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Chief constable defends ‘trivial’ use of CCTV

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

By Robin Turner | USING CCTV cameras to spy on dog owners who fail to clear up their pets’ mess is perfectly acceptable, Wales’ most controversial police chief claims.

In his blog, the outspoken North Wales Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom dismissed the debate on alleged misuse of CCTV as “a bizarre hue and cry”.

And he maintained a tidy environment had a much bigger impact on most people’s lives than the burglary rate.

“We can, should and will use CCTV systems and associated surveillance powers to detect and prevent antisocial offences and to tackle the offenders.

“Dog dirt does matter, because the local residents say that it does. We should be celebrating this, not attacking it.

“Research clearly and repeatedly shows our citizenry in the UK is very comfortable with today’s surveillance society.

“CCTV makes people (including me) feel safer.

“The research also shows the importance of local issues – a clean and tidy environment has a much bigger impact on most people’s quality of life than does the burglary rate. Law-abiding taxpayers like an ordered society and actively welcome CCTV.

“The clamour for more cameras, and the surveillance which logically follows is deafening – for those like me who choose to spend time in town and village halls, talking and listening.”

After it emerged CCTV and other covert surveillance was being used to catch litter bugs, under-age smokers, dog foulers and false compensation claimants, Sir Simon Milton, head of the Local Government Association, warned that local councils ran the risk of alienating the public.

Sir Simon wrote to council leaders last month calling on them to “urgently review” their use of covert surveillance operations and to ensure they were “never used lightly nor for trivial matters”.

But Mr Brunstrom, who said he “struck a chord” by showing a picture of dog mess to members of the Deganwy Residents’ Association whom he met recently, said people wanted CCTV used to trap the irresponsible and anti-social.

He said: “I still find it surprising that after nearly 30 years in the police fighting crime, that the hot local policing topic nowadays is dog dirt and irresponsible dog owners – but it often is.

“This is a lesson well worth learning, and it’s why more senior public officials (and journalists) should spend more time with taxpayers.”

Mr Brunstrom’s views were backed by Ginette Unsworth of Keep Britain Tidy, who said: “Litter and dog-fouling are the first steps on a rung of different issues. If you haven’t got a nice, tidy, litter-free location, then other things happen because it looks like an area that is uncared for.

“Vandalism comes, people don’t go there, drug dealers move in and it’s a downward spiral.”

However, Neath councillor John Warman, who runs the pressure group Protection of Privacy, said: “We already have litter wardens and other council officials to check on litter bugs and dog mess and some areas even have ‘bin spies’ to check on what we put out for collection. If we keep extending the boundaries, we will have CCTV watching our every move.

“Surveillance laws brought in basically to tackle terrorism are being used to such a point councils are being seen not as services but as nosy intruders.”

Mr Brunstrom added that the clamour over the dog dirt issue was due to declining crime rates.

“As a result other forms of anti-social behaviour come to the fore – it is rather wonderful that we have nothing more frightening to talk about than dog fouling. Truly, we have turned a corner.”

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Charities ’should be subject to human rights’

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

guardian.co.uk | Human rights and freedom of information legislation should be extended to cover charities and social enterprises that deliver public services, such as care homes, a report said today.

The government already contracts out a range of services – including employment training and social care – to the voluntary sector and is keen to encourage more third sector service delivery.

Today’s report from the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) said there was uncertainty over the human rights of users of the contracted-out services.

A landmark court case in 2002 brought to light the “deeply unsatisfactory” fact that voluntary sector care homes are not considered public authorities under the Human Rights Act and therefore do not have human rights obligations to users, said the report.

And it said it was “essential” to bring third sector providers within the scope of the act, stating: “The human rights of public service users should not be affected by the identity of the service provider.”

All contractors should also be brought within the terms of freedom of information legislation, said the cross-party committee, welcoming a decision by the justice secretary, Jack Straw, to consult on the issue.

The MPs found no evidence that standards of service were “intrinsically lower or higher” in third-sector organisations, and said the onus was on the government to demonstrate that there was anything inherently distinctive about the sector.

They rejected as “alarmist” claims that charities’ independence was being compromised by taking on contracts to deliver services for the state. But they said that further moves to encourage the third sector to take on contracts should be pursued only “cautiously”.

Proof was needed on the “potentially show-stopping” issue of whether any savings from contracting out services actually outweigh the additional cost of monitoring providers’ performance.

However, noting that only 2% of public services by value are delivered by the third sector, the report acknowledged that the whole debate was little more than “a rhetorical storm in a fiscal teacup”.

“We do not want to see a mass transfer of services without significantly stronger evidence that this would be beneficial, and we are heartened that the government does not appear to support such a mass transfer,” the committee said.

The PASC chairman, Tony Wright, said: “We’ve been told for some time that the ideology of public service delivery is that there is no ideology - what matters is what works. So it’s strange to discover that nobody seems to know what works.

