Don't Dismantle the Voting Rights Act

The New York Times
Don't Dismantle the Voting Rights Act
By LUCI BAINES JOHNSON and LYNDA JOHNSON ROBB

THE Voting Rights Act, signed into law on Aug. 6, 1965, by our father, President Lyndon Johnson, opened the political process to millions of Americans. The law was born amid the struggle for voting rights in Selma and Montgomery, Ala., which the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called "a shining moment in the conscience of man." By eliminating barriers, including poll taxes and literacy tests, that had long prevented members of minority groups from voting, the act became a keystone of civil rights in the United States.

Now, crucial provisions of this legislation are in jeopardy. Last month, Congress seemed set to renew expiring sections intended to prevent voter discrimination based on race or language proficiency. Instead, a group of House lawmakers opposed to those sections succeeded in derailing their consideration.

The Voting Rights Act prohibits discrimination in voting everywhere in the country. But it has a special provision, Section 5, intended for regions with persistent histories of discrimination. These states and localities must have their election plans approved by the Justice Department.

Since the act was last renewed, in 1982, the federal government has objected to hundreds of proposed changes in state and local voting laws on the basis of their discriminatory impact. In recent years, proposed election changes in Georgia, Texas and other states were blocked because they violated the act.

Yet states and localities are not subject to Section 5 forever. In order to gain exemption, they need only meet a set of clear standards proving that they have been in compliance with the law for 10 years and have not tried to discriminate against minority voters. In Virginia, for example, eight counties and three cities have been exempted from Section 5.

Another section of the act, Section 203, which Congress added in 1975, mandates language assistance in certain jurisdictions to promote voting by citizens with limited proficiency in English. There are now 466 such jurisdictions in 31 states.

No one disputes that our nation has come a long way since the Voting Rights Act was first signed into law. But while it would be nice to think we don't need this legislation anymore, we do. We still struggle with the legacy of institutionalized racism. If either of the act's two sections under attack is weakened or allowed to expire, the door will be opened to a new round of discriminatory practices.

The reauthorization stalled in Congress is called the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006. Were he alive today, we believe President Johnson would be honored to have this bill named after such remarkable women. Its passage would be a fitting tribute to their collective efforts to expand the scope of civil rights and citizenship.

In his own era, our father faced powerful opposition to the Voting Rights Act, including from members of his own party. Nonetheless, he pushed forward with the legislation because he knew it was desperately needed. It was the right thing to do then. It still is.

Luci Baines Johnson and Lynda Johnson Robb are the daughters of President Lyndon Johnson.

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The Fragile Kennedy Court

NY Times
The Fragile Kennedy Court

The Supreme Court has nominally been the Roberts Court since last fall, when John Roberts arrived as chief justice. But as a practical matter, the recently completed term marked the start of the Kennedy Court. With the departure of Sandra Day O'Connor, Justice Anthony Kennedy cast the deciding vote in case after case. The court's major rulings, on presidential power, environmental law and other issues, reflected his moderately conservative, but often fiercely independent, view of the law.

The two new justices, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, produced little of the term's excitement since both men quickly fell into predictably conservative voting patterns. Justice Alito voted with Clarence Thomas 84 percent of the time in non-unanimous decisions, and with John Paul Stevens, a leader of the court's liberal wing, just 13 percent. Chief Justice Roberts agreed with Antonin Scalia fully 88 percent of the time, and least often with Justice Stevens.

With Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito, Scalia and Thomas forming one bloc, and the four most liberal justices forming another, Justice Kennedy had the power to make either camp's opinion the majority on a striking number of cases.

His influence was clear in the most important case of the term, the historic ruling striking down the military tribunals at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp. Justice Kennedy provided the critical fifth vote for Justice Stevens's impassioned opinion that found fault not only with the tribunals but with the Bush administration's broader claims that the president has inherent power to execute the war on terror as he sees fit.

At other times, Justice Kennedy swung to the right. In the Texas redistricting case, he joined with the court's conservatives to reject the claim that Republicans' redrawing of the state's Congressional districts was so nakedly partisan that it violated the Constitution's equal protection clause. He did, however, join the liberals in holding that one of the newly created districts violated the Voting Rights Act.

In a key environmental case, Justice Kennedy came down between the conservatives, who would have substantially gutted the Clean Water Act's wetlands protections, and the liberals, who would have applied it forcefully. He laid out a middle-of-the-road test that will, in the end, most likely end up being fairly protective of the environment.

There were cases, of course, that Justice Kennedy did not decide. In an important campaign finance case, the court struck down a Vermont law but made clear that, as a general matter, contribution limits were constitutional. Justice Kennedy wrote his own opinion that expressed his continuing concerns about contribution limits, while Chief Justice Roberts gave critical support to the majority favoring campaign finance reform. In many other areas, though, including police searches and the death penalty, the law was what Justice Kennedy said it was.

The court's current centrism is fragile. Justice Stevens recently turned 86, and he or another justice could leave in the next two years, giving President Bush an opportunity to fill the vacancy. If the court's strongly conservative bloc gained a fifth vote, American law would likely look very different from the court's decisions this term and from its rulings over the last 50 years on issues like abortion, the environment and civil rights.

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Eager Helpers for the Gun Lobby

The New York Times
Eager Helpers for the Gun Lobby

Childproof trigger locks on handguns should rank somewhere near mom and apple pie as a measure of the nation's wholesome dedication to life. But not in the House of Representatives, where the gun lobby cowed lawmakers into actually barring the use of federal funds to enforce an existing law that requires child trigger locks to be sold with all handguns. This late-night treachery just before the July 4 recess means that federal agents will not have the resources to confront one of the deadliest facts of American family life: 10 young people die each day in gun homicides, suicides and accidents.

The rate of firearm death for children 14 years and under is almost 12 times higher in this country than in 25 other industrialized nations combined, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Yet there was the law-and-order majority caving in to the gun lobby.

Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, the Colorado Republican who dared to put this proposal on the floor, offered a shabby logic: locks on weapons don't stop the slaying and maiming of children, they only make "personal protection more costly."

She drew 42 Democrats to join 188 Republicans in the majority with an argument that summoned an old "Saturday Night Live" skit about a sleazy toy dealer peddling lethal toys to children.

"Many things around the home are dangerous when used without proper instructions or supervision," Ms. Musgrave said. "But it is not the government's job or responsibility to mandate every conceivable protective mechanism imaginable."

Surely the Senate will not endorse this nonsense when it arrives from the House.

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White House to Ease Medicaid Rule on Proof of Citizenship

The New York Times
White House to Ease Medicaid Rule on Proof of Citizenship
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, July 6 — The Bush administration said Thursday that it would exempt millions of the most vulnerable Medicaid recipients from a new law that requires them to prove they are United States citizens by showing birth certificates, passports or other documents.

The action was apparently intended to pre-empt a ruling by a federal judge who is scheduled to hold a hearing on Friday on a lawsuit challenging the new requirement, which took effect on July 1.

Dr. Mark B. McClellan, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said that more than 8 million of the 55 million Medicaid recipients would be "exempt from the new documentation requirement" because they had established their citizenship when they applied for Medicare or Supplemental Security Income.

