Sunday, March 05, 2006
What Ever Happened to the Civil Liberties Board?
Newsweek
What Ever Happened to the Civil Liberties Board?
Michael Isikoff
March 13, 2006 issue - For more than a year, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board has been the most invisible office in the White House. Created by Congress in December 2004 as a result of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, the board has never hired a staff or even held a meeting. Next week, NEWSWEEK has learned, that is due to finally change when the board's five members are slated to be sworn in at the White House and convene their first session. Board members tell NEWSWEEK the panel intends to immediately tackle contentious issues like the president's domestic wiretapping program, the Patriot Act and Pentagon data mining. But critics are furious the process has taken this long—and question whether the White House intends to treat the panel as anything more than window dressing. The delay is "outrageous, considering how long its been since the bill [creating the board] was passed," said Thomas Kean, who chaired the 9/11 Commission. "The administration was never interested in this."
Renewed concerns about the White House's commitment came just a few weeks ago when President Bush's new budget was released—with no listing for money for the civil liberties board. Alex Conant, a spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget, denied to NEWSWEEK the White House was trying to kill the panel by starving it of funds. "It will be fully funded," he said, explaining that the board wasn't in the budget this year because officials decided not to itemize funding levels for particular offices within the White House. When a reporter pointed out that funding for other White House offices such as the National Security Council were listed in the budget, Conant said: "I have no explanation."
The funding snafu is only the latest setback. Kean said the 9/11 Commission had pushed hard for the board to ensure that some agency within the government would specifically review potential abuses at a time vastly expanded powers were being given to U.S. intel and law-enforcement agencies. But the White House, and congressional leaders, resisted and sharply restricted its scope, denying the board basic tools like subpoena power. Bush didn't nominate members of the board until June 2005—six months after the panel was created—and they weren't confirmed until last month. The chair of the board is Carol Dinkins, a former senior Justice official under Ronald Reagan and former law partner of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Dinkins did not respond to requests for comment.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11677336/site/newsweek/
Police issue warnings about 'choking game'
USA TODAY
Police issue warnings about 'choking game'
WHITEFIELD, N.H. (AP) — Police and school officials are issuing warnings about a potentially fatal game gaining popularity among teenagers after the death of a 14-year-old boy.
Eighth-grader Rodney Webster died last week after choking himself to deprive his brain of oxygen so he could feel a brief rush when the blood flow returned.
His death prompted Whitefield Police Chief Bill Colburn and school officials to create pamphlets outlining the danger of the so-called "choking game." They will be distributed Monday when children return from winter break.
"They need to make people aware," said Webster's mother, Lori. "We don't want this to happen to anybody else."
Her son was a wrestler and eighth-grade class president.
The game — also known as space monkey, flat-liner, fainting game and black out — was responsible for more than 50 deaths last year and eight this year, according to the Stop The Choking Game website.
It can also cause brain damage, strokes, seizures and retinal damage.
Is Roe v. Wade Doomed? The Abortion Battle Is Heating Up as States Pass Anti-Abortion Bills
ABC News
Is Roe v. Wade Doomed?
The Abortion Battle Is Heating Up as States Pass Anti-Abortion Bills
March 3, 2006 — - South Dakota is not alone. Several other states are turning their heads toward changing abortion laws. Their ultimate goal? To challenge Roe v. Wade all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"What we are seeing is that these states are emboldened by the climate in this country," said NARAL Pro-Choice America President Nancy Keenan. "They see a pro-life president, a pro-life Congress and Senate, and a president who nominated two members to the Supreme Court who he said would be in the mold of [Justices] Scalia and Thomas."
In addition to South Dakota's measure, which is awaiting the governor's signature, legislation is being introduced and/or drawn up in Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Mississippi, Missouri, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Tennessee.
The laws in effect are a call to the Supreme Court to revisit Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision establishing the right to an abortion.
It's the newest and, some say, the biggest fight against abortion rights in this country since the landmark decision.
But do they have a chance?
"No," Keenan said. "The public is not there. The majority of Americans are pro-choice, and this has even caused a split in the anti-choice movement. One half is supporting this legislation while the other half is saying strategically this would be a mistake."
The South Dakota vote comes at a time when some activists believe the high court may be more willing than ever to abandon Roe v. Wade. Conservatives John Roberts and Samuel Alito are on the bench, and 85-year-old John Paul Stevens may be close to retiring.
Anti-abortion activist Leslee Unruh of Sioux Falls, S.D., told The Associated Press that support for the proposal in South Dakota began long before Roberts and Alito were nominated. She said the issue took on urgency in recent months because term limits will soon force some key lawmakers from office.
"I know the inner workings of the Legislature and the personalities, and I know it had to be this year," said Unruh, founder of a pregnancy counseling center and an organization devoted to teaching abstinence to teenagers. "There's a window of time, and this is it."
The South Dakota abortion-ban legislation sailed through the House and Senate. Republican Gov. Mike Rounds has said he is inclined to sign the measure, which would make it a crime for doctors to perform an abortion unless necessary to save the woman's life. The bill would make no exception in cases of rape or incest.