“That said, the principle must be right that public services are provided by whoever will deliver the best outcomes for service users. Sometimes, that will be an organisation from the third sector.

“Where it is, commissioners need to be able to identify that fact and act accordingly. Ultimately, it all comes down to intelligent commissioning.”

A Cabinet Office spokesman said: “The government has committed to consult widely with all relevant parties on who should be covered by the Human Rights Act, and is already acting to establish clarity on this issue.

“For instance, we have taken legislative action to ensure that local authority social care delivered in private care homes is covered under the act.”

And a spokesman for charity umbrella body the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) said: “The Human Rights Act provides vital protection to vulnerable users of public services. That protection should not depend on whether the service is provided by a public, private or voluntary sector organisation.

“The case for extending the FOI Act is less convincing: imposing a burden that would significantly outweigh the benefits.

“It is already the case that all information provided to commissioners, regulators and other public bodies is in the public domain and can be requested from these bodies under existing FOI Act requirements.”

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Online Activists Keep the Pressure on Obama

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

By Ari Melber | If Obama is lucky, he will continue to benefit from these energized, sophisticated activists who support his candidacy while they press his hand.

He responded. While most Americans settled into a relaxed Independence Day weekend, Barack Obama tried to quiet mounting criticism from supporters over his decision to back a new White House spying bill. In an unprecedented letter released on the afternoon of July 3, Obama addressed the thousands of supporters who organized a large protest on his social networking portal.

Noting that he expected to take his “lumps” and “be held accountable,” Obama respectfully defended his surveillance reversal. While maintaining that immunizing companies accused of illegal spying undermines deterrence and “accountability for past abuses,” Obama said he now backs legislation granting the right to give immunity (and other executive powers) because it provides a “real mechanism for accountability” via future investigations. The explanation ran 852 words–more than double the length of his original statement announcing support for the spying bill on June 20–and then campaign policy aides continued the discussion for over an hour with visitors on Obama’s site (pictured at right). The unusual exchange sparked an intense debate over the weekend, as activists and bloggers questioned whether it heralded a more interactive political era, or a reminder that double talk can spread on any medium.

On Sunday night, the protest group released its official reply, collaboratively edited through a wiki and representing some of the 19,000 members. It pressed Obama to take his fight against immunity to the Senate floor this week. Since Obama’s letter said he still wanted to “strike” immunity from the bill, the group urged him to take charge:

We ask that you back up your words with action by addressing your constituents on the floor of the Senate with the same oratorical power you used in Philadelphia to lay out your vision of a ‘More Perfect Union.’ The American people have just as much right to know of the dangerous precedent this Congress would be setting by granting retroactive immunity to [companies that spied] on law-abiding citizens as we did to relearn of segregation and Jim Crow. The arm of government oppression reaches far and wide, Senator, and we must beat it back on whatever front we find it.

The Senate begins debating the spying bill again on Tuesday. Obama arrives in Washington that day to address a Hispanic convention.

The protest group has not only become a huge force on Obama’s site–it is now double the size of any other user-created group and its traffic slowed the campaign’s server last week–it has also swiftly asserted itself in the broader spying debate. Organizers have been covered and quoted repeatedly in the mainstream media, including a New York Times profile of founder Mike Stark, tapping the interest in online organizing to amplify a civil liberties message. The group’s wiki even includes a “proposed strategy” to “fan the flames of coverage by making the novel outreach approach a story in its own right,” levering media attention to recruit more members for lobbying Congress. Over the weekend, it began spinning off local networks to target individual senators through a “ fifty state strategy.” Now there are Facebook groups for constituents to pressure senators McCain, Feinstein, Klobachar, Coleman and Alexander–along with a page for “Wisconsinites” to “thank” Senator Feingold for defending civil liberties. The group decided to focus on other senators after discussing how to broaden the effort beyond Obama. Over 3,500 members converse through an e-mail listserve on the campaign’s social networking platform, with hundreds of messages a day. In fact, the group has begun moderating participation to limit topics and exclude certain tactics, such as attempts by activists to halt campaign fundraising in retribution for Obama’s position on spying.

By simultaneously growing its membership, mission and ambition, the spying group exhibits the characteristics of a successful net movement. MoveOn began with the single objective of fighting Clinton’s impeachment, but evolved to tackle other issues that resonated with its members. The protest against the spying bill began last month by urging Obama to change his vote. After quickly drawing him (and his senior staff) into a dialogue, however, it is nimbly shifting its focus to Obama’s role in the immunity floor fight–an easier request on common ground–while launching campaigns to target senators with constituents recruited through MyBarackObama.com. Even if the Democratic Congress completes its capitulation on surveillance policy, the anti-spying group will still be the largest organizing network on Obama’s site. With 6,000 more activists than the top-down “Action Wire” group, which the campaign created for official pushback, the group might even function as a supportive but aggressive counterweight to the campaign’s traditional message. If Obama is not confronting McCain on other constitutional issues, for example, members could organize media or social network efforts to do it for him. If the campaign is not correcting the media for distorting factual statements by Gen. Wesley Clark, the members could rally a truth squad overnight.

