A Challenge to Rightwing Bloggers Who Blame the Media for the Cheney Mess

[Editor's note: the original posting at
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-daou/a-challenge-to-rightwing-_b_15765.html
has many links that you may wish to follow.]

huffingtonpost.com
A Challenge to Rightwing Bloggers Who Blame the Media for the Cheney Mess
Peter Daou

Prove it. One of the great absurdities of our time is the persistent notion that the traditional media skews left. Reporters buy into it, Democratic strategists and leaders buy into it, and rank and file rightwingers live by it. As I've written previously, the right controls all branches of government, talk radio is dominated by rightwing voices, there's a cable channel devoted to the rightwing perspective (and two others racing to do the same), there's a herd of rightwing pundits spewing anti-left venom across editorial pages, radio, television, the internet, etc., Bush's press conferences are cloying jokefests, and "neutral" journalists echo deep-seated pro-GOP myths.


Despite the glaringly obvious fact that major media narratives favor the right, we get bloggers like this, this, and this attacking the "MSM" for hyping the Cheney hunting scandal. Rather than waste cyber-ink explaining why it's a big deal that the Vice President of the United States shot a man in the face and heart and went to bed without letting the American people know about it, let me share a question I asked of a blogger at Real Clear Politics who questioned my premise about the pro-Bush press:

I know the assertion that [supposedly neutral or liberal] reporters favor rightwing narratives blows your mind; after all, the liberal media fiction is hard-wired into the right's political nervous system. But why should I believe your foregone conclusion that these people are left-leaning? Just because you say it with such conviction? Give me concrete examples of bias, not of negative coverage. (How can there not be negative coverage of the mess in Iraq? Or Katrina? Or the Plame outing? Or the NSA fiasco? Or do you want our media to simply fawn over the government? Is anything less than total pro-Bush propaganda considered media bias?)

This ties in - albeit tangentially - to a recent post by Glenn Greenwald about the Bush-cultism masquerading as conservatism on rightwing blogs. Glenn unmasks the ideological lie at the core of rightwing blogging. Similarly, digging beneath the surface of the anti-media stance of these bloggers reveals a philosophically bankrupt and logically fallacious position. If the definition of media bias is anything critical of the administration, then these bloggers must be advocating for a servile, state-run press. Which, ironically, seems to be where we're heading.

Of course, reporters take some comfort in being attacked from both sides, believing that it somehow justifies their actions and nullifies the complaints.

So here's my challenge to rightwing bloggers who assail the media for liberal bias (and to journalists who think it's all a he-said-she-said pissing match): Back up your claims. With concrete examples of bias. And without the tautological crutch that any story critical of the administration is proof of liberal bias.

I'll back up mine:

++ ISSUE: Cheney shooting incident --- NARRATIVE: Bush and Cheney are infallible --- EXAMPLE: ABC News covered the Cheney hunting incident by downplaying the significance of the weapon itself. ABC reported that "the vice president accidentally shot prominent Texas lawyer Harry Whittington with a pellet gun while hunting for quail." Cheney used a shotgun, not a pellet gun. ABC later altered the story to read, "a shotgun loaded with birdshot." (Which is why we maintain screenshots of all print stories we reference.) This exemplifies a common tendency of the media, namely, to play defense for Bush and his team, downplaying negative news or polls.

++ ISSUE: Cheney shooting incident --- NARRATIVE: Bush strong, Dems weak --- EXAMPLE: CNN's Bruce Morton used the VP's shooting to repeat the tired GOP spin that Republicans are tougher than Democrats, and specifically tougher than war hero John Kerry. Morton commented that Bush and Cheney are avid hunters, and contrasted the observation with 2004 Bush campaign talking points by saying Sen. John Kerry "spent time posing with guns" two years ago, and that "voters probably saw more of him pursuing exotic sports, windsurfing and so on." The truth is Kerry has been hunting since the age of 12. As Media Matters points out, "Morton's jab echoed language Cheney used during the 2004 campaign to attack Kerry as effete and elitist."

++ ISSUE: Cheney shooting incident --- NARRATIVE: Bush and Cheney are infallible --- EXAMPLE: Jane Hamsher notes that CBS News ran a provocative news item on Monday, explaining that "Texas authorities are complaining that the Secret Service barred them from speaking to Cheney after the incident." For reasons that are still unexplained, CBS has scrubbed the report from its website without explanation.

++ ISSUE: Cheney shooting incident --- NARRATIVE: Bush and Cheney are infallible --- EXAMPLE: Shortly after the incident first made national news, MSNBC's Chris Matthews repeated White House spin without hesitation: "I can understand that in the urgency of the moment that the Vice President's concern was life and death and not [public relations]." The reality is, Cheney was deeply concerned about public relations and managed the controversy personally, overriding the suggestions of White House staff who urged public disclosure.

++ ISSUE: Cheney shooting incident --- NARRATIVE: Bush and Cheney are infallible --- EXAMPLE: NBC News quoted ranch owner Katharine Armstrong as saying Cheney's pre-hunt picnic may have included "a beer or two." The MSNBC website has since been scrubbed to remove the quote with no explanation for readers.

++ ISSUE: Abramoff scandal --- NARRATIVE: Dems do bad things too --- EXAMPLE: The Associated Press continues to help the Republicans' drive to make the Abramoff scandal bi-partisan with additional reporting that plays up a dubious link between the disgraced GOP lobbyist and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. Despite widespread debunking of the original report, the AP ran a follow-up piece that suggests "further confirmation of such a link but, in fact, casts additional doubt on whether such a link exists."

++ ISSUE: Presidential politics/Hillary Clinton --- NARRATIVE: Dems are "angry" --- EXAMPLE: The New York Times' Elisabeth Bumiller pushed Ken Mehlman's latest meme -- Hillary is "angry" -- during an interview with DNC Chair Howard Dean. Bumiller asked Dean (twice) about Mehlman's charge that Hillary is "too angry and that Americans will not elect an angry candidate." Bumiller used a transparent media tactic to deliver the RNC talking point: the feigned interrogative. In other words, she used a question to get her point across, as though framing it as a question makes the parroting of anti-Hillary narratives any less repugnant.

++ ISSUE: Coretta Scott King funeral --- NARRATIVE: Dems politicize everything --- EXAMPLE: Howie Kurtz suggested the national media "blew this story" by "failing to note the extraordinary nature of these anti-Bush remarks." Kurtz, a predictable GOP meme-pusher, has it backwards. First, the media was all over the controversial eulogies at the King funeral. Second, the "extraordinary anti-Bush remarks" never even mentioned Bush. And third, despite Kurtz's implication, it's not the media's job to push an RNC line of attack.

++ ISSUE: Coretta Scott King funeral --- NARRATIVE: Bush firm, Bush compassionate --- EXAMPLE: Newsweek's Eleanor Clift, generally considered a Bush critic, praised Bush in a strangely sycophantic piece, saying: "President Bush deserves credit for sitting through the awkward moments at Coretta Scott King’s funeral—and for his role in setting up an African-American history museum." Clift follows in the footsteps of other "liberal" pundits whose raison d'etre seems to be to bash liberals and defend Bush.

++ ISSUE: Warrantless domestic spying --- NARRATIVE: Dems politicize everything/Dems are whiners --- EXAMPLE: The Washington Post recently stated that "some Democrats argue that Bush is breaking the law by spying on people in the United States without a warrant and without congressional or judicial oversight." This spin mirrors the GOP effort to paint this as a partisan controversy, but that dog won't hunt. Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate have raised serious questions about the program's legality.

++ ISSUE: Abramoff scandal --- NARRATIVE: Dems do bad things too --- EXAMPLE: The Associated Press has picked up on the Republicans' drive to make the Abramoff scandal bi-partisan with a major report on alleged ties between the disgraced GOP lobbyist and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. There's only one problem: the AP report is wildly misleading. As MyDD's Scott Shields explained, "For a variety of reasons, some of which I still don't get, the old fashioned media wants very badly for this to be a bipartisan scandal. This is only the latest attempt to make it so. But by leaving out such key information as the fact that Reid never supported the Republicans on the Marianas, the whole story is called into question."

++ ISSUE: Warrantless domestic spying --- NARRATIVE: Bush strong/Dems weak --- EXAMPLE: Fox News and the Washington Times predictably embrace White House terminology -- "terrorist surveillance program" instead of "warrantless wiretapping" being the latest example. Late last week, the AP bought into the narrative and described Bush's warrantless domestic spying as the "anti-terrorist surveillance program."

++ ISSUE: Coretta Scott King funeral --- NARRATIVE: Dems "politicize" everything --- EXAMPLE: CNN's Jeff Greenfield questioned whether some of the eulogies were "appropriate" and asked, "I think for a lot of people the idea is, do you really do this at a funeral?" Greenfield went on to praise Bush for his "gracious speech." The media's immediate willingness to play along with this RNC-driven game is transparent - wouldn't the following question have been equally appropriate: "In light of Katrina, shouldn't George W. Bush have been ashamed to appear at King's funeral?"

++ ISSUE: Warrantless domestic spying --- NARRATIVE: Dems are weak --- EXAMPLE: In its coverage of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the warrantless domestic spying scandal, Reuters framed the hearing exactly the way the administration likes: by making the Dems look weak and ineffectual. The headline says it all: "Democrats frustrated by Gonzales on eavesdropping." A more accurate headline would have been, "Gonzalez Refuses to Answer Questions on Warrantless Spying." (Thanks to reader Dr. Funkenstein for the tip)

++ ISSUE: Majority Leader Boehner --- NARRATIVE: Never allow a criticism of Republicans to go unchallenged --- EXAMPLE: CNN's Jack Cafferty asked viewers if they saw any problem with Majority Leader Boehner renting an apartment from a lobbyist whose clients have business before Boehner. He got over 700 responses, nearly all of which questioned the arrangement. Wolf Blitzer stuck up for Boehner, telling Cafferty, "But you did hear Ed Henry say it is a basement apartment, which is not necessarily all that desirable, and he's paying the fair market value."

