arberg, a Supreme Court spokeswoman, said about the protesters' cause.

The petition asks whether the town should take Souter's land for development as an inn; whether to set up a trust fund to accept donations for legal expenses; and whether to set up a second trust fund to accept donations to compensate Souter for taking his land.

The matter goes to voters on March 14.

Clements said participants planned to meet at Weare Town Hall on Saturday morning and divide into teams to go door-to-door to get more petition signatures. He also wants to distribute copies of the Supreme Court's decision, Kelo vs. City of New London, to residents.

The court said New London, Conn., could seize homeowners' property to develop a hotel, convention center, office space and condominiums next to Pfizer Inc.'s new research headquarters.

The city argued that tax revenues and new jobs from the development would benefit the public. The Pfizer complex was built, but seven homeowners challenged the rest of the development in court. The Supreme Court's ruling against them prompted many states, including New Hampshire, to examine their eminent domain laws.

State Rep. Neal Kurk, a Weare resident who is sponsoring two pieces of eminent domain legislation in New Hampshire, said he expects the group's proposal to be defeated overwhelmingly.

"Most people here see this as an act of revenge and an improper attack on the judicial system," Kurk said. "You don't go after a judge personally because you disagree with his judgments."
___

On the Net:

Weare-based Committee for the Preservation of Natural Rights: http://www.natural-rights.org

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Frist calls Alito Democrats' "nightmare"

Reuters
Frist calls Alito Democrats' "nightmare"

By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist told Republican Party activists on Friday night that U.S. Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito was the "worst nightmare of liberal Democrats."

Frist, a Tennessee Republican, made the remark to fellow Republicans during a private tour he gave them of the Senate chamber when the Senate was not in session.

Frist was not available for comment following his remarks.

Asked about the senator's remark, Frist spokesman Bob Stevenson said that Alito "is a thoughtful mainstream conservative jurist who is well respected by his peers, by Democrats and Republicans alike."

Stevenson added, "There are liberals, many of them represented by the outside groups, who will do anything to kill any nominee put forward by this administration."

Democrats have expressed concerns the conservative Alito would push the nation's highest court to the right in areas such as abortion rights, civil rights and presidential powers.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on Tuesday on the Alito nomination and the full Senate intends to debate it next week.

Three top Democrats announced this week they would vote against sending Alito to a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. They are Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Dick Durbin of Illinois.

No Democrat so far has said he or she would try to block a Senate floor vote on Alito through a procedure known as a filibuster.

The Republican National Committee was holding a winter meeting in Washington this week, and the 50 or so party activists from across the United States were invited by Frist to tour the Senate chamber.

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Libby lawyers to subpoena reporters in CIA leak

Reuters
Libby lawyers to subpoena reporters in CIA leak

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lawyers for a former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney plan to issue subpoenas to journalists and news organizations for documents to be used at his trial involving the leak of a CIA operative's name, according to a court document filed on Friday.

The expected move by attorneys for Lewis "Scooter" Libby was disclosed in a joint status report that defense lawyers and prosecutors filed with the federal judge overseeing the case.

Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, has pleaded not guilty to five counts of obstructing justice, perjury and lying in the two-year investigation into the leak to the news media of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.

Plame's identity was leaked to reporters in July 2003 after her diplomat husband, Joseph Wilson, accused the Bush administration of twisting intelligence on weapons of mass destruction to justify the war in Iraq.

A number of journalists already have testified as part of prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the leak and could be called as prosecution witnesses. New York Times reporter Judith Miller spent 85 days in jail last year before she agreed to testify.

In the six-page court filing, defense attorneys said the subpoenas to journalists and news organizations would be to obtain additional necessary documents for trial. They did not identify who would be subpoenaed or say what they would be seeking.

They also said there could be litigation before U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, who is presiding over the case, and perhaps the U.S. Court of Appeals if the reporters or news organization fight the subpoenas, as expected.