Obama excelled by appealing to the public appetite for movement politics, rather than typical campaigns. And unlike campaigns, movements are animated by ideas, policies and values–not blind allegiance to a single person. If Obama is lucky, he will continue to benefit from these energized, sophisticated activists who support his candidacy while they press his hand, and use his campaign platform to mobilize turnout while organizing causes beyond his election. The spy group’s open letter reminded Obama of this collective dynamic. “As you have said time and again Senator, ‘we are the ones we have been waiting for,’ and we are here, working to bring about real change in Washington.”

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UK workers campaign against ID cards

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

PT | Representatives of the UK’s aviation workers say they are being used as political pawns to further the UK government’s controversial ID cards programme.

The British Air Transport Association (BATA) says aviation workers are being used as guinea pigs for the scheme. ID cards for airside workers, those who work beyond airport security checks, will become compulsory in 2009.

Roger Wiltshire, secretary general of BATA, says, “We do feel we’re being used politically. The government intends a creeping introduction, to [lend the cards credibility]. We will be the first industry to have compulsory ID passes, even before the voluntary scheme is in place.”

About 100,000 UK airport workers with airside access are likely to be the first to be issued with Britain’s new biometric identity cards.

A spokesman for UK airport operator BAA says, “We can confirm that we are in preliminary discussions on ID cards.”

UK Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, is expected to announce proposals for the initial rollout of the scheme this week. However, the opposition Conservative Party claims that the UK government is introducing ID cards by stealth by making them compulsory in some areas, including that of airport security.

The controversial scheme is estimated to cost £5.4 billion (US$$10.8 billion).

The UK’s Home Office says, “We are looking at starting [to issue ID cards] to certain parts of the population and rolling out the programme incrementally, and it’s right that our first priority should be to consider where ID cards can be of greatest benefit to the security of the UK.”

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Blair Advisers Oppose Brown’s Terrorism Plan in House of Lords

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

By Kitty Donaldson | Two of Tony Blair’s former ministers and his top domestic security official said they will vote against anti-terrorism laws proposed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown in the upper chamber of Parliament.

Former Justice Secretary Charles Falconer and former Attorney General Peter Goldsmith joined Eliza Manningham-Buller, a former head of the domestic spy agency MI5 in saying they won’t support plans to extend the time police can detain terrorism suspects without charge to 42 days.

“I have weighed up the balance between the right to life, the most important civil liberty, the fact that there is no such thing as complete security, and the importance of our hard-won civil liberties,” Manningham-Buller, who as a so-called crossbencher is not affiliated to any of the political parties, said in the House of Lords today. “On a matter of principle, I cannot support 42 days pre-charge detention.”

The comments signal unease within the House of Lords that may derail the key provisions in the Counter-Terrorism Bill when it comes before lawmakers later this year. The lower House of Commons cleared the measures by a margin of nine votes after the Democratic Unionist Party supported Brown’s Labour government.

While the Lords have no authority to block the entire Terrorism Bill, their power to amend laws may mean the government is forced to strip out the provision or make more concessions to ensure civil liberties are protected. The Lords will consider the bill line-by-line in the autumn.

Lords’ Authority

No party holds a majority in the House of Lords, which must agree with the rules before they can become law. Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, the two biggest opposition parties, voted against the government’s detention plan in the Commons and plan to do so again in the Lords.

Ministers argue that the increasing complexities of terrorism cases mean the police need longer to examine them. They have cited an alleged 2006 plot to bomb airliners as proof of the case for extra time, saying investigating officers were close to releasing the suspects because of the current 28-day limit.

Lord Falconer, a Labour lawmaker in the Lords who shared a room with Blair in university, said he would oppose the plans “root and branch.”

“I’m absolutely clear that there’s no advantage for fighting terrorism that will be obtained from extending detentions to 42 days,” Falconer said. The difference between the current limit of 28 days and the proposed 42 would “make no difference” to the police and to claim so is a “ridiculous assertion.”

Goldsmith’s View

Lord Goldsmith said he didn’t want to “take away freedoms that people, and our ancestors, have fought for without very good cause.” Brown took over from Blair in June 2007.

Security minister Alan West, former head of the British navy, argued the measures are necessary to protect Britain from the growing threat from international terrorists.

“We face an unprecedented terrorist threat,” West told lawmakers. “There’s a clear and present danger to our population.”

Brown says the security services are currently investigating 30 potential terrorist plots, 2,000 terrorist suspects and 200 networks. In recent cases, police needed to examine 400 separate computers, 8,000 discs and 25,000 exhibits, he says.