The Mississippi House voted today to ban most abortions in the state, with exceptions for pregnancies that endanger a woman's life or those caused by rape or incest.
The bill passed, 94-25, and moves to the Senate, where it has the support of a key chairman. Republican Gov. Haley Barbour also has said he will sign the bill into law.
Lawmakers said that Mississippi had a 1940s law similar to what's being proposed now, but that it was invalidated by Roe v. Wade.
"How many millions of souls are crying out that's been killed because of this hideous practice called abortion?" Rep. Eric Robinson, R-Quitman, asked during the House debate, according to the AP.
Barbour told the AP that he likely would sign a bill that would allow abortions only if a pregnant woman's life were in danger, if that's what lawmakers sent him.
"But I would certainly rather it come to my desk with an exception for rape and incest," Barbour told the AP. "I think that's consistent with the opinion of the vast majority of Mississippians and Americans."
No lawmakers stood to argue in favor of abortion rights, although several said abortions should be allowed if a woman was impregnated against her will.
A Missouri bill, sponsored by Republican Sen. Jason Crowell, would make it a felony charge for anyone who performs an abortion, carrying a sentence of five years to 15 years in prison.
"Across the country, state politicians are creating a gauntlet of anti-choice laws and regulations to make it more difficult for women to get the best and safest reproductive health-care services," Eve Gartner, senior staff attorney for Planned Parenthood, said in a statement following the South Dakota ban. "South Dakota's ban is the most sweeping abortion ban passed by any state in more than a decade. Planned Parenthood will go to court to ensure women, with their doctors and families, continue to be able to make personal health-care decisions -- not politicians."
Nationwide, abortion opponents are split over whether it's time to pull out all the stops on banning abortion or time to continue seeking to restrict the procedure with less ambitious bills, such as measures to require parental consent or regulate clinics.
"The pro-life community is divided on what the best strategy is," said Sam Lee, of the anti-abortion group Campaign Life Missouri.
ABCNEWS.com's Rose Palazzolo contributed to this report.
Iran's Best Friend
The New York Times
Iran's Best Friend
At the rate that President Bush is going, Iran will be a global superpower before too long. For all of the axis-of-evil rhetoric that has come out of the White House, the reality is that the Bush administration has done more to empower Iran than its most ambitious ayatollah could have dared to imagine. Tehran will be able to look back at the Bush years as a golden era full of boosts from America, its unlikely ally.
During the period before the Iraq invasion, the president gave lip service to the idea that Iran and Iraq were both threats to American security. But his advisers, intent on carrying out their long-deferred dream of toppling Saddam Hussein, gave scant thought to what might happen if their plans did not lead to the unified, peaceful, pro-Western democracy of their imaginings. The answer, though, is now rather apparent: a squabbling, divided country in which the Shiite majority in the oil-rich south finds much more in common with its fellow Shiites in Iran than with the Sunni Muslims with whom it needs to form an Iraqi government.
Washington has now become dangerously dependent on the good will and constructive behavior of Shiite fundamentalist parties that Iran sheltered, aided and armed during the years that Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq. In recent weeks, neither good will nor constructive behavior has been particularly evident, and if Iran chooses to stir up further trouble to deflect diplomatic pressures on its nuclear program, it could easily do so.
There is now a real risk that Iraq, instead of being turned into an outpost of secular democracy challenging the fanatical rulers of the Islamic republic to its east, could become an Iranian-aligned fundamentalist theocracy, challenging the secular Arab regimes to its west.
Fast-forward to Thursday's nuclear deal with India, in which President Bush agreed to share civilian nuclear technology with India despite its nuclear weapons programs and its refusal to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
This would be a bad idea at any time, rewarding India for flouting the basic international understanding that has successfully discouraged other countries from South Korea to Saudi Arabia from embarking on their own efforts to build nuclear weapons. But it also undermines attempts to rein in Iran, whose nuclear program is progressing fast and unnerving both its neighbors and the West.
The India deal is exactly the wrong message to send right now, just days before Washington and its European allies will be asking the International Atomic Energy Agency to refer Iran's case to the United Nations Security Council for further action. Iran's hopes of preventing this depend on convincing the rest of the world that the West is guilty of a double standard on nuclear issues. Mr. Bush might as well have tied a pretty red bow around his India nuclear deal and mailed it as a gift to Tehran.
We Are (Aren't) Safer With India in the Nuclear Club
The New York Times
We Are (Aren't) Safer With India in the Nuclear Club
By DAVID E. SANGER
WASHINGTON
HAS President Bush just made the world a safer or a more dangerous place?
That question lingered after he reached a deal with India last week recognizing that India is never giving up its nuclear weapons, and declaring that a country America once treated as a nuclear pariah could now be trusted.