Medicaid, financed jointly by the federal government and the states, provides health insurance for low-income people, including many in nursing homes. Medicare provides health insurance for people who are 65 and older or disabled. Supplemental Security Income is a cash assistance program for people with very low incomes who are elderly, blind or disabled. About six million people receive Medicare and Medicaid. In most states, people receiving Supplemental Security Income are entitled to Medicaid.

Dr. McClellan said the exemption would apply, for example, to "people with mental retardation who have never worked and to many nursing home residents." Critics of the new law had said it would be difficult for many people with mental retardation, Alzheimer's disease and other mental impairments to produce the documents needed to comply.

Under the law, anyone who has Medicaid coverage or applies for it must present "documentary evidence of citizenship." Previously, more than 40 states had accepted the applicants' written statements as proof of citizenship unless the claims seemed questionable. "Self-attestation of citizenship and identity is no longer an acceptable practice," the administration said in a rule issued on Thursday evening.

The new documentation requirement is part of the Deficit Reduction Act, signed by President Bush on Feb. 8. It is meant to stop the "theft of Medicaid benefits by illegal aliens," in the words of Representative Charlie Norwood, Republican of Georgia, a principal author of the provision.

In an unusual preamble to the new rule, the Bush administration said it believed that Congress had intended to exempt Medicaid beneficiaries who were also receiving Medicare or Supplemental Security Income.

The law says the documentation requirement "shall not apply to an alien who is eligible for medical assistance" if the person is also enrolled in one of the other two programs. The administration said this was "clearly a drafting error." Congress intended an exemption for citizens, "but accidentally used the term 'alien,' " the preamble says.

A literal reading of the statute would lead to an absurd result — "an exemption applying only to aliens who declare themselves citizens" — and would be of no help to the intended beneficiaries, those citizens who would have the most difficulty proving their citizenship, the administration said. The agency said it was merely correcting "a scrivener's error," one of several it found.

John E. Stone, a spokesman for Representative Norwood, said the final rule "appears to provide an appropriate degree of flexibility" to Medicaid beneficiaries and to states.

Ronald F. Pollack, the executive director of Families U.S.A., a consumer group working with plaintiffs in the court case, said: "The exemption of seniors and people with severe disabilities from the citizenship verification requirement is a commendable development. But many other people who need health care the most and can't come up with the required documentation — such as foster children and homeless people — may still lose Medicaid coverage and join the ranks of the uninsured. This should be corrected."

Dr. McClellan said that states could help establish a person's identity and citizenship by using records of state agencies that administer food stamps, child support and child protective services, as well as the agencies that issue driver's licenses.

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UK prepares to remember 7/7

BBC NEWS
Nation prepares to remember 7/7
The UK is preparing to mark the first anniversary of the London bombings that claimed 52 lives and injured hundreds.

At midday, a two-minute silence will be observed across the country, including Wimbledon and other events.

The bells of St Paul's Cathedral will toll for those who died, at the times of the bombings and after the silence.

A public ceremony will be held later in London's Regent's Park, with musical performances and readings, and a recital of the names of the dead.

The commemoration comes as the chief constable of one of the forces investigating the bombings on three London Underground trains and a bus says he believes another 7 July-style attack in the UK is "very possible".

PUBLIC EVENTS
0800-1600 : Public invited to add flowers to mosaic in Queen Mary's Gardens, Regent's Park.
1200 : National two-minute silence
1230 : Multi-faith service of remembrance, St Pancras Church, Euston Road
1800-1830 : Commemorative event, Queen Mary's Gardens, Regent's Park

Colin Cramphorn, Chief Constable of the West Yorkshire force, said there was evidence that "further attacks are not just fanciful, they are very possible".

His warning comes a day after a video of one of the bombers, Shehzad Tanweer, was aired on al-Jazeera television, showing the 22-year-old from Bradford warning of further attacks.

Police said the timing was designed to cause "maximum hurt" and Downing Street said the attention should "focus on the quiet reflection of the nation".

Private events

Friday's remembrance events are organised by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and are intended to unite families, survivors and Londoners in remembrance. From 0800 BST until 1600 BST the public will be invited to lay a purple carnation within a giant floral mosaic in Queen Mary's Gardens, Regent's Park. The flowers will be provided.

Later, survivors and the bereaved will complete the centre of the mosaic with yellow gerberas, and the members of the public can pay their respects over the weekend.

Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell and London mayor Ken Livingstone will lay flowers at King's Cross station at the exact time of the attacks.


7 JULY ASSISTANCE CENTRE
Confidential helpline to provide advice and support to anyone affected by events of 7 July or the anniversary
Phones manned 24 hours from 5-10 July
Centre and helpline open seven days a week at all other times - answerphone service at night
Also supports those affected by recent bombings in Doha, Sharm El Sheikh, Turkey, Bali and Dahab, and Bahrain boat disaster
Helpline - 0845 054 7444

Mr Livingstone told the BBC News website that Friday was a time to remember those individuals whose lives were ruined by the attack and a time to be proud of London's unique character, which was a source of envy to the bombers.

Other events on Friday will be held in private for victims' families and survivors, including the unveiling of memorial plaques at the affected Tube stations and at Tavistock Square, the scene of the bus blast.

A Book of Tributes, with a foreword from the Prince of Wales and tributes from the bereaved, will also be unveiled in a private event.

A helpline run by the 7 July Assistance Centre will be manned 24 hours a day over the anniversary period until Monday 10 July.

The centre said there had been a "significant increase" in the number of calls recently, with many people getting in touch for the first time as anxiety grows about the anniversary.

The 7 July Assistance Centre can be contacted on 0845 054 7444.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/5153678.stm

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Bin Laden shows new life in tapes

Reuters
Bin Laden shows new life in tapes
By Caroline Drees, Security Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Suddenly, the faces and voices of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri are everywhere, in a stream of video and audio messages broadcast to the world.

In the past month alone, six new tapes from the two have reached an international audience. Excerpts of Zawahri's latest message were broadcast on Al Jazeera television on Thursday, a day before the first anniversary of the London bombings.

But U.S. officials and terrorism experts are wary of concluding that the spate of messages means another major attack is imminent.

Instead, they believe a complicated mix of factors is behind the outpouring: a desire to show that al Qaeda is still potent; a new sophistication in the use of propaganda, and finally, sheer coincidence as several different messages have all surfaced within a short time span.

U.S. officials and terrorism experts said they take al Qaeda's threats seriously. The two men are believed to be hiding somewhere in the hostile, tribal border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Bin Laden was not heard from for a year prior to January 2006. But he and Zawahri have now issued 11 audio and video tapes this year, the highest frequency recorded since the September 11 attacks, analysts say.

"They are trying to prove that the movement's not dead," said Kenneth Katzman, a terrorism analyst at the Congressional Research Service, the in-house think tank of Congress.

The two leaders may have felt they had to respond quickly to last month's U.S. military success in killing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.

A failed U.S. attempt to kill Zawahri in January and possible greater ease of movement for al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan's northwest frontier region might have also contributed to the higher volume of tapes, Katzman said.

Ben Venzke, head of intelligence company IntelCenter whose clients include the U.S. government, said the back-to-back timing of the messages did not mean they were actually designed to produce a threatening crescendo.

"Does this correlate to any kind of future attacks? I think it doesn't lend itself to an easy yes or no," he said, although certain elements of past messages such as references to U.S. territory could indicate an increased likelihood of a future attack.