Conservative Opposition

The main opposition Conservative security spokeswoman in the Lords, Pauline Neville-Jones, herself a former chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee, said the plans are another attempt by the government to broach civil liberties.

“It represents yet another attack, on the part of the government, without justification, on fundamental democratic rights and freedoms that have underpinned our society for centuries,” Neville-Jones said.

Martin Thomas, who speaks on legal matters for the Liberal Democrats in the Lords, predicted “this draconian proposal will be defeated” in the upper chamber.

“The government’s proposals do not have serious support amongst senior police officers, ex-government law officers, the director of public prosecutions, the legal profession or, indeed, anyone who knows anything about the criminal justice process,” Thomas said.

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Iran blames West for ‘artificially’ raising oil prices, says war threat is a ‘joke’

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia | Iran’s president again took aim at the West, blaming the U.S. and Europe for “artificially” raising oil prices and dismissing as “a funny joke” fears that his country could come under attack.

Hours later, on Wednesday, Iranian state television reported that Tehran had test-fired nine long- and medium-range missiles during war games. The report quoted officials as saying the tests are in response to U.S. and Israeli threats.

But President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on a visit to Malaysia, told a news conference Tuesday that the U.S. and Israel were “focusing on propaganda and psychological war.”

“Before, it would be considered as a serious issue,” he said, speaking through an interpreter. But Iranians are so used to the threats that they now treat it as a “very funny show. … These type of wars are considered as a funny joke.”

He added, “I assure you that there won’t be any war in the future.”

The latest developments were in line with the mix of conciliatory and bellicose statements by Iranian officials in recent weeks about the possibility of a clash with the U.S. and Israel, which has been held partly responsible for driving up world oil prices and bringing down the dollar’s value.

Continuing his rail against the West, Ahmadinejad blamed the U.S. and Europe for record-high oil prices. He said the global production of oil is much more than consumption, suggesting that politics rather than economics were behind today’s record-high prices of more than US$140 a barrel.

Ahmadinejad said the high oil prices are the result of a weak dollar and a deliberate decision by the United States and some European countries to profit from high fuel taxes. In some European countries, 70 percent of the fuel cost goes to governments as tax, he said.

“So it is very clear and obvious that the market does not have a role in raising prices. There are some others that are determining the oil price for the benefit of the few, very rich people of the world,” said Ahmadinejad, whose country is the second biggest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

In his typical combative fashion, the Iranian leader criticized arch foe, the United States, in every answer. He blamed Washington for the world economic crisis and maintaining a nuclear weapons stockpile while opposing Tehran’s nuclear program.

Tehran insists its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes, such as energy production. But Washington believes it is for making nuclear weapons.

Ahmadinejad also questioned the United States’ permanent membership in the U.N. Security Council, its role in Iraq, and held it responsible for illegal drug production in Afghanistan.

He claimed that the U.S. can also use the “artificially high price of crude oil” as a justification to start politically sensitive exploration in the North Pole.

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New Law is Urged on War Powers

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

Los Angeles Times | A bipartisan commission Tuesday called for a new law to require the next president to ask Congress for formal approval of any decision to go to war and force the White House to consult Congress once a war is underway.

The panel, led by former secretaries of State James A. Baker III and Warren Christopher, determined that the 1973 War Powers Act had failed and should be replaced. It was passed during the Vietnam War to limit the president’s power to launch hostilities, but presidents of both parties have argued it is unconstitutional.

“The fundamental purpose of our statute is to ensure that the president consults with Congress before taking the nation to war,” Christopher said at a news conference with Baker and other panel members.

The proposed law would require the president to notify Congress of any plans for combat lasting, or expected to last, longer than one week and require Congress to vote on a resolution of approval within 30 days of being notified. Military actions shorter than one week and covert operations would be exempt. (Covert operations are reviewed by Congress in secret, under a different law.)

The 1973 War Powers Act forbids a president to commit troops to combat for more than 60 days without formal authorization from Congress, but it does not require Congress to vote on the issue. That loophole has allowed presidents and Congress to ignore the law when they choose.

In 1999, for example, President Clinton launched an air war against Serbia to force its withdrawal from Kosovo but never sought formal authorization from Congress under the War Powers Act.

The proposed law would not have stopped President Bush from going to war in Iraq, members of the panel said, because he won approval from Congress in 2002 to use military force against Baghdad.

“Congress was in on the takeoff,” Baker said.

But it would have forced Bush to consult formally with Congress more frequently after the war began.

Baker acknowledged that the proposal would limit a president’s freedom to act, but noted that it also would impose a new burden on Congress. “No longer can Congress hide in the weeds and take credit if [a military action] goes well, but criticize if it goes badly,” he said in an interview.

