Bush on econ crisis: I got nothin’

With the US economy in crisis and the markets in something close to freefall Wednesday, the White House let it be known that President Bush would deliver an important statement come Thursday morning. At about a quarter after 10am yesterday, Bush stepped to a lectern placed in the Oval Colonnade and read the following:

The American people are concerned about the situation in our financial markets and our economy, and I share their concerns.

I've canceled my travel today to stay in Washington, where I will continue to closely monitor the situation in our financial markets and consult with my economic advisors. I spoke to Secretary Paulson this morning, and I will meet with him later on today.

In recent weeks, the federal government has taken extraordinary measures to address the challenges confronting our financial markets. We've taken control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- the home finance agencies -- to help promote market stability and to ensure they can continue to play a role in helping our housing market recover. This week, the Federal Reserve acted to prevent the disorderly failure of the insurance company AIG -- a development that could have caused a severe disruption in our financial markets and threatened other sectors of the economy. Yesterday, the Security and Exchange Commission took action to strengthen investor protections and step up its enforcement actions against illegal market manipulation. Last night, the Federal Reserve, in coordination with central banks around the world, took a substantial step to provide additional liquidity to the U.S. financial system.

These actions are necessary, and they're important. And the markets are adjusting to them. Our financial markets continue to deal with serious challenges. As our recent actions demonstrate, my administration is focused on meeting these challenges. The American people can be sure we will continue to act to strengthen and stabilize our financial markets and improve investor confidence.

Thank you.

And that was it. Bush took no questions, and submitted no supplementary materials.

This, of course, is not an important statement—it is a recap. There are no proposals or directions here, no new policies, not even a hint that the president might have a next step up his sleeve. Nothing.

Needless to say, this statement did nothing to calm the markets. What, you say, but the markets rebounded on Thursday—the Dow had its biggest one-day gain in years.

True, but that gain is even more impressive considering that after Bush made his remarks, the Dow had actually continued to fall another 200 points. The late day rally of some 600 points was not because of the US president’s words, but because there was a rumor circulating that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke were close to announcing a plan of their own.

Paulson and Bernanke, along with the recently unpopular SEC head Chris Cox, did meet with Congressional leaders from both parties on Thursday night, but they emerged several hours later with no plan to announce.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said he expected a proposal from the Administration not in days, but “in a matter of hours,” but, as of this writing, there is still nothing to report.

Asian markets are as of now holding their own based on the continuing belief that Treasury and Congress will craft a deal. . . a deal to bail out the multitude of troubled financial institutions.

Should Paulson, Bernanke, et al. disappoint, however, expect to start next week with another round of financial panic.

The problems here are myriad, but let me just focus on one: what are we doing hanging on every word from a disengaged, incurious, and uncaring president; what are we doing betting the house (no pun intended) on a last-minute deal for another stopgap government bailout?

This crisis is not a surprise—none of it. The Bear Stearns collapse was in March; the subprime mortgage bubble burst last year. And yet, the current administration—the CEO President (remember that boast?) and his pro-business brain trust—did nothing to reform the system; they didn’t even do anything to minimize the risk to the system.

Instead, we get the continued privatization of wealth hand-in-hand with the continued socialization of risk. The upper echelons of bank/investment house/insurance industry management continue to be rewarded for pushing financial instruments designed to skirt regulations and maximize short-term gain; when those schemes fail, the government must attempt to walk a lose-lose line between public expenditure and global economic fallout.

President Bush, as evidenced by his “important statement,” has offered zero leadership and zero desire to reform the system. The man who wants to continue his Republican economic policies, John McCain, has looked just as ridiculous. He opposed the AIG bridge loan before he was for it, he proposed a “9/11-style commission” to examine the roots of the crisis while almost simultaneously bragging that, as head of the Senate Commerce Committee, he had a hand in every aspect of this economy, and he claimed he would, if elected, fire SEC Chair Cox, even though he helped confirm him, can’t legally fire him, and won’t get the chance to try because Cox has made it clear he leaves with the current administration—and that was just this week.

It would be amusing if it weren’t so terribly real. Jobs will be lost, life savings will disappear, homes will have to be abandoned. Bush has personal wealth and a federal pension, Wall Street CEOs have gargantuan compensation packages and golden parachutes, and John McCain has his twelve houses and Cindy’s beer money. But American workers (you know, the “strong fundamentals” of the American economy), what do they have?

In too many cases, after decades of market deregulation, tax cuts for the wealthy, and Republican class warfare, they have what Bush had on Thursday morning—nothing.


(cross-posted on The Seminal and Daily Kos)

Roasting an old chestnut

On September 17th, 1787, some 221 years ago today, a bunch of guys got together to sign their names to a little ditty that started something like this:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Yeah, spelling and punctuation was kind of quaint back then, but the rest of the thing holds up pretty well. . . or at least did for about 214 years or so. It was ‘round about then that the current vice president decided that he could form an even more perfect union—a union of his self-serving and paranoid worldview with virtually every aspect of American power and governance.

From drafting an “energy policy” all by his lonesome to manufacturing intelligence and lying the country into a war for oil, from kidnapping people abroad and disappearing them to torturing citizens in the basement of the White House, from abandoning the Geneva Conventions to abrogating the Fourth Amendment, Dick Cheney, with the blessings of his incurious regent patron, unitarily set about to edit away about two-thirds of the United States Constitution.

Well, not quite. As much as the biggest proponent of the unitary executive “theory” would like to think he did it alone, he couldn’t have really made his solo performance hum as well as he has without the cooperation of a furtive and feckless legislature. That the leadership of Congress changed hands two years ago has been of little consequence when it comes to these grand matters, and so, with Cheney due to relinquish his official control in just four short months, the 221-year-old Constitution is in more peril today than ever.

That point might seem odd to some—surely the menace has been two terms of rapacious Republican rule, and with that soon over, so, too, the threat, no?

No. For after eight years of complicity and codification, the current imbalance of power runs the risk of being passed on to another executive with little done to restore the equilibrium between the branches that is required by the Constitution, and nothing done to punish those that disregarded those constraints. That the next administration might be a Democratic one is of little consolation. Perhaps Barack Obama, who was, as we are oft reminded, a teacher of Constitutional law, will govern with a greater respect for the checks and balances envisioned by the founders, but his behavior in the recent battle over FISA revisions proves that such deference cannot be assumed. And without action by the Congress to reveal the Bush Administration’s transgressions, explain them to a distracted America, and hold responsible Cheney, Bush, and their minions, a restoration of the balance of power is most certainly not assured.

For without explanation of how harmful this has been to our Union, there will be little incentive for the next president to behave more in line with the provisions of Articles I, II, III, and, for that matter, IV and V, too, and without penalties assessed against those currently in violation, there will be no disincentive to behaving in much the same way. As has been noted before, there are few that would voluntarily choose to give up some of their power. A belief that this power might be used for good instead of evil makes that prognosis all the more certain. . . and grim.

America’s greatest strength these 221 Constitutionally governed years has been the openness that comes with a deliberative democracy. The push, pull, and pace may often be infuriating, but the informed debate is what keeps a country honest. It allows for a confident dissent and the contributions of a diverse population. It should, in theory, prevent wars of ego and choice, and guard against crony capitalism, selective prosecution, environmental exploitation, and a host of initiatives that benefit the friends of the current executive at the expense of the national interest.