++ ISSUE: 2006 elections --- NARRATIVE: Dems have no message --- EXAMPLE: The New York Times ran yet another article (courtesy of Dem-basher Adam Nagourney) that paints congressional Democrats as "heading into this year's elections in a position weaker than they had hoped for." It was, as Josh Marshall put it, "a pretty lazy piece of journalism." What's more, the piece neglected to mention that when asked, Americans say they prefer Dem candidates and the Dem agenda in 2006 by wide margins over the GOP. Kid Oakland elaborates: "I'm sick of articles like this from Adam Nagourney and, to be frank, I'm sick of the New York Times political coverage in general.... Basically, after years of reading this stuff, and hearing similar sentiments echoed on NPR, I think blog critics of mainstream media political coverage are right. There's a persistent media bias that has the genetic code of GOP spin and there's no point in giving it energy or credence. The press is no friend of the Democratic Party and has not been for years."

++ ISSUE: Boehner replaces DeLay --- NARRATIVE: Republicans are tough --- EXAMPLE: A Reuters article on John Boehner titled "New House Republican leader is canny, tough" says the following: "Boehner has shown he can be tough. Last year he approved one of the more controversial provisions of a spending-cut bill: $12.7 billion savings in student-loan programs, raising costs to borrowers, despite student protests." Undermining students is now a measure of toughness?

++ ISSUE: Iraq/Cindy Sheehan --- NARRATIVE: War protesters are unpatriotic --- EXAMPLE: The Associated Press, noting Cindy Sheehan's arrest before the State of the Union, reports, "Sheehan's T-shirt made reference to the number of soldiers killed in Iraq: '2245 Dead. How many more?' ... Young's shirt had just the opposite message: 'Support the Troops -- Defending Our Freedom.'" Several bloggers took the AP to task for this blatant propaganda, including Glenn Greenwald, Jane Hamsher, and Carpetbagger. Greenwald writes, "As we all know (because George Bush said so, followed by his followers, followed by the media), opposition to the war in Iraq is the "opposite message" of supporting the troops and defending our freedoms. That's a totally appropriate premise on which to base a news article. A mini blogosphere firestorm erupted over this, and I have no doubt that the e-mail inbox of the AP reporter (Laurie Kellman) was stuffed with objections. As Jane Hamsher reports, that sentence was thereafter altered to a more neutral formulation."

++ ISSUE: The federal budget --- NARRATIVE: Bush is fiscally responsible, the deficit is someone else's fault --- EXAMPLE: This New York Times report on budget cuts to Medicaid, welfare, child support and student lending, offers a decidedly pro-Bush spin: "The vote helped President Bush deliver on his promise to rein in federal spending." In reality, Bush has boosted federal spending more than any president since LBJ.

++ ISSUE: Free Speech --- NARRATIVE: War protesters are law-breaking extremists --- EXAMPLE: After Cindy Sheehan's arrest, major media outlets got several elements of the story completely wrong, including the notion that Sheehan unfurled an anti-war banner (reported falsely on CNN) and that Sheehan's T-shirt was illegal. Somehow, one knowledgeable blogger managed to do what the major outlets couldn't, namely, get the facts straight.

++ ISSUE: SOTU/Energy policy --- NARRATIVE: Bush has a credible policy agenda --- EXAMPLE: On ABC's Good Morning America, Charles Gibson embraced the administration's spin and said, "[I]f there was anything new in the [State of the Union], it was his call for an end to America's addiction with foreign oil, a calling for a reduction on America's dependence on Middle Eastern oil of 75 percent in 20 years." The truth is, there's nothing new in Bush's proposal except slightly different rhetoric.

++ ISSUE: SOTU --- NARRATIVE: Dems are whiners --- EXAMPLE: CNN's Jeff Greenfield chided Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) on the air for issuing a rebuttal to Bush's SOTU before it was delivered, telling viewers, "There wasn't a chance in the world that this congressperson had seen the speech." He failed to note that the White House made excerpts of the speech available well before it was delivered, which is why Wexler's statement was fully justified.

++ ISSUE: State of the Union --- NARRATIVE: Bush firm despite "challenges"/Dems are whiners --- EXAMPLE: The Associated Press hands us a quintessential example of pro-Bush and anti-Dem narratives. The headline reads, "Bush Confident Despite Mounting Challenges," and the lead paragraph captures the White House talking points practically to the letter: "President Bush, opening the fall campaign season, is painting Democrats as defeatist for criticizing his march to war in Iraq and protectionist for questioning new trade deals and tax-cut extensions. Grumbling Democrats looking for advantage in Bush's weak poll numbers and burgeoning scandals in GOP congressional ranks refused to cede center stage as the president laid out his 2006 priorities Tuesday night in his fifth State of the Union address." [Update: The AP has already changed the headline and portions of the text. We have a screenshot of the original on file.]

++ ISSUE: State of the Union --- NARRATIVE: Bush strong, Dems weak, irrational --- EXAMPLE: Immediately following Bush's State of the Union speech, MSNBC's Chris Matthews and his guests delivered the usual Bush-propping and Democrat-bashing themes. Matthews said Bush was "at the top of his game," and that he delivered "a very powerful speech." He added that Democrats are "afraid to take on the president." Matthews' guest, Newsweek's John Meacham, described Bush as "unusually compassionate," and "just as fluid on domestic and foreign issues." Meacham criticized the left for an "irrational hatred of Bush." Matthews also repeated Bush talking points on the warrantless domestic spying scandal.

++ ISSUE: SOTU/Energy policy --- NARRATIVE: Bush has a credible policy agenda --- EXAMPLE: Several major dailies feature headlines that mischaracterize Bush's discussion of energy policy in the SOTU. The New York Times headline said, "Bush, Resetting Agenda, Says U.S. Must Cut Reliance on Oil." The Los Angeles Times headline said, "Bush Calls for Cuts in Oil Reliance." Neither acknowledges just how narrow the Bush plan really is.

++ ISSUE: State of the Union --- NARRATIVE: Bush is firm --- EXAMPLE: MSNBC started their 11am (eastern) hour with "Bush standing firm," one of the most ubiquitous pro-Bush narratives of the past half-decade. To understand why this is favorable to Bush, imagine what his poll numbers would look like if the word 'stubborn' had replaced 'firm' in all those reports.

++ ISSUE: State of the Union --- NARRATIVE: Of course we're balanced, who you gonna believe, us or your lying eyes? --- EXAMPLE: CNN's coverage of the SOTU featured one voice from the left (Paul Begala) and three from the right (Bill Bennett, Victoria Clarke, and J.C. Watts). The network later added Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, but the right still outnumbered the left when offering commentary on the president.

++ ISSUE: State of the Union --- NARRATIVE: Democrats weak on national security, have no message --- EXAMPLE: CNN's coverage of the SOTU also featured Paula Zahn reading from the GOP script, claiming that "a lot of people out there" are saying that "if you vote for a Democrat, that basically you want to be bombed." Zahn also purported to identify a "perception" that Democrats are "reactive, not proactive, that they have no agenda of their own, and ... that basically the only thing they're good at is blasting the president."

++ ISSUE: Warrantless spying --- NARRATIVE: Terrorism helps Bush --- EXAMPLE: Rather than deal with the warrantless domestic spying scandal with the gravity it deserves, MSNBC's Chris Matthews tells his viewers that Bush is "turning the NSA surveillance question into a winner politically."++ ISSUE: Bush approval ratings --- NARRATIVE: Americans trust Bush --- EXAMPLE: Rather than acknowledging the fact that Bush's approval rating is at its lowest level ever in the LA Times poll, the LA Times runs the headline, "Bush's Ratings Sink, but Trust Remains." Similarly, though the latest Washington Post poll shows Dems enjoying big leads over Bush on the direction of the country, the WaPo goes with this headline: "Bush's Midterm Challenge: Rebuilding Public Support May Bolster GOP Candidates."

++ ISSUE: Tim Russert/ MTP --- NARRATIVE: Democrats guilty by association --- EXAMPLE: Last week, Meet the Press's Tim Russert inexplicably asked Sen. Barack Obama (D) to respond to controversial remarks made by Harry Belafonte. Yesterday, just two days after Ann Coulter made headlines by calling for the assassination of Justice John Paul Stevens, Russert neglected to raise the issue in his interview with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R).

++ ISSUE: Abramoff scandal --- NARRATIVE: Everybody does it/Democrats are just as bad as Republicans --- EXAMPLE: A number of journalists, ranging from The Washington Post's ombudsman to NBC's Katie Couric, have declared that disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave money to both parties. Paul Krugman notes today that there's nothing bipartisan about the Abramoff scandal, which is all about the use and abuse of Republican connections. "[T]he reluctance of some journalists to report facts that, in this case, happen to have an anti-Republican agenda is a serious matter. It's not a stretch to say that these journalists are acting as enablers for the rampant corruption that has emerged in Washington over the last decade."

Read More...

Summary only...

Cheney Says He Has the Power to Declassify Sensitive Government Information

ABC News
Cheney Says He Has Power to Declassify Info
Cheney Says He Has the Power to Declassify Sensitive Government Information
By PETE YOST
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney disclosed Wednesday that he has the power to declassify sensitive government information, authority that could set up a criminal defense for his former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Cheney's disclosure comes a week after reports that Libby testified under oath he was authorized by superiors in 2003 to disclose highly sensitive prewar information to reporters. The information, about Iraq and alleged weapons of mass destruction, was used by the Bush administration to bolster its case for invading Iraq.

At the time of Libby's contacts with reporters in June and July 2003, the administration including Cheney, who was among the war's most ardent proponents, faced growing criticism. No weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq, and Bush supporters were anxious to show that the White House had relied on prewar intelligence projecting a strong threat from such weapons.

When Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald revealed Libby's assertions to a grand jury that he had been authorized by his superiors to spread sensitive information, the prosecutor did not specify which superiors.

But in an interview on Fox News Channel, Cheney said there is an executive order that gives the vice president, along with the president, the authority to declassify information.

"I have certainly advocated declassification. I have participated in declassification decisions," Cheney said. Asked for details, he said, "I don't want to get into that. There's an executive order that specifies who has classification authority, and obviously it focuses first and foremost on the president, but also includes the vice president."

Cheney added a ringing endorsement of Libby.

"Scooter is entitled to the presumption of innocence," said Cheney. "He is a great guy. I worked with him for a long time. I have tremendous regard for him. I may well be called as a witness at some point in the case, and it is therefore inappropriate for me to comment on any facet of the case."

Libby is not charged with leaking classified information, and Libby's lawyers said last week there was no truth to a published report that Libby's lawyers had advised the court or prosecutors that he will raise a defense based on authorization by superiors.

A legal expert said Cheney's TV appearance could nonetheless foreshadow a Libby defense.

Former Whitewater independent counsel Robert Ray said Cheney's ex-chief of staff could point to authorization from his superiors as part of his strategy at trial.

"If it turns out that Cheney was actively involved in decisions related to the disclosure of a CIA officer's identity and if the truth of it is that he was orchestrating the disclosure of information to the media, it seems to me that's a fundamentally different case than one centered around the activities of Libby," said Ray.

On Oct. 28 of last year, Libby was indicted on five counts of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI about how he learned of the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame and what he told reporters about it.

In July 2003, Plame's CIA identity was published by columnist Robert Novak eight days after Plame's husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, accused the administration of twisting prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat. Wilson concluded that it was highly doubtful that a purported sale of uranium yellowcake by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990s had ever taken place.

A defense that Libby was authorized by superiors to leak sensitive data about Iraq would not appear to provide any help to the former Cheney aide for making false statements.

But some lawyers point out that setting up defenses before a jury involve more than simply constructing legal arguments.

"You're trying to present a persuasive case that your client should not be found guilty," said Ray, the former Whitewater prosecutor. "You're saying that even if my client did it, this is not a case that warrants conviction."

An authorization defense in the CIA leak case would mean that "much of what Libby was trying to do was aid and protect his boss Cheney," Ray suggested. The downside to employing such an approach is that it "almost comes with a defense that I did it."

Read More...

Summary only...

325,000 Names on Terrorism List; Rights Groups Say Database May Include Innocent People

washingtonpost.com
325,000 Names on Terrorism List
Rights Groups Say Database May Include Innocent People

By Walter Pincus and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers

The National Counterterrorism Center maintains a central repository of 325,000 names of international terrorism suspects or people who allegedly aid them, a number that has more than quadrupled since the fall of 2003, according to counterterrorism officials.

The list kept by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) -- created in 2004 to be the primary U.S. terrorism intelligence agency -- contains a far greater number of international terrorism suspects and associated names in a single government database than has previously been disclosed. Because the same person may appear under different spellings or aliases, the true number of people is estimated to be more than 200,000, according to NCTC officials.

U.S. citizens make up "only a very, very small fraction" of that number, said an administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of his agency's policies. "The vast majority are non-U.S. persons and do not live in the U.S.," he added. An NCTC official refused to say how many on the list -- put together from reports supplied by the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency (NSA) and other agencies -- are U.S. citizens.

The NSA is a key provider of information for the NCTC database, although officials refused to say how many names on the list are linked to the agency's controversial domestic eavesdropping effort. Under the program, the NSA has conducted wiretaps on an unknown number of U.S. citizens without warrants.

The government has been trying to streamline what counterterrorism officials say are more than 26 terrorism-related databases compiled by agencies throughout the intelligence and law enforcement communities. Names from the NCTC list are provided to the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center (TSC), which in turn provides names for watch lists maintained by the Transportation Security Administration and other agencies.

Civil liberties advocates and privacy experts said they were troubled by the size of the NCTC database, and they said it further heightens their concerns that such government terrorism lists include the names of large numbers of innocent people. Timothy Sparapani, legislative counsel for privacy rights at the American Civil Liberties Union, called the numbers "shocking but, unfortunately, not surprising."

"We have lists that are having baby lists at this point; they're spawning faster than rabbits," Sparapani said. "If we have over 300,000 known terrorists who want to do this country harm, we've got a much bigger problem than deciding which names go on which list. But I highly doubt that is the case."

Asked whether the names in the repository were collected through the NSA's domestic intelligence intercept program, the NCTC official said, "Our database includes names of known and suspected international terrorists provided by all intelligence community organizations, including NSA."

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week that he could not discuss specifics but said: "Information is collected, information is retained and information disseminated in a way to protect the privacy interests of all Americans."

The NCTC name repository began under its predecessor agency in 2003 with 75,000 names, and it continues to grow. The center was created as part of a broad reorganization of U.S. intelligence agencies after the failure to disrupt the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It is the main agency for analyzing and integrating terrorism intelligence and is under direction of Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte.

Its central database is the hub of an elaborate network of terrorism-related databases throughout the federal bureaucracy. Terrorism-related names and other data are sent to the NCTC under standards set by Homeland Security Presidential Directive 6, signed by President Bush in September 2003, according to a senior NCTC official. The directive calls upon agencies to supply data only about people who are "known or appropriately suspected to be . . . engaged in conduct constituting, in preparation for, in aid of, or related to terrorism."

"We work on the basis that information reported to us has been collected in accordance with those guidelines," Vice Adm. John Scott Redd, the center's director, said in a statement.

Analysts at the NCTC review all incoming names and can reject them if they do not have an apparent link to international terrorists, officials said. "That is not common, but it does happen," an NCTC official said, citing as examples a domestic or foreign drug dealer or a member of a U.S.-based extremist group, when neither has any sign of international terrorist connections.

The NCTC then sends a subset of the repository list to the FBI's screening center, and each entry includes a reference "to how the individual is associated with international terrorism," according to a June 2005 report by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine. This reference is assigned one of 25 codes such as "Member of a Foreign Terrorist Organization," "Hijacker" or "Has Engaged in Terrorism," according to the report. The report also notes that the codes are split in two categories: "Individuals who are considered armed and dangerous and those who are not."

Fine's office criticized the TSC for including nearly 32,000 records of people in the "armed and dangerous" category but giving them the lowest handling code, which means that no report needs to be sent back to the FBI if they are encountered in the United States by law enforcement officers.

The TSC consolidates NCTC data on individuals associated with foreign terrorism with the FBI's purely domestic terrorism data to create a unified, unclassified terrorist watch list. The TSC, in turn, provides, for official use only, a version giving each person's name, country, date of birth, photos and other data to the Transportation Security Agency for its no-fly list, the State Department for its visa program, the Department of Homeland Security for border crossings, and the National Crime Information Center for distribution to police.

Shannon Moran, a spokeswoman for the FBI screening center, declined to answer detailed questions about the center's work, including how many names are on its list, how many U.S. citizens are included and whether the FBI database includes names linked to the NSA program. Fine's office reported last year that the FBI database contained more than 270,000 names, including a large number of people associated with domestic terrorist movements such as radical environmentalists and neo-Nazi white supremacists.

"If being placed on a list means in practice that you will be denied a visa, barred entry, put on the no-fly list, targeted for pretextual prosecutions, etc., then the sweep of the list and the apparent absence of any way to clear oneself certainly raises problems," said David D. Cole, a Georgetown University law professor who has been sharply critical of the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies.

The growth of terrorist-related data networks within the U.S. intelligence community has greatly accelerated since Sept. 11, 2001. Before the al Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, there were databases containing terrorist identities at the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, FBI and State Department. In addition there were 13 independent watch lists, but the lists or databases were not interoperable.

Currently, according to an NCTC official, there are 26 classified data networks carrying terrorism material. In a December 2005 interview on Federal News Radio, Redd said his agency "is really the only place in government and certainly in the intelligence community where all counterterrorism intelligence comes together." He also said that analyses of terrorism issues from all 15 intelligence agencies come into the NCTC, which then puts them on its Web site.

"What that means," Redd said, "is about 5,000 analysts around the counterterrorist intelligence community can pull up that Web site and see . . . what every other agency has as well, assuming they have the clearances."

Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said the size of the NCTC list and other terrorism-related databases underscores the severity of the "false positive" problem, in which innocent people -- including members of Congress -- have been stopped for questioning or halted from flying because their names are wrongly included or are similar to suspects' names.

"One of the seemingly unsolvable problems is what do you do when someone is wrongly put on this watch list," Rotenberg said. "If there are that many people on the list, a lot of them probably shouldn't be there. But how are they ever going to get off?"

Read More...

Summary only...

Pentagon denies data program gave September 11 clues

Reuters
Pentagon denies data program gave September 11 clues

By Vicki Allen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon on Wednesday said it found no evidence that a computer data-mining program it operated before the September 11 attacks uncovered information that could have thwarted the attacks if it had been acted on.

But a defense intelligence officer and two contractors who worked on the secret program told a congressional committee the secret data-mining operation called "Able Danger" revealed intelligence on September 11 mastermind Mohammed Atta and others that should have been a tip-off of the attacks.

Rep. Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican who has spearheaded a probe of whether intelligence from Able Danger was wrongly brushed aside, blasted the Pentagon's review as incomplete.

"It's the fact that people are going to have egg on their face" over what should have been done with the intelligence, Weldon said at a House of Representatives Armed Services subcommittee hearing.

Stephen Cambone, under secretary of defense intelligence, said he had a team conduct a broad review of the program that ended in 2000 and was a pilot for current data mining operations.