In doing so, Mr. Bush took a step in his efforts to rewrite the world's longstanding rules that for more than 30 years have forbidden providing nuclear technology to countries that do not sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
"I'm trying to think differently," Mr. Bush said in New Delhi, referring to the administration's argument that a new system is needed. But in treating India as a special case — a "strategic relationship" — he has so far declined to define general rules for everyone.
In essence, Mr. Bush is making a huge gamble — critics say a dangerous one — that the United States can control proliferation by single-handedly rewarding nuclear states it considers "responsible," and punishing those it declares irresponsible. For those keeping a scorecard, India is in the first camp, Iran is in the second, and no one in the administration wants to talk, at least on the record, about Israel or Pakistan — two allies that have embraced the bomb, but not the treaty.
So will other countries with nuclear ambitions react by becoming more responsible, as the administration hopes, or more envious and more determined than ever to expand their own arsenals? And will India use its new access to American-branded nuclear fuel to free up its domestic supplies of uranium to make bomb fuel for new weapons? And how will the deal affect the tense relationship between India and Pakistan, or for that matter China?
Perhaps the strongest and most discussed critique of the deal goes like this: Mr. Bush's timing could not be worse. In the eyes of his critics, he is creating a double standard by legitimizing an Indian weapons program that only eight years ago led Washington to impose huge sanctions, while demanding, in the same week, that Iran and North Korea give up any capacity to make their own nuclear fuel.
Mr. Bush, notes Ashton B. Carter, a nuclear expert at Harvard, declared nearly two years ago that there should be no new nuclear states, a concept that "was violated irrevocably" when Mr. Bush and the Indians reached agreement on the broad outline of this deal last summer. Now, he says, the deal at least puts the United States in the position of dealing directly with India's plans to maintain or expand its arsenal.
But the new deal may have solved one problem at the expense of creating new ones. Mr. Bush's team says it designed the India deal as a way to build a "strategic partnership" with the world's largest democracy, after decades of estrangement. India has proved itself a responsible power, Mr. Bush said. It also does not hurt that the country is one of the fastest-growing emerging markets, a favorite destination for technology companies, and a potential friend if trouble breaks out in tense relationships with China and Pakistan.
The part of the deal the administration likes to talk about allows India to buy American fuel for its civilian reactors for the first time, in exchange for opening them to international inspection. But India only designated 14 of its sites as "civilian" plants that it permanently guarantees can be inspected (up from four a few months ago), meaning that the additional eight can be used to make bomb fuel.
That part of the deal drives its critics up the cooling tower.
The administration never expected India's nuclear establishment to give up its ability to make bomb-grade fuel. So the administration's negotiator "caved on that one early on," in the words of Robert J. Einhorn, a nonproliferation expert who served under President Clinton and in the early days of Mr. Bush's tenure.
Critics have noted that since the United States would now sell India fuel for its newly declared civilian reactors — assuming Congress goes along — the Indians can devote their domestic uranium supply to weapons. "It substantially expands the supply of uranium the Indians have for military purposes," said Mr. Einhorn.
Mr. Bush argues that the Indians were going to build more weapons anyway.
And he said on Thursday in New Delhi that a way had be found to help India build safe civilian nuclear plants. Otherwise, it and China, the other country with a billion-plus population and a rising appetite for energy supplies, would end up struggling with each other and the West over resources to keep their economies growing.
Mr. Bush puts that as a pocketbook issue: "Increasing demand for oil from America, from India and China, relative to a supply that's not keeping up with demand, causes our fuel prices to go up," he said. "And so, to the extent that we can reduce demand for fossil fuels, it will help the American consumer."
"It's a start," said Xenia Dormandy, a Southeast Asia expert who was in on the early days of the deal as an official at the National Security Council, before leaving for Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "It acknowledges that over the years, India has played according to the rules, never proliferated, and it makes more sense to bring a rising power into the system rather than treat them like we've treated them for 30 years."
Ms. Dormandy applauds the deal for another reason: the politics of Pakistan, the nuclear power next door, is driven by jealousy over anything that India gets. The government there, she argued, may be driven to clean up its nuclear act in hopes of one day getting a similar deal.
Maybe so, but it could be a long wait: Robert Blackwill, the former American ambassador to India and an early architect of the agreement, said that because of the huge nuclear black market that Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear engineer, operated from Islamabad for two decades, "there's not the slightest possibility that this deal is going to be made available to Pakistan." But if there is a plan to keep Pakistan from boosting its own relatively small arsenal to keep up with India — or China from doing the same — no one in the adminstration has yet explained it.
That is why some experts believe the deal could make the world more dangerous: Even if India is a responsble player, the deal could touch off a regional race to produce more bomb fuel. In that case, more of that fuel would be floating around — perhaps to tempt terrorists. If, on the other hand, India shows restraint and Mr. Bush's gamble pays off, other nations that defiantly built their own weapons may gradually be drawn back into a new club whose membership rules are still being written.
Military denies withdrawal plan
Reuters
Military denies withdrawal plan
By Ibon Villelabeitia
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. military in Iraq said on Sunday media reports that America and Britain planned to pull all troops out of Iraq by spring 2007 were "completely false," reiterating that there was no timetable for withdrawal.