Such a legal battle could delay any trial. The judge has yet to set a trial date.

Libby's lawyers also said that it may be necessary for the defense to issue subpoenas to government agencies but they did not indicate which agencies.

The next hearing in the case is scheduled for February 3.

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Some House Democrats seek election public funds

Reuters
Some House Democrats seek election public funds

By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Public financing of elections for the U.S. House of Representatives, not lobbying reform, is the best way to end ethic scandals, a top Democrat said on Friday.

"You can talk all you want about nibbling at the margins about ethics and House rules and all the rest, but unless we deal with the nexus between politics and money, damned little is actually going to change over time," Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin said in a telephone interview.

Obey said he and fellow Democrat Barney Frank of Massachusetts would offer legislation this month requiring that general elections for the 435 House seats be financed purely with public funds.

Obey, senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, conceded he did not expect "any massive instant support for it" in the Republican-controlled Congress.

A senior House Republican aide dismissed Obey's approach saying, "This is exactly the wrong place to go." The aide noted that Republicans were pushing for "more transparency" in lobbying activities, such as their campaign contributions, and added, "What's wrong with people just choosing candidates to give money to?"

Earlier this week, Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate offered a series of reforms in response to the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.


Abramoff, who this month pleaded guilty to fraud in a wide-ranging bribery investigation, is cooperating with prosecutors and several lawmakers could be implicated.

Obey noted recent reports that Americans did not want to pay for public financing of campaigns and did not want lobbyists contributing. "What that leaves is campaigns financed through immaculate conception and I don't think that's a reliable financing basis for campaigns," Obey said.

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"Intelligent design" debate goes to kids' TV

Reuters
"Intelligent design" debate goes to kids' TV

By Jamie McGeever

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The debate over whether children should be taught "intelligent design" in U.S. public schools as an alternative to evolution is moving to children's television.

"There's a fight going on the science room," says Linda Ellerbee, presenter of "Nick News," a news magazine on the children's TV cable channel Nickelodeon.

The channel is tackling the subject on Sunday by presenting both sides of the controversy in "God, Science, Politics and Your School."

Supporters of intelligent design say that nature is so complex that it must have been the work of an unnamed creator, rather than the result of random natural selection as outlined in Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

"The goal of this show is not to debate the issues of evolution, intelligent design or creationism," Ellerbee said in a statement.

"We just want to give kids a better understanding of what all the shouting is about. We also want to hear from kids affected by these disputes."

The controversy, stirred by a recent court case in Pennsylvania, centers on whether teaching intelligent design violates U.S. constitutional separation of church and state.

Ellerbee talks to religious, scientific and educational figures on both sides of the debate, who use plain English and simple terms to explain the complex arguments.

She also travels to Dover, Pennsylvania, where the teaching of intelligent design was banned last year, and to Kansas where the State Board of Education recently approved a set of science standards that question the evolution theory.

Ellerbee gives young Kansas teenagers the chance to weigh in on the debate.

"They don't have to say that God made everything but I think they should give intelligent design the benefit of the doubt, really," one boy said.

"Science is about facts and I don't see any facts proving that a higher power has created us," countered one girl.

The vast majority of the scientific community believes that the evolution of human life is explained by natural selection. The Roman Catholic Church, the largest single denomination of the Christian faith in the world, weighed in on the debate this week by restating its support of the theory of evolution.

The Catholic Church has sometimes been considered an ally for those promoting intelligent design. While the church is socially conservative, it has a long theological tradition that rejects fundamentalist creationism.

Nickelodeon is owned by Viacom Inc..

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Rove: GOP to Use Terror As Campaign Issue

Rove: GOP to Use Terror As Campaign Issue
By RON FOURNIER
AP Political Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Embattled White House adviser Karl Rove vowed Friday to make the war on terrorism a central campaign issue in November. He also said Democratic senators looked "mean-spirited and small-minded" in questioning Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito.