In theory. The history of the US Constitution is littered with its failures, for sure, but those failures tend toward its misapplications or instances where it is not applied at all. Which brings to mind Article II, section 4:

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

If there were ever a day to revisit those words, it would be today; if there were ever a time to honor them, it would be now.

To that end, there are some in Congress who are trying—Democratic Representatives Dennis Kucinich and Robert Wexler come to mind. And, today, Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold (D), as Chair of the Senate Judiciary’s Constitution Subcommittee, will host a celebrity roast, of sorts, in honor of the star document’s birthday. Titled “Restoring the Rule of Law.” Feingold introduced these hearings yesterday:

“Tomorrow, September 17, is the 221st anniversary of the day in 1787 when 39 members of the Constitutional Convention signed the Constitution in Philadelphia," said Feingold in opening the hearings this morning. "It is a sad fact as we approach that anniversary that for the past seven and a half years, and especially since 9/11, the Bush Administration has treated the Constitution and the rule of law with a disrespect never before seen in the history of this country."

Calling the Bush-Cheney shredding of our national creed "a shameful legacy that will haunt our country for years to come," Feingold addressed the difficulty that a new Congress will have in rectifying this administration's actions as the public and even Washington become numb to what Bush has made standard practice since September 11.

Feingold, to my mind, sells short the disrespect that the Bush-Cheney Administration had for the Constitution before 9/11/01, but the Senator fully recognizes the difficulties that lie ahead, especially considering how little support his and likeminded efforts have received from his own party’s leadership. Given that sorry state of affairs, and given the noise of the presidential election and the needs of a failing economy, I am not expecting much to come of Feingold’s hearings.

And that is a shame (and I mean that in the most condemnatory tone), for it will be harder to make the aggressive, long term changes to our financial markets, or our economy writ large, our energy policy, our national infrastructure, or our foreign policy, without the structures and strictures put in place 221 years ago. Not that it will be easy with them, but without the balance that has modernized and energized this Republic for two centuries, the rule of law is reduced to the whims of men and women. Any of those leaders will prove to be imperfect—even those that embody the hopes and good will of the majority are susceptible to the corrupting influences of power, the recalcitrance of institutions, the blindness of certitude, and the sway the interested few. It is the Constitution that protects the general welfare against misguided whims, that gives mere mortals the counterweight to politicized pressure, that gives the imperfect a means by which to become more perfect.

It is a 221-year-old idea—the idea of three co-equal branches each asserting their power equally and in the open—that gives a large and aging country the tools to make the change we need.


(cross-posted on The Seminal and Daily Kos)

A few words about a few words

WASHINGTON — A Justice Department plan would loosen restrictions on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to allow agents to open a national security or criminal investigation against someone without any clear basis for suspicion, Democratic lawmakers briefed on the details said Wednesday.

. . . .

The senators said the new guidelines would allow the F.B.I. to open an investigation of an American, conduct surveillance, pry into private records and take other investigative steps “without any basis for suspicion.” The plan “might permit an innocent American to be subjected to such intrusive surveillance based in part on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, or on protected First Amendment activities,” the letter said. It was signed by Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.

As the end of the Bush administration nears, the White House has been seeking to formalize in law and regulation some of the aggressive counterterrorism steps it has already taken in practice since the Sept. 11 attacks.

. . . .

The Democratic senators said the draft plan appeared to allow the F.B.I. to go even further in collecting information on Americans connected to “foreign intelligence” without any factual predicate. They also said there appeared to be few constraints on how the information would be shared with other agencies.

[emphasis added]

The story speaks for itself, except in one paragraph. That would be the third one excerpted above. It is subtle—I actually missed it the first time I read the story—but it is as powerful and insidious as it is sloppy and wrong.

See it?

. . . the White House has been seeking to formalize in law and regulation some of the aggressive counterterrorism steps it has already taken in practice since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Since the story itself will point out toward its end that the Bush-era Justice Department has shown no evidence that these methods work, they are not “aggressive counterterrorism steps”—they are just aggressively intrusive and patently counter to the Constitution.

And, when is the establishment going to give up the canard about the administration’s illegal spying starting after the attacks of 9/11/01. There is evidence, submitted in open court, upheld by a judge (and mentioned in many of my posts, including this one), which confirms that the White House went to the nation’s telecommunications giants within weeks of Bush’s first inauguration. This is not a counterterrorism program implemented as a response to September 11th—this is a premeditated policy by this administration to go around the Constitution in order to collect information on Americans without court order or congressional oversight. This is not an issue of striking a balance between law enforcement and civil rights—there is no law enforcement intended here, and you don’t get to decide how much to abrogate the US Constitution.

Shame on the White House for committing these egregious abuses. Shame on Congress for abdicating their responsibilities to stop it. And, shame on the New York Times for perpetuating the administration-generated myth that this abuse is somehow a counterterrorism tactic.


(cross-posted on The Seminal and Daily Kos)

In the “war on terror,” looking for the “right front” makes diplomacy take a back seat

In her recent AlterNet column, Iliana Segura gets a lot right:

If the United States really wants to improve the situation in Afghanistan, it should start by ending the occupation. It should then cough up money for humanitarian aid and reconstruction. (One estimate puts the tab at $10 billion.) This is not just for the sake of Afghanistan, but for the sake of Americans as well, who are no safer today than they were when the planes hit the towers. Ending the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan is the first, crucial step in that elusive goal of "winning hearts and minds" that the United States claims to be so committed to in the region. As Iraq has demonstrated, occupying armies are not a deterrent to terrorism. Occupying armies breed terror.

Most important, it's time to stop thinking of Afghanistan as the "right front" of the so-called "War on Terror" -- an idea that has been perpetuated by everyone from Barack Obama to Jon Stewart (who idiotically told Colin Powell in 2005, "the Afghanistan war, man did I dig that. I'd like to go again") -- and start questioning the legitimacy of the "War on Terror" itself. It is an idea that has been utterly and catastrophically discredited, most recently by the most unlikely of institutions, the RAND Corporation, which recently released a report that undermined the notion that soldiers can fight a "war on terror."

"Terrorists should be perceived and described as criminals, not holy warriors, and our analysis suggests that there is no battlefield solution to terrorism," wrote Seth Jones, the lead author of the study. "Military force has rarely been the primary reason for the end of terrorist groups, and few groups within this time frame achieved victory."

If the RAND Corporation, a think tank that traditionally operates in the service of war-making, no longer believes in the "War on Terror," why on Earth should we?

As did Nicholas Kristof (citing the same Rand research) in Saturday’s New York Times:

Our intuitive approach to fighting terrorists and insurgents is to blow things up. But one of the most cost-effective counterterrorism methods in countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan may be to build things up, like schooling and microfinance. Girls’ education sometimes gets more bang for the buck than a missile.

A new study from the RAND Corporation examined how 648 terror groups around the world ended between 1968 and 2006. It found that by far the most common way for them to disappear was to be absorbed by the political process. The second most common way was to be defeated by police work. In contrast, in only 7 percent of cases did military force destroy the terrorist group.