Cambone said the review found no charts with information on Atta, no evidence that the Defense Department deliberately withheld Able Danger information from the FBI, and no evidence that Able Danger information was destroyed inappropriately.

Weldon has brought forward people who worked on the program who said it produced charts with Atta's name and photograph, as well as identifying three other hijackers as al Qaeda members.

The subcommittee went into a closed session to hear from additional witnesses on the program.

Weldon said the program identified "hot spots" including Yemen before the bombing of the Navy destroyer Cole at a Yemen port, and New York and Hamburg, Germany, which had al Qaeda cells that were key in the September 11 attacks that killed 3,000 people.

Weldon also blasted the commission that probed the September 11th attacks for failing to pursue questions about the Able Danger program, saying its members "have done everything they can to not have this story be told."

Commissioners have said they have not seen charts or other evidence that Able Danger produced such key intelligence.

Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, a defense intelligence officer who worked on the program, told lawmakers that Phillip Zelikow, the commission's staff director, asked Shaffer to contact him about the program. But Shaffer said he later was told the commission had all the information it required and did not need to speak to him.

Cambone said the Pentagon turned over documents on the program to the commission.

Cambone said data from Able Danger were destroyed because of privacy laws as the program swept up large amounts of information, most of which was not relevant to foreign intelligence or terrorism.

Read More...

Summary only...

Fighting the long war

guardian.co.uk
Fighting the long war
The Guardian

No one ever accused Donald Rumsfeld of thinking small - except about the number of US troops needed to secure the peace after the war he helped mastermind in Iraq. So it is perhaps no surprise that the Pentagon's four-yearly defence review seeks no less than to define our era. The man who served as America's youngest defence secretary during the 45-year period we remember as the cold war argues that we are now living through the "Long War", and has set out his programme - a mixture of spin and strategy - for the next two decades.

Little of it is about the usual stuff of such reviews: plenty of ships, planes and other hardware survive intact, delighting defence contractors and Wall Street. US military thinkers are dismayed that one lesson of Iraq has not been learned and that there is no provision for putting more boots on the ground - though there are plans for smaller, agile, special forces units and better covert intelligence-gathering. This is linked to the perceived nature of the new threat: transnational terrorism - the "ism" that replaces the decades-long 20th-century struggles against fascism and communism.

It would be foolish to argue that the world's only superpower does not need to think about security in a coherent and integrated manner. In its more modest way the UK is doing something similar, as Gordon Brown showed this week. But beyond the $513bn annual price tag for US taxpayers, there are questionable assumptions and dangers in this review. America's enemies may be ruthless, but are they really trying to destroy its way of life? Are Osama bin Laden and co. truly on the same level as Hitler or Stalin? Elevating terrorism to the level of an ideology risks exaggerating the importance of a modus operandi - though the fear of an al-Qaida-type nuclear, chemical or biological attack cannot be avoided - and underplaying the need to tackle motivation. Above all is the danger that the concept of endless war will be self-perpetuating, a permanent recruiting sergeant for the jihadist cause. Root causes, it goes without saying, matter more than their symptoms, however menacing.

Many Americans who are angry about 2,200 dead soldiers in Iraq and the collateral damage caused by the "war on terror" to their own cherished liberties are unhappy enough that Mr Rumsfeld is still in charge at the Pentagon. European allies digesting his 92-page text are likely to be concerned by the likelihood of more pre-emptive attacks launched by Predator drones against suspected terrorists, killing innocents along the way. The document refers to the need to work with allies though Nato's post-9/11 experience shows that when the US is in the driving seat, it is very hard to get it to budge. Europeans now expanding their dangerous Afghan mission will need to make bigger efforts to wield the influence they should.

Some lessons have been learned: a global reach requires greater familiarity with far-flung corners of the world. The review sensibly acknowledges that future campaigns will require US personnel to "understand foreign cultures and societies ... to train, mentor and advise foreign security forces". Having more soldiers and spies who can speak Arabic and Farsi is fine, but Americans will have to think harder about Islam and democracy. Hamas is a problem in Palestine. But so was Mr Rumsfeld's recent security and energy-focused visit to an Algeria still scarred by a terrible civil war that erupted when free elections were scrapped.

Like globalisation and the weather, American dominance is just part of life, whether we like or not. Not much can be done about it, even by China, the biggest conventional threat to US hegemony. But Mr Rumsfeld's bleak view of the future begs the question of whether even the longest war against terrorism is winnable in any real sense - and whether our world can really look forward to the day when this 21st century "ism" becomes just another "wasm".

Read More...

Summary only...

No Laughing Matter: The Controversial Danish Cartoons Depicting the Prophet Mohammed, and Their Broader Meaning for Europe's Public Square

findlaw.com
No Laughing Matter:
The Controversial Danish Cartoons Depicting the Prophet Mohammed, and Their Broader Meaning for Europe's Public Square
By RUTI TEITEL

On September 30, 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published a now-infamous set of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed in derogatory terms, and associating Islam with terrorism. Many people saw the cartoons as highly offensive - and specifically, as exhibiting intolerance toward those whose religion is Islam.

Some Westerners, especially, have been shocked by the fury the cartoons provoked. To understand why so many Muslims were so gravely offended, it is important to see that the cartoons don't stand alone, but rather were published against a backdrop of political and legislative action that, to many Muslims, reflects a repeated pattern of disparagement of Islam in the public sphere.

At present, Europe is struggling with issues of identity--issues that could plainly be seen in the recent debates over the adoption of a European Union Constitution. The crisis arises because of new demographics, at the same time as new regionalism. Many Muslims feel they are being relegated to second-class citizenship in Europe. And they relate the publication of the cartoons - by a newspaper they feel would not consider publishing anti-Christian or anti-Jewish cartoons - to this wrongful sense that they are not full citizens.

The cartoons, thus, raise much larger questions: How will Europe reconcile its varying affiliations: regional, national, local, and individual? And to what extent can it allow--in light of new demographics--a reconception of its public sphere ?

The UN Is Sympathetic To Muslim Complaints, while Many In Europe are Not

In light of recent events, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has initiated an investigation into "racism" and "Islamaphobia." Similarly, while calling for "tolerance," the UN Commission on Human Rights' Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, and racial discrimination "strongly deplored the depictions of the Prophet" and the "grave offence they caused to the members of the Muslim community."

But European observers have been less sympathetic. Muslims complained soon after the cartoons were initially published in September, and received little, if any response. Later, the newspaper finally apologized that it had offended them.

Yet, still, the Danish prime minister had refused to meet with the Ambassadors from Muslim countries. And meanwhile, in France, a newspaper - in what it called a free speech protest - added fuel to the fire by reprinting the cartoons.

The Free Speech Angle Is Unduly Americanized: EU Law Is What Counts

The French newspaper is not the only one taking a "free speech" perspective here: Many have taken a similar view - often invoking the American First Amendment. But taking a closer look at European - not American - free speech views, which are obviously more relevant here, leads to a different, and more nuanced analysis.

Of course, Europe is, at present, under a rapidly changing federalist structure, under which individual nations' views on speech may still differ. Nevertheless, under the guidance of the European Court of Human Rights, the region is in the midst of developing a unified approach to speech questions.

American readers may not be aware how sharply European countries' individual approaches - and the evolving approach of Europe itself - differ from America's approach. In two respects, these differences are relevant to the issues the cartoons have raised.

The American Versus the European Approach: Offensiveness Matters

First, whereas in America, free speech doctrine is largely libertarian, free speech doctrine in Europe is far more protective of communitarian values - such as preventing social unrest, and promoting societal inclusiveness and anti-discrimination values.

In the United States, rights are framed in a radically individualist fashion -- with is a commitment to keeping the public sphere to the greatest extent possible, free of regulation. But unlike the United States Constitution, the European Convention and postwar European Constitutions make references to collective - not individual -- goals.

Thus, while it might be obvious, in libertarian America, that the balance should be struck in the cartoonist's and newspaper's favor, that is much less obvious in communitarian Europe - where the point of view of the offended audience would be taken far more seriously.

Just a month ago, a controversy erupted over a public arts project that was to celebrate the new EU presidency. Among a series of 150 different images being flashed to motorists via billboards across Vienna, were posters depicting naked models posing as world leaders Queen Elizabeth II, George W. Bush and Jacques Chirac apparently having sex; and a poster of a woman lying naked on a bed, except for a pair of knickers bearing the EU flag. After protests by Catholic clergy and opposition politicians, the posters were immediately withdrawn on the grounds that they were offensive.

More generally, the European Convention of Human Rights, while protecting the right to "freedom of _expression," art 10(2) recognizes that its exercise and other liberties are limited by justifications "necessary in a democratic society." These justifications might include the need to protect order or security, but might also include concerns for reputation and other values.

Another Contrast: In Europe, Hate Speech Is Often Illegal

Second, "hate speech" - First-Amendment-protected in America, except in rare cases - is often deemed outright illegal in Europe.

Throughout Europe, there is legislation specifically limiting speech, including speech denying the Holocaust. For example, Germany, France, and Austria, all have such legislation.

Denmark, too, has related anti-hate legislation: Its law penalizes expressions that threaten, deride or degrade on the grounds of race, color, national or ethnic origin, belief or sexual orientation. Indeed, in the Jersild case, the Danish government attempted to enforce these laws against a television journalist.

Though the European Court of Human Rights drew the line on criminal prosecution on these grounds, and found there had been an attempt to counterbalance the racist views, the Court recognized the legitimate countervailing values at stake. And what's more, so did the Danish government.

While freedoms of speech and of religion are protected in Europe, there is also always a limit. One might see the arrangements as 'balanced rights." Dating back to the abuses of World War II, all the postwar conventions, such as the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, expressly limit advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.

Anti-religious hate speech, is particular, is illegal in Europe. Blasphemy is still prohibited in many countries in Europe - whereas in the U.S., it is plainly First- Amendment-protected.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) made clear quite recently that it approves of some regulation of anti-religious speech, based on offensiveness.

