Thursday, January 5, 2006

Scott Ritter : Elections in 2005, Civil War in 2006? [Information Clearing House - News you won't find on CNN] 10:39:22 AM    comment []

Did domestic spying really work?. Did domestic spying really work? [The Raw Story | A rational voice - Alternative news] 10:36:42 AM    comment []

David Sirota: Bush Ignored Explicit Warnings In 2002 About Mine Safety. The tragic news about the death of 12 mine workers this week has brought up all sorts of questions about the Bush administration's record protecting mine workers. Back in 2002, I was working for the House Appropriations Committee. At the time, you may recall there was a big mining accident in Western Pennsylvania. President Bush held a big photo-op to pretend like he cared - but he never responded to the fact sheet that House Democrats put out questioning why he had made so many cuts to mine safety programs. You can view this fact sheet in Microsoft Word right attached to this email (I still have it from my time at the Appropriations Committee). It was released to the media and the administration on August 5, 2002 - the same day Bush did his big photo-op (You can also find this fact sheet at http://www.davidsirota.com/mineworkers.doc). In case the administration claims it didn't remember being warned, check out this excerpt from the big Chicago Tribune story from 6/20/02: "We call on the Bush administration to fully fund the Mine Safety and Health Administration to ensure that coal mines are inspected more thoroughly and that the mine act is enforced more stringently," Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers Association, said in a statement. "It would be cynical to portray himself as the hero of mine safety by simply doing photo ops," said David Sirota, spokesman for Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee. Democrats also released a report from the Labor Department's inspector general--the agency's in-house watchdog--concluding that the Mine Safety and Health Administration was "unable to complete statutorily mandated inspections of ... mine operations," in part because of a lack of inspectors. At a Senate subcommittee hearing last month, lawmakers were told that the Jim Walters Resources mine in Brookwood, Ala., where 13 miners died last September, had 31 outstanding safety violations that went unchecked because of a lack of government inspectors. The mine workers union also has criticized Bush's choice of Stanley Suboleski, an executive at coal operator Massey Energy, to serve on the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission. That agency judges disputes over alleged safety violations. Now, after another bad accident, we find out that since the last accident in 2002, not only did the President ignore calls by Democrats to address the situation seriously, but he actually enacted more cuts to mine safety programs and weakened mine safety regulations. The 2002 fact sheet and the Chicago Tribune story shows that Bush knew full well that mine safety was suffering - and now we know he didn't do anything about it, to tragic consequences. They can put out GOP hacks and administration spokespeople to deny this reality - but the facts are there. Sources: 2002 Pennsylvania mining accident: http://edition.cnn.com/2002/US/07/28/mine.accident/ Bush 2002 photo-op on mine safety: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/08/20020805-1.html Bush enacted more cuts to mine safety programs/regulations after 2002: http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=4612 [The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed] 10:27:35 AM    comment []

O'Reilly vs. Letterman.   And That's Being Generous... "I have the feeling that about 60 percent of what you say is crap." —David Letterman to Bill O'Reilly, 1/3/06 Watch the clip here.... [TomPaine.com] 10:26:39 AM    comment []