Venzke saw some of the tapes as a quick al Qaeda response to major events, such as the death of Zarqawi. Others were more general commentaries on current events which were issued when they were ready. Still others were anniversary features issued to mark the date of a past attack.

GROWING MEDIA SAVVY

In part, experts traced the recent wave of messages to al Qaeda's increasing media savvy and better logistics.

"It's a result of their ongoing propaganda efforts which have become even more sophisticated," a U.S. counterterrorism official said. "It demonstrates that they've greased the wheels. They've gotten better at this with time."

Coupled with its growing production expertise, al Qaeda leaders have increasingly felt compelled to reassure followers after setbacks while claiming credit for events that seem favorable to their cause.

"Bin Laden and Zawahri are trying to piggy-back on events they consider favorable, such as the Taliban resurgence, the upsurge of Islamic militants in Pakistan, the takeover by the Islamic Courts Union in Somalia. By coming out with this many videos, they are trying to give the impression that 'this is because of us,'" Katzman said.

Gen. Russ Howard, an Army terrorism expert who retired last year, said al Qaeda might be trying to debunk U.S. assertions that the organization was losing central control of its supporters to local or "homegrown" Islamic militants who operate independently.

"This may be a bit of propaganda asserting that there is some type of central control -- that maybe we have this all wrong," Howard said. "It may be a way of telling those franchise groups or wannabe groups that al Qaeda is still in the game, even despite the killing of Zarqawi."

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Indicted DeLay must stay on November ballot: Court

Reuters
Indicted DeLay must stay on November ballot: Court
By Erwin Seba

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Indicted former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay must stay on the November congressional ballot despite withdrawing from the race, a federal court ruled on Thursday in a decision that could help Democrats win this key seat.

Texas Republicans quickly responded they would appeal the decision by the U.S. court in Austin, Texas, for the right to choose another Republican to run against Democrat Nick Lampson. The seat is crucial to Democratic hopes to pick up the 15 seats needed to regain control of the House of Representatives.

"Ultimately, everyone knows the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals will be the final arbiter of this," said Harris County Republican Party Chairman Jared Woodfill.

DeLay, once one of the most powerful Republicans in the House, had stepped down as majority leader last year after being indicted on campaign finance-related charges in Texas.

He dropped his re-election bid this spring after polls showed his campaign was hurt by those charges as well as an expanding scandal involving disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. In June, DeLay resigned the congressional seat he first won in 1984 and moved from his suburban Houston congressional district to Virginia to make himself ineligible for office under state law.

U.S. Judge Sam Sparks in Austin said DeLay could take his name off the ballot by formally withdrawing from the race. If DeLay formally withdraws, the Republican Party cannot replace him, likely giving the seat to Democrat Lampson.

DeLay's office predicted on Thursday the decision would be overturned by a U.S. appeals court.

"Tom DeLay looks forward to the correct decision being rendered by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals," spokeswoman Dani DeLay Ferro said.

DeLay has not been charged in the Abramoff scandal, but two former aides have pleaded guilty to corruption charges.

VIRGINIA OR TEXAS?

Democrats contended that Texas law did not override the U.S. Constitution, which only requires a candidate be a resident on election day of the state where the congressional district is located.

As proof of his move, DeLay, in a hearing in Austin last week, produced a driver's license, a voter registration card and an income tax withholding form from Virginia and said he planned to live in that state indefinitely.

Democrats argued DeLay's wife continues to live in their Sugar Land, Texas, home.

"There is no evidence that DeLay will still be living in Virginia tomorrow, let alone on November 7, 2006, the only day that matters under the qualifications clause of the U.S. Constitution," Sparks wrote in his ruling.

The lawyer who argued the Republican Party's case said Sparks' decision would prevent states from assuring the eligibility of federal candidates prior to an election.

"We think this decision would really throw our elections into chaos," said James Bopp Jr. "It would make the Bush-Gore dispute in Florida look like a picnic."

Woodfill said Republican Party leaders in the four counties through which DeLay's district runs were still preparing to replace DeLay.

Lampson is a former congressman whose district, running from southeast Houston to the east Texas border, was eliminated in the 2003 congressional redistricting DeLay forced through the Texas Legislature.

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US to proceed with airline foreign ownership plan

Reuters
US to proceed with airline foreign ownership plan
By John Crawley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration plans to move ahead this summer with its proposal to ease restrictions on foreign investment in U.S. airlines despite strong congressional opposition, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said on Thursday.

Mineta, who has resigned from his post after 5-1/2 years and leaves office on Friday, told reporters he may have underestimated the strength of lawmaker sentiment on the politically sensitive plan to give foreign investors some say in day-to-day airline operations in exchange for equity.

But in a speech earlier to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Mineta said he believes the United States must embrace foreign capital to stay competitive in a globalized economy.

He has championed foreign investment for years, positioning his agency to approve the airline regulation without him.

"It's pure folly to think that economic isolationism is an option in today's interconnected world," Mineta told the business group.

The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly on June 14 to delay action on the airline investment plan for a year. Language to reject the proposal was included in annual transportation spending legislation.

Congressional opponents, braced by labor interests, said enhanced overseas ownership of airlines -- prohibited for decades on national security grounds -- could undercut U.S. economic interests and cost American jobs.

Opponents also tapped anti-foreign sentiment that flared during this year's controversy over a Dubai-based group's plan to run several big U.S. ports. That plan, initially approved by the administration, was scrapped after an uproar in Congress.

House rejection of the airline foreign ownership plan means the issue will probably remain unresolved in Congress until the end of the year -- the time it will take lawmakers in both chambers to pass a final transportation spending bill.

The administration is taking its chances on Capitol Hill and moving forward now because delay beyond the autumn could threaten an agreement between the United States and European Union to eliminate longstanding barriers to more transatlantic air service -- especially to London's Heathrow airport.

The EU has linked success of the foreign ownership plan to its approval of the landmark air services agreement.

Mineta said the Transportation Department hopes to finalize the foreign investment rule by the end of August, which would exploit the expected congressional lag time for addressing the matter and meet the timeline for European review.

"Right now there is no legal impediment" to move forward, John Byerly, a senior State Department official and lead negotiator in the U.S.-EU aviation talks, said in an interview.

Byerly said he was confident the investment plan would not be derailed when the transportation bill is cleared by Congress, probably after congressional elections in November.

"I hope we have an agreement in place with the EU at that time," he said.

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How a US Senator thinks the Internet works (or why Congress should not be allowed to vote until they understand what they are voting on)

blog.wired.com
How a US Senator thinks the Internet works (or why Congress should not be allowed to vote on Net Neutrality until they understand what they are voting on)
Ryan Singel

The Senate Commerce Committee deadlocked 11 to 11 on an amendment inserting some very basic net neutrality provisions into a moving telecommunications bill. The provisions didn't prohibit an ISP from handling VOIP faster than emails, but would have made it illegal to handle its own VOIP packets faster than a competitor's.

Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) explained why he voted against the amendment and gave an amazing primer on how the internet works.

There's one company now you can sign up and you can get a movie delivered to your house daily by delivery service. Okay. And currently it comes to your house, it gets put in the mail box when you get home and you change your order but you pay for that, right.

But this service is now going to go through the internet* and what you do is you just go to a place on the internet and you order your movie and guess what you can order ten of them delivered to you and the delivery charge is free.

Ten of them streaming across that internet and what happens to your own personal internet?

I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?

Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially.