In 1994, in Otto Preminger v. Austria, the ECHR upheld Austria's censorship of a satirical film that mocked Christian religious beliefs. Given the high percentage of Catholics in Tyrol, the European Court deferred to the national authorities "to ensure religious peace in that region" so that people shouldn't "feel the object of attacks on their religious beliefs in an unwarranted and offensive manner."

With Anti-Semitic Speech Legally Limited, What About Anti-Islamic Speech?

There are also many instances, in Europe, of cases limiting speech because of anti-Semitism.

In Faurisson v. France, for example, a Holocaust denier challenged his conviction under French law - claiming that it violated his freedom of _expression rights under the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, Article 19(2). But the Human Rights Committee concluded that the Covenant had not been violated.

In so doing, the Committee considered the context in which the _expression was made -- noting that the French government saw "the denial of the existence of the Holocaust as the principal vehicle for anti-semitism." And for this reason, the Committee justified the prosecution as "necessary" within the balanced rights scheme of the ICCPR. Article 19(3).

In 1994, the German Constitutional Court reached a similar holding. At a meeting in Munich, "revisionist historian" David Irving sought to question the Holocaust. He argued that, to ban his remarks would be contrary to Article 5(1) of the German Basic Law, which provides for freedom of _expression. But the court held that the ban on the assembly -- and the ensuing restriction on Irving -- were compatible with the German Constitution and, indeed, authorized under certain provisions of the German Criminal Code specifically setting forth the offense of denying the Holocaust.

Are Muslims Implicitly Exempt From European Hate Speech Protections?

In sum, then, the United States allows a whole range of hate speech - from anti-Christian, to anti-Semitic, to anti-Islamic. And Europe purports to constrain a whole range of hate speech - but, it seems, not necessarily when that speech targets Muslims.

A parallel issue can be seen when it comes to religious freedom. The United States would not limit the wearing of religious garb for any faith, for to do so would violate the First Amendment. But in Europe, generally, and in France more particularly, anti-veils law are justified by the ideal of keeping the public sphere secular, so that no one feels overly proselytized - even though they disproportionately impact Muslims.

Ultimately, France ended up banning overt religious symbols including headscarves, skullcaps or outsize crosses from being worn in State primary and secondary schools. But tellingly, the ban's original draft singled out the hijab for exclusion from public life.

Europe Must Avoid Viewpoint-Discrimination Against Muslims

My point is not that Europe can -- or should -- adopt the same approach as the U.S. to questions of religious freedom. It is simply that Europe must apply whatever approach it chooses, in a fair and impartial way.

With the relative postwar homogeneity of many of Europe's constituent countries now changing due to immigration, issues of cultural diversity are coming to the fore. Welcoming Muslims into the public sphere entails extending to them the full benefit of laws that protect other groups - including anti-hate-speech laws, if Europe continues to choose to have them.

Ruti Teitel is Ernst Stiefel Professor of Comparative Law at New York Law School, where she also teaches constitutional law and international human rights. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and on the steering committee of Human Rights Watch, Europe, Central Asia. This column, however, reflects her own views, and not necessarily the views of any of these institutions or organizations.

Read More...

Summary only...

Lawyers group slams Bush on eavesdropping

Reuters
Lawyers group slams Bush on eavesdropping
By Michael Conlon

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The American Bar Association told President George W. Bush on Monday to either stop domestic eavesdropping without a warrant or get the law changed to make it legal.

"We hope the President will listen," association president Michael Grecco told reporters after the more than 500 members of its policy-setting body passed a resolution saying that both national security and constitutional freedoms needed to be protected.

"We do not say surveillance should be stopped, only that it comply with the law," said Neal Sonnett, a Miami lawyer who headed the task force formed to look at the issue not long after the spying program came to light in December.

Authorized by Bush in 2001, the program allows the National Security Agency to monitor the international phone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens to track people with ties to al Qaeda and other militant groups.

The White House has said warrantless eavesdropping is legal under Bush's constitutional powers as commander-in-chief and a congressional authorization for the use of military force adopted days after the September 11 attacks.

The program bypassed secret courts created under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, that grant warrants.

"We are not trying to limit the President's ability to go after terrorists," Sonnett told the group's House of Delegates before it passed his task force's resolution with relatively little debate.

"Nobody wants to hamstring the President," he added, "But we cannot allow the U.S. Constitution and our rights to become a victim of terrorism," he added.

Grecco told the group the issue is not whether the President can conduct surveillance but whether he can do it unilaterally.

The association's resolution calls on Bush "to abide by the limitations which the Constitution imposes on a President" to make sure national security is protected in a way that is consistent with constitutional guarantees.

It opposes "any future electronic surveillance inside the United States by any U.S. government agency for foreign intelligence purposes that does not comply with provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act."

If Bush believes that law is inadequate, then he should ask Congress to change it or enact new legislation, it added.

The resolution also called on the U.S. Congress to affirm that the post September 11 law on the authorization of military force did not give the White House an exemption from the requirements of the 1978 law.

Read More...

Summary only...

Ambramoff Associates Say He Claimed Close Ties to White House Through Karl Rove

ABC News
Abramoff Said to Claim Close Ties to Rove
Ambramoff Associates Say He Claimed Close Ties to White House Through Karl Rove
By JOHN SOLOMON
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Three former associates of Jack Abramoff said Monday that the now-disgraced lobbyist frequently told them during his lobbying work he had strong ties to the White House through presidential confidant Karl Rove.

The White House said Monday that Rove remembers meeting Abramoff at a 1990s political meeting and considered the lobbyist a "casual acquaintance" since President Bush took office in 2001.

New questions have arisen about Abramoff's ties to the White House since a photo emerged over the weekend showing Abramoff with Bush. Also surfacing were the contents of an e-mail from Abramoff to Washingtonian magazine claiming he had met briefly with the president nearly a dozen times.

Three former business associates of Abramoff, who worked with the lobbyist in various roles between 2001 and 2004, told The Associated Press that Abramoff routinely mentioned Rove when talking about his influence inside the White House.

One said he was present when Abramoff took a call from Rove's office to confirm a White House meeting had been approved between Malaysia's prime minister and Bush in May 2002. Abramoff was being paid by Malaysia for helping it in Washington, according to evidence the Senate has made public.

All three associates would describe the Abramoff comments only on condition of anonymity, citing the ongoing investigation of Abramoff's work and fears that speaking out could affect their current businesses. At least one said he had been interviewed by the FBI.

Abramoff was a $100,000 fundraiser for Bush and lobbying records obtained by the AP show his lobbying team logged nearly 200 meetings with the administration during its first 10 months in office on behalf of one of his clients, the Northern Mariana Islands.

The contacts between Abramoff's team and the administration included meetings with Attorney General John Ashcroft and policy advisers to Vice President Dick Cheney, the AP reported last year.

Abramoff's former assistant, Susan Ralston, went to work for Rove in 2001. Abramoff's legal team declined comment Monday night.

Abramoff has pleaded guilty in a fraud and bribery conspiracy case and is cooperating with prosecutors' investigation into those in Congress and the administration he used to lobby.

Asked about the three former Abramoff associates' account, the White House said Rove shared a common past with Abramoff as leaders of a young Republicans group decades ago.

"Mr. Rove remembers they had met at a political event in the 1990s," White House spokeswoman Erin Healy said. "Since then, he would describe him as a casual acquaintance."

Healy said Rove has "no recollection" of talking to Abramoff about the Malaysian prime minister's meeting in May 2002. She said Bush first met the prime minister at a foreign summit in October 2001 and that the 2002 meeting in the Oval Office was "another opportunity to get together to discuss the war on terror."

Read More...

Summary only...

Guantanamo Bay inmates 'tortured'

BBC NEWS
Guantanamo Bay inmates 'tortured'

Treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay constitutes torture in some cases and violates international law, a leaked UN draft report says.

The document, seen by the Los Angeles Times, suggests that investigators will recommend the prison camp is shut down.

It also questions the legal status of the camp and the classification of detainees as enemy combatants.

US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack criticised the draft report as "hearsay".

'Force-fed'

The Los Angeles Times published the draft report in its paper on Monday and spoke to one of the authors, the UN special raporteur on torture, Manfred Novak.

"We very, very carefully considered all of the arguments posed by the US government. There are no conclusions that are easily drawn. But we concluded that the situation in several areas violates international law and conventions on human rights and torture," Mr Nowak told the LA Times.

The US government should close Guantanamo Bay detention facilities without further delay
Report extract
The report suggests some of the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay meets the definition of torture under the UN Convention Against Torture.

This includes the force-feeding of hunger strikers through nasal tubes and the simultaneous use of several interrogation techniques such as prolonged solitary confinement and exposure to extreme temperatures, noise and light.

The UN team also questions the legal status of the Guantanamo camp.

It says insufficient effort has been made to prove that the inmates really are enemy combatants.

It also recommends the prison camp is shut down.

"The US government should close Guantanamo Bay detention facilities without further delay," the report says. "The US government should either expeditiously bring all Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial ... or release them without further delay."

'Baseless claims'

Mr Nowak was one of five UN envoys who interviewed former prisoners, detainees' lawyers and families during the past 18 months.

The report... is merely heresay and not based on fact
Sean McCormack
US State Department spokesman

Investigators rejected an invitation to tour the base in Cuba because they would not have been allowed to interview the prisoners directly.

The US State Department has criticised the findings.

"Just because they decided not to take up the US government on the offer to go to Guantanamo Bay does not automatically give [them] the right to publish a report that is merely hearsay and not based on fact," spokesman Sean McCormack said.

UN officials will include responses from the US government before the report is officially released at the end of the week.

Mr Nowak says that nothing of substance will be altered when the final report is issued.