Adam McKay: The Man in the Black Hat. Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty Tuesday to three felony counts of conspiracy, fraud and tax evasion. Or, as Republicans call it, "free speech." He did so and then left the courthouse wearing a hat that Snidely Whiplash would have called "too over the top bad guy." I should give Abramoff the benefit of the doubt though. Maybe he had gone to a Hollywood memorabilia auction and bought Scott Glenn's hat from Urban Cowboy and, rather than carry it in a bag, just decided to wear it. And in case you're wondering, the caption for everyone behind him in the photo is "Oh my God. He's doing it. He's really fucking wearing that hat." AP/Gerald Herbert But my favorite part of the whole day was the description from the assistant attorney general of the gifts that Abramoff gave in exchange for votes from various congressmen. Here it is as it read in the New York Times... "At a news briefing this afternoon, Alice Fisher, an assistant attorney general, said Mr. Abramoff offered up gifts to government officials that included an all-expense paid trip to Scotland 'to play golf on a world-famous course, tickets and travel to the Super Bowl in Florida, tickets for concerts and other events in Washington, repeated and regular meals at his upscale restaurant, and campaign contributions." She said he provided these gifts 'with the intent and often with the understanding that his clients would receive the official action they wanted." And, she said, "his actions often produced the official influence that he sought." It is so good to know that our elected officials, who hold an office and a trust given to them by the people in accordance with our more than 200-year-old Constitution will betray that trust and office for... a steak and tickets to a Patriots game. That's right, a cut of meat and a football game. Since when did Dan Jenkins get elected to Congress? Hey guys, if you really, really, really want to go to the Super Bowl you can probably make up a security issue and just go. You're Congressmen. Plus, I'm pretty sure after the second quarter you can just walk in for free at most games. They don't officially say it but the ushers don't care. You don't have to corrupt the whole country. The other big item listed was a golf trip. A golf trip. These politicians are betraying the entire concept of America and democracy for what would be a stage four winner's gift on The Amazing Race. The next thing we'll be told is that Bush is pushing to drill in the Alaskan Wildlife refuge because Exxon gave him a T-Bird shaped VHS tape rewinder. I knew that people liked schwag, but I didn't know they were willing to subvert our government for it. Hey, Tom Delay, if I take you out to dinner at Wolfgang Puck's at the mall can I have a tenth of a vote? The other great "gift" is the vague mention of "concerts." Now we're talking about Congressmen who average in age between 50 and, like, 125, so you know these were not tickets to a Pixies concert, which might be almost worth betraying your country for. These were probably tickets to Celine Dion or the Rolling Stones or Don Henley. That means at some point in the past five years Celine Dion was on stage singing and if you had panned a camera across the crowd you would have seen Tom Delay watching with a giant smile on his face. And maybe, if Celine was on that night, a tear in his eye. This is American democracy in the year 2006. [The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed] 10:25:31 AM    comment []