So you want to talk about the consumer? Let's talk about you and me. We use this internet to communicate and we aren't using it for commercial purposes.

We aren't earning anything by going on that internet. Now I'm not saying you have to or you want to discrimnate against those people [¿]

The regulatory approach is wrong. Your approach is regulatory in the sense that it says "No one can charge anyone for massively invading this world of the internet". No, I'm not finished. I want people to understand my position, I'm not going to take a lot of time. [¿]

They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck.

It's a series of tubes.

And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.

Now we have a separate Department of Defense internet now, did you know that?

Do you know why?

Because they have to have theirs delivered immediately. They can't afford getting delayed by other people.

[¿]

Now I think these people are arguing whether they should be able to dump all that stuff on the internet ought to consider if they should develop a system themselves.

Maybe there is a place for a commercial net but it's not using what consumers use every day.

It's not using the messaging service that is essential to small businesses, to our operation of families.

The whole concept is that we should not go into this until someone shows that there is something that has been done that really is a viloation of net neutraility that hits you and me.

**The full audio can be found here
http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/497
on a Public Knowledge blog.

(**Hat Tip: Alex Curtis and Art Brodsky at Public Knowledge)

* Update: A little internet forensics work explains why the internet took 5 days to travel from the Senator's staff to his inbox:
http://blog.wired.com/27BStroke6/index.blog?entry_id=1513010

I also fixed a transcription error so that the sentence which reads "But this service isn't going to go through the interent" now reads "But this service is now going to go through the internet." The error was mine (thanks to reader Marc).

**Update 2: I updated the link to the audio and the Hat Tip to more accurately reflect that this mp3 was posted by Public Knowledge's Alex Curtis and brought to my attention via a press release.)


The original article can be found here:
http://blog.wired.com/27BStroke6/?entry_id=1512499

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Suspects Were Terrorist "Stooges," Say Officials

huffingtonpost.com
RJ Eskow
Suspects Were Terrorist "Stooges," Say Officials

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced the foiling of "a terrorist plot" by an obscure and eccentric cult called "The Star of David," while acknowledging that there was no imminent danger of an attack ... "In terms of plans, it was an aspiration, not an operation," an FBI agent said.

The Attorney General today announced that a successful sting operation resulted in the arrest of a terrorist cell known as the "Three Stooges." The cell's members are believed to be part of an offshoot of Al Qaeda known as "Why I Oughta," a phrase that appears regularly in their verbal communications.
The President hailed today's arrest as "a major breakthrough in the global war on terror."

Details of the plot are sketchy, but officials painted a portrait of three desperate men tormented by a violent leader who routinely attacked them without provocation. These assaults included hammer blows, knocking their heads together, and injuring their toes with a foot or heavy object. In a particularly gruesome ritual, he would often poke them in the eyes after forcing them to choose the fingers with which they would be punished.

The men allegedly possessed a very long ladder, which officials explained could have been used to "attack a tall building, possibly the Sears Tower." The plot might have succeeded, agents added, if the men hadn't kept knocking each other down while attempting to move the ladder.

The conspirators were nabbed shortly thereafter for a plot that the Attorney General described as "an aberration, rather than an operation."

An FBI official told reporters that the cell leader's name is "Moe," which intelligence officials suspect is short for "Mohammed." The other members of the cell are known as "Curly" (or "Qurli") and "Larry." The official also discussed the possible existence of a mysterious "fourth terrorist," who may be named "Abu Shemp."

The Attorney General interrupted the FBI spokesman to interject: "Or, is that 'a rumination rather than an operation'?"

Officials said that the terrorists exchanged coded messages by employing sounds that included high-pitched whines and "repeated glottal vocalizations" such as "whoop" and "nee-yuk."

The three men were lured into the plot by a government agent who gained their trust by teaching them to play piano. "Hey, it's Paganini!" one of the conspirators shouted on a secret wiretap, only to be chastised: "That's page nine, you idiot!"

"Perhaps it's 'an implication rather than an operation,'" Mr. Gonzalez mused.

The government agent soon joined with the violent sect, and encouraged them in their scheme to hijack a rocket ship and send themselves into orbit around the earth. The agent suggested they submit a request for materiel to Al Qaeda's high command. They responded with a note that read as follows, according to officials:

"Dear Mr. Al Kinda: We want boots, three periscopes, a large rubber mallet, eyeglasses with little mirrors so you can look behind you, those other glasses that make pretty girls look like they're naked, a knuckle-cruncher, and one of those whistles that makes all the dogs in the neighborhood bark."

"Could it be 'a gene-mutation rather than an operation'?" "Ssh, sir."

This arrest follows a series of recent arrests in a program the government labelled "Operation Street Sweeper." That initiative yielded a number of "aspirational terrorists," according to sources, including someone from the planet Bok and a homeless man who had been monitoring CIA radio transmissions using the fillings in his teeth.

Also arrested in "Operation Street Sweeper" was a person in pasty makeup, described only as a "mime." Officials said the suspect refused to give his name.

The silent suspect's interrogation was conducted with the aid of an "interpreter for the speaking-impaired." The mime declined to answer any questions directly, but complained about jail conditions. "He says he's in a box," the interpreter explained. "The box is getting smaller. Now he's going downstairs ..."

The Attorney General was then heard to ruminate in a half whisper, "maybe it's a 'dance sensation that's sweepin' the nation,' rather than an actual, uh, operation ..."

The press conference dissolved in confusion when an intelligence official squeezed the red rubber nose impounded from another recent raid, creating a sound that drew a squadron of policemen on unicycles and a bright red firetruck filled with clowns.

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Hamdan, NSA and the New York Times

huffingtonpost.com
Geoffrey R. Stone
Hamdan, NSA and the New York Times

The Bush administration and its allies continue their drumbeat attack on the First Amendment with repeated threats to prosecute the New York Times for disclosing the President’s secret surveillance programs. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has suggested a criminal prosecution under the Espionage Act, Congressman Peter King and Senator Jim Bunning have accused the Times of treason, and Republicans in the House of Representatives have passed a resolution condemning the Times for putting “the lives of Americans in danger.”

All this is rank hypocrisy designed to intimidate the press and rally the party faithful, at no small cost to our democracy. The decision of the Times to reveal the secret
NSA spy program may have embarrassed the President, but it was a great service to the nation. Any doubt there might have been about the illegality of the NSA program was effectively put to rest by the recent decision of the Supreme Court in the Hamdan case. The administration’s only plausible argument that the NSA surveillance program is lawful, even though it plainly violates the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, is that FISA unconstitutionally limits the authority of the President as “commander in chief of the Army and Navy.” Even before Hamdan, this claim was weak, at best. After the Court’s five-to-three decision in Hamdan, that claim is frivolous. In declaring unlawful Bush’s military commissions, the Court in Hamdan reiterated what it said plainly two years ago in Hamdi – even a state of war does not grant the President a “blank check” to run roughshod over the law.

The continuing assertion that the government of the United States can criminally prosecute the New York Times for disclosing to the American people the existence of an unlawful program of surveillance is nothing short of shocking. What does the First Amendment mean if not that the press can inform the American people that their elected representatives have violated the law?