The investigation was ordered by the UN Commission on Human Rights.

The camp at Guantanamo Bay was set up in 2002 to hold foreign terror suspects, many of them captured in Afghanistan.

It currently houses around 500 suspects.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/4710966.stm

Read More...

Summary only...

WTO upholds US export tax ruling

BBC NEWS
WTO upholds US export tax ruling

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has upheld a ruling calling for the US to end certain export tax breaks.

Turning down an appeal from Washington, the WTO has now given the US 60 days to bring its legislation into line.

European Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson welcomed the move, but warned the EU could enforce $4bn (£2.3bn) in sanctions if the US failed to act.

Although the US has officially stopped the tax breaks, the WTO found that it had unfairly retained some exemptions.

While the US wound up the so-called Foreign Sales Corporation tax break in 2004, it gave all firms affected a temporary extension to the rule until the end of this year.

The US also decided that such tax breaks would be able to continue for contracts signed before 17 September, 2003.

'US responsibility'

US firms which the EU says unfairly benefit from the scheme include software giant Microsoft and aircraft maker Boeing.

"The responsibility now lies squarely with the US," said Mr Mandelson. "We are seeking nothing more than the re-establishment of a level playing field."

However, US officials warned that imposing sanctions could put trade relations between Washington and the EU under strain.

"Prolonging the dispute would not serve to foster harmonious transatlantic relations," a spokeswoman for the Office of the US Trade Representative said.

"New EU sanctions will reinforce the perception that the EU is primarily acting in response to the US filing of a WTO complaint against Airbus subsidies."

Brussels estimates that the tax breaks are worth up to $180m a year to Boeing alone.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/4709814.stm

Read More...

Summary only...

FEMA Aid Effort Fraught With Fraud; Thousands Received Money Improperly

washingtonpost.com
FEMA Aid Effort Fraught With Fraud
Thousands Received Money Improperly

By Peter Whoriskey
Washington Post Staff Writer

Tens of thousands of people received aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency using possibly fraudulent identities because the relief effort did not perform routine checks that might have flagged such activity, government investigators said yesterday.

The extent of the fraud in the $6 billion evacuee-assistance effort has not been calculated, but it could reach hundreds of millions of dollars, investigators told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and it appears that the losses were limited only by the thieves' ingenuity.

"It was a mess. It was a system that was wide open to fraud," said Gregory D. Kutz, who led the investigation for the Government Accountability Office. "All you had to do was call FEMA on the telephone and lie and you could get money. It was just a question of how many people were willing to make false statements."

The report came amid a stream of revelations yesterday regarding questionable activity during the relief effort -- including $438-a-night lodging in New York, emergency meals being sold on eBay, and emergency checks being used to buy adult entertainment and weapons.

But the main focus of yesterday's testimony was FEMA's lack of financial controls as it doled out $2,000 checks to people who said they were affected by the storm.

FEMA representatives defended their procedures, saying that the urgency of the situation did not allow for strict identity verification and that they were focused on getting aid to desperate families as quickly as possible.

"It was the right thing to do," FEMA spokeswoman Nicol Andrews said. "We helped thousands of families who were forced from their homes without basic necessities. To slow down that process in order to find out who is trying to cheat the system would have hurt those who the system is designed to help.

"In other words, we're not going to let a few bad apples ruin the whole process." She added that FEMA is helping investigators pursue criminal charges against those suspected of fraud. "We are enforcing a zero-tolerance policy," she said.

Investigators, however, concluded that although getting aid to victims quickly is a priority, "more can be done" to check recipients' addresses and Social Security numbers using computers.

People who improperly sought aid over the Internet were sometimes blocked by verification systems, Kutz said, but they were often told to apply by telephone, where no such safeguards were in place.

Investigators said that so far they have learned that about 1,000 people who applied for aid used the Social Security numbers of dead people, 1,000 used numbers that were never issued, and tens of thousands used names, birthdates and Social Security numbers that did not match.

In one case cited by the GAO report, for example, one person used 15 Social Security numbers to submit 15 applications over the phone and received payments totaling $41,000, including 13 emergency-assistance payments, two payments for temporary housing assistance and a payment of $10,500.

Once the money is issued to someone using a false identity, it becomes much more difficult to recover it and prosecute the person, Kutz said.

The GAO report was accompanied by testimony from Richard L. Skinner, the inspector general of the Homeland Security Department. He noted that FEMA may have purchased too many manufactured houses, given the housing needs, and that FEMA is now paying to store and maintain them at various places nationwide. At one site in Hope, Ark., 10,777 manufactured houses are sitting on runways and in fields.

"The homes are sinking in the mud," according to Skinner's testimony.

He also said that in many cases, FEMA was paying relatively reasonable prices to house evacuees in hotels, but some rooms cost more than $150 a night, and as late as December, FEMA was paying $364 per night for a hotel in San Diego and $339 per night for a New Orleans hotel.

Also yesterday, a federal judge ruled that the agency could stop paying directly for hotel rooms for about 12,000 families left homeless by last year's hurricanes, the Associated Press reported.

FEMA promised the evacuees from hurricanes Katrina and Rita that they will still receive federal rent assistance that they can put toward hotel stays or other housing. But the agency will no longer pay for their hotel rooms directly.

Read More...

Summary only...

Popular Ohio Democrat Drops Out of Race, and Perhaps Politics

The New York Times
Popular Ohio Democrat Drops Out of Race, and Perhaps Politics
By IAN URBINA

Paul Hackett, an Iraq war veteran and popular Democratic candidate in Ohio's closely watched Senate contest, said yesterday that he was dropping out of the race and leaving politics altogether as a result of pressure from party leaders.

Mr. Hackett said Senators Charles E. Schumer of New York and Harry Reid of Nevada, the same party leaders who he said persuaded him last August to enter the Senate race, had pushed him to step aside so that Representative Sherrod Brown, a longtime member of Congress, could take on Senator Mike DeWine, the Republican incumbent.

Mr. Hackett staged a surprisingly strong Congressional run last year in an overwhelmingly Republican district and gained national prominence for his scathing criticism of the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq War. It was his performance in the Congressional race that led party leaders to recruit him for the Senate race.

But for the last two weeks, he said, state and national Democratic Party leaders have urged him to drop his Senate campaign and again run for Congress.

"This is an extremely disappointing decision that I feel has been forced on me," said Mr. Hackett, whose announcement comes two days before the state's filing deadline for candidates. He said he was outraged to learn that party leaders were calling his donors and asking them to stop giving and said he would not enter the Second District Congressional race.

"For me, this is a second betrayal," Mr. Hackett said. "First, my government misused and mismanaged the military in Iraq, and now my own party is afraid to support candidates like me."

Mr. Hackett was the first Iraq war veteran to seek national office, and the decision to steer him away from the Senate race has surprised those who see him as a symbol for Democrats who oppose the war but want to appear strong on national security.

"Alienating Hackett is not just a bad idea for the party, but it also sends a chill through the rest of the 56 or so veterans that we've worked to run for Congress," said Mike Lyon, executive director for the Band of Brothers, a group dedicated to electing Democratic veterans to national office. "Now is a time for Democrats to be courting, not blocking, veterans who want to run."

But Democratic leaders say Representative Brown, a seven-term incumbent from Avon, has a far better chance of toppling Senator DeWine.

"It boils down to who we think can pull the most votes in November against DeWine," said Chris Redfern, chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party. "And in Ohio, Brown's name is golden. It's just that simple."

Mr. Fern added that Mr. Brown's fund-raising abilities made him the better Senate candidate. By the end of last year, Mr. Brown had already amassed $2.37 million, 10 times what Mr. Hackett had raised.

Senator Reid did not reply to repeated requests for comment.

Asked about Mr. Hackett's contention that he had been pressed to leave the Senate race, a spokesman for Mr. Schumer, Phil Singer, said, "We've told both Sherrod Brown and Paul Hackett that avoiding a primary will make it easier to win the Ohio Senate seat, " but he added, "Obviously, the decision to run is Mr. Hackett's and Mr. Hackett's alone."

Mr. Brown declined to comment on Mr. Hackett's candidacy, saying that he was strictly focused on building his own campaign.

Democrats wanted to avoid a drawn-out primary, especially one that could get bruising with a tough-talking outsider like Mr. Hackett.

The Ohio Senate race is regarded as critical to Democratic aspirations to take back Congress in the fall. Aside from focusing on Senator DeWine, the Democrats also hope to win as many as eight House seats in Ohio and the governorship from the Republicans.

Ohio Democrats are hoping to exploit the larger problems plaguing the Republicans. State Republicans have struggled to distance themselves from Gov. Bob Taft, a Republican who cannot run again because of term limits and who was found guilty last summer of four misdemeanor ethics violations. Representative Bob Ney's still-unfolding role in the scandal over the lobbyist Jack Abramoff also looms over the state's Republicans.

Mr. Hackett said he was unwilling to run for the Congressional seat because he had given his word to three Democratic candidates that he would not enter that race.

"The party keeps saying for me not to worry about those promises because in politics they are broken all the time," said Mr. Hackett, who plans to return to his practice as a lawyer in the Cincinnati area. "I don't work that way. My word is my bond."

Jennifer Duffy, who analyzes Senate races for the Cook Political Report, said that part of what made Democratic leaders nervous about Mr. Hackett was what had also made him so popular with voters.

"Hackett is seen by many as a straight talker, and he became an icon to the liberal bloggers because he says exactly what they have wished they would hear from a politician," Ms. Duffy said. "On the other hand, the Senate is still an exclusive club, and the party expects a certain level of decorum that Hackett has not always shown."

Mr. Hackett was widely criticized last year for using indecent language to describe President Bush. Last month, state Republicans attacked Mr. Hackett for saying their party had been hijacked by religious extremists who he said "aren't a whole lot different than Osama bin Laden."