Baker, a Republican, and Christopher, a Democrat, said they had sought the support of the two major presidential candidates, Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) for the proposal. As a practical matter, Baker said, it would be difficult to pass a law on presidential power without the president’s support.

But neither candidate has endorsed the idea. Instead, their aides deployed ambiguous statements of general praise.

McCain aide Randy Scheunemann called the proposal “interesting” and said: “Sen. McCain has long held that any president should work cooperatively with Congress as much as possible.”

Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki said: “Sen. Obama commends this bipartisan study for advocating that the president consult Congress more closely on issues of critical national importance, like the use of military force.”

Members of the panel acknowledged that their proposal did not address every potential problem over war powers.

If a president starts a war with one goal, for example, and later changes the goal — as critics say Bush has done in Iraq — the commission’s plan does not require a new authorization.

“At that point, it’s basically a matter of congressional will,” Baker said.

But they said they hoped their proposal, if passed, would encourage future presidents and congressional leaders to consult each other more often on decisions of war and peace.

“The great virtue of our proposal is that it requires a president to consult,” said former Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), another member of the panel, which was sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Baker and Christopher noted that the effort was the first time they had worked together since the 2000 presidential election recount in Florida, where Baker led the forces favoring Republican candidate George W. Bush — the eventual winner — and Christopher ran the legal campaign for Democratic candidate Al Gore.

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US war crimes court to resume at Guantanamo

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

AP | U.S. military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay resume this week even as new legal challenges could throw the system into further turmoil.

Five men charged in the Sept. 11 attacks, including alleged mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, are to appear Wednesday and Thursday for pretrial hearings in the Bush administration’s special tribunal for terrorism suspects. Their trials have not yet been scheduled.

The suspects could get the death penalty if convicted of charges that include murder.

A judge is expected to hold hearings to explore defense allegations that Mohammed intimidated his co-defendants into refusing military lawyers.

Meanwhile, a judge in Washington is considering a challenge that could disrupt the first scheduled war crimes trial, on July 21, of Salim Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden.

Hamdan’s lawyers say a recent Supreme Court decision has raised new legal issues that require U.S. District Judge James Robertson to delay the trial. The government says it wants to move forward.

Robertson has scheduled a July 17 hearing in Washington on the issue, just four days before Hamdan is to go on trial in a specially built courtroom on a former airstrip at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba.

A ruling in favor of the prisoner could also delay the trials for other men held at Guantanamo, and perhaps force the military to devise a whole new way to prosecute alleged terrorists.

“If a federal court enjoins the proceedings, that would be the death knell for the military commissions,” said Sahr MuhammedAlly, a lawyer with Human Rights First.

Hamdan, a Yemeni, faces up to life in prison if convicted of supporting terrorism. The U.S. has said it plans to prosecute about 80 Guantanamo prisoners.

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Judge to Bush admin.: Guantanamo is top priority

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

AP News | A federal judge overseeing Guantanamo Bay lawsuits ordered the Justice Department to put other cases aside and make it clear throughout the Bush administration that, after nearly seven years of detention, the detainees must have their day in court.

“The time has come to move these forward,” Judge Thomas F. Hogan said Tuesday during the first hearing over whether the detainees are being held lawfully. “Set aside every other case that’s pending in the division and address this case first.”

The Bush administration hoped it would never come to this. The Justice Department has fought for years to keep civilian judges from reviewing evidence against terrorism suspects. But a Supreme Court ruling last month opened the courthouse doors to the detainees.

About 200 lawyers, law clerks and reporters sat through the nearly three-hour court hearing. Other lawyers joined by phone for the historic hearing. Attorneys, nearly all of them working for free, have long asked for a judge to scrutinize the evidence, saying the detainees could not be held indefinitely, simply on the government’s say-so.

“A day in court on the Guantanamo cases is a treasured moment,” said Gitanjali Gutierrez, one of two attorneys for the Center for Constitutional Rights selected to address the court on behalf of all the lawyers.

There are about 270 detainees being held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The government has already cleared one of five for release and is just looking for a country to send them to, the Justice Department said.

“That’s the issue the executive branch is struggling with,” Justice Department attorney Judry L. Subar said.

“Maybe we can assist them,” Hogan said.

Hogan is coordinating most of the estimated 200 Guantanamo Bay cases on behalf of most of the Washington federal judges. He will decide how quickly the Justice Department must turn over the evidence against the detainees.

The Justice Department is asking for about eight weeks to start doing so. It is dramatically expanding the litigation team handling the cases and is asking for time to get the new attorneys brought up to speed, settled in their new offices and approved to handle the classified evidence.

It also wants time to update and add to the evidence that was originally used to justify holding the detainees.

“The government should be entitled, in 2008, to present its best case,” Justice Department attorney Gregory G. Katsas said.