Two British newspapers reported on Sunday that the pull-out plan followed an acceptance by the two governments that the presence of foreign troops in Iraq was now an obstacle to securing peace.
But a spokesman for the U.S. military in Iraq reiterated previous statements by U.S. and Iraqi officials that foreign troops would be gradually withdrawn from the country once Iraqi security forces were capable of guaranteeing security.
"This news report on a withdrawal of forces within a set timeframe is completely false," Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson said of the stories in Britain's Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Mirror, which quoted unnamed senior defense ministry sources.
"As we've said over and over again, any withdrawal will be linked to the ability of the Iraqi security forces to maintain domestic order on behalf of a representative Iraqi government that respects the rights of all its citizens. This is an ongoing assessment and not linked to any timeframe," he said.
UNITY GOVERNMENT
Iraq's Kurdish President Jalal Talabani said he would issue a decree on Sunday to summon a first sitting of the parliament elected in December.
Talabani on Saturday added his voice to pressure from other leaders for Shi'ite Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari to step aside, saying his resignation would help persuade other parties to form a national unity government that could halt a slide toward civil war.
As at least 14 people were killed in sectarian violence on Saturday, the top U.S. military commander in the Middle East called for a broad coalition Washington hopes can foster stability and allow it to start withdrawing its troops.
The Shi'ite United Alliance, the biggest bloc in the new parliament, nominated Jaafari to keep his job despite security and economic difficulties and criticism of his handling of violence that has killed more than 500 people since the destruction of a major Shi'ite shrine in Samarra on February 22.
But smaller factions are refusing to join a coalition he leads and rival Shi'ite leaders are considering putting up a new nominee, political sources say. Parliament is likely to sit around next Sunday, government sources say, but forming a government may take much longer.
The premier must be confirmed by a two-thirds majority.
General John Abizaid, head of U.S. Central Command, met both Talabani and Jaafari in Baghdad: "The government of national unity must be formed to bring the country together," he said.
There are about 135,000 U.S. soldiers and Marines and about 8,500 British troops in Iraq. The full U.S.-led coalition numbers around 160,000. Italy, with the fourth largest contingent in Iraq, has said it plans to pull out this year.
U.S. and British troops have trained 230,000 Iraqis to take on roles in the police force and Iraqi army, but both are currently incapable of securing the country on their own.
Talabani and Shi'ite Interior Minister Bayan Jabor have called for sectarian and ethnic militias to join the U.S.-trained security forces, something U.S. officials in Baghdad have long been urging.
Government leaders, including Talabani and Jabor, are in parties which have justified maintaining their own militia forces, however, and Jabor set no timetable for any change.
"There is no reasonable justification for any fear of the militias at the present time," Jabor said.
Sunni leaders have accused the government of condoning death squads targeting minority Sunnis and operating from inside the Shi'ite-controlled Interior Ministry. In the north, Sunni Arabs complain of the power of Kurdish peshmerga militias.
Militia leaders deny condoning any such violence.
US launches drive to plug leaks
Reuters
US launches drive to plug leaks: Washington Post
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration has launched several investigations to discourage government employees from leaking classified information to news reporters, The Washington Post reported in its Sunday edition.
FBI agents have interviewed dozens of employees at the CIA, the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies in recent weeks as they investigate possible leaks that led to reports about the NSA's domestic spying program and secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe, the Post said.
Employees at the FBI, the CIA, the Justice Department and other agencies have also received Justice Department letters prohibiting them from discussing the NSA program, the Post said, citing anonymous sources.
Republican lawmakers like Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts are considering legislation that would stiffen penalties for leaking.
FBI agents have contacted reporters at the Sacramento Bee about their coverage of a terrorism case that was based on classified documents, the Post said.
CIA Director Porter Goss has warned employees at the agency against speaking to reporters, and called for prosecutors to call reporters before a grand jury to force them to reveal who is leaking information, the Post said.
Several reporters have already been forced to reveal anonymous sources to a U.S. prosecutor investigating the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity after her husband accused the Bush administration of twisting intelligence to justify its invasion of Iraq.
Editors and lawyers told the Post the incidents amount to the most extensive anti-leak campaign since the Nixon administration.
A White House spokesman told the Post that the government needs to protect classified information as it fights terrorism.
House introduces mandatory radio-crippling law
boingboing.com
House introduces mandatory radio-crippling law
Rep. Mike Ferguson (R-N.J.) has introduced a bill to cripple all digital radios. The Audio Broadcast Flag Licensing Act of 2006 (H.R. 4861) requires all digital radio makers to build their devices so that they only permit "customary uses" of broadcasts. That means that no one ever gets to invent any new radio tech ever again unless the RIAA approves of it. Finally, it requires radio device makers to cripple their products to prohibit "unauthorized copying" -- which is a lot more broad than "illegal copying." As we've heard, the RIAA's position is that no copying is implicitly authorized -- they don't even think you should be allowed to rip your CDs.