"Republicans have a post-9/11 view of the world. And Democrats have a pre-9/11 view of the world," Rove told Republican activists. "That doesn't make them unpatriotic, not at all. But it does make them wrong - deeply and profoundly and consistently wrong."

Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean denounced Rove's remarks and renewed his call for the deputy White House chief of staff to be fired for his role in leaking a CIA official's name. "That is both unpatriotic and wrong," Dean said.


Rove, making a rare public address while under investigation in the CIA leak case, joined Republican Party chairman Ken Mehlman in warning GOP leaders against falling prey to the corrupting nature of power.

"The GOP's progress during the last four decades is a stunning political achievement. But it is also a cautionary tale of what happens to a dominant party - in this case, the Democrat Party - when its thinking becomes ossified; when its energy begins to drain; when an entitlement mentality takes over; and when political power becomes an end in itself rather than a mean to achieve the common goal," Rove told Republican National Committee members ending a two-day meeting.

"We need to learn from our successes," he said, "and from the failures of others."

The admonition reflects growing concerns among senior Republicans that ethics scandals in the Republican-led Congress could hurt the party in November, even among staunch GOP voters who may begin to blame corruption for Congress' runaway spending habits.

Mehlman couldn't have been more blunt: "One of the oldest lessons of history is that power corrupts," he said, telling RNC members that any Republicans guilty of illegal behavior should be punished.

The investigation of lobbyist Jack Abramoff threatens to ensnare at least a half dozen members of Congress of both parties and Bush administration officials. His ties to GOP congressional leaders and the White House pose a particular problem for Republicans. Abramoff, who has admitted to conspiring to defraud his Indian tribe clients, has pleaded guilty to corruption-related charges and is cooperating with prosecutors.

In an unrelated scandal, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, is expected to stand trial in the CIA leak case this summer, just ahead of the midterm elections.

The special prosecutor's inquiry is still under way, leaving the fate of other senior White House officials, notably Rove, in doubt.

Bush's political guru opened his remarks with a joking reference to the unwanted attention the case has brought him. "Anybody want to get their picture in the paper? Come on up here," he said.

In 2002, Rove caused a stir among Democrats when he told RNC members to make the war on terrorism an issue in the midterm elections. "We can go to the country on this issue because they trust the Republican Party to do a better job of protecting and strengthening America's military might and thereby protecting America," he said at the time.

Rove made the same case Friday, though his words were a bit more measured. Reading from a prepared text, he began with a call for election-year civility - "Our opponents are our fellow citizens, not our enemies" - and quickly turned to portraying Democrats as weak on defense.

"The United States faces a ruthless enemy - and we need a commander in chief and a Congress who understand the nature of the threat and the gravity that American finds itself in," Rove said. "President Bush and the Republican Party do. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for many Democrats."

He said some Democrats want to abandon Iraq too soon, which would cause enemies to "laugh at our failed resolve." Rove added: "To retreat before victory would be a reckless act - and this president and our party will not allow it. This is worthy of a public debate."

Rove also criticized Democrats for opposing extension of the USA Patriot Act and warrantless eavesdropping, before turning to Alito, newly minted Chief Justice John Roberts and their Democratic opponents on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"Every effort to smear the name of these good men blew up in the face of those making the malicious charges. Some committee members came across as mean-spirited and small-minded - and it left a searing impression," Rove said. He specifically accused Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., of creating "an ugly display" during Alito's hearing.

Before the RNC members returned to their home states, they approved an immigration resolution supported by the White House. A competing measure backed by hard-line conservatives opposed to Bush's guest worker program was withdrawn under pressure from White House allies.

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Rove tells Republicans to run on Bush's record

Reuters
Rove tells Republicans to run on Bush's record

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House political adviser Karl Rove on Friday said Democratic critics of the Iraq war were wrong and Republicans should highlight the issue in November's congressional elections.