I absolutely concur with Segura and Kristof that it is time to refocus efforts on aid, reconstruction, and negotiations, as I would concur with the Rand study (and some past presidential candidates) that fighting terrorists is best done by fighting crime rather than fighting wars. And, while I am not entirely ready to pass judgment on a complete withdrawal of every NATO body from Afghanistan, I would like to again go on record and restate that I thoroughly opposed the original invasion in 2001. At the time, it was instantly apparent to me—a person that witnessed the World Trade Center attacks and aftermath at close range—that the Bush Administration’s efforts (for lack of a better term) with regard to Afghanistan were all about revenge, domestic politics, and personal face-saving—and nothing else—and it amazed then (as it still does) that so many of my compatriots on this side of the political spectrum somehow thought this particular Bush war to be appropriate or well-considered.

As history has proven, the Bush Administration had no interest in the imminent threat posed by Osama bin Laden back in the spring and summer of 2001—just ask Richard Clarke. What’s more, as was very apparent at the time, the White House had little serious interest in unseating the Taliban prior to 9/11/01. The political and religious repression didn’t trigger action; nor did the misogyny. The shelling of the Buddhas of Bammiyan inspired as much of a response from Washington as did the bombing of the USS Cole—that is to say, none. In fact, soon after the Buddhas were destroyed, the Bush Administration sent $43 million to the Taliban for what was billed as “poppy eradication.”

Both prior to and after the attacks of September 11, the Taliban approached the US with offers to handover bin Laden—either directly or to a third-party country. Between mid-September of 2001 and the start of the bombing of Afghanistan, Taliban spokesmen made attempts to open negotiations with the US—offering to alternately give up the al Qaeda leader if there was “proof” that he planned the 9/11 hijackings, or turn bin Laden over to a third country pending investigation—only to be dismissed without consideration by a Bush Administration hot for a hot war.

None of this is meant to discount the horrors of life under Taliban rule for the peoples of Afghanistan. I was very distraught prior to 9/11/01 that the US wasn’t doing more—with regards to diplomacy, sanctions, and pressure on allies—to dislodge the mullahs. But if you want to argue that it would have been somehow morally repugnant to negotiate with the Taliban in 2001, I would ask what you propose to do about stanching a resurgent Taliban today.

Kristof again:

“There is no battlefield solution to terrorism,” the [Rand] report declares. “Military force usually has the opposite effect from what is intended.”

The next president should absorb that lesson and revalidate diplomacy as the primary tool of foreign policy — even if that means talking to ogres.

That last point sounds like an endorsement of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama—and it very well may be—but Obama has also made it a point to advocate for an increased military presence in Afghanistan. While that might sound politically palatable and imminently pragmatic, it could well turn out to be counterproductive. It will be hard for any US leader, even one as naturally tactful as Obama, to maximize diplomatic efforts while still accepting the ineffective “war on terror” frame. Our next president should wholly embrace a proactive strategy of negotiated security instead of indulging in the reactive tactics of mechanized war.


(cross-posted on Daily Kos and The Seminal)

A heartbreaking work of staggering cynicism

There have been many terrible, abhorrent, un-American, unacceptable, and unconstitutional laws passed over the last seven-and-a-half years (The Patriot Act, the AUMF, and the Military Commissions Act come immediately to mind), but today’s vote to codify the Bush Administration’s illegal surveillance program could top them all.

I have many reasons to feel that way; only one of which is the red raw emotion and strong sense of betrayal I feel as a Congress supposedly controlled by Bush’s opposition bends over backwards to give a president with a record low approval rating everything he could have ever wanted—even after so many of the Democrats’ own rank and file worked so hard for so long to fight the villainous activities of Republican rule.

As Senator Russ Feingold has pointed out, there are numerous ways in which this bill seriously erodes our Constitutional protections against unlawful search and seizure. The law provides little protection against reverse targeting, no prohibition of bulk collections, a giant loophole that allows intelligence agencies to spy without FISC approval virtually without end, no limits on the use of illegally obtained evidence in court, and few protections for citizens inside the US that correspond with parties outside of our borders.

As I have written in the past, the debate about changes to FISA has gone forward with little respect for what should now be common knowledge: The Bush Administration began its expansion of warrantless domestic surveillance within weeks of taking office—seven months before the attacks of 9/11/01. This is almost certainly (you know what, never mind “almost”—it is certainly) a program or collection of programs designed with an intent other than protecting America from foreign terrorists, and likely has made the fight to shield America from future violent acts more difficult.

There have been published accounts of how the Bush Administration used spy agencies to investigate journalists and their contacts. I would deem it likely that the White House used illegally obtained information to target Democratic politicians and civil organizations. It is even believed that the hospital contretemps between John Ashcroft, Andy Card, James Comey, and Alberto Gonzales was provoked by White House orders to illegally use intelligence agencies to spy on American citizens inside the US without a court order.

Also noted in the past, a majority of Americans oppose retroactive immunity and warrantless domestic surveillance. Democrats who fall in with the Bush Administration today are actually not only stepping on the Constitution, they are stepping across the line that divides the will of the American people from the interests of wealthy telecom executives and a political party that is bracing for record losses this November.

Many Democrats will also vote today to side with Bush and Cheney against the judgment of what’s left of this country’s independent judiciary, which, almost every step of the way, has tried to uphold the Fourth Amendment, force adherence to the original FISA restrictions, and insist that the White House turn over evidence explaining the timing and scope of their illegal spying endeavors.

Congress and the President will also be ignoring the advice of countless constitutional scholars who, like Jonathan Turley, have labeled this bill an act of “political convenience—not compromise” that shows “not an ounce” of respect for the Fourth Amendment. Democrats today will also turn a deaf ear to the calls of noted Americans such as Studs Terkel, who, having experienced nefarious government repression himself, has challenged the leadership to let other Americans who believe that they have had their rights abridged have their day in court.

And it is that day in court, and the very real probability that with the passage of this devilish capitulation none of us will have one, that has me thinking this the very darkest day of a very dark decade. Without a loyal opposition loyal to the interests of the American people, or a body of elected officials loyal to the oath that they took to protect and defend the Constitution, without a professionally (as opposed to ideologically) staffed Justice Department loyal to the rule of law instead of to the man that approved their hires, it is only through concerned citizens and through the civil courts that any of us can hope to uncover what really took place behind the thick, green glass of the Oval Office or inside the slick marble corridors of power that crisscross the Capitol.

If we are ever to know the who, what, where, when, and how of the Bush Administration’s illegal domestic spying program, we will need the civil suits currently making their way through the federal courts to go forward. It is the cessation of this process—first, foremost, and forever—that drives the urgency Bush and his enablers convey every time they address FISA. Indeed, President Bush has vowed to veto any bill that does not include retroactive immunity for the telecoms, and, by fiat, for him and his staff, too. He could get every other radically permissive spy tool he has ever sought, but without retroactive immunity, he has no interest in making this bill law.

And with the granting of this immunity by his own presidential pen, with a big thank you to Democrats Jay Rockefeller, Steny Hoyer, and many, many more, that Bush will make sure that American citizens’ options for justice will be severely and permanently limited. While any of the other aspects of this law could, theoretically, be revisited by the next Congress—while any of the other egregious laws passed during the Bush presidency can be (again, theoretically) revised, reformed, or overturned by a future Congress working with a different executive—once the government grants immunity, it cannot move to take it back. Retroactive immunity might be permissible, but retroactive criminalization is prohibited by the Constitution.