Fergusun is committing political suicide. No constituent of Fergusun's woke up this morning wishing for a way to do less with her radio. There's no manufacturer who can sell more radios by advertising "Now! With fewer features!" This is a bill to steal from tomorrow's entrepreneurs, who'll never get to invent the next generation of awesome music tech, in order to line the pockets of yesterday's recording industry fatcats.
For a picture of what the RIAA considers permissible, take a look at the comments they filed with the FCC on this topic back in 2004. Here's the list of restrictions they asked for then:
* Receivers may only record or permit recording of covered content: (a) in direct and immediate response to a consumer pressing a record button; (b) based on a date and time preprogrammed by the consumer.
* Preprogrammed recordings shall be for a minimum period of 30 minutes in duration.
* A replay buffer may be used to initiate a recording of a previously broadcast transmission provided that the buffer does not exceed 30 minutes in duration.
* Each recording of covered content shall be stored and retrieved as a singe continuous session and may not be divided into recordings of individual songs on an automated or non-automated basis using ID information or audio characteristics...
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Update: Nathan sez, "A grassroots group here in NJ started a federal PAC called Blue 7th PAC that is geared towards defeating Mike Ferguson in the 2006 election, and this is just another reason to go after him. We created the blog, target letters to the editor, raise money for area candidates, hold candidates nights, publish fact sheets, and have an e-mail list of about 1200 people. We think that a small, targeted PAC of local folks can do a lot to change the results of an election."
Supreme Court Steps Into Medicare Rx Fight
Yahoo! News
Supreme Court Steps Into Medicare Rx Fight
By GINA HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer
Fifteen states are urging the Supreme Court to take the unusual step of immediately intervening to resolve a dispute between states and the federal government over the costly new Medicare prescription drug program.
Justices were told Friday that states should not be forced to help fund the program, which could cost them billions of dollars over the next two years.
"The federal government has placed what amounts to a direct tax upon Texas and other states in violation of the U.S. Constitution," Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, the lead attorney in the case, said in a statement.
Traditionally, such lawsuits are filed first in a federal district court.
Texas, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri and New Jersey asked the Supreme Court for permission to file what is called an original case to get the issue directly before the justices.
Ten states filed a brief backing the move: Alaska, Arizona, Connecticut, Kansas, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Vermont. Lawyers for those states told justices that the program "establishes a dangerous precedent that threatens" states' independence.
A 2003 law added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, the federal health insurance program for the elderly and disabled. It went into effect Jan. 1 for those who signed up early and for millions who previously were covered by state Medicaid programs.
Gary Karr, a spokesman for the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said states are eventually going to save billions of dollars under the new program. "That's why very few states decided to join this lawsuit, despite requests for them to do so," Karr said.
State lawsuits against each other are filed directly with the Supreme Court. State lawsuits against the federal government can be filed directly with the Supreme Court, or begin in lower court. The high court does not have to agree to resolve them.
"I don't know if the Supreme Court is going to want to be the first court to get into this dispute. It seems controversial and political," said Neil Siegel, a Duke University law professor and former Supreme Court clerk.
If the court agrees to take the case, it will appoint someone to oversee it and make recommendations.
David Frederick, a Washington lawyer and Supreme Court expert, said "the states are trading the normal tools of district court litigation" in hopes of getting a speedier outcome at the high court.
The case is Texas v. Leavitt, No. 135.
___
On the Net:
Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Pentagon Agency's Contracts Reviewed
washingtonpost.com
Pentagon Agency's Contracts Reviewed
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Federal investigators are looking into contracts awarded by the Pentagon's newest and fastest-growing intelligence agency, the Counterintelligence Field Activity, which has spent more than $1 billion, mostly for outsourced services, since its establishment in late 2002, according to administration and congressional sources.
The review is an outgrowth of the continuing investigation that resulted in charges against Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.), who resigned from Congress in November and is scheduled to be sentenced today after pleading guilty to tax evasion and conspiracy to take $2.4 million in bribes.
In pre-sentencing documents filed this week, prosecutors said that in fiscal 2003 legislation, Cunningham set aside, or earmarked, $6.3 million for work to be done "to benefit" CIFA shortly after the agency was created. The contract went to MZM Inc., a company run by Mitchell J. Wade, who recently pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe Cunningham.
Also this week, prosecutors released a letter dated Feb. 24, 2004, from Cunningham to CIFA Director David A. Burtt II, in which the former member of the House defense appropriations subcommittee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence thanked the CIFA staff for supporting another multimillion-dollar program that involved MZM.
CIFA, whose exact size and budget remain secret, was established in September 2002 to coordinate policy and oversee the counterintelligence activities of units within the military services and Pentagon agencies. In the past three years, it has grown to become an analytic and operational organization with nine directorates and widening authority focused primarily on protecting defense facilities and personnel from terrorist attacks. The agency was criticized after it was revealed in December that a database it managed held information on Americans who were peacefully protesting the war in Iraq at defense facilities and recruiting offices.