Lawyers for the detainees adamantly oppose that move and Hogan was skeptical of the plan. If the evidence was enough to warrant holding the detainees for six years, he said he didn’t understand why it suddenly needs to be changed.

“If it wasn’t sufficient, then they shouldn’t have been picked up,” Hogan said, adding that he probably would make the government explain any proposed change.

A schedule has not been set but it appears judges could begin reviewing evidence in September. If judges find the evidence lacking, they could order detainees released, but the Bush administration would decide where to send them. Judges do not generally have authority to bring detainees into the U.S., despite White House assertions that the court process could release terrorists onto U.S. streets.

Shayana Kadidal, another attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights, said he doubts most detainees ever get that far. He predicted that once judges order the evidence is made available, the Bush administration would try to release as many detainees as possible to prevent judges from scrutinizing it.

In those cases in which evidence is reviewed, judges will decide how much weight to give the government’s evidence, which in many situations will include unidentified sources and hearsay.

A federal appeals court recently scrutinized the case of a Chinese Muslim and found the evidence lacking. The court said the detainee must be released. Susan Baker Manning, an attorney in that case, said she expects district court judges to be similarly skeptical of the government’s evidence.

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Ex-MI5 chief attacks 42-day plan

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

Baroness Manningham-Buller tells the Lords why she is against the plans (video)

The former head of MI5 has dismissed government plans to extend the time terror suspects can be held to 42 days as not “workable”.

Baroness Manningham-Buller, who stepped down from the role last year, told peers she disagreed on a “practical basis as well as a principled one”.

But the government said terror attacks were a “clear and present danger”.

The House of Lords is widely expected to block the plan, which passed through the Commons by just nine votes in June.

The government wants to extend the maximum period a terror suspect can be detained without charge from 28 to 42 days - it says this is needed to deal with increasingly complex plots.

‘Ridiculous’

But a rebellion by Labour MPs in the Commons meant the measure was passed there only thanks to DUP MPs’ backing.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s plan looks set to face an even tougher battle in the Lords, where the combined total of Tory and Lib Dem peers outnumber Labour members.

We face an unprecedented terrorist threat -Security Minister Lord West

Lady Manningham-Buller, in her maiden speech to the House of Lords, said: “I don’t see, on a principled basis, as well as a practical one, that these proposals are in any way workable.”

She added that a “broad cross-party consensus” on fighting terror was needed.

Lady Manningham-Buller also said it was essential there was a “balance between the right to life”, “the fact that there is no such thing as complete security” and “the importance of our hard-won civil liberties”.

She added that “therefore, on principle, I cannot support 42 days’ pre-charge detention in this bill”.

Lord Goldsmith, who was attorney general when Tony Blair was prime minister, also opposed the plan, saying it risked “giving away the very freedoms that terrorists are trying to take from us”.

He told peers: “We don’t take away freedoms that people, and our ancestors, have fought for without very good cause…”

Former Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer said he would oppose the plans “root and branch”.

He said: “I’m absolutely clear that there’s no advantage for fighting terrorism that will be obtained from extending detentions to 42 days.”

He added that an extra 14 days available to question suspects and gather evidence would “make no difference” to the police, and that to say so was a “ridiculous assertion”.

‘Fundamental rights’

For the government, Security minister Lord West said: “We face an unprecedented terrorist threat… There’s a clear and present danger to our population.”

He added: “The terrorists we face are more ruthless than those we faced in the past.”

But shadow security minister Baroness Neville-Jones said of the 42-days plan: “It represents yet another attack, on the part of the government, without justification, on fundamental democratic rights and freedoms that have underpinned our society for centuries.”

This draconian proposal will be defeated in the House of Lords -Lord Thomas Liberal Democrats

The Conservatives and Lib Dems say they will try to defeat the 42-day measure when the bill reaches its detailed parliamentary stages, possibly after the long summer recess.

Lord Goldsmith, who was the legal adviser to Tony Blair’s government after the terror attacks on London and in the run-up to the Iraq invasion, is due to speak in the debate and has made no secret of his opposition to the plans.

He has said “the case has not been made” to extend the limit on holding terror suspects, and he could not support it.

He also argued that extending the pre-charge limit to 42 days would send a message to Muslims “that we are down on them”.

‘Discredited policy’

Lord Thomas, who speaks on attorney general issues for the Lib Dems, said: “Holding someone without charge for 42 days adds nothing of value to the investigation, prosecution or conviction of terrorists.

“Gordon Brown’s clinging to the shreds of his discredited policy in the hope that he can pass off this ineffective and unprincipled stance as somehow ‘tough’ on terror.

“This draconian proposal will be defeated in the House of Lords.”