Not only does the Bush administration continue to maintain that the government has the authority to punish the revelation of the administration’s own illegality, but they boldly assert that such punishment is justified because the publication of such information put “the lives of Americans in danger.” With all due respect, the publication of information that our nuclear power plants are insecure puts “the lives of Americans in danger.” Disclosure of the torture at Abu Ghraib put “the lives of Americans in danger.” Even criticism of the war in Iraq puts “the lives of Americans in danger.” What makes this danger any different?

Presumably, the administration and its defenders believe that disclosure of the NSA spy program not only put “the lives of Americans in danger,” but created a “clear and present” danger of “grave” harm. But no one in the administration has ever explained how or why this is so. Moreover, the administration knew full well that the Times was aware of the NSA surveillance program for many months before the Times published the story. If the danger of disclosure was truly “clear,” “present,” and “grave,” why didn’t the administration seek an injunction again publication?

Certainly, as in the Pentagon Papers incident more than twenty-five years ago, the Times would have withheld publication in the face of such an injunction. Moreover, as in the Pentagon Papers case, the government could have litigated an injunction without revealing to the public the secret information at issue. But in all the time the administration knew that the Times was considering publication, it did not seek an injunction against publication.

The reason, to me, seems obvious. The lawyers in the administration knew they could not prove the existence of a danger sufficiently “clear,” “present,” and “grave” to justify an injunction. Rather than test the matter in a court of law, the administration sat passively on its hands and allowed the story to be published. Then, after–the–fact, it accuses the Times of disloyalty and browbeats the press with threats of a criminal prosecution. It makes one wonder exactly who is playing fast-and-loose with the truth – and with the nation’s security.

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With only a letter, FBI can gather private data

USA TODAY
With only a letter, FBI can gather private data
By Richard Willing, USA TODAY

When the FBI office in New Haven, Conn., received an e-mail in February 2005 that looked like a terrorist threat, agents followed a familiar routine. They asked the service provider, a group of Connecticut public libraries, for the real name, street address and Internet logs of the sender.

They had no search warrant, grand jury subpoena or court order. Instead, a local FBI official hand-delivered a National Security Letter — one of more than 9,000 sent to finance, telephone and Internet companies last year — that described the records needed.

Under a federal law expanded by the anti-terrorism USA Patriot Act of 2001, the written request was all the authority the FBI needed. The Patriot Act also barred the librarians from disclosing the request to anyone.

The librarians refused to hand over the information. Instead, they filed a federal lawsuit challenging the secret letters as an unconstitutional infringement on free speech.

The e-mailed threat proved to be a hoax. Yet the lawsuit it sparked, only the second legal challenge to National Security Letters in their 20-year history, provides a rare public glimpse of the vast amount of banking, credit, telephone and Internet records that anti-terrorism or counterintelligence investigators can have simply by asking.

National Security Letters are the key to the trove of personal data. When the law authorizing them was passed by Congress in 1986, the letters could be authorized only by a high-ranking FBI official in pursuit of an "agent of a foreign power."

The Patriot Act, passed six weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, expanded the letters' reach. Now they can be issued if a local FBI official merely certifies that the information sought is "relevant" to an international terrorism or foreign intelligence investigation.

"People have no idea how much of what they probably consider their private information is readily available to government," says Susan Brenner, a University of Dayton law professor who advises the U.S. Secret Service on technology and privacy. The letters, she says, raise the question: "How do we balance law enforcement's needs with what's left of privacy in an age where technology permeates everything?"

According to Michael Woods, chief of the FBI's national security law unit from 1999 to 2002, National Security Letters can be used to retrieve:

•Internet and telephone data, including names, addresses, log-on times, toll records, e-mail addresses and service providers.

•Financial records, including bank accounts and money transfers, provided the FBI says they are needed to "protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities."

•Credit information, such as an individual's banks, loan companies, mortgage holders or other financial institutions.

•Consumer, financial and foreign travel records held by "any commercial entity," if the investigation's target is an executive branch employee with a security clearance.

Only FBI agents can obtain phone, computer and financial records. Other federal agencies that gather intelligence on international terrorism can get consumer credit reports and credit agency data. They include the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency and Transportation Security Administration.

9,254 letters served in 2005

The government swears by the National Security Letters. In papers filed last year in the Connecticut case, David Szady, the FBI's assistant director for counterintelligence, said the letters are vital to the bureau's post-9/11 mission: to disrupt terrorist plots and other national security threats before attacks occur.

The letters, Szady said, are especially valuable in providing leads because they establish relationships between suspects who may be linked only by records. Letters help investigators move "from target to target, unearthing the different layers and conspirators of an international terrorist or foreign counterintelligence organization," he said.

According to U.S. Justice Department figures, the FBI served 9,254 National Security Letters concerning 3,501 individuals in 2005.

By comparison, the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which authorizes search warrants and electronic surveillance in terrorism and spying cases, approved 2,072 warrants and wiretaps and 155 applications for business records last year.

Before the Patriot Act was revised in March, the FBI was not required to disclose how many letters it issues. The number of letters from previous years, and whether they led to successful terrorism prosecutions, remains classified.

Details of success story

Because the recipients of National Security Letters are hardly ever named, little is known about how the letters have been used.

The details of one successful computer surveillance operation can be pieced together from public records:

In the spring of 2004, federal investigators noted that Mohammad Junaid Babar had a home computer yet frequently visited the New York Public Library to use its Internet service. The library's records showed Babar, a Pakistani-born U.S. citizen and suspected al-Qaeda associate, was e-mailing "other terrorist associates around the world," Ken Wainstein, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said last year while lobbying Congress to reauthorize the Patriot Act.

After his arrest in April 2004, Babar told the FBI that because the library's hard drives were erased after each use, he believed he could use the system without being monitored. Even so, investigators were able to learn Babar's name, address and e-mail destinations through records the library had stored.

Babar has pleaded guilty to providing material support for terrorism and faces a sentence of up to 70 years in prison.

"Libraries should not be carved out as safe havens for terrorists and spies," Wainstein told a congressional committee in April 2005.

Present and former government lawyers say the letters are on firm legal ground. They've been validated by several votes of Congress and used "thousands of times," says Kevin O'Connor, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut.

Woods, the former FBI lawyer, says that in most cases the letters allow access to information that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled is not private. Requiring a National Security Letter, he says, was considered a "step up" in privacy protection from the way federal investigators previously sought records: simply visiting banks and phone companies and asking for the information, which was almost always provided.

The American Civil Liberties Union and some privacy advocates do not agree. Ann Beeson, an ACLU lawyer who represents the Connecticut librarians, says the letters are a "dangerous" and underexamined threat to civil liberties.

Giving the FBI authority to decide what's "relevant" to its own investigations, Beeson says, "is an open invitation to perform fishing expeditions" that trample the privacy rights of citizens. Because the Patriot Act allows checks of individuals who are not an investigation's target, Beeson says, the FBI is free to gather "sensitive information about innocent people."

Lee Tien, an attorney with the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy advocacy group that opposed many elements of the Patriot Act, says the secrecy requirement contained in the law makes it impossible for the public to know how intrusive the letters are or how often they help stop terrorists.

"The government has always had a door (to access) private records, but it has gotten a lot larger," Tien says. "Now the lock has been taken off the door. Patriot (Act) did that."

Requiring recipients of letters to remain silent is a particular concern, says George Christian, director of the Library Connection, the consortium that received a letter in the New Haven case.

