La gestione di Bush detta il sabato Stati Uniti le aziende di telecomunicazioni hanno accosentito per cooperare “per il momento„ con la spia che le agenzie' wiretaps, malgrado una battaglia continua fra nuova legislazione di sorveglianza di terrorismo dell'eccedenza del congresso e della Casa Bianca.Il reparto della giustizia e l'ufficio del direttore di intelligenza nazionale hanno pubblicato un detto unito di dichiarazione wiretaps riprenderanno secondo la legge corrente “almeno per ora.„
“Anche se i nostri soci riservati cooperating per il momento, hanno espresso i dubbi comprensibili circa fare in modo da alla luce dell'incertezza continua e che hanno indicato che possono scaturire interrompono la cooperazione se l'incertezza persist,„ la dichiarazione detta.
Il venerdì Stati Uniti Il Attorney General Michael Mukasey ed il direttore di telecomunicazioni che dette McConnell nazionali del Michael di intelligenza le ditte sono state riluttanti a cooperare con nuovo wiretaps poiché la legislazione provvisoria di sei mesi ha espirato ultima fine settimana. Di conseguenza, hanno detto al congresso, spia che le agenzie hanno mancato l'intelligenza.
Le carbossimetilazioni accusano la gestione di Bush di timore-mongering e la hanno incolpata tutte le lacune.
Presidente George W. Bush ha detto che non comprometterebbe con il congresso Democratico-condotto sulla sua richiesta che telefona le aziende è protetto dalle cause per partecipare al suo programma spiante domestico warrantless.
La misura passata dal senato fornirebbe l'immunità retroattiva di causa alle ditte che hanno cooperato con warrantless wiretaps quel Bush autorizzato dopo gli attacchi dell'11 settembre. Ma la Camera dei rappresentanti lo ha opposto ed i capi democratici di entrambi gli alloggiamenti hanno detto che proverebbero a trovare un compromesso.
I capi democratici di intelligenza congressuale ed i comitati giudiziari hanno pubblicato una dichiarazione sul detto che di venerdì si sono commessi a passare la nuova legislazione e Bush sollecitato per