Big Brother Is Watching

President Bush insists that his warrantless spying program (now with domestic fun!) doesn't target innocent Americans. Of course, as I noted in my last entry on the leak authorization, anyone who gives this President the benefit of the doubt is a fool. Besides the government's known efforts in spying on protestors and activists, we've had confirmation from FBI whistleblowers that the NSA sent "a steady stream of telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and names to the F.B.I. in search of terrorists" and that "virtually all of them... led to dead ends or innocent Americans". More and more information confirms this type of activity.

The facts continue to betray the President on this...

Wired: Whistle-Blower Outs NSA Spy Room

AT&T provided National Security Agency eavesdroppers with full access to its customers' phone calls, and shunted its customers' internet traffic to data-mining equipment installed in a secret room in its San Francisco switching center, according to a former AT&T worker cooperating in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit against the company.

Mark Klein, a retired AT&T communications technician, submitted an affidavit in support of the EFF's lawsuit this week. That class action lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco last January, alleges that AT&T violated federal and state laws by surreptitiously allowing the government to monitor phone and internet communications of AT&T customers without warrants.

On Wednesday, the EFF asked the court to issue an injunction prohibiting AT&T from continuing the alleged wiretapping, and filed a number of documents under seal, including three AT&T documents that purportedly explain how the wiretapping system works...

Read it and weep.

And on the connection to what the President has told us, Klein insists-

Klein said he came forward because he does not believe that the Bush administration is being truthful about the extent of its extrajudicial monitoring of Americans' communications.

"Despite what we are hearing, and considering the public track record of this administration, I simply do not believe their claims that the NSA's spying program is really limited to foreign communications or is otherwise consistent with the NSA's charter or with FISA," Klein's wrote. "And unlike the controversy over targeted wiretaps of individuals' phone calls, this potential spying appears to be applied wholesale to all sorts of internet communications of countless citizens."

Of course, if the White House is asked about this, I'm sure Scott McClellan will simply insist that this is one of those bad leaks that hurts America by informing Americans their basic rights are being stripped away terrorists that we utilize surveillance technology. This is in contrast to the President's secret, back-door 'declassifications' which make help America be informed (not by public disclosure, just ya know through anonymous leaks to friendly reporters). They will also state they can't comment on the constitutional abuses 'operational details' of any national security programs. And the Attorney General will issue a statement reminding us of the President's imperial inherent authority to do, well, anything he wants. Alberto Gonzales says you're getting sleepy, very sleeepyyy....

You can read Mark Klein's statement about this- here.

This sort of thing is not new, but this seems to represent the greatest abuses we've seen.

Think this story will get major press? Nah, I didn't either. Consider yourself depressed informed, though.
[reposted from 4/8/2006]

Congress Gets Its Immigration Reform On... Or Not

The Senate moderates try fail to get a bill signed soon as the right-wingers bitch about 'amnesty'-

AP: Congress Unites for Illegal-Immigrant Deal

Putting aside party differences, Senate Republicans and Democrats coalesced Thursday around compromise legislation that holds out the hope of citizenship to many of the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the United States unlawfully...

What are the proposed Senate bill's provisions? Well here we go-

• Illegal immigrants who have been in the country for at least five years could receive legal status after meeting several conditions, including payment of a $2,000 fines and any back taxes, clearing a background check and learning English. After six more years, they could apply for permanent residency without leaving the United States. They could seek citizenship five years later.

• Illegal immigrants in the country for between two and five years could obtain a temporary work visa after reporting to a border point of entry. Aides referred to this as "touch base and return," since people covered would know in advance they would be readmitted to the United States.

• Officials said it could take as long as 13 to 14 years for some illegal immigrants to gain citizenship. It part, that stems from an annual limit of 450,000 on green cards, which confer legal permanent residency and are a precursor to citizenship status.

• Illegal immigrants in the United States for less than two years would be required to leave the country and apply for re-entry alongside anyone else seeking to emigrate.

Separately, the legislation provides a new program for 1.5 million temporary agriculture industry workers over five years.

It also includes provisions for employers to verify the legal status of workers they hire, but it was not clear what sanctions, if any, would apply to violators.

To secure the border, the bill calls for a virtual fence — as opposed to the literal barrier contained in House legislation — consisting of surveillance cameras, sensors and other monitoring equipment along the long, porous border with Mexico.

Sounds much saner than what the House proposed. No fence = good. It provides a path to citizenship, which is the most important thing. I'm still not too keen on any 'guest worker' programs (do our work and then get out!) unless said workers can be put on the same path to citizenship as everyone else. Still, it seems effort was made to find compromise here. As long as common sense prevails over the irrational (and racist) hysteria that the far-right Malkin types have been screeching about, we're on the right track.

Wonkette has a good analysis: The Immigration Bill: What the Hell?