"Being gagged has been an extremely frustrating experience," he said on the ACLU website in May, after a federal appeals court allowed the names of recipients of letters to be made public for the first time.

"The entire Patriot Act was up for renewal last winter, and I very much wanted to focus public attention ... on my concerns. ... I was shocked by the restraints the gag order imposed on me."

In papers filed in the Connecticut case, FBI espionage and terrorism specialist Szady wrote that letters must be kept secret to keep targets from learning that they are being watched.

'God forbid it isn't a hoax'

The New Haven case shows how the conflict can play out.

FBI agents, U.S. attorney O'Connor says, suspected the threatening e-mail was from a "crank" but believed they had an "obligation" to pursue it. "We weren't tying up librarians or reading through books," he says. "All we wanted was identifying information. God forbid it isn't a hoax."

For librarian Christian, however, the records request, and the fact that he had to keep it secret from his colleagues for more than a year, left him "shocked," "incensed" and feeling "compromis(ed)."

"The idea that the government can secretly investigate what the public is informing itself about is chilling," Christian says.

The lawsuit, and a separate case begun in 2004, already have produced some changes in how the letters are administered.

In September 2004, after a still-unidentified Internet provider filed suit, a federal district court judge in New York City found that the letters were unconstitutional because they provided no way for a recipient to challenge them in court. The judge also struck down the letter's non-disclosure provision as a violation of the First Amendment's protection of free speech.

The judge in the Connecticut case went further, granting an injunction that allowed the librarians served with letters to disclose that fact, as well as their names.

The government appealed and made concessions. In Connecticut last April, the FBI and Justice Department dropped their opposition to letting the librarians identify themselves and disclose they had been served with a letter.

In March, while both appeals were pending, the Justice Department proposed changes to the Patriot Act to bring the letters in line with the lower court decisions. Now, recipients are permitted to challenge a letter in court and to petition to have their names made public, though a judge need not grant the requests. So far, the Connecticut and New York cases are the only known challenges.

In May, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York cited those changes in dismissing the Connecticut appeal and returning the New York case to the district court. One judge, Richard Cardamone, said retaining the provision that keeps letters secret forever is "antithetical to democratic concepts."

Continuing battle in court

The ACLU plans to continue its fight in the lower court. Beeson says the laws are still unconstitutional because they allow the FBI to launch "phony investigations" under the guise of national security if "they just promise what they want is relevant."

Christian, the Connecticut librarian, says the FBI's "ineptitude," not the end of the supposed terrorist threat in New Haven, caused the government to allow his name to be made public. By failing to black out all identifying information in the legal papers, Christian said, the FBI unwittingly allowed his name to be deduced by some reporters before the appeals court acted.

"The fact that I can speak now is a little like being permitted to call the Fire Department only after a building has burned to the ground," he says.

O'Connor says he doubts the letters will be found unconstitutional. Still, he worries that the lawsuit and the "unfortunate way" in which the FBI has been accused of censorship could lead other companies and institutions to resist "perfectly legitimate" demands for sensitive information.

"Ninety percent (of threatening e-mail) is going to be nothing," he says. "But the good men and women of the FBI are inundated every day with that kind of stuff, and they've got a responsibility.

"If there's information on a potential terrorist that can help, wouldn't you want them to have it?"



Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-07-05-fbi-letters_x.htm?csp=34

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Or did he really die under mysterious circumstances?

When certain persons died during the Clinton administration, rumors abounded, originating from the republican spin machine, that somehow the president orchestrated some of the deaths. So, perhaps, we should suspect that the current president orchestrated the death of his formerly close friend who had become an embarrassment, was soon going to jail, and who might possibly have written a tell-all book about the president.

Reuters
Enron founder Ken Lay dies of heart disease
By Matt Daily

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Enron Corp.'s founder Ken Lay died of heart disease on Wednesday while vacationing near Aspen, Colo., six weeks after being convicted of fraud and conspiracy in the financial scandal that brought down the once-mighty energy conglomerate.

Lay, 64, who was awaiting sentencing, faced decades in prison in connection with Enron's 2001 bankruptcy.

"There was no evidence of foul play," Dr. Rob Kurtzman, the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy told reporters in Grand Junction, Colorado.

"The cause of death is coronary artery disease," he said, adding that the post mortem showed that Lay had previously suffered a heart attack.

Lay and another former Enron chief executive, Jeffrey Skilling, were found guilty of hiding the financial ruin at Enron, the company they built into the seventh largest in the United States.

Once a confidant of former President George H.W. Bush and dubbed "Kenny boy" by President George W. Bush, Lay often appeared fatigued during the four-month trial. At one point, he told the jury from the witness stand: "I guess you could say in the last few years I've achieved the American nightmare."

Skilling was not available for comment, although his lawyer Daniel Petrocelli said the former protege of Lay was deeply saddened by Lay's death.

"He's distraught over Ken's passing," Petrocelli said. "He was a very good friend and a good colleague."

In Washington, White House spokesman Tony Snow said he had not spoken to Bush about Lay's death, but distanced the president from the former Enron chief who was once a major contributor to the Bushes' political campaigns.

"The president has described Ken Lay as an acquaintance, and many of the president's acquaintances have passed on during his time in office," Snow told reporters.

At the Enron offices in Houston, where a small crew of workers was selling off the company's assets to pay creditors, Enron Corp. spokesman Harlan Loeb said: "We extend our sympathies to the Lay family in this time of sadness."

Pitkin County sheriff's deputies and an ambulance were called to the Lay vacation home in Old Snowmass, Colorado, early on Wednesday morning. Lay was taken to Aspen Valley Hospital where he was pronounced dead shortly after 3 a.m. Mountain time.

The pastor at the Houston church attended by Lay and his family said he was stunned by Lay's death. "The family called early this morning to say that he had died last night," said Dr. Steve Wende, pastor of First Methodist Church of Houston.

Lay had attended church there on the previous Sunday.

"He looked good. He was with people. He had family there ... he looked healthy," Wende said.

On Friday, federal prosecutors asked a federal judge to force Lay to forfeit $43.5 million they said he had received because of his crimes at Enron.

A spokesman at the Department of Justice declined to comment on Lay's death and said prosecutors would release a statement in the coming days on how they would proceed with the claims for the money.

Lay and Skilling had maintained their innocence, and planned to appeal the guilty verdicts.

Lay, whose wealth once totaled more than $100 million, claimed he had little money after Enron's bankruptcy, although prosecutors have said he had millions in annuities and other investments.

Born into poverty as the son of a Baptist preacher in Missouri, Lay excelled in school and advanced quickly in the worlds of government and business before taking the helm of the company that would become Enron.

Enron began as a small pipeline operation in 1985 and under Lay's guidance it rapidly grew into an international energy powerhouse.

During Enron's glory days, Lay basked in Houston's limelight and was a fixture on the charity circuit, donating millions of his own money and Enron's funds.

After his indictment, Lay was usually only seen in public on Sunday mornings for church services.

Another Enron executive, Cliff Baxter, a close confidant of Skilling, committed suicide weeks after Enron's bankruptcy.

Lay is survived by his wife, Linda, five children and step-children and 12 grandchildren. Information on funeral arrangements had not yet been announced by early Wednesday evening.