It is that irreversibility, that unredeemable point, that has me so inconsolably bereft today. Though looking up the page forbids me from saying that I am left without words, looking forward to an America without as many Fourth Amendment protections or without the same respect for the law that existed prior to this vote does leave me without any good explanation. It is a vote that can only be seen through the lens of beltway myopia, a political calculation born of cynicism and hubris. Democratic leaders might think that they are moving forward, putting a difficult national security issue behind them before the November election, but this is a giant step back, a closing of the door on years of actions that so badly need to be brought out into the open, without so much as a glimmer of hope.


(cross-posted on The Seminal and Daily Kos)

Urgent plea: John McCain caught in endless loop of his own circular logic—can you help?

Some jokes, as they say, write themselves. . .

The Politico has posted the new! improved! Jobs for America: The McCain Economic Plan, and this can be found on page four:

The McCain administration would reserve all savings from victory in the Iraq and Afghanistan operations in the fight against Islamic extremists for reducing the deficit. Since all their costs were financed with deficit spending, all their savings must go to deficit reduction.

So, let me see if I have this right: assuming he can claim victory in this long struggle where victory cannot be defined, and McCain ends a deployment that he believes might require another 100 years, he is going to take the money not added to the deficit that was never included in the annual budget to pay down the budget deficit.

This is an argument so absurdly twisted back on itself that it almost lies outside the bounds of basic written language to debunk it. (At this moment, I have an image of comedian Lewis Black shivering with rage, screaming, “If it weren’t for my horse, I wouldn’t have spent that year in college!” But, honestly, that statement contains far more logic than McCain’s.)

Let’s put it this way: If all of the wars’ “costs” have been “financed with deficit spending” (“costs” “financed” by “spending”? oh, never mind) and you somehow miraculously end the wars (even though you have no intent to do so, and no plan as to how if you did), then you don’t actually get money back—you just stop adding to the deficit!

Now I guess you could call that deficit reduction of a sort—stopping the making it larger—if those expenditures had actually ever been counted against the revenue stream in the annual budget. . . except, of course, they never were. The Bush Administration has financed its folly via supplementals—which, at the president’s insistence, have never been included in the calculations of the annual federal budget.

And who voted for those supplementals every single time? Who never so much as made a peep or raised a finger in protest? Who went along with the Bush Administration’s irresponsible and dishonest ploy every step of the way and, even today, continues to tow the Bush line on the Iraq fiasco?

For the sake of the rhetorical device and “the google,” I will tell you. The man who has supported the Bush war and the Bush budget the last five years, and has pledged to carry on the occupation with no new plan to end it and no meaningful pledge to honestly finance it, is none other than long-time Republican Senator and presidential wannabe John McCain.

And you know, as comical as that first plank up there is, the next paragraph is perhaps just as stupid:

A one-year spending pause. Freeze non-defense, non-veterans discretionary spending for a year and use those savings for deficit reduction. A one-year pause in the growth of discretionary spending will be imposed to allow for a comprehensive review of all spending programs. After the completion of a comprehensive review of all programs, projects and activities of the federal government, we will propose a plan to modernize, streamline, consolidate, reprioritize and, where needed, terminate individual programs.

A pause? You mean like the pause we’re supposedly enjoying in Iraq these days? Will the jobless rate, inflation, the crumbling infrastructure, Medicare costs, or a host of other national priorities too long ignored pause while you waste the first year of your presidency (and all of our time) figuring out what you are going to do?

What has John McCain been thinking about during the last year while he ran to take over for George W. Bush—not to mention what was he thinking about over the last eight years? Did he not think that maybe Americans might want to know what he planned to do before they voted? After he’s sworn in, he expects us to wait another year while he studies the situation—man, talk about not being ready on “day one.”

Besides, while he pauses, the military budget will continue to grow—he says so right there—and since there is no actual plan in the McCain “plan” to increase revenue (beyond the cutting of waste that apparently he plans to add to his own budget in order to cut it—yes, this sounds like paragraph one to me, too), the deficit will grow larger than the one his review will be studying. . . unless, of course, they plan to “finance” the extra spending with additional pork inserted into the budget in advance of the cut.

Hey, don’t laugh—it’s not really a joke. . .

. . . it’s actually his plan!

If John McCain isn’t willing to propose a serious solution during his remaining time in the Senate, I see no reason to consider him as a leader somewhere down the line.

But that’s linear thinking, a form of logic apparently alien to John McCain.


(cross-posted on Daily Kos and The Seminal)

“Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From Air Force Prisoners of War” or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Torture

I’m mixing my movie metaphors, I’m afraid. The headline is a reference to Dr. Strangelove, but an article in today’s New York Times is more reminiscent of The Manchurian Candidate.

Well, part of it, anyway.

The part where the Chinese commandant brainwashes Americans such as Laurence Harvey (never mind that accent) and Frank Sinatra.

I don’t know if Richard Condon had seen the article titled Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From Air Force Prisoners of War which was published two years before his novel The Manchurian Candidate came out in 1959, but I could not read the Times article without flashing on the 1962 film.

The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”

What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.

The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The chart was part of collection of documents made public a couple of weeks ago at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, but the connection to the Chinese version was not realized till an independent interrogation expert pointed it out to the New York Times. This chart, mind you, was taken verbatim from the Chinese version as published a half-century ago—only the title at the top was changed before the thing was brought down to Guantanamo to train interrogators there.

The 1957 article from which the chart was copied was entitled “Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From Air Force Prisoners of War” and written by Alfred D. Biderman, a sociologist then working for the Air Force, who died in 2003. Mr. Biderman had interviewed American prisoners returning from North Korea, some of whom had been filmed by their Chinese interrogators confessing to germ warfare and other atrocities.

Those orchestrated confessions led to allegations that the American prisoners had been “brainwashed,” and provoked the military to revamp its training to give some military personnel a taste of the enemies’ harsh methods to inoculate them against quick capitulation if captured.

In 2002, the training program, known as SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape, became a source of interrogation methods both for the C.I.A. and the military. In what critics describe as a remarkable case of historical amnesia, officials who drew on the SERE program appear to have been unaware that it had been created as a result of concern about false confessions by American prisoners.

Is it historical amnesia, or is it willful ignorance? I gotta ask, because this is hardly the first piece of evidence we’ve had that the Bush Administration adopted a policy of torturing detainees using techniques repeatedly proven to be ineffective, and, most likely, counterproductive. Techniques that were also known to be in direct conflict with standing American policy and the Geneva Conventions. Techniques that were repeatedly labeled as torture and/or “brainwashing” by the US government throughout the previous six decades.

And, perhaps it is not only the administration apparatchiks who have pretended that they know nothing.

Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said after reviewing the 1957 article that “every American would be shocked” by the origin of the training document.

“What makes this document doubly stunning is that these were techniques to get false confessions,” Mr. Levin said. “People say we need intelligence, and we do. But we don’t need false intelligence.”

Every American—and apparently Senator Levin—would be shocked, shocked, to discover that there is torture going on in American-run establishments.

Would be shocked? Who is going to make sure that they are shocked, Senator? Who is going to shout it from the highest hill? Who is going to cut off funding to the prisons and programs that practice these cruel and inhuman techniques? Who is going to hold the perpetrators and their bosses accountable for this historical amnesia? Who is going to overturn the now thoroughly discredited Military Commissions Act? Who is going to restore Habeas rights so that more about the sub-human practices inside the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld gulag system can come to light?