Officials said CIFA's contracting is under review by federal prosecutors as they continue to investigate the Cunningham corruption case, and by Defense Department officials. Pentagon officials declined to discuss CIFA's connections to the inquiry. "There is an ongoing review by appropriate organizations within the Department, and it would be premature to discuss any possible outcomes of that review," said a statement provided yesterday by Cmdr. Gregory Hicks, a Defense Department public affairs officer who also serves as CIFA's spokesman.
Burtt has said that about 70 percent of CIFA's funding is contracted out and that his agency may soon absorb the Defense Security Service, the Pentagon outfit that monitors handling of classified government information by contractors.
CIFA has had a connection to MZM dating to its formation, said congressional and administration sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigations. Burtt, who was a deputy assistant secretary of defense for counterintelligence at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, developed the concept for CIFA.
A consultant to Burtt on the CIFA project was retired Lt. Gen. James C. King, who joined MZM after retiring in late 2001 as director of the Pentagon-based National Imagery and Mapping Agency. In August 2005, investment firm Veritas Capital bought MZM and changed its name to Athena Innovative Solutions Inc. King, who replaced Wade as president of MZM in June 2005, has remained president of Athena. A spokesman for Athena said yesterday that neither King nor the company would comment on MZM or matters under investigation.
In late 2002, Cunningham made the contract for Wade's company, MZM, one of "his top priorities" in the defense appropriations bill, according to the prosecutors' pre-sentencing filing. After Congress approved the money, Wade told unnamed Defense Department officials they had to "work something up" that would provide a "real benefit to CIFA," according to the prosecutors' documents.
The resultant program saw more than $6 million spent for a mass data storage system supposedly for CIFA that, according to the prosecutorial document, included almost $5.4 million in profit for MZM and a subcontractor. "Adding insult to injury," the prosecutors wrote, "the final system sold to the government was never installed (as it was incompatible with CIFA's network system) and remains in storage in Arlington, Va."
In January 2004, Cunningham sought about $16.15 million to be added to the defense authorization bill for a CIFA "collaboration center." A month later, Cunningham wrote Burtt his thank you note about the center, adding: "I wish to endorse and support MZM, Inc.'s work." He concluded, "As the Collaboration Center is completed, I hope to help you inaugurate the center as I did at the inception of CIFA." Defense spokesman Hicks said he was unaware of a CIFA collaboration center.
Harris Requested Funds At Behest of Contractor
washingtonpost.com
Harris Requested Funds At Behest of Contractor
By Charles R. Babcock
Washington Post Staff Writer
Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.) has acknowledged that she requested last year that $10 million in federal funds be set aside for a Navy intelligence program in her district at the request of Washington contractor Mitchell J. Wade, who pleaded guilty last week to bribing another House member.
Harris, who gained notoriety as secretary of state in Florida during the contested Bush-Gore presidential race in 2000, is running for the Senate this year. News media in her home state have been focusing on her dealings with Wade since prosecutors disclosed last week that she was the unwitting recipient of $32,000 in illegal campaign donations from Wade in 2004.
In a statement Thursday, Harris said: "I never requested funding for this project in exchange for any contributions, but rather to bring more high-skill, high-wage jobs to the region."
In court filings as part of Wade's plea for bribing convicted former representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.), prosecutors said Wade had had dinner with Harris early last year and discussed another fundraising event and possible funding for an unnamed Navy counterintelligence program. The court filing said the project was not funded but did not address whether Harris sought funding. She did not respond to questions about such a request last week.
On Thursday, she released copies of letters she sent to appropriations subcommittee chairmen in 2004 and 2005 requesting funding for more than 80 specific projects. She said she was doing so to bring transparency to the appropriations process, and that she supports identifying the individuals and organizations making the requests.
Last year, she first requested five defense projects totaling $15.8 million. A month later, she wrote another letter to Reps. C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) and John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), the senior members of the panel, adding the Wade project. It was for Naval Criminal Investigative Service airborne capability, which she placed third on her list of funding priorities. She said it was "to support counterintelligence and combating terrorism missions."
Harris said she has not been contacted by any officials regarding the incident.
Hearing Set on Agencies' Withdrawal of Papers From Archives
washingtonpost.com
Hearing Set on Agencies' Withdrawal of Papers From Archives
By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
A congressional committee will look into a secret program under which federal intelligence agencies have withdrawn thousands of historical documents from public access at the National Archives, even though the records had been declassified.
"We are spending literally millions and millions of dollars to keep secrets from ourselves," said Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), chairman of the Government Reform subcommittee on national security, emerging threats and international relations. "We've got a huge problem."
The panel plans to hold an oversight hearing March 14 on federal policies for the handling of sensitive information. Shays said the suppression of documents that pose no threat to national security is indicative of a larger problem in which government secrecy is on the rise.