Though Republicans called for an apology, Mr. Hackett repeated the mantra of his early campaign: "I said it. I meant it. I stand behind it."

Read More...

Summary only...

U.S. Royalty Plan to Give Windfall to Oil Companies

The New York Times
U.S. Royalty Plan to Give Windfall to Oil Companies
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 — The federal government is on the verge of one of the biggest giveaways of oil and gas in American history, worth an estimated $7 billion over five years.

New projections, buried in the Interior Department's just-published budget plan, anticipate that the government will let companies pump about $65 billion worth of oil and natural gas from federal territory over the next five years without paying any royalties to the government.

Based on the administration figures, the government will give up more than $7 billion in payments between now and 2011. The companies are expected to get the largess, known as royalty relief, even though the administration assumes that oil prices will remain above $50 a barrel throughout that period.

Administration officials say that the benefits are dictated by laws and regulations that date back to 1996, when energy prices were relatively low and Congress wanted to encourage more exploration and drilling in the high-cost, high-risk deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

"We need to remember the primary reason that incentives are given," said Johnnie M. Burton, director of the federal Minerals Management Service. "It's not to make more money, necessarily. It's to make more oil, more gas, because production of fuel for our nation is essential to our economy and essential to our people."

But what seemed like modest incentives 10 years ago have ballooned to levels that have alarmed even ardent supporters of the oil and gas industry, partly because of added sweeteners approved during the Clinton administration but also because of ambiguities in the law that energy companies have successfully exploited in court.

Short of imposing new taxes on the industry, there may be little Congress can do to reverse its earlier giveaways. The new projections come at a moment when President Bush and Republican leaders are on the defensive about record-high energy prices, soaring profits at major oil companies and big cuts in domestic spending.

Indeed, Mr. Bush and House Republicans are trying to kill a one-year, $5 billion windfall profits tax for oil companies that the Senate passed last fall.

Moreover, the projected largess could be just the start. Last week, Kerr-McGee Exploration and Development, a major industry player, began a brash but utterly serious court challenge that could, if it succeeds, cost the government another $28 billion in royalties over the next five years.

In what administration officials and industry executives alike view as a major test case, Kerr-McGee told the Interior Department last week that it planned to challenge one of the government's biggest limitations on royalty relief if it could not work out an acceptable deal in its favor. If Kerr-McGee is successful, administration projections indicate that about 80 percent of all oil and gas from federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico would be royalty-free.

"It's one of the greatest train robberies in the history of the world," said Representative George Miller, a California Democrat who has fought royalty concessions on oil and gas for more than a decade. "It's the gift that keeps on giving."

Republican lawmakers are also concerned about how the royalty relief program is working out.

"I don't think there is a single member of Congress who thinks you should get royalty relief at $70 a barrel" for oil, said Representative Richard W. Pombo, Republican of California and chairman of the House Resources Committee.

"It was Congress's intent," Mr. Pombo said in an interview on Friday, "that if oil was at $10 a barrel, there should be royalty relief so companies could have some kind of incentive to invest capital. But at $70 a barrel, don't expect royalty relief."

Tina Kreisher, a spokeswoman for the Interior Department, said Monday that the giveaways might turn out to be less than the basic forecasts indicate because of "certain variables."

The government does not disclose how much individual companies benefit from the incentives, and most companies refuse to disclose either how much they pay in royalties or how much they are allowed to avoid.

But the benefits are almost entirely for gas and oil produced in the Gulf of Mexico.

The biggest producers include Shell, BP, Chevron and Exxon Mobil as well as smaller independent companies like Anadarko and Devon Energy.

Executives at some companies, including Exxon Mobil, said they had already stopped claiming royalty relief because they knew market prices had exceeded the government's price triggers.

About one-quarter of all oil and gas produced in the United States comes from federal lands and federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico.

As it happens, oil and gas royalties to the government have climbed much more slowly than market prices over the last five years.

The New York Times reported last month that one major reason for the lag appeared to be a widening gap between the average sales prices that companies are reporting to the government when paying royalties and average spot market prices on the open market.

Industry executives and administration officials contend that the disparity mainly reflects different rules for defining sales prices. Administration officials also contend that the disparity is illusory, because the government's annual statistics are muddled up with big corrections from previous years.

Both House and Senate lawmakers are now investigating the issue, as is the Government Accountability Office, Congress's watchdog arm.

But the much bigger issue for the years ahead is royalty relief for deepwater drilling.

The original law, known as the Deep Water Royalty Relief Act, had bipartisan support and was intended to promote exploration and production in deep waters of the outer continental shelf.

At the time, oil and gas prices were comparatively low and few companies were interested in the high costs and high risks of drilling in water thousands of feet deep.

The law authorized the Interior Department, which leases out tens of millions of acres in the Gulf of Mexico, to forgo its normal 12 percent royalty for much of the oil and gas produced in very deep waters.

Because it take years to explore and then build the huge offshore platforms, most of the oil and gas from the new leases is just beginning to flow.

The Minerals Management Service of the Interior Department, which oversees the leases and collects the royalties, estimates that the amount of royalty-free oil will quadruple by 2011, to 112 million barrels. The volume of royalty-free natural gas is expected to climb by almost half, to about 1.2 trillion cubic feet.

Based on the government's assumptions about future prices — that oil will hover at about $50 a barrel and natural gas will average about $7 per thousand cubic feet — the total value of the free oil and gas over the next five years would be about $65 billion and the forgone royalties would total more than $7 billion.

Administration officials say the issue is out of their hands, adding that they opposed provisions in last year's energy bill that added new royalty relief for deep drilling in shallow waters.

"We did not think we needed any more legislation, because we already have incentives, but we obviously did not prevail," said Ms. Burton, director of the Minerals Management Service.

But the Bush administration did not put up a big fight. It strongly supported the overall energy bill, and merely noted its opposition to additional royalty relief in its official statement on the bill.

By contrast, the White House bluntly promised to veto the Senate's $60 billion tax cut bill because it contained a one-year tax of $5 billion on profits of major oil companies.

The House and Senate have yet to agree on a final tax bill.

The big issue going forward is whether companies should be exempted from paying royalties even when energy prices are at historic highs.

In general, the Interior Department has always insisted that companies would not be entitled to royalty relief if market prices for oil and gas climbed above certain trigger points.

Those trigger points — currently about $35 a barrel for oil and $4 per thousand cubic feet of natural gas — have been exceeded for the last several years and are likely to stay that way for the rest of the decade.

So why is the amount of royalty-free gas and oil expected to double over the next five years?

The biggest reason is that the Clinton administration, apparently worried about the continued lack of interest in new drilling, waived the price triggers for all leases awarded in 1998 and 1999.

At the same time, many oil and gas companies contend that Congress never authorized the Interior Department to set price thresholds for any deepwater leases awarded between 1996 and 2000.

The dispute has been simmering for months, with some industry executives warning the Bush administration that they would sue the government if it tried to demand royalties.

Last week, the fight broke out into the open. The Interior Department announced that 41 oil companies had improperly claimed more than $500 million in royalty relief for 2004.

Most of the companies agreed to pay up in January, but Kerr-McGee said it would fight the issue in court.

The fight is not simply about one company. Interior officials said last week that Kerr-McGee presented itself in December as a "test case" for the entire industry. It also offered a "compromise," but Interior officials rejected it and issued a formal order in January demanding that Kerr-McGee pay its back royalties.

On Feb. 6, according to administration officials, Kerr-McGee formally notified the Minerals Management Service that it would challenge its order in court.

Industry lawyers contend they have a strong case, because Congress never mentioned price thresholds when it authorized royalty relief for all deepwater leases awarded from 1996 through 2000.

"Congress offered those deepwater leases with royalty relief as an incentive," said Jonathan Hunter, a lawyer in New Orleans who represented oil companies in a similar lawsuit two years ago that knocked out another major federal restriction on royalty relief.

"The M.M.S. only has the authority that Congress gives it," Mr. Hunter said. "The legislation said that royalty relief for these leases is automatic."

If that view prevails, the government said it would lose a total of nearly $35 billion in royalties to taxpayers by 2011 — about the same amount that Mr. Bush is proposing to cut from Medicare, Medicaid and child support enforcement programs over the same period.

Read More...

Summary only...

Bush Administration Spent $1.62 Billion on PR

huffingtonpost.com
Bush Administration Spent $1.62 Billion on PR

The nutshell: the Government Accountability Office for the first time did a system-wide study of the federal government's publicity contracts with media professionals (agencies, individuals, etc.) for the past two and a half years, at the request of Congressional Democrats, who released the highlights (pdf file) today. CBS carefully notes, "As no GAO report of this nature has been done in the past, it is impossible to compare and contrast the Bush administration's media contract spending with that of other administrations." But the trade publication Adweek is much less timid.

Trends in spending on PR and ad contracts were not documented, but a prior study by the minority staff of the Government Reform Committee found that spending on public relations contracts rose rapidly under the Bush administration. That report found that spending on contracts with public relations firms had increased to $88 million in 2004 from $39 million in 2000, an increase of 128 percent.

Another trade journal, Broadcasting & Cable, points out the "key finding" that "$50 million (76 contracts) was allocated without competitive bids," and notes "14 contracts for video news releases worth a total $1.4 million." What did we get for our money?

Adweek again:

The PR and ad contracts included providing "expert advice and support in the development of several marriage-related research initiatives," an educational campaign regarding the "Medicare Modernization Act, and its coverage and benefits," and a contract regarding "message development that presents the Army's strategic perspective in the global war on terrorism," the study said. A Food and Drug Administration contract had the objective of warning the public about the "consequences and potential dangers of buying prescription drugs from non-U.S. sources."

And check Raw Story for the most commentary from the Dems.

Read More...

Summary only...