Attempts to extend the terror detention limit to 90 days in 2005 ended in Mr Blair’s first Commons defeat as prime minister.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7494799.stm

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Call for Brain Scans of Presidential Candidates to Detect Mental Health Problems

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

By David Gutierrez | A neuropsychiatrist who runs a chain of private brain-scanning clinics has issued a call to scan the brains of presidential candidates in an opinion piece published in the Los Angeles Times.

Dr. Daniel G. Amen is the chief executive officer of the Amen Clinics, which carry out brain scans in order to diagnose and manage everything from physical brain trauma to anxiety, depression, school failure, underachievement, aggression, obsessive compulsive disorder and the effects of drugs and alcohol.

The American Psychiatric Association does not currently recommend brain scans for clinical or diagnostic purposes.

In the article, Amen says that brain scans could help warn of mental abnormalities that voters need to know about before electing someone to high office. He compares such scans to the complete medical history of the president that the White House issues each year, or to the questions about the health and age of candidates that are often debated during elections.

“As a neuropsychiatrist and brain-imaging expert, I want our elected leaders to be some of the ‘brain healthiest people’ in the land,” Amen writes.

Amen notes that President Ronald Reagan clearly exhibited the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease during his second term, which led to unelected officials taking over the reigns of government. Brain examinations, he says, have shown success in detecting Alzheimer’s between five and nine years before symptoms appear - which, in Reagan’s case, would have been before his first term in office.

Amen also questions whether Clinton or the current president might not have brain abnormalities.

“President Clinton’s moral lapses and problems with bad judgment and excitement seeking behavior,” Amen writes, are “indicative of problems in the prefrontal cortex.”

Meanwhile, President George W. Bush’s “struggles with language and emotional rigidity are symptoms of temporal lobe pathology.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t leave the health of our president’s brain to chance,” Amen says. “We have the tools; shouldn’t we look?”

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Bush signs G8 deal to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

guardian.co.uk | George Bush today paved the way for his successor in the White House to strike an historic deal on climate change when he finally signed up to a G8 statement vowing “to consider and adopt” a target of at least a 50% cut in carbon emissions by 2050.

It is the first time Bush has committed the US to a long-term target, and represents a big shift in the US position as Barack Obama and John McCain fight for the presidency. But the deal, agreed at the G8 summit in northern Japan, was immediately rejected by the big five emerging economies, including China and India because they believe it does not go far enough.

Leaders from Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa will meet with Bush and other G8 leaders at the summit where they will demand more concerted action from the developed world.

In a statement tonight, the five nations, after meeting at a separate summit in Japan, said: “It is essential that developed countries take the lead in achieving ambitious and absolute greenhouse gas emission reductions.”

They want the G8 countries to commit themselves to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% to 95% below 1990 levels by 2050. They are also concerned that the deal fails to set milestone interim targets for the coming decades and does not make clear the scale of the cuts to be expected from the developed and developing world.

Mexico, Brazil, China, India and South Africa also urged all developed countries to commit themselves to absolute emission reductions based on a medium-term target of a 25% to 40% cut below 1990 levels by 2020.

The G8 is making an offer to provide up to $150bn (£76bn) in public and private investment over the next three years to help them grow economically while using green technology.

Despite the tough statement from the emerging economies, Gordon Brown said the deal marked “major progress” and British officials claimed the deal opened the way for agreement next year under UN auspices at Copenhagen on a new long-term framework on climate change, replacing the flawed agreement struck at Kyoto in 1997.

They pointed out that Obama was already committed to an 80% cut in US carbon emissions and McCain to a 60% reduction. Both candidates’ commitments would be sufficient to meet the US required contribution for a worldwide cut of 50%, seen as the minimum to avert catastrophic climate change.

Green groups slammed the deal, although they privately acknowledged that Bush has shifted his position substantially from a time when he denied the science of climate change.

Friends of the Earth’s international climate campaigner, Tom Picken, accused G8 leaders of an “elaborate smokescreen” to try to fool the world they were showing international leadership on global warming.

“Setting a vague target for 42 years’ time is utterly ineffectual in the fact of the global catastrophe we all face. Urgent action is needed to tackle climate change and spiralling energy prices caused by our addiction to increasingly expensive and insecure fossil fuels.”

The EU commission said any mention of mid-term goals was an advance from last year when the G8 agreed only to “seriously consider” a goal of halving emissions by mid-century.

Yvo de Boer, head of the UN climate change secretariat, said the G8 deal had positive elements, but warned: “What I find lacking is any kind of language on where industrialised nations, G8 nations, want their emissions to be in 2020 and I think that is critical to making progress in the negotiations.”

US sources said huge challenges remained including an agreed framework to measure carbon reductions, a mechanism to drive down carbon emissions such as an international carbon trading scheme, the scale of the contributions to be required from differing developing countries, and whether targets could be set on economic sectors instead of countries. Populous developing countries such as India claim their per capita emisisons are tiny in comparison with the US. Methods also have to be found to bring aviation and maritime emissions within the scheme.