(Additional reporting by Ellen Miller in Grand Junction, Colorado, and Bruce Nichols, Jeff Franks and Eileen O'Grady in Houston)

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Army charges officer for refusing to fight in Iraq

Reuters
Army charges officer for refusing to fight in Iraq
By Daisuke Wakabayashi

SEATTLE (Reuters) - The U.S. Army filed three charges on Wednesday against an officer who refused to fight in Iraq due to objections over the legality of the war.

First Lt. Ehren Watada, who supporters say is the first commissioned U.S. officer to publicly refuse to serve in Iraq and face a military court, remained at Fort Lewis base in Washington state when his unit shipped out to Iraq on June 22.

Watada called the war and U.S. occupation of Iraq "illegal" and said participation would make him a party to war crimes.

In a statement, the Army said it had charged Watada, 28, with missing movement, contempt toward officials and conduct unbecoming an officer.

"Officers are held to a high moral and legal standard. Acts contrary to this standard may be tried by court-martial," said the Army statement.

If found guilty of all charges, Watada could face several years in confinement, dishonorable discharge and forfeiture of pay, according to the Army. The missing movement charge carries the heaviest punishment of confinement of up to two years.

Watada's lawyer said he expected the missing movement charge, but was somewhat surprised by the decision to charge the officer with contempt toward officials and conduct unbecoming an officer, because it raises free speech issues.

"What he said about the war and the way the war began and the misrepresentations by the Bush administration are all true. Not only does he have a right to make those statements, he has an obligation to make those statements," said Eric Seitz, Watada's Honolulu-based attorney.

"The reasons why they are going after him for the things he said is because they want to muzzle him," Seitz said.

Watada's objection to the war sparked rallies in support and protest near Fort Lewis, Seattle and in other U.S. cities.

Watada, who had said he did not apply for conscientious objector status because he isn't against war in general, now faces a pre-trial investigation and will continue to work at the base, Army officials said.

He first attempted to resign in protest over the war in January, but the Army refused to accept his resignation, according to his supporters. Watada has said he would be willing to serve in Afghanistan, but not Iraq.

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Republicans continue to be in disarray

Reuters
Bush pushes guest worker plan as Republicans duel
By Tabassum Zakaria

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Wednesday vowed to keep working for immigration legislation including a guest worker program, as Republicans held dueling hearings to build support for rival bills.

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter assembled employers and sympathetic politicians to testify in Philadelphia about the country's dependence on the estimated 11 to 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States.

Meanwhile, House Republican leaders convened a public hearing at a Border Patrol station in San Diego to highlight the need for stricter enforcement along the U.S. border with Mexico to prevent illegal immigrants entering the country.

Bush took a short trip from the White House to Alexandria, Virginia to weigh in on the debate, buying coffee at a Dunkin' Donuts with dollars borrowed from an aide. He told reporters the country needed a guest worker program.

"I know there needs to be a worker program that says you can come here on a temporary basis and work here legally for jobs Americans aren't doing," he said.

Bush had hoped that lawmakers from the Senate and the House of Representatives would be sitting down by now to reconcile the vastly different bills they passed so that he could sign a new law into effect before the November mid-term elections.

Instead, House Republican leaders decided to hold a series of hearings across the country to drum up support for their bill that includes money to construct hundreds of miles of new fencing along the Mexican border and defines illegal immigrants as felons.

The competing hearings dramatized Republican divisions on what has become an emotional issue, stirring strong feelings throughout the country on both sides.

Top House leaders have vowed not to accept the Bush-backed Senate bill which they say contains an amnesty for illegal immigrants.

BLOOMBERG SPEAKS

In Philadelphia, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was among the witnesses. Our city's economy would be a shell of itself if they (immigrants) had not come," he said.

"The idea of deporting 11 or 12 million people is pure fantasy," Bloomberg said. "If we attempted it, it would perhaps the largest roundup and deportation in world history. America is better and smarter than that."

Pennsylvania State Rep. Arthur Hershey said about 75 percent of the state's farm workers are illegal immigrants.

"Without immigrant workers, we would not have a labor force. It is that simple," he said.

In San Diego, California Republican Rep. Ed Royce criticized Senate bill for failing to secure the border.

"The House bill requires more miles of fencing while the Senate bill hinders fencing our southern border by requiring ... unprecedented and problematic consultation with Mexican authorities," he said.

California Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman denounced the hearing as a Republican "dog and pony show," adding, "They've got really ugly dogs and really mangy ponies."

The practical effect of the competing hearings may be to kill any chance of passing a bill before the election and deprive Bush of success on one of his major agenda items.

Unlike the House bill, the Senate bill includes a guest worker program that would ultimately grant a path to citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants.

"We cannot kick people out who have been here for a while," Bush said. "And so I look forward to working with Congress on a rational plan as to how to make sure people who have been here, the 11 million or so people who have been here for a while, are treated with respect and dignity."

(additional reporting by Jon Furlong, Sarah Tippit, Donna Smith)

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Panel orders Abu Ghraib documents from Pentagon

Reuters
Panel orders Abu Ghraib documents from Pentagon
By Kristin Roberts

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. congressional panel has ordered Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to turn over documents on the probe into abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison after the Pentagon failed to respond to an earlier request.

The House Government Reform Committee issued a subpoena to Rumsfeld last week and said the Pentagon must produce a raft of documents, including all drafts of the report on the Abu Ghraib investigation, by the end of business on July 14.

The subpoena follows Rumsfeld's failure to respond to a March 7 letter from the congressional panel requesting the same documents.

The Pentagon said it had already provided many of the requested documents to its oversight committee -- the House Armed Services Committee -- and has now also delivered documents to the Government Reform Committee.

"We have delivered to the House Government Reform Committee many documents previously provided to the House Armed Services Committee ... in the matter under discussion," said Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros, a Pentagon spokesman.

Images of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, including naked detainees stacked in a pyramid and others cowering before snarling dogs, first became public in April 2004, triggering international condemnation of the United States.

The country's image has been further tarnished by a string of accusations that U.S. servicemen have murdered Iraqi civilians, including the massacre of 24 civilians in Haditha.

"When the Committee requests information from executive branch departments and agencies, we try to be reasonable and accommodate their legitimate concerns about the volume and the sensitivity of what we're asking for," said Rep. Tom Davis, a Virginia Republican and chairman of the committee.

"But if the department won't even return a call, after three months, and begin that dialogue, we really have no choice but to subpoena the material and compel their attention to our request."

The subpoena comes as a subcommittee of the Government Reform Committee investigates allegations by Army Spc. Samuel Provance that his attempts to give investigators information about abuse at Abu Ghraib were "rebuffed" and he was retaliated against for providing unclassified information to the media.

Provance testified before the subcommittee in February.

The panel called for all drafts of the investigation report on the prisoner abuse and all communications related to information provided by Provance about Abu Ghraib.

It also requested all communications related to cases in which detainees' family members were involved in interrogations after Provance said children of detainees were used to "break" the prisoners and force them to cooperate with investigators.

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Cuban officials charge US planning regime change

Reuters
Cuban officials charge US planning regime change

HAVANA (Reuters) - Two senior Cuban officials charged on Wednesday that a report on the communist nation delivered to the Bush administration's National Security Council amounted to a blueprint for an Iraq-style regime change in the Caribbean.

"We are facing a real threat of aggression," National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon said of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba's report, flashing a draft he said had appeared briefly on the U.S. State Department's web page, to a national television and radio audience.