Will the House approve of this new, revised bill? I'll guess... no.

And so this election year xenophobic saga will continue, especially since reports indicate this bill will not pass muster with the right. Perhaps the best we can hope for at this point is that this will all continue to stall until after November when electoral politics won't get in the way.

[PS- While there's still work to be done (as I noted, the revised ain't perfect), it's important to note that none of this compromising would've happened had it not been the 500,000+ who took to the streets in protest over the GOP's insane planned legislation. Let this stand as a testament to the power of protest. If enough people stand up on an issue, Congress will act. If only we could get 500,000 people in the streets over the Iraq war or wiretapping or torture or the Gulf Coast or...]

9/11 As A Silencer

As loyal reader(s) of my blog know, I often read something in the NY Post that is so mindboggling nutty, I am forced to rant about it. Yesterday, I read such a thing. And thus a rant is born.

From their lead editorial yesterday-

Someone needs to remind The New York Times that 3,000 people were savagely murdered in the 9/11 terrorist attacks - and that America has both a right and a duty to protect itself from new strikes.

Because, judging from its stories and editorials, the paper seems to have no clue about any of this.

Their main point?

How else to explain its efforts to oppose - if not, undermine - almost every step taken to protect Americans?

Whether it's disclosing federal covert operations, endlessly bewailing doom in Iraq or smearing local cops assigned to public protests, the Times seems hell-bent on undermining America's will to defend itself.

They go on to blast a story the Times did on NYPD tactics during political gatherings/protests.

They call the paper's behavior "anti-American".

Perhaps they prefer the days when 'Run Amok' Judy Miller was helping the White House sell a war...

This is typical NY Post redmeat rhetoric: Anyone who questions the Bush administration's behavior is undermining the war on terror. I have written about this recurring theme of their editorials before- see here, here, and here for a few examples.

Let's round up the Post's current examples: Calling out the President's failed war? Questioning the constitutionality of spying on peaceful political protestors? Exposing the illegal, warrantless domestic wiretapping that was secretly being authorized by the President? No, that's not responsible journalism to them. It's treason.

In the end, I think NYC's favorite right-wing tabloid is jealous of their smarter older brother.

The editorial also doesn't even focus on war on terror-related programs or activities. Its focus is on police tactics in response to heated political rallies. Apparently, in the Post's world, left-wing activists are as dangerous a threat to America's security as Al Qaeda themselves. The paper describes them as 'militant' and 'itching for mayhem'. Yes, those Critical Mass protest bike guys are the next Zacarias Moussaoui. The Post has never seemed at all concerned at where Osama is (unlike Richard Cohen at the Daily News who rightfully discusses that failure) or the effect that the Iraq war has had in inflaming worldwide terrorism, but this Times report apparently is undermining the real front on the war on political activists terror.

Mainly, I am pissed off at their opening line- "Someone needs to remind The New York Times that 3,000 people were savagely murdered in the 9/11 terrorist attacks". This line, in subtle variations, have been used a lot by the right in the past few years when they are about to scold a Bush administration critic without focusing on the merits of the criticism. It's a line that's very popular on the far-right blogs (see this blog post and its comments I linked to a while back). And it has nothing to do with the topic the editorial addresses; it's there to score cheap emotional points.

The thrust of the line seems to boil down to "3,000 were murdered (by the guy we let get away)... So shut up in the name of the all-powerful, endless war on terror." It's an insulting line and childishly condescending. Nobody needs to be reminded about those attacks (least of all those in NYC) and what it told us about the world we live in. The Times has some problems over the years, but conspiring to undermine our country... umm, no I think it's safe to say that's not one of them. But the Post likes to insist that, as they do with any person/entity who questions King George's wisdom. Enter the line. It implies that the speaker is serious and tough and loves America like a man loves steak and that the party being addressed is a weak unamerican fool. Any argument that needs to resort to something that cheap as its opening line is lost before it began.

Bottom line- using the ghosts of 9/11 to silence dissent is the lowest form of political debate.

Sadly, it's something the NY Post and the President have in common.

[reposted from 4/6/2006]

Are We At War?

It was reported today that "A divided Supreme Court turned back a challenge to the Bush administration's wartime detention powers, rejecting an appeal from U.S. citizen Jose Padilla who until recently had been held as an enemy combatant without traditional legal rights." (Via NY Times) In light of the Court running away from this issue for the time being, and in addition to contradictory statements administration officials have made on the matter, Greg Saunders asks the question- Are we at war... or aren't we?

He concludes-

It’s easy to understand why the Bush administration wants it both ways: we’re at war because that gives them more power…but we’re also not at war because they would then have treaty obligations, such as under the Geneva Conventions.

Meanwhile, the AP, the rest of the U.S. media, and the Democratic party say nothing whatsoever about this. No one asks Bush the obvious question: “Is the United States at war?”