Most polls show majorities of Americans have lost confidence in President George W. Bush's handling of the war. But Rove, still under the threat of indictment in a CIA-leak probe, said Republicans should emphasize Bush's record on security, the economy and the courts during the November campaign.

"We need a commander in chief and a Congress who understand the nature of the threat and the gravity of the moment America finds itself in," Rove told a meeting of the Republican National Committee in a rare public appearance.

"President Bush and the Republican Party do. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for many Democrats," he said.

Rove, Bush's top political guru, also capitalized on the party's traditional advantage on national security issues to help Republicans sweep to victories in elections in 2002 and 2004, citing new dangers after the September 11 attacks.

This year Rove and Republicans have grown nervous about their prospects in November amid public doubts about the Iraq war and corruption scandals involving prominent party members, including former House Republican Leader Tom DeLay and Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Rove himself remains under threat of indictment in an investigation into who leaked the name of a CIA agent whose husband is a prominent Iraq-war critic.

Rove said a quick pullout from Iraq would be a "reckless act" and criticized demands by some Democrats for a troop withdrawal.

"Republicans have a post-9/11 view of the world and Democrats have a pre-9/11 view of the world," Rove said. "That doesn't make them unpatriotic, not at all, but it does make them wrong -- wrong deeply and profoundly and consistently."

Rove made no mention of his own legal jeopardy. The leak probe led late last year to the indictment and resignation of his White House colleague, Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff.

RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman told the meeting that "if Republicans are guilty of illegal or inappropriate behavior, then they should pay the price and they should suffer the consequences."

But Democratic Party chief Howard Dean said Rove did not have any standing to attack their commitment to security. "Karl Rove breached our national security for partisan gain and that is unpatriotic and wrong," Dean said.

Tackling an issue that has split the party, RNC members passed by voice vote an immigration resolution that called for better border security but included a guest worker program supported by Bush.

A competing resolution that did not include a guest worker program was withdrawn without a vote.

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US author's sales jump after Osama mentions book

Reuters
US author's sales jump after Osama mentions book

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An unexpected endorsement from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has resulted in a huge jump in sales for a book by a critic of U.S. foreign policy.

William Blum's "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower" was ranked 209,000 on Amazon.com's sales list before bin Laden mentioned it in an audiotape released on Thursday. By Friday, the book was No. 30 on the Amazon.com list.

Bin Laden said al Qaeda group was preparing more attacks in the United States but also told Americans, "It is useful for you to read the book 'The Rogue State.'"

"I was quite surprised and even shocked and amused when I found out what he'd said," Blum said on Friday in an interview with Reuters Television in his Washington apartment.

"I was glad. I knew it would help the book's sales and I was not bothered by who it was coming from.

"If he shares with me a deep dislike for the certain aspects of U.S. foreign policy, then I'm not going to spurn any endorsement of the book by him. I think it's good that he shares those views and I'm not turned off by that."

Blum said some friends and family members were afraid the bin Laden endorsement might endanger him but he said there had been no threats and he was not concerned.

Blum's 320-page book, which was published in 2000, begins with a chapter titled "Why Do Terrorists Keep Picking on the United States." The first sentence says, "Washington's war on terrorism is as doomed to failure as its war on drugs has been."

Other chapters in "The Rogue State" are titled "America's Gift to the World -- the Afghan Terrorist Alumni," "The U.S. Versus the World at the United Nations" and "How the CIA Sent Nelson Mandela to Prison for 28 Years."

Blum's other books include "Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II," "Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire" and "West Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Political Memoir."

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Democrats Scold White House Over Spying

LaGrande Observer
Democrats Scold White House Over Spying
By PETE YOST
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democratic senators took the Bush administration to task Friday for four years of domestic spying, while the president fought back with a planned embrace of the intelligence agency that is carrying out the effort.

In preparation for Senate hearings, Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts noted that President Bush asserted in 2004 that "when we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so."

That Bush statement came at the same time the National Security Agency was engaging - at the president's direction - in warrantless eavesdropping on Americans.