I’m sorry, I’m being a little rhetorical. Perhaps I’m overacting a bit. Just imagine I’m Sinatra in high dudgeon, rendered in Black and White (lord knows I do sometimes).

The bottom line here is that the Bush Administration’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” were never about keeping America safe—there was far too much evidence in the public and classified record that demonstrated just how counterproductive this torture was and is. Maybe it was about an executive power grab, maybe it was done out of cowardice, panic, or shear vindictiveness, but let no one claim it was done to gain the advantage in the War on Terror™—that just isn’t credible.

As fans of the book or movie know, things in The Manchurian Candidate don’t end well. The “brainwashing” is exposed, there is a psychotic break or two, much Oedipal drama, and a great deal of blood is spilled. After seven-and-a-half years of torture, bloodshed, and Oedipal drama, is it really so shocking to discover another disgusting misuse of executive authority? And, is it really too much to ask that someone in the loyal opposition takes to heart Laurence Harvey’s final words? (No, nut-o-sphere, not his final deeds—just his words.)

You couldn't have stopped them, the Army couldn't have stopped them. So I had to.

(cross-posted on The Seminal and Daily Kos)

FISA: the worst of times

As the House leadership stumbles toward tumbling on FISA—giving the Bush Administration pretty much everything it has sought in this fight—I would like to urge those who are not regular readers of Glenn Greenwald to take a look at a few recent posts—first, because they say things that I have consistently found central to this debate as I have thought and written about it over the past couple of years, and second, because they say it so damn well.

Let me give you a taste of just a few of the central points.

On Friday, after President Bush held a presser to once again dissemble and fear-monger about warrantless surveillance (I posted some video of it here), Greenwald caught the president in a rare instance of frankness:

. . . Bush is finally being candid about the real reason the administration is so desperate to have these surveillance lawsuits dismissed. It's because those lawsuits are the absolute last hope for ever learning what the administration did when they spied on Americans for years in violation of the law. Dismissal via amnesty would ensure that their spying behavior stays permanently concealed, buried forever, and as importantly, that no court ever rules on the legality of what they did. Isn't it striking how that implication of telecom amnesty is never discussed, and how little interest it generates among journalists -- whose role, theoretically, is to uncover secret government actions?

It is, I suppose, comforting to know that the president has finally cottoned to what we all knew last fall.

Greenwald’s Sunday post observed that nothing so well exemplifies our political shift to the right than the debate over FISA. We forget today just how much of a departure the original FISA act was from our previous expectations of Constitutionally protected privacy. Imagine, a secret court where only the government is allowed to present evidence and only the executive branch and small number in Congress are ever privy to the court’s findings—does that sound like America to you?

It sure didn’t to many at the time. For instance, conservative NYT columnist, and former Nixon speechwriter, William Safire, who called FISA “the most sweeping authorization for the increase and abuse of wiretapping and bugging in our history.”

The telecom industry, which, back in 1977, went by the name “AT&T,” was also opposed to the process because it compelled them to cooperate with any order from the attorney general that was affirmed by the FISC. As described by Greenwald, this law turned Ma Bell into an active arm of Big Brother. As also noted on Sunday, the fact that the history shows that telcos have always been compelled to obey a FISC-ordered warrant lays waste to Bush Administration claims that without full amnesty, telecoms would be less inclined to help the government.

The confluence of Bush’s accidental candor and Greenwald’s careful excavation of the history does then beg the bigger question: What do Bush and his black-baggers have to hide?

As this chart (again, h/t Glenn) shows, FISC almost never refuses to issue a warrant. As the history shows, with a warrant, the telecom industry is compelled to cooperate. So, what does the White House want to do—more to the point, what have they been doing—that is so outside the bounds of the super-secretive and wildly permissive original FISA law?

Actually, the answer seems fairly clear to me. There has already been evidence of pre-9/11 spying introduced in court. There have already been published accounts of the current administration using spy agencies to pursue journalists and their contacts. And, there is ample documentation that the NSA has had most of the telecoms build splitters into their systems that would send copies of every electronic communication that passed though the network to the spy agency.

What would make a FISC judge blanche? What would give an entire justice department pause—as happened back when Abu Gonzales, Andy Card, James Comey, and John Ashcroft had their little hospital room contretemps? Let’s hazard a guess: Spying on United States citizens inside the United States without going through the standard warrant process in traditional courts as outlined in the US criminal code.

I get this. Greenwald gets this. I even suspect that you, dear reader, get this. So, the question is, why doesn’t the Democratic Leadership get this? (And, of course, why doesn’t the establishment media get this—or, at least, care? But that is almost a rhetorical question at this point.)

Which bring us to Glenn’s most recent FISA-related column.

Greenwald has long ago written off the desire of most of our Congressional leaders to stand up for the rights of Americans, to stand against an increased permissiveness under a new FISA, to stand against amnesty for the telcos and, in all reality and obviousness, the Bush Administration, and to stand with the majority of Americans who oppose warrantless surveillance and telecom immunity. Some electeds actually side with Bush, some want to cover their own tracks, and many just don’t grasp why this is important (or, some just don’t grasp it at all). But what baffles Greenwald, and has baffled me and so many others in the past as it does now, is why then have the Democrats played this fight as they have? These are professional politicians—if they wanted to simply score a political point, then why have they failed so miserably?

[W]hat is somewhat baffling in all of this is just how politically stupid and self-destructive [the Democratic Leadership’s] behavior is. If the plan all along was to give Bush everything he wanted, as it obviously was, why not just do it at the beginning? Instead, they picked a very dramatic fight that received substantial media attention. They exposed their freshmen and other swing-district members to attack ads. They caused their base and their allies to spend substantial energy and resources defending them from these attacks.

And now, after picking this fight and letting it rage for weeks, they are going to do what they always do -- just meekly give in to the President, yet again generating a tidal wave of headlines trumpeting how they bowed, surrendered, caved in, and lost to the President. They're going to cast the appearance that they engaged this battle and once again got crushed, that they ran away in fear because of the fear-mongering ads that were run and the attacks from the President. They further demoralize their own base and increase the contempt in which their base justifiably holds them (if that's possible). It's almost as though they purposely picked the path that imposed on themselves all of the political costs with no benefits.

Even with their ultimate, total compliance with the President's orders, they're still going to be attacked as having Made Us Less Safe -- by waiting weeks to capitulate, rather than doing so immediately, they opened up critical intelligence gaps, caused us to lose vital intelligence, made us less safe, etc. But now, they have no way to defend themselves against those accusations because, at the end of the day, they are admitting that the President was right all along, that telecom amnesty and warrantless eavesdropping are good and important things that the President should have had all along. So why didn't they just give it to him before the law expired? It was a loss for them on every level.

I doubt there are very many Americans who expect at this point that the Democratic leadership will take a stand against the President due to any actual beliefs. But shouldn't politicians be at least a little bit shrewd about their own political self-interest? As craven and ugly as their capitulation will be, the political "strategy" they chose is actually just more self-destructive than it is anything else. Obviously, they have no real political principles, but don't they have any strategic instinct at all?

Well, at this point, Glenn can’t answer it. And neither can I.

Please sir, can I have some more?

I suppose you want your FISA update, don’t you?