About 9,500 records totaling more than 55,000 pages have been withdrawn from the public shelves and reclassified since 1999, according to the National Archives. The New York Times reported last month that outside historians discovered the practice and complained about it. Archivist Allen Weinstein announced a moratorium on the reclassification efforts Thursday.
While the archives will not name the agencies involved, historians with the National Security Archive, a nonprofit research library housed at George Washington University, say the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Defense Department and the Justice Department have participated.
Many of the records date to the 1940s and 1950s and their continued disclosure would pose no conceivable security risk, said historians who obtained copies of the records before reclassification. Such documents include old Cold War intelligence analyses and studies of political affairs in Mexico in the 1960s. Other documents appear to be the sort that should not have been declassified, historians say.
Weinstein said he is suspending the agencies' efforts to withdraw documents until the archives' Information Security Oversight Office completes an audit of the removed material. Results of the audit, which will help determine which records should be secret, are expected by late April.
"I felt that it was important to give people time to cool off in this whole matter," Weinstein said in a telephone interview yesterday. "It's an effort to slow the trains down."
The program dates to the Clinton administration, when the CIA and other agencies began recalling documents they believed were improperly released under a 1995 executive order requiring declassification of many historical records 25 years old and older. The pace of the removal picked up after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Some documents appear to have been withdrawn for no reason other than to spare official embarrassment, historians said. One document -- excerpts of an Oct. 12, 1950, memo from the CIA director to President Harry S. Truman -- says that while Chinese intervention in the Korea War was possible, "a consideration of all known factors leads to the conclusion that barring a Soviet decision for global war, such action is not probable in 1950." The Chinese invaded Korea on Nov. 26.
Independent historian Matthew M. Aid uncovered the reclassification program last summer when his requests for documents formerly available at the archives were delayed or denied.
"This isn't the first instance I've run into where intelligence agencies and the Pentagon and other government agencies have used classification to cover up faux pas," said Aid, author of a book on Cold War intelligence. "It just galled me."
Weinstein is scheduled to meet next week with national security agencies involved in the reclassification. The matter also is being studied by the Public Interest Declassification Board, a new, nine-member advisory panel that helps the executive branch sort out which classified documents should be made public.
Weinstein said the process has to be credible to the public. "Stuff has to be held back when it's important to hold it back, when you can make a legitimate legal case for not releasing it, not when you are going on impulse or gut reaction or just because you don't like something in some document," he said.
North Pole Meets South Pole: Both Ends of Earth Are Melting; Melting Ice Caps Could Spell Disaster for Coastal Cities
ABC News
North Pole Meets South Pole: Both Ends of Earth Are Melting
Melting Ice Caps Could Spell Disaster for Coastal Cities
By BILL BLAKEMORE
March 2, 2006 — - For the first time, scientists have confirmed Earth is melting at both ends, which could have disastrous effects for coastal cities and villages.
Antarctica has been called "a slumbering giant" by a climate scientist who predicts that if all the ice melted, sea levels would rise by 200 feet. Other scientists believe that such a thing won't happen, but new studies show that the slumbering giant has started to stir.
Melting at Both Ends
Recent studies have confirmed that the North Pole and the South Pole have started melting.
Experts have long predicted that global warming would start to melt Greenland's two-mile-thick ice sheet, but they also thought the more massive ice sheet covering Antarctica would increase in the 21st century.
It seems they were wrong.
Two new studies find that despite the increasing snowfall that comes with global warming as a result of the increased moisture in the air, Antarctica's ice sheets are losing far more than the snow is adding.
According to the National Academy of Sciences, Earth's surface temperature has risen by about 1 degree Fahrenheit in the last century, with accelerated warming during the last two decades. Most of the warming over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities through the buildup of greenhouse gases -- primarily carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Although the heat-trapping property of these gases is undisputed, uncertainties exist about exactly how Earth's climate responds to them.
"The warming ocean comes underneath the ice shelves and melts them from the bottom, and warmer air from the top melts them from the top," said NASA glaciologist Jay Zwally. "So they're thinning and eventually they get to a point where they go poof!"
Zwally explains that the ice shelves, which the Antarctic ice cap pushes out into the ocean, are responding more than they expected to Earth's warming air and water. If the melting speeds up to a rapid runaway process called a "collapse," coastal cities and villages could be in danger.
James Hansen, director of NASA's Earth Science Research, said that disaster could probably be avoided, but that it would require dramatically cutting emission outputs. If the proper actions aren't taken, Hansen said, Hansen said, then the sea level could start rising much more quickly, ultimately reaching 80 feet, and be well underway toward that by the time today's children are in middle age.
"We now must choose between a serious problem that we can probably handle and, if we don't act soon, unmitigated disaster down the road," Hansen said.
Scientists looking at ice cores can now read Earth's temperatures from past millennia and match them to sea levels from those eras.
"Based on the history of the Earth, if we can keep the warming less than 2 degrees Fahrenheit, I think we can avoid disastrous ice sheet collapse," Hansen said.
Hansen and other scientists point out that a rise of at least 1 degree Fahrenheit -- and another few feet of sea level -- seem virtually certain to happen because of the carbon that mankind has already put in the atmosphere.