"If President Bush can make his own rules for domestic surveillance, Big Brother has run amok," Kennedy said in a statement.

Introducing a proposed Senate resolution, Kennedy and Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont rejected White House assertions that congressional action after Sept. 11 authorized warrantless eavesdropping inside the United States.

A joint resolution of Congress authorized the use of force against those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, but it "says nothing about domestic electronic surveillance," Kennedy declared.

Pushing back, Bush plans a Wednesday visit to the NSA, where he will reassert his claim that he has the constitutional authority to let intelligence officials listen in on international phone calls of Americans with suspected ties to terrorists.

"We are stepping up our efforts to educate the American people," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said of the trip to the NSA, based at Fort Meade in Maryland. McClellan called the program "a critical tool that helps us save lives and prevent attacks. It is limited and targeted to al-Qaida communications, with the focus being on detection and prevention."

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said the new audio tape of Osama bin Laden threatening attacks on American soil "is a vivid reminder why we must continue to intercept communications between al-Qaida overseas and potential operatives in the United States."

On Monday, deputy national intelligence director Mike Hayden, who led the National Security Agency when the program began in October 2001, will speak on the issue at the National Press Club.

On Tuesday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is delivering a speech on the program in Washington.

Gonzales also plans to testify Feb. 6 about the secret program before the Senate Judiciary Committee where Kennedy and Leahy are members.

House Democrats said Bush has committed a crime in authorizing the spying and that House Republicans have abdicated their responsibilities by refusing to hold hearings.

Rep. John Conyers, the House Judiciary Committee's top Democrat, and other Democrats met in a basement room of a House office building Friday to hear a panel of lawyers and activists discuss whether Bush had committed an impeachable offense.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department on Wednesday issued a 42-page legal justification for the eavesdropping program, an expanded version of a document the agency sent Congress last month.

"Making their argument longer didn't make it any better," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., a Judiciary Committee member. He said Bush's secret approval of warrantless eavesdropping had made congressional debate on the Patriot Act meaningless.

The NSA's warrantless eavesdropping program is "an intelligence operation in search of a legal rationale," said George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley.

"What the president ordered in this case was a crime," added Turley, who said House Republicans are establishing a terrible precedent by not holding oversight hearings.

To fend off criticism, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove and White House spokesman Scott McClellan referred to statements by John Schmidt, a Clinton administration associate attorney general who defended the program.

Schmidt wrote last month in the Chicago Tribune that Bush's authorization of the NSA surveillance is consistent with court decisions and Justice Department positions under prior presidents.

---

AP White House reporter Deb Riechmann contributed to this story.

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Libby's Lawyers Want to Subpoena Reporters

LaGrande Observer
Libby's Lawyers Want to Subpoena Reporters

By TONI LOCY
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Lawyers for a former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney told a federal judge Friday they want to subpoena journalists and news organizations for documents they may have related to the leak of a CIA operative's name.

In a joint filing with prosecutors, lawyers for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, 55, warned U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton that a trial likely will be delayed because of their strategy to seek more subpoenas of reporters' notes and other records.

Libby was indicted last year on charges that he lied to FBI agents and a federal grand jury about how he learned CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity and when he subsequently told reporters.

Plame's identity was revealed in July 2003 by columnist Robert Novak after her husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, accused the Bush administration of twisting intelligence about Iraq's efforts to buy uranium "yellowcake" in Niger. The year before, the CIA had sent Wilson to Africa to determine the accuracy of the uranium reports; he concluded they were untrue.

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, in announcing the charges against Libby, portrayed Cheney's former chief of staff as the first government official to have shared Plame's name and her work at the CIA with reporters in the summer of 2003.

Libby's defense team did not disclose the names of reporters or news organizations it wants to subpoena.

The filing provides the most concrete indication yet that a large part of Libby's trial strategy will be identifying other government officials who knew Plame was a CIA operative and told reporters about it.