Give Peace a Vote

huffingtonpost.com
Give Peace a Vote
Robert Koehler

A few days after Sept. 11, 2001, Bill Scheurer realized that the nation's soul was in jeopardy. He saw George Bush on TV, standing in the rubble of Ground Zero, whipping the national grief into carte blanche for revenge. Behind him, as the death toll wavered, people held up a banner that screamed: 6,000 MORE REASONS TO KILL THEM ALL.

"That's when I said, 'We're in trouble,'" he told me the other day, describing the journey that has made him a standard-bearer for what has become perhaps the largest bloc of disenfranchised voters in the country: the war-disillusioned. Four-plus years into the Bush version of homeland security, with the blood and the lies seeping into the national psyche, with public revulsion at high simmer, Scheurer is poised to help the peace majority remake American politics.

The anger and horror so many of us have felt about the national direction since we went to war with the rest of the world has shockingly little political traction. No matter how many people oppose Bush's bomb-and-torture show, it continues, the system incapable of shutting it down. The loyal opposition blesses it with endless mush.

Do you support the war effort, Congresswoman?

"The reality is we are there. And right now, Baghdad is not safe for people to walk down the street. We need to make sure that the area is secure, and our military is doing a great job to do just that."

Go Democrats! Cringe. Say nothing.

This was U.S. Rep. Melissa Bean's response last October, after she returned from a five-day trip to Iraq, to an Associated Press reporter's question. Bean, who represents Illinois' 8th District, having unseated archconservative Phil Crane in 2004, has proceeded to blaze a voting record that has gotten her dubbed "Crane lite," backing a healthy chunk of the Bush agenda (CAFTA, the bankruptcy bill, tax cuts for millionaires) and, of course, mouthing wishy-washy support of the war.

Come November, antiwar voters of the 8th District, which is part of the fast-growing, mall-and-subdivision exurbia north of Chicago, will have the choice of voting for Bean or likely Republican challenger David McSweeney, a millionaire former investment banker who "fully supports President Bush in the war on terror." In other words, like voters in much of the rest of the country, they'll have no choice whatsoever.

Unless Bill Scheurer gets on the ballot as an independent.

To listen to Scheurer is to start believing that: A) he means what he says; B) he has a viable shot at winning; and C) his campaign, powered by some 40 volunteers and endorsed so far by two local unions, the Teamsters and the Machinists and Aerospace Workers (both of which have given him the maximum allowable contributions), is one spot where the rubber meets the road in progressive politics - where ideals and pragmatism have joined forces to create . . . possibility.

If campaigns like Scheurer's are a go, Democrats could begin crossing the line back into values politics. What if, folks? What if the hollow, flip-flop Democrats - the ones who are so intimidated by Republicans they renounce their base (gosh, we can't be linked to the loony left) - are held accountable at the national level? What if they're forced, on pain of early retirement, to represent their constituency?

Scheurer, a 55-year-old father of four, former lawyer and tech entrepreneur, a poet, screenwriter and editor of peacemajority.org, speaks with savvy and idealism. He's uncompromising on Iraq: "We have an illegal war of aggression and occupation going on. Our republic is in serious trouble on the issue of war and peace. This is about how we've lost our way."

His campaign is also broad, standing on such core issues as universal health care, a balanced federal budget and the fight against "the attack on working families" (opposing CAFTA and other such trade agreements, tax cuts for the rich and "corporate welfare"). For more info on his campaign, and how to help, check out winwithbill.com.

"Sixty to 70 percent of Americans agree (with these positions) and yet we're totally powerless," he says. "The entire game is rigged." He calls the current two-party system a national "bipolar personality disorder - we're locked into two choices. People don't participate because it's a broken game."

In politics, majorities have to be forged. Scheurer and his volunteers are out there in the trenches doing just that: clarifying issues that cut across the social spectrum, creating a new coalition. Following the March 21 Illinois primary, they have 90 days to get 14,000 signatures within the district to put Scheurer and the tactically named Bring Our Troops Home party on the ballot. Their goal is to get 25,000. "This is our vulnerable period," he acknowledges. The campaign needs as much support right now as it can muster.

In this race between a rich Republican and a substantially financed mainstream Democrat that's likely to hinge on minutiae masquerading as substantive disagreement, one citizen running on real values is dead serious about changing the course of American politics.

Read More...

Summary only...

Cheney's Got a Gun

huffingtonpost.com
Cheney's Got a Gun
Roy Sekoff



Reading about Vice President Cheney's hunting trip mishap put me in mind of the last time Dick and his trusty shotgun made news. It was January 2003, and the Veep flew Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia down to Louisiana so they could duck hunt together -- a trip that took place just three weeks after Cheney had asked the High Court to let him keep the inner workings of his energy task force a secret (the Supremes eventually did just that, kicking the case back to a lower court which ruled Cheney didn't have to come clean).

Cheney didn't shoot anyone in the face on that trip. But he and Scalia did blast a hole in the concept of the public's right to know while proving they don't give a flying duck about the rest of us.

Visit http://www.huffingtonpost.com/roy-sekoff/cheneys-got-a-gun_b_15542.html to see
a short animation me and two friends, Julie Bergman Sender and Tate Hausman, put together to show what we think might have gone down in that bayou duck blind. Click the Play button to check it out.

Read More...

Summary only...

Cheney Should Be Investigated if He Authorized Leak, Democratic and Republican Senators Say

ABC News
Senators Concerned Over CIA Leak Report
Cheney Should Be Investigated if He Authorized Leak, Democratic and Republican Senators Say
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald should investigate Vice President Dick Cheney and others in the CIA leak probe if they authorized an aide to give secret information to reporters, Democratic and Republican senators said Sunday.

Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., called the leak of intelligence information "inappropriate" if it is true that unnamed "superiors" instructed Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, to divulge the material on Iraq.

Sen. George Allen, R-Va., said a full investigation is necessary.

"I don't think anybody should be releasing classified information, period, whether in the Congress, executive branch or some underling in some bureaucracy," said Allen, who appeared with Reed on "Fox News Sunday."

According to court documents disclosed last week, Libby told a federal grand jury that he disclosed in July 2003 the contents of a classified National Intelligence Estimate as part of the Bush administration's defense of intelligence used to justify invading Iraq.

Fitzgerald said in the documents it was his understanding that "Mr. Libby testified that he was authorized to disclose information about the NIE to the press by his superiors."

The White House has refused to comment on the case.

"I think this calls into question in terms of Fitzgerald's investigation of the conduct of the vice president and others," Reed said. "I think he has to look closely at their behavior."

Allen expressed confidence in Fitzgerald, whom he called "a very articulate, professional prosecutor."

"And I think the facts will lead wherever they lead, and I think he will prosecute as appropriate," Allen said.

Libby, 55, was indicted on charges that he lied to FBI agents and the grand jury about how he learned CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity and when he told reporters. He is not charged with leaking classified information.

Read More...

Summary only...

Lawmaker Questions Value of Spy Program

ABC News
Lawmaker Questions Value of Spy Program
Rep. Pete Hoekstra Questions Value of Bush's Domestic Surveillance Program in Wake of Coverage
By NEDRA PICKLER
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The House Intelligence Committee chairman on Sunday questioned the value of President Bush's secret eavesdropping program, saying al-Qaida undoubtedly has changed its means of communication to avoid Washington's monitoring.

Bush said two weeks ago in his State of the Union address that the program of monitoring calls and e-mail between the United States and suspected terrorist associates overseas "remains essential to the security of America." But Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., suggested that the public disclosure of the program's existence in December in the New York Times has undermined its effectiveness.

"Does anyone really believe that, after 50 days of having this program on the front page of our newspapers, across talk shows across America, that al-Qaida has not changed the way that it communicates?" Hoekstra said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Since that disclosure, legal scholars and lawmakers from both parties have questioned whether Bush had the authority to conduct the surveillance without a judge's approval.

By law, a secret court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, is designed to grant warrants for such surveillance. Bush gave the National Security Agency approval to monitor the communications without taking that step.

Hoekstra defended the program's legal standing. He said if Democrats who were briefed on the program before it became public thought the president was breaking the law, they should have tried to stop him.

"If I came out of that briefing and believed that the president was violating the law, I would have gone to the speaker and said, `Mr. Speaker, the president's violating the law,'" Hoekstra said. "`You and I need to go see the president and talk to him and get this issue resolved do it now.'"

Rep. Jane Harman, the leading Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said she did not fully understand the legal underpinnings of the program at the time of the classified briefings and was not free to consult with experts.

Since the monitoring has become public, she has argued that the president broke the law by failing to consult all the members of the intelligence committees, instead of just the leaders.

"Remember, we go into those briefings alone," said Harman, D-Calif. "We have no ability to consult staff. We have no ability to consult constitutional experts or legal experts on the history of FISA. Since the program has been disclosed, I think all of us, or at least I, have become a lot smarter about all of that."

Hoekstra and Harman appeared with two others who were among the few leading lawmakers to be briefed on the program before it became public: Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan. and former Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota, who was the Senate Democratic leader.

The two Republicans Hoekstra and Roberts said Congress does not need to pass further legislation granting specific authority to conduct the eavesdropping because the president had authority under the resolution that lawmakers passed four days after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that authorizing him to take on al-Qaida.

Both Democrats Harman and Daschle said they think the program is valuable and should continue, but said the law should be changed to allow it.

Meantime, Sen. Joseph Biden, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the eavesdropping program should not continue "unabated without any review."

The intelligence committees of Congress should demand to know, in secret session, what the administration is doing, said Biden, D-Del. He said he supports a proposal by the committee chairman, GOP Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, to have the FISA court review the eavesdropping program and decide whether it is legal.

"We cannot say to a president, 'Mr. President, whatever you want to do, under any circumstances, tap anything, and you don't even have to tell us what you're doing.' That is bizarre," Biden told ABC's "This Week."

Read More...

Summary only...