Coleen Rowley: FISA Not to Blame for Moussaoui Mess. Last month we learned President Bush secretly ordered the National Security Agency to conduct a domestic spy program that entails no judicial oversight. In defense of this controversial program, a number of Republicans rely upon the case of Zacarias Moussaoui as justification for Bush's attack on our privacy and civil liberties. Moussaoui is the only individual to be charged in connection with the 9-11 attacks and has pled guilty but is fighting the death penalty. He contends that he was not directly involved with the attacks on 9-11 but was instead to participate in a second-wave attack. He awaits a "death penalty phase" hearing. Although detained on immigration charges since August 16, 2001, the FBI failed to sufficiently investigate Moussaoui pre 9-11. If searches of his personal effects and laptop had been authorized, Moussaoui's connections to the 9-11 hijackings may have emerged and it is possible that 9-11 could have been prevented. Republican commentators such as William Kristol and Rush Limbaugh claim FISA procedures, and the legal impediments they impose, prevented FBI agents from acting. Consequently, they maintain President Bush is justified in abrogating FISA law to order the NSA to eavesdrop on Americans. As legal counsel to the Minneapolis FBI Division and witness to the entire Moussaoui case, I can tell you that these assertions are not just factually wrong, they miss the real problems that existed within our intelligence gathering superstructure. I wrote a 13 page memo and testified before Congress on these very failures. Yet, some individuals continue to misapply and misrepresent what I said. MYTH #1: THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT DECIDED THERE WAS NOT SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE TO GET A FISA WARRANT TO ALLOW THE INSPECTION OF MOUSSAOUI'S COMPUTER FILES. No evidence whatsoever was presented at any time to the Justice Department of Moussaoui's suspicious flight training and ties with terrorism. The Justice Department's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review, which handles FISA matters, was never contacted. Furthermore, no contact was made either with criminal attorneys in the Department of Justice or with the U.S. Attorney's Office. Therefore, no decision was ever made by Department of Justice personnel regarding the given evidence and its application to FISA or criminal standards. In fact, the subsequent intelligence committees' inquiry, Inspector General investigation, and 9-11 Commission all decided that a sufficient connection between Moussaoui and a foreign power (or international terrorist group) DID EXIST to have satisfied the FISA standard. Likewise, criminal prosecutors advised (after the fact) that they would have proceeded forward to seek a search warrant of Moussaoui's belongings based on the information known in August 2001. As it turned out, faulty interpretations and widely-varying perceptions of FISA procedures, especially what the "FISA wall" entailed, played a big role in the FBI's determination not to contact DOJ, and not to move forward until after the 9/11 attacks occurred. There was also the little problem that the FBI's national security law unit lawyer had not actually read for himself the facts that Minneapolis agents had provided but, instead, had relied upon a short, verbal briefing by the first-line supervisor. When 9-11 happened, however, and it was painfully clear in hindsight that the FBI had botched it, this same lawyer's (the lawyer who had not read it) pronouncement of insufficient probable cause served as a convenient blanket defense to protect all of the underlying governmental incompetence. My 2002 memo punched a hole in that blanket defense and led to some truth being unraveled. The bottom line is that THE FISA LAW ITSELF WAS NOT THE REASON THE FBI FAILED TO INSPECT MOUSSAOUI'S PERSONAL EFFECTS AND COMPUTER FILES. Rather, the faulty interpretations and failure to share and analyze intelligence sufficiently is what enabled Moussaoui to escape further investigation. MYTH #2: ROWLEY DEPICTED THE LEGAL MECHANISM FOR SECURITY WARRANTS UNDER FISA AS BURDENSOME AND RESTRICTIVE, A VIRTUAL ROADBLOCK TO EFFECTIVE LAW ENFORCEMENT. It's true that the "FISA wall" problem did play a role in preventing the effective sharing and analysis of information pre 9-11. But to the extent that the "FISA wall" issue was problematic, (and in fact, there is no denying it was a problem, even if it all turned out to be more a problem of misperception and faulty interpretations), it was remedied when the Patriot Act brought down the "wall" shortly after 9-11 that prevented effective sharing of national security intelligence with criminal investigators and/or criminal attorneys. My original memo to FBI Director Mueller contained a description of "probable cause" as meaning more probable than not, or if quantified, a 51percent likelihood. I believed that the information gathered in August 2001 about Moussaoui satisfied the probable cause standard because a federal district judge did, in fact, find ample probable cause to grant a criminal search warrant on Sept. 11, the day of the attacks. The only material additions were the 9-11 attacks. When I testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee in June, 2002, Sen. (and former U.S. Attorney) Arlen Specter made sure I was aware that probable cause, as viewed in the Gates "totality of the circumstances" test, could be seen as even less than a 51 percent likelihood. The more expansive view of probable cause was subsequently incorporated into FBI General Counsel legal opinions, which means that the minimum threshold of probable cause is even lower than I, and other legal commentators, would have previously thought. MYTH #3: THE FISA PROCESS IS NOT QUICK OR FLEXIBLE ENOUGH TO DETECT AND THWART TERRORISTS. The FISA process has always been a secret process which contains effective emergency provisions. These emergency provisions allow the attorney general enormous power to authorize secret "emergency" electronic surveillance and searches before any court order is granted, or an application is made, for up to 72 hours. No application is even necessary if the surveillance is terminated before the 72 hour "emergency" period ends. In fact, Minneapolis agents were so convinced of the urgency of the situation involving Moussaoui that they requested use of this emergency provision, not the regular FISA process. Unfortunately, this would have required Attorney General Ashcroft, who had just ranked terrorism as his lowest priority in early August 2001, to appreciate the danger and sign off on the "emergency." And it would have required then FBI Acting Director Pickard to take the emergency request to Ashcroft after he (Ashcroft) had rebuked him (Pickard) earlier that summer, as Pickard testified to the 9-11 Commission, saying "he (Ashcroft) didn't want to hear any more about terrorism." Given these circumstances, FBI Headquarters quickly gave up on Minneapolis' request to seek AG approval for use of this emergency provision. But myths aside, Moussaoui did not escape inspection because the FISA law was not permissive enough. And with the further changes wrought by the Patriot Act, bringing down the FISA wall and making the FISA process even more permissive, it is certainly not a good argument for Bush to skirt the law now. [The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed] 10:08:40 AM    comment []

Housing ads for Katrina victims violate federal fair housing law. It is a violation of federal law to publish ads that restrict housing applicants by race, sex, color, religion, or national origin. However, such ads have popped up on several post-Katrina-related websites, including nola.com, the official website of the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Other sites that violate the law are dhronline.org and katrinahousing.org, Katrinahousing.org, in fact, was singled out by FEMA for praise for its contribution in helping with the housing crisis. People will no doubt use the "this is an emergency" excuse to let the offending websites get by, but if we do not protect people's rights during an emergency, what is the point of protecting them at all? FEMA is so out of touch that it comes as no surprise it would praise a site without taking a closer look at it. For the Times-Picayune to publish a site that violates federal fair housing laws, however, is inexcusable and a further embarrassment to New Orleans. The Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center has filed a complaint, and at least one of the sites has closed down. [MoJo Blog] 10:07:39 AM    comment []

Jilted fiancee gave lobbyists to FBI. Jilted fiancee gave lobbyists to FBI [The Raw Story | A rational voice - Alternative news] 10:05:42 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2006 Patricia Thurston.