The kind of subpoena cited is for documents or records, not testimony. Such subpoenas usually require records to be turned over before trial so the defense team would have a chance to review them. Libby's team said it expects a delay in the trial while news organizations fight the subpoenas, if Walton agrees to issue them.

Last summer, several reporters were subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury investigating the leak of Plame's identity. New York Times reporter Judith Miller spent 85 days in jail for refusing to discuss her source.

Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said the defense's strategy is no surprise but still alarming.

"Every key witness in this case is going to be a reporter," Dalglish said. "It's an absolutely ugly situation, ... putting reporters in a very, very bad position, ... and it should send a chill up the spine of American citizens across the country."

The defense attorneys also told Walton that a significant disagreement is brewing between Libby's team and Fitzgerald's prosecutors over whether reporters heard Plame's name from government sources other than Libby.

Libby's lawyers said information about other sources used by reporters is "material to the preparation of the defense."

No trial date has been set. Walton had requested the update on the prosecution's exchange of evidence with the defense before a Feb. 3 hearing in the case.

Fitzgerald said he has turned over 10,150 pages of classified and unclassified documents to Libby's defense team.

But the defense attorneys said they want more. They said they may subpoena other executive branch agencies - besides the special prosecutor's office and the FBI - if Fitzgerald continues to refuse to turn over information he has from those departments. They did not specify which agencies.

Shortly after Libby's indictment, The Washington Post revealed that one of its editors, Bob Woodward, who achieved fame for his reporting on the Watergate scandal during the Nixon administration, may have been the first reporter to learn about Plame.

Woodward gave a sworn deposition to Fitzgerald late last year, telling the special prosecutor that a top administration official told him in mid-June 2003 that Wilson was married to Plame.
And here is the rest of it.

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Democrats Hear Angry Seniors on Medicare

LaGrande Observer
Democrats Hear Angry Seniors on Medicare

By KEVIN FREKING
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said Friday that "SWAT teams of technicians" were working to improve the new Medicare drug benefit.

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, senior citizens and pharmacists complained to Democratic lawmakers of being put on hold endlessly as they tried to get prescriptions filled.

"Unfortunately, the start of the new prescription drug benefit would be described by many patients and pharmacists as a nightmare," said Tim Tucker, a pharmacist from Huntington, Tenn., who is a member of the American Pharmacists Association Board of Trustees.

Tucker spoke at a hearing organized by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif. Only Democratic lawmakers attended. Tucker said he saw some good things occurring at his pharmacy since the government began subsidizing the cost of prescription drugs.

"Some of my patients are returning to my practice because they are now able to afford their medications," he said.

However, he described the first few weeks overall as a fiasco. And he placed the blame with the prescription drug plans themselves. Many were not prepared, and some have yet to improve, he said.

Leavitt, who visited Wisconsin, Ohio and Alabama on Friday to hear from state officials, agreed with that assessment. "I would also acknowledge that some of the insurance plans did not properly anticipate the level of service that would be required," he said.

Under the drug program, about 42 million senior citizens and disabled are eligible to enroll in private plans run by insurers and pharmaceutical benefit companies. The government subsidizes the drug coverage, with additional subsidies provided for the poor.

Leavitt said two other problems occurred.

First, many participants automatically enrolled by the government into plans found another that they preferred. However, they waited until late December to make the switch. Their status was not updated before Jan. 1, so pharmacists could not locate their files to determine how much to charge them.

Secondly, large data files transferred from states to the federal government, or from the federal government to an insurance plan, contained errors. That meant people who had previously received their drugs through Medicaid did not make it into a Medicare plan.

"It continues to get better every day," Leavitt said.

But Ruth Grunberg from Cortland, N.Y., told Democrats that her pharmacist's computer rejected her card on Jan. 1, as if she didn't even exist, and she spent days trying to rectify the problem.

"I was starting to feel like the people trapped in the incompetency of the response to Katrina," Grunberg said.

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