Well, Tuesday saw the House vote out a 15-day extension of the PAA before they go the hell out of Dodge. That leaves this again up to the Senate, specifically the Senate Republicans, who now have to do a small twist (rather than a full pivot) if they want to accept for a fortnight what they just yesterday swore they would not.

I expect that Senate Republicans, with a gleeful push from some of our less bright Democrats, will agree to the extension. And though this will probably permit a period during which the Senate will consider amendments to the miserable SSCI FISA bill, the chance of any of the truly good amendments passing are slim.

If, by some miracle, any one of a number of these amendments is accepted, it might render the bill unsignable in the eyes of President Bush. Which, again, would be pretty much a victory from my standpoint—assuming Democrats are willing to say “shut up” to what will almost certainly be a pathetic whining from the White House and its spook-happy allies about how vulnerable this Democratic need for oversight and accountability would make us.

Of course, it wouldn’t make us the least bit vulnerable, as Democratic Representative from New Jersey Rush Holt explains (as transcribed by Glenn Greenwald):

[Even if the Protect America Act] expires, a perfectly satisfactory eavesdropping framework called "FISA" is already in place, along with the PAA's authorization that any programs begun under it can continue for one year after expiration.

(Greenwald also has video of Holt)

Holt even opposed the 15-day extension of the PAA, favoring its expiration if the Senate won’t take up the House version of the act (which, again, is far superior to the SSCI version). And Holt is right to do so—the PAA is a black mark on our nation’s history, not to mention a low point in the history of the supposedly Democratic controlled 110th Congress. As Greenwald reminds us:

With all the focus on the travesty of telecom amnesty, it has been easy to forget just how Draconian the Protect America Act really is, how radical are the warrantless eavesdropping powers it vested in the President. In essence, that bill allowed the Government to eavesdrop on every single international telephone call made or received by an American with no restrictions or judicial oversight whatsoever, and further empowered the Government to read every international email sent or received by an American with no restrictions or judicial oversight.

I also believe (as I previously explained) that the PAA has basically made each and every one of our e-mails fair game for warrantless surveillance—no matter where they go or who their from. In fact, the FISA regime, or lack thereof, under the PAA has likely cast so big a net that it has (as has been previously reported it would) overwhelmed our analysts with too much noise to provide anything resembling actionable intelligence on terrorism. It does, however, give this administration all the tools necessary to repress dissent, undermine a free press, and do opposition research on political opponents.

Don’t trust me. It’s already happened. Just ask Lawrence Wright. The Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Looming Tower has pretty good evidence that his phones were tapped starting in 2002. (And that was under a less permissive FISA structure.)

No, you don’t have to trust me—but why would you ever trust the Bush-Cheney Administration? As Senator Russ Feingold explains in the Greenwald piece that I link to above, “trust us” is all the assurance the White House ever gives, and all the oversight they will accept. After all that has happened in the last seven years, however, it is the last version of “oversight” that the Democrats in Congress should accept.

Nor should they have to. Practically no one in the country trusts this administration anymore. Everyone knows they have a penchant for secrecy and a complete disrespect for the rule of law. Everyone knows they are alternately venal and incompetent. And vast majorities of Americans rate the president and practically everything his government does as just plain awful.

Every time that Bush has spoken over the past three years or so, his popularity has gone down. So let him rant and wail; let him demand a FISA law with provisions that polls show a majority of Americans reject. Let the PAA expire and do so in the name of our Constitutionally guaranteed rights, have the gumption to stand up to telecom lobbyists, their bought-and-paid-for legislators, and an unpopular, lame-duck president, and I promise you good things will come. (Fail to stand up, and most likely bad things will come. Does the Democratic leadership not remember how their PAA “blink” was received last August?)

No one sided with the proprietors of the workhouse in Oliver Twist. No one thought, “That cheeky boy, why is he not happy with his one glorious bowl of gruel? How dare he make noise!”

Instead of meekly accepting another bowl PAA/FISA gruel, why not look down Pennsylvania Avenue and demand more of something much more fulfilling? Please sir, can we have some checks and balances, proper oversight, our Constitutionally guaranteed rights to privacy and due process—can we have more of those? Ask for that, instead of cowering to the politics of fear, and the American people will eat it up.


(cross-posted on The Seminal and Daily Kos)

Are you ready for some filibuster?

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) will take the floor of the US Senate today and engage in the first old-fashioned, “talk until you’re blue in the face,” “hold the floor and refuse to yield” filibuster in fifteen years. Why? Let’s just say the Sen. Dodd is rising to protect a little something I like to call The United States Constitution.

The Senate takes up debate of the latest revision to the FISA law today, and though what lead us to this point could take the better part of filibuster to understand, let me summarize by saying that the issue at hand that has motivated Dodd to rise in objection is the issue of granting retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that broke federal law in order to help the Bush Administration illegally spy on American citizens inside the United States.

That it has come to this is tragic for so many reasons, not the least of which is the perplexing readiness of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to ignore a hold placed by Dodd on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence version of the bill which contains immunity. That the SSCI, chaired by alleged Democrat Jay Rockefeller (WV), reported out a FISA bill that included retroactive immunity represents another titanic failure of the Democrats to show leadership and provide the constitutionally mandated check against Bush executive branch abuses of power.

Yet, in the face of so very many of those abuses over the past seven years, why is this time, this issue, the one that requires Dodd’s filibuster—and our support?

The battle over retroactive immunity contains numerous storylines that embody Bush Administration efforts to usurp power, consolidate it, and preserve it at the expense of the liberties that go to the very definition of what we are as a nation. It also exemplifies the over-close relationship that has developed between our government and corporate interests.

Writing in Sunday’s New York Times, James Risen, Eric Lichtblau, and Scott Shane—the reporters that originally broke the illegal domestic surveillance story two years ago—bring to light several new facts about the warrantless surveillance, as well as the relationship between the NSA and the Bush Administration on one side and several telecommunications providers, such as AT&T, Verizon, and Qwest Communications, on the other.

First up: if there were any doubt before, the article now makes clear that long before the attacks of 9/11/01, the Bush Administration sought to rapidly and massively expand the surveillance of communications between US citizens within the United States, and did so without using the legally prescribed processes laid out either in the FISA law, the criminal code, or the US Constitution.

In a separate N.S.A. project, executives at a Denver phone carrier, Qwest, refused in early 2001 to give the agency access to their most localized communications switches, which primarily carry domestic calls, according to people aware of the request, which has not been previously reported. They say the arrangement could have permitted neighborhood-by-neighborhood surveillance of phone traffic without a court order, which alarmed them.

This adds detail to existing knowledge (documented—with multiple links—in two posts that I wrote in November) that within two weeks of taking office in 2001, the Bush Administration sought the cooperation of the nation’s largest telcos in order to collect a broad array of communications data generated and received by American citizens residing in the United States.

It has been noted that a program to collect phone records from citizens inside the US who called Latin America began in the mid Nineties as part of the “war on drugs,” but a) this program was ramped up significantly as soon as Bush came into office, b) such surveillance still requires some legal certification (so-called “basket warrants” or something similar), and there is no report that the Bush Administration is producing these warrants to defend the increased surveillance, and c) as noted in the above paragraph (if you look at it in the context of the NYT article) the warrantless access which was sought from Qwest was for a separate project.

Why is this timeline so important? As I wrote in early November:

It is not simply a matter of scheduling; it goes to the root of all arguments both for and against the surveillance programs. Since the telecommunications companies were approached by the administration in February of 2001, then none of this is a response to the attacks of 9/11. And, since the spying is not a response to those events, then what were the NSA and the White House looking for?

I added at the time that if they were trying to be proactive on terrorism, the tragedies that befell America seven months later prove the program an abject failure, but as we know (and know more assuredly with every revelation, biography, or ex-White House-staffer tell-all) Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice came into power with less than a passing interest in terrorism, and multiple attempts by outgoing Clinton officials to grab their attention did nothing to motivate the Bush bunch to ramp up their concern or actions.

So, with the drug war and terrorism ruled out as possibilities, what else could the Bush White House want to learn? Though anything I write at this point would by the rules of journalism be classified as speculation, I don’t think it’s too wild a stretch to say “everything.”

What I mean by “everything,” is that this group waltzed into the White House with dreams of a permanent Republican majority, and quickly sought to put in place an infrastructure that they thought would help them build and maintain it.

The consolidation and maintenance of power is a theme that runs through many of the outrages that now hound (or should hound) the administration. It encompasses the replacement of experts with ideologues, illegal detentions, rendition, and torture, the politicization of the Justice Department and federal bench, the accelerated consolidation of the media, the influence peddling and K Street scandals, the diminution of voting rights, and the sophistry involved in perpetuating what, for lack of a better term, I will call the permanent fear economy—and this is to name only a few.

A bulked-up surveillance network operating outside the law and the knowledge of oversight bodies gave the Bush Administration the tools to accumulate whatever information they might deem necessary for any number of projects. It is likely journalists have been the subject of some of this surveillance, and it is not beyond the bounds of logic to assume that others who have sought to dissent or challenge Republican power might also find themselves under the warrantless watchful eye of Bush Administration spooks.

It is this final point that seems to escape so many now engaged in the debate over new FISA legislation—not the least of them being members of the Democratic leadership. Does a Senator Reid or a Senator Rockefeller, who have both often railed against the lies and bad faith efforts of the White House, not believe that if given the opportunity, this administration would use all the tools in its possession to destroy Democrats or disrupt their agenda? If they can’t quite muster the strength to stand for the rule of law and the rights guaranteed by the US Constitution, you think that they could at least get it up to act in their own self-interest.

Self-interest of a different kind has shown itself to be important to the current debate. As I, and others, have noted, too many of the parties involved have a financial stake in acting in the interests of the telecommunications lobby. Jay Rockefeller has done particularly well (in terms of donations from the telecom lobby) since immunity became an issue.

The problem is, of course, that immunity stands in direct opposition to the interests of the nation and its people. As the Sunday Times article notes, there are several pending cases against the telcos that would shed necessary light on the cooperation between the industry and the administration in the building and operation of Bush’s illegal surveillance regime. Because the administration has been so secretive, and because the oversight has been so lax, the pending law suits against the likes of AT&T and Verizon are some of the few options left to those of us that want to restore protections guaranteed under the Constitution.

That members of both the intelligence community and the telecommunications industry tell the Times that a lack of retroactive immunity will make the relationship between the two more difficult—that telcos might not give their “full-hearted help” to the administration—is the very reason why liability should be preserved. After all, if the programs implemented by the Bush Administration were legal—if the White House had sought proper authority through the FISA court or other more open avenues—then the telecom industry would have nothing to worry about. If the legal documentation were in place, then the telcos would be in the clear.

Somebody (or some body) has to hold law-breakers accountable. If the administration won’t police itself, if the Justice Department has been turned into a White House rubberstamp, and the Congress won’t intervene with the power with which it has been endowed, then it is up to the people to protect their rights, themselves. It would show the utmost disrespect (for the people and for our laws) if the Senate were to take away these rights. One might even call the behavior criminal.


* * *

And, if Senators are gong to behave like criminals, where does that leave the rest of us? I would posit it leaves us as victims—or, as the surveillance regime might put it, as “targets.”

Christy Hardin Smith brings to our attention a post from early in 2006 about a provision of the Patriot Act that has been interpreted to apply to what used to be called “pen registers” and “trap and trace” devices that would make it easy and remarkably likely that pretty much anyone’s e-mail could be the target of secret surveillance without any specific warrant.

As I understand it, it is now permissible for the intel community to search the e-mails of anyone that has been connected to a target of an investigation. What constitutes a connection? An e-mail from the alleged “terrorist” or “drug kingpin” to the new party would do, but so would the appearance of the e-mail addresses of the original suspect and the new party in the header of an e-mail sent by a third party.

In other words, if I were to e-mail you, then you are connected to me. If I were to e-mail you and some guy you don’t know, let’s call him Ignatz, you are connected to me, Ignatz is connected to me, AND, in the eyes of the government, you are also connected to Ignatz—and that makes you fair game for a more intrusive level of surveillance, without additional court order.

To my mind, it’s a horrifying scenario. It would be possible—and easy—for the government to decide it wanted to target you, and then simply contract a third party to spam you and a “known” “terrorist” or “drug kingpin” with the same e-mail. With that connection made, your e-mail is now an open book. It precludes counter-arguments of “fishing expeditions” by providing a legal (or, really, “legalistic”) way to “narrow” the search. They don’t just bait the hook; they reach into the tank and wrap the fish in the line.


* * *

But in order to carryout any of this, the Bush Administration needs (needed?) the initial access to the digital systems maintained by telecom companies like Verizon, AT&T, and Qwest for their paying customers. How they wanted to gain access and what they then wanted to do was dodgy enough to give pause not only to former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio, but, as the Times now tells us, at least one other telecom company, as well.

Nacchio contends that his reticence cost Qwest valuable government contracts—that is up for debate. But the companies that did not pause likely did benefit from the increased level of cooperation between them and the NSA. In fact, Mike McConnell, who was in charge of the NSA, then went to the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton and worked on behalf of private intel-sector industries, and is now the Director of National Intelligence, has made it a crusade of his to privatize much of the government’s signal intelligence infrastructure. And, having done that, he now argues that we must grant immunity to these private concerns for fear that if they don’t have it, they will not allow the government access to their equipment.

In starker terms, McConnell is now insisting immunity be granted retroactively to the parties that he worked for during the time that the alleged crimes were committed.

All of this—the lies about when and why the surveillance began, the likely misuse of the surveillance infrastructure, the legal gymnastics used by the Bush Administration to cast the broadest of dragnets, and the cozy relationship between the government and the telco industry that it should regulate—all of this merits, indeed, requires the greatest degree of scrutiny from the Congress and the courts. That so many in Congress would choose not only to abdicate their rights to oversight, but now seek to strip that power from the people is either the height of ignorance or insolence. Either way, it should not be tolerated.

And, at least one Senator has said that he will not. Christopher Dodd, who is also a candidate for President, has taken time away from his campaign to stand up to a corrupt White House and its corporate cronies. He will spend this Monday (and perhaps many more days) filibustering a bill that his own Majority leader has forced to the floor in defiance of his party’s rank and file, and the vast majority of Americans at large. Where the former boxer Harry Reid would not fight, Chris Dodd has entered the ring. Let’s all let Senator Dodd know we are in his corner.

There are several ways to help:

Go to thankyoudodd.com where you will find suggestions on many ways to help and links to much more information.