British officials were pleased that there will also be a new push to set international benchmarks on biofuels, a move that could require US corn producers to scale back on production for biofuels.

Oxfam described the deal as little more than a stalling tactic. They claimed much of the money from the multilateral banks was simply transferred from aid programmes.

Environmental campaign group WWF said: “The G8 are responsible for 62% of the carbon dioxide accumulated in the Earth’s atmosphere, which makes them the main culprit of climate change and the biggest part of the problem.”

Marthinus van Schalkwyk, South African minister of environmental affairs and tourism, said: “As it is expressed in the G8 statement, the long term goal is an empty slogan. To be meaningful and credible, a long-term goal must have a base year, it must be underpinned by ambitious mid-term targets and actions.”

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All should urge US, UK to dismantle their nuclear weapons

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

Kuala Lumpur | President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday that the governments and nations should urge the US and Britain to annihilate their nuclear weapons.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the D8 summit in Malaysia, he said “Iran never yields to any illegal and unjust word, no matter it comes from group 5+1, 10+10 or 2+2. We call for dialogue and never makes demand beyond our legitimate rights.”

The fact is that no nations let alone Iranian nation trust them, he said, adding that to prove this claim “I advise them to hold referendum in the world to find out the realities.”
People in the US and Britain do not trust their governments, he said adding that “We think it is time for some governments to win confidence of the Iranian nation.” “We hope they can make good on their misdeeds,” he said.

“As I have already said the era of domination, unilateralism, discrimination and bullying is now over.”
“Why should the US administration be allowed to produce nuclear bombs and use it against people but other nations should be deprived of benefiting from peaceful nuclear energy?” he asked.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has time and again declared that Iran’s nuclear activities are of peaceful nature, he said.

“The time is ripe for world nations to urge the US and UK to destroy their nuclear weapons and if this happens there will remain no concern about existence of nuclear weapons in the world,” he said.

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Iraq insists on U.S. withdrawal timetable: official

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

By Ahmed Rasheed and Mohammed Abbas | Iraq will not accept any security agreement with the United States unless it includes dates for the withdrawal of foreign forces, the government’s national security adviser said on Tuesday.

The comments by Mowaffaq al-Rubaie underscore the U.S.-backed government’s hardening stance toward a deal with Washington that will provide a legal basis for U.S. troops to operate when a U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year.

On Monday, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki appeared to catch Washington off-guard by suggesting for the first time that a timetable be set for the departure of U.S. forces under the deal being negotiated, which he called a memorandum of understanding.

Rubaie said Iraq was waiting “impatiently for the day when the last foreign soldier leaves Iraq.”

“We can’t have a memorandum of understanding with foreign forces unless it has dates and clear horizons determining the departure of foreign forces. We’re unambiguously talking about their departure,” Rubaie said in the holy Shi’ite city of Najaf.

He was speaking to reporters after meeting Iraq’s top Shi’ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

Rubaie said he spoke to Sistani about the U.S. talks, but did not say if the cleric had an opinion on the negotiations. The revered cleric is routinely briefed on key national issues.

“I informed the (clerical leaders) about some of the advances in the talks. There are real problems and difficulties, and we have many roadblocks ahead. There is a big difference in outlook between us and the Americans,” Rubaie said.

The Bush administration has always opposed setting any withdrawal timetable, saying it would allow militant groups to lie low and wait until the 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq left.

On Tuesday the White House said the talks were not aimed at setting a hard deadline for withdrawal.

“Negotiations and discussions are ongoing every day,” White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in Japan, where President George W. Bush is attending a Group of Eight summit.

“It is important to understand that these are not talks on a hard date for a withdrawal.”

PARLIAMENT HICCUP

In a further complication, Iraq’s deputy parliament speaker Khalid al-Attiya said lawmakers must approve any deal the Iraqi government reaches and will probably reject the document if American troops are immune from Iraqi law.

It would be virtually unthinkable for the United States to allow its soldiers to be subject to Iraqi law.

Maliki’s preference for a memorandum of understanding, which could be an attempt to bypass parliament, is in contrast to earlier talks which have all been leading to the signing of a formal Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA).

“Without doubt, if the two sides reach an agreement, this is between two countries, and according to the Iraqi constitution a national agreement must be agreed by parliament by a majority of two thirds,” Attiya told Reuters in an interview.

Washington has SOFA pacts with many countries, and they typically exempt U.S. troops from facing trial or prison abroad.

Iraq said last week Washington was showing flexibility on some key issues, which officials said included dropping a demand for immunity for private contractors working for the U.S. government.

Control of military operations and airspace are other points of contention, along with the detention of prisoners.

(Additional reporting by Khaled Farhan in Najaf and Jeremy Pelofsky in Toyako, Writing by Dean Yates, Editing by Catherine Evans)

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