The report, ordered by President George W. Bush and delivered but not made public on Wednesday, focuses on insuring communism ends when President Fidel Castro, who turns 80 in August, can no longer govern the Caribbean island nation, according to draft seen by Reuters.

Cuban Defense Minister Raul Castro, 75, in line to succeed his older brother Fidel, recently insisted the Communist Party would continue to rule the country after he and his brother were gone.

An earlier commission report delivered in 2004 and since implemented led to further tightening of U.S. economic sanctions and travel restrictions established in the 1960s and increased support or dissidents. It also outlined what a post-Castro Cuba might look like and established a Cuban Transition Coordinator to oversee preparations.

The new report supports the earlier one and calls for building an international coalition to support a transition, increased organizational and financial support for dissidents and a further tightening of economic sanctions, among other measures.

The first chapter, entitled "Hastening the End of the Castro Dictatorship: Transition not Succession," includes a separate "classified annex" of recommended actions.

"You can't accomplish what they propose without an invasion, without a war. ... This plan implies a U.S. military invasion of Cuba, a direct U.S. intervention," said Bruno Rodriquez, First Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs.

The United States denies it has any military designs on Cuba. Western diplomats generally discount a U.S. military threat, pointing out the country is bogged down in the Middle East and the large number of Cubans living in the United States who would oppose a military venture because of family and friends on the Caribbean island.

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High court intervenes in fight over cross

USA TODAY
High court intervenes in fight over cross

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court intervened Monday to save a large cross on city property in southern California.

A lower court judge had ordered the city of San Diego to remove the cross or be fined $5,000 a day.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, acting for the high court, issued a stay while supporters of the cross continue their legal fight.

Lawyers for San Diegans for the Mt. Soledad National War Memorial said in an appeal that they wanted to avoid the "destruction of this national treasure." And attorneys for the city said the cross was part of a broader memorial that was important to the community.

The 29-foot cross, on San Diego property, sits atop Mount Soledad. A judge declared it was an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.

The cross, which has been in place for decades, was contested by Philip Paulson, a Vietnam veteran and atheist.

Three years ago, the Supreme Court had refused to get involved in the long-running dispute between Paulson and the city.

Kennedy granted the stay to the city and the cross' supporters without comment pending a further order from him or the entire court.

The cross was dedicated in 1954 as a memorial to Korean War veterans, and a private association maintains a veterans memorial on the land surrounding it.

Mayor Jerry Sanders has argued that the cross, sitting atop Mt. Soledad in La Jolla, is an integral part of the memorial and deserves the same exemptions to government-maintained religious symbols as those granted to other war monuments.

In May, U.S. District Court Judge Gordon Thompson, Jr., ordered the city to take down the 29-foot cross before Aug. 2 or pay daily fines of $5,000.

Thompson's ruling, which he described as "long overdue," found the cross to be an unconstitutional display of government preference of one religion over another.

Last year, San Diego voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot proposition to transfer the land beneath the cross to the federal government. The measure was designed to absolve the city of responsibility for the cross under the existing lawsuit. But a California Superior Court judge found the proposition to be unconstitutional.


Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/judicial/2006-07-03-cross-stay_x.htm?csp=34

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Bush vows to stay course in Iraq

Reuters
Bush vows to stay course in Iraq
By Matt Spetalnick

FORT BRAGG, North Carolina (Reuters) - President George W. Bush, trying to tap into Independence Day patriotism to revive domestic support for an unpopular war, vowed on Tuesday that U.S. troops would not leave Iraq until their mission was complete.

In a Fourth of July speech here, Bush took a veiled swipe at Democrats who have pressed for a timetable for withdrawal more than three years after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

"Setting an artificial timetable would be a terrible mistake," Bush told more than 3,000 military personnel in a speech interrupted repeatedly by cheers at the home of the storied 82nd Airborne Division and U.S. Army Special Operations Command.

He reiterated his pledge to base any U.S. troop withdrawals on "the measured advice of our military commanders."

Marine Gen. Peter Pace, who serves as Bush's top military advisor as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said earlier in the day that September could be a "reasonable" time to start transferring more responsibilities to Iraqi government forces.

"I think we need to be careful not to put specific timelines on troop turnover of responsibilities to the Iraqis," he said in an interview on NBC's "Today" program. "September is certainly a reasonable date but we need to make sure that conditions on the ground warrant that."

Bush pledged to the flag-waving crowd, "I'm not going to allow the sacrifice of 2,527 (U.S.) troops who've died in Iraq to be in vain by pulling out before the job is done."

He warned Americans they would face "more tough fighting and more sacrifice."

Bush, citing the precision-bombing last month that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al Qaeda leader in Iraq. said U.S. and Iraqi forces were on the offensive, having captured more than 700 enemy operatives.

"We will never back down. We will never give in and we will never accept anything less than complete victory," he said.

Bush soaked his olive green long-sleeve shirt with sweat as he spoke from a sun-baked stage.

After the visit to Fort Bragg, Bush was returning to the White House for Independence Day festivities. He was also to celebrate his coming birthday at a private party with friends and family. He turns 60 on Thursday.

As he lunched with troops, soldiers surprised Bush with a red, white and blue birthday cake and a rendition of Happy Birthday.

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CIA disbands bin Laden unit

Reuters
CIA disbands bin Laden unit
By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The CIA has disbanded a unit set up in the 1990s to oversee the spy agency's hunt for Osama bin Laden and transferred its duties to broader operations that track Islamist militant groups, a U.S. intelligence official said on Tuesday.

The bin Laden unit, codenamed Alec Station, became less valuable as a separate operation as counterterrorism operations eliminated top al Qaeda operatives and the movement's focus shifted more to regional networks of militants, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"Al Qaeda is no longer the hierarchical organization that it was before 9-11. Three-quarters of its senior leaders have been killed or captured," said the official, referring to the U.S.-led response to the September 11 attacks.

"What you have had since 9-11 is growth in the Islamic jihadist movement around the world among groups and individuals who may be associated with al Qaeda, and may have financial and operation links with al Qaeda, but have no command and control relationship with it," he added.

The official described the ending of the bin Laden unit as a "reallocation of resources" within the CIA's Counterterrorism Center. But he said the spy agency still has staff devoted full time to the tracking and analysis of intelligence related to bin Laden and other senior al Qaeda leaders.

"The bin Laden effort has been absorbed into a larger effort. It's now one part of an effort that looks at all of these jihadist organizations," the official said.

Alec Station, established in 1996 after bin Laden's initial calls for global jihad, employed about two dozen people. The operation was bolstered after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington that killed about 3,000 people.

The New York Times reported on Tuesday that the bin Laden unit was disbanded late last year and quoted its first director, author Michael Scheuer, as predicting the move would denigrate the CIA's effort to find bin Laden.

Bin Laden and his second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, are believed hiding in the mountains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

John Negroponte, the U.S. director of national intelligence, told the Senate in February that al Qaeda was a "battered" organization but that it remained the top concern for the intelligence community.

Negroponte noted the rise of other organizations inspired by al Qaeda. But he told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence: "These groups pose less danger to the United States homeland than does al Qaeda, but they increasingly threaten our allies and interests abroad and are working to expand their reach and capabilities."

The Times said the decision to close the CIA's bin Laden unit was made by former Counterterrorism Center chief Robert Grenier, who decided the agency needed to reorganize to better address constant changes in terrorist organizations.

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