No. 3 Official at CIA Is Subject of Investigation Related to Bribery Probe
ABC News
Exclusive: Top CIA Official Under Investigation
No. 3 Official at CIA Is Subject of Investigation Related to Bribery Probe
By BRIAN ROSS, RICHARD ESPOSITO and RHONDA SCHWARTZ
March 3, 2006 — - A stunning investigation of bribery and corruption in Congress has spread to the CIA, ABC News has learned.
The CIA Inspector General has opened an investigation into the spy agency's executive director, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, and his connections to two defense contractors accused of bribing a member of Congress and Pentagon officials.
The CIA released an official statement on the matter to ABC News, saying: "It is standard practice for CIA's Office of Inspector General -- an aggressive, independent watchdog -- to look into assertions that mention agency officers. That should in no way be seen as lending credibility to any allegation.
"Mr. Foggo has overseen many contracts in his decades of public service. He reaffirms that they were properly awarded and administered."
The CIA said Foggo, the No. 3 official at the CIA, would have no further comment. He will remain in his post at the CIA during the investigation, according to officials.
Two former CIA officials told ABC News that Foggo oversaw contracts involving at least one of the companies accused of paying bribes to Congressman Randall "Duke" Cunningham. The story was first reported by Newsweek magazine.
Friendship With Defense Contractor
The California Republican has pleaded guilty after admitting he accepted $2.4 million in bribes in exchange for arranging defense contracts. He was sentenced today to eight years and four months in prison for corruption. Federal law enforcement officials said Cunningham is cooperating and the investigation is continuing.
As executive director of the CIA, Foggo oversees the administration of the giant spy agency. He was appointed to the post by CIA Director Porter Goss after working as a midlevel procurement supervisor, according to former CIA officials.
While based in Frankfurt, Germany, he oversaw and approved contracts for CIA operations in Iraq.
Foggo is a longtime friend of Brent Wilkes, listed as unindicted co-conspirator No. 1 in government documents filed in the Cunningham investigation. The two played high school football and were in each other's weddings.
According to government documents, Wilkes gave Cunningham $630,000 in cash and gifts in exchange for help in getting government contracts.
Wilkes was the founder of ADSC Inc, in 1995. Under Wilkes, the company obtained more than $95 million in government contracts.
Officials say they could not describe the CIA contracts in question because some of them were classified secret.
'Bribe Menu'
Cunningham is involved in what prosecutors call a corruption case with no parallel in the long history of the U.S. Congress. He actually priced the illegal services he provided.
Prices came in the form of a "bribe menu" that detailed how much it would cost contractors to essentially order multimillion-dollar government contracts, according to documents submitted by federal prosecutors for today's sentencing hearing.
"The length, breadth and depth of Cunningham's crimes," the sentencing memorandum states, "are unprecedented for a sitting member of Congress."
Prosecutors will ask federal Judge Larry Burns to impose the statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
The sentencing memorandum includes the California Republican's "bribery menu" on one of his congressional note cards, "starkly framed" under the seal of the United States Congress.
The card shows an escalating scale for bribes, starting at $140,000 and a luxury yacht for a $16 million Defense Department contract. Each additional $1 million in contract value required a $50,000 bribe.
The rate dropped to $25,000 per additional million once the contract went above $20 million.
At one point Cunningham was living on a yacht named after him, "The Dukester," docked near Capitol Hill, courtesy of a defense company president.
ABC News' Vic Walter contributed to this report.
The Mayor Speaks His Mind
The New York Times
The Mayor Speaks His Mind
In his first term, Michael Bloomberg was often diplomatic to a fault. He was loath to criticize publicly members of his adopted Republican Party in Washington and Albany. He preferred working behind the scenes — with mixed success — to change policies that were often at odds with city needs as basic as security and the schools. Now, in his second and final term, Mr. Bloomberg seems to have decided he isn't taking any guff from anyone.
This week the mayor criticized the Bush administration's plans to cut federal housing assistance as "shortsighted." He said that the history of urban America was "a story with a strong and bitter subtext of racial segregation" and that federal help in housing was "a matter of social justice."
His passion is understandably fanned by his own plans to build or rehabilitate 165,000 housing units in New York by 2013, a lofty goal that will be very difficult to achieve without federal aid.
The mayor seems to have learned what it takes to get Albany to listen hard. When he recently threatened to help unseat a Queens Republican and help tilt power to Democrats in the State Senate — payback for the short shrift the G.O.P. has given the city — the shudders from Albany were palpable. Lawmakers there, and the governor, are finally on notice that the mayor will do what it takes to get the billions of dollars overdue for school construction.
Mr. Bloomberg has also entered the fray on gun control and promised to take the campaign to the national stage — the only way that the flow of handguns from out of state can be controlled. Hitting another hot button, he donated $100 million of his fortune to Johns Hopkins University for stem cell research. The mayor is now unchained, and that should make for fascinating politics and policy.
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