I guess everyone intuitively senses that the war’s quantum superposition, in which it exists and does not exist at the time, can only be sustained as long as we don’t observe the issue. If we did, the war’s wavefunction would collapse and it would be either one or the other.

This is a subject I've been thinking a lot about.

I will probably have a more in-depth post of my own later this week. Excited? I am.

[Reposted from 4/3/2006]

Quote of the Day

"Saying that America is addicted to oil without following a real plan for energy independence is like admitting alcoholism and then skipping out on the 12-step program."
-Sen. Barack Obama, ripping into President Bush's oil policy

More of this, please.

Bush's Weapons Inspectors Lie

In a recent post, I highlighted how the President has continued to tell the lie that Saddam denied the weapons inspectors (part of Bush's larger lie that he actually didn't want war and the choice was Saddam's, not his). In reality, Hussein did allow the inspectors in, who were ordered to leave by President Bush when he told them it was going to be 'bombs away' in Iraq despite their findings (or lack thereof). Joe Conason has a great article on the continuation of this lie-

"Saddam chose to deny inspectors" Bush repeated this bald-faced lie recently. The cowering press still lets him get away with it, but the public is no longer fooled.

Slowly but inexorably, as more and more information emerges, the conventional wisdom about the events leading to war in Iraq is shifting. The American public has joined the rest of the civilized world in questioning the arguments and motives of the war makers. Commentators who have habitually fashioned excuses for the White House seem to find that task increasingly burdensome and humiliating. The old lies no longer have much traction.

Yet even now, President Bush persists in blatantly falsifying the war's origins -- perhaps because, even now, he still gets away with it...

...For the third time since the war began three years ago, Bush had falsely claimed that Saddam refused the U.N. weapons inspections mandated by the Security Council. For the third time, he had denied a reality witnessed by the entire world during the four months when those inspectors, under the direction of Hans Blix, traveled Iraq searching fruitlessly for weapons of mass destruction that, as we now know for certain, were not there.

But forget about whether the weapons were there for a moment. The inspectors definitely went to Iraq. They left only because the United States warned them to get out before the bombs started to fall on March 19, 2003. But for some reason the president of the United States keeps saying -- in public and on the record -- that the inspectors weren't there.

Keeping the facts segregated from the myriad falsehoods isn't easy with this regime...

Recommended read.

What's sadder than the lies is that he is allowed to get away with them...

[Reposted from 4/3/2006]

Iraq: Our Continuing Lil' Quagmire

As a NY Times editorial states, "Iraq is becoming a country that America should be ashamed to support, let alone occupy", the bad news continues to pour out of Iraq while the White House continues to insist everything is a-okay. The Times editorial focuses on the violence there, as well as the decidingly undemocratic religious extremists in charge of their government, and the steps our government is taking diplomatically to counter this. TruthDig has an excellent summary and compilation of articles on the 'desperation' in Iraq-

As the tortured bodies of Iraqi civilians pile up in the streets (50 dead on Sunday alone), and Condoleezza Rice and U.K. foreign secretary Jack Straw rush to Baghdad to plead with Iraqi officials to unify their government, the NY Times editorial page writes that "the United States, in its hubris, helped bring all this to pass," echoing conservative godfather William F. Buckley, who recently said, "the neoconservative hubris...overstretches the resources of a free country."

Meanwhile, much buzz is being made of Gen. Anthony Zinni's excellent interview on yesterday's 'Meet The Press'. Andrew Sullivan posts a good quote from Zinni, in which he blasts the Bush administration for their historically poor military planning and arrogance. He also discusses the way the administration mislead everyone on the case for war. You can see video of the interview on Crooks and Liars. Think Progress has a report on how Zinni called on Rumsfeld and others to resign (or- if it happens, 'spend more time with his family'). Hey, think if enough people ask, the President would listen? They also have a second report on how Zinni stated how the media is being made a scapegoat for all the problems in Iraq.

Speaking of scapegoating the media, I liked what this Huffington Post commenter had to say on our favorite chickenhawk journalists/armchair generals-

I believe the press has failed miserably in explaining the fantastic success of the American intervention in Iraq.

It is time to send Charles Krauthammer, Bill Kristol, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Fred Barnes, Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin, David Frum, Podhoretz Sr. and Jr., to Iraq to tell the American people what is really going on.

Drop them outside the green zone, say, right about in the middle of the Sunni triangle, and let them report the truth.

I'm sure they won't need any American military protection because they are so fearsome and macho over here in the United States, when it comes to expending the lives of others to advance their agenda.

I'm looking forward to the first edition of Good Morning, Sunni Triangle!

Sounds good to me.

I'm sure they would make us all proud too.

[Reposted from 4/3/2006]