Call your senators and ask that they support Sen. Dodd’s filibuster. Ask them to refuse to support any FISA reform that grants immunity to the telecommunications industry.

Give the Senator something to read. Chris Dodd has some time to kill, but he’d like to do it with meaningful statements that show just how much we all care about this issue, about our laws, and about our Constitution as a whole. Crooks and Liars and Firedoglake are collecting statements, and Dodd’s office will look for comments that can be used by the Senator on the floor.

You can also e-mail Chris Dodd with your support.

And, if you want to watch your government at work, Dodd’s filibuster will be carried on C-SPAN2 today (starting at 11am, I believe).


(cross-posted on guy2k, The Seminal, and Daily Kos)

The banality of evil: like father, like son?

The Bush Administration has once again set out to show us just how banal evil can be.

While the latest revelation of the CIA destruction of at least two tapes documenting their interrogation of alleged al Qaeda suspects is yet another cut-and-dried case of obstruction of justice by this administration, I want to take just a moment to reflect on the reason given for why these tapes were made in the first place:

General Hayden said the tapes were originally made to ensure that agency employees acted in accordance with “established legal and policy guidelines.” General Hayden said the agency stopped videotaping interrogations in 2002.

“The tapes were meant chiefly as an additional, internal check on the program in its early stages,” his statement read.

. . . .

A former intelligence official who was briefed on the issue said the videotaping was ordered as a way of assuring “quality control” at remote sites following reports of unauthorized interrogation techniques.

Because, as we all know, there is nothing more embarrassing to a government than torture of inferior quality. Especially at those franchise outlets “remote sites.”

Now back to the obstruction destruction. . . .

Daniel Marcus, a law professor at American University who served as general counsel for the Sept. 11 commission and was involved in the discussions about interviews with Al Qaeda leaders, said he had heard nothing about any tapes being destroyed.

If tapes were destroyed, he said, “it’s a big deal, it’s a very big deal,” because it could amount to obstruction of justice to withhold evidence being sought in criminal or fact-finding investigations.

. . . .

John Radsan, who worked as a C.I.A. lawyer from 2002 to 2004 and is now a professor at William Mitchell College of Law, said the destruction of the tapes could carry serious legal penalties.

“If anybody at the C.I.A. hid anything important from the Justice Department, he or she should be prosecuted under the false statement statute,” he said.

It seems to me beyond any doubt that the Bush Administration withheld important information about the existence of the tapes, their contents, and their destruction from Congress, the 9/11 Commission, and the judge and defense team in the Zacarias Moussaoui case, but I am beyond holding my breath until we get any movement toward arrests and prosecution in any of those instances.

I am not, however, beyond now speculating about the timing of the release of the new NIE on Iran’s nuclear capabilities, in light of our fresh understanding that the New York Times had planned to go public with the tape story today, Friday, and had officially notified the CIA on Wednesday. I can pretty much guarantee that Michael Hayden knew that this story was on its way some time before that.

In fact, I can’t even fathom the “dumb luck” of having the NIE and the tape destruction revelations come out in the same week—and in the same week as Mitt Romney’s “JFK moment” (not), and a (another) mass shooting, to boot

It’s really too much to fathom. Best we go back to our holiday shopping.

But, before we do, let me add that I draw this post to a close without anything in the way of a new revelation or much of a new angle—and for that, I feel a tad bad.

It’s not as if I didn’t try. Since I read of the tape scandal Thursday afternoon, I have been searching almost non-stop for a very specific angle, and I just can’t find the quotable, linkable piece of evidence I seek.

So, I am going to throw this out to you for help:

I will date myself here, but I have a very clear memory of a certain DCI named George H.W. Bush ignoring congressional requests for files and, indeed, destroying files in a direct rebuke of investigators. I even think I remember him justifying the destruction by saying that the CIA just didn’t have the room to store the files anymore.

The thing is, I can’t remember what the files were, and I can’t find a primary source that refers to this incident.

I believe this happened in the spring or summer of 1976—but the revelation might have come later. It is possible that the files concerned investigations into CIA programs known as CHAOS and CONDOR. The former having to do with Agency spying on domestic activist groups in the 1960’s and ‘70’s, the latter concerning CIA ties to South American shenanigans like the overthrow of Chilean President Salvador Allende, the instillation of Augusto Pinochet, the torture of dissidents, and the murder three years later of Pinochet opponent Orlando Letellier and American Ronni Moffitt by car bomb on the streets on Washington DC. There is also the possibility that the files in question concerned CIA operations in Cuba.

Or maybe they were about something else—the details of this are hazy to me.

But, I feel relatively certain GHW Bush did destroy CIA records, and that he did so in defiance of Congress. If anyone else has this recollection, can shed some light on it, or can point to a newspaper article or a Congressional report, please let me know via comment or e-mail.

Thank you.

(cross-posted on guy2k, The Seminal, and Daily Kos)

Clinton condemns dead license proposal; shows us her idea of leadership

In what can only be called a miracle of multitasking, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) managed to grandstand, close the barn doors after the horses escaped, then still beat a dead horse, and kick a man while he’s down, all while trying to catch the train after it had already left the station.

Caught last week with not one, not two, but really three hard to discern positions on New York Governor Elliot Spitzer’s proposal to provide state driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants, Clinton caught a break when the National Democratic Party, taking the rather wrongheaded and cynical advice of Rep. Rahm Emanuel (via J-Ro), failed to provide much support at all for Spitzer’s simple step forward toward a rational immigration policy. After meeting with the New York congressional delegation (a meeting that Clinton skipped), Spitzer announced that while he still thought his original proposal was a good idea, this was clearly not the time to press ahead.

I am disappointed that Spitzer felt the need to first waffle, and then back down. I am disappointed that the Democrats opted for bowing to the conventional political wisdom rather than standing tall behind a forward-thinking idea. But, needless to say, I am most disappointed in the putative Democratic presidential “frontrunner” (ironic title, really) for exhibiting what I find to be the very antithesis of leadership:

[Clinton] issued a statement Wednesday afternoon in which she expressed support for Mr. Spitzer’s decision [to withdraw his proposal] and stated that licenses for illegal immigrants would not be on her own future agenda.

“As president, I will not support drivers’ licenses for undocumented people and will press for comprehensive immigration reform that deals with all of the issues around illegal immigration,” Mrs. Clinton said.

Well, gosh, that sounds, well, almost, um, clear. It completely lacks any specific proposals for how she will “press” or what she means by “comprehensive immigration reform,” but hey, she has finally expressed her unequivocal opposition to the Spitzer proposal NOW THAT IT IS NO LONGER ON THE TABLE.

America is at a turning point. The damage done by two terms of Bush Administration and over a decade of Republican congressional rule has left this nation in a very bad position on so many fronts—domestic, fiscal, global, and moral. The next president is going to have to get out in front of this mess, make big, bold proposals, and risk a little political capital to elect Democrats down ticket, and then convince them and their constituencies to join her or him in restoring America’s values and standing. Leading from behind ain’t gonna get it done. Triangulating isn’t going to motivate an electorate. Incrementalism does not make for a stimulating platform or an inspirational rallying cry.

Hillary Clinton’s sad attempt to appear “Presidential” on this issue has provided another window on what that job means to the junior Senator. Or, more accurately, how little it means outside of simply getting elected president.

(cross-posted on guy2k, The Seminal, and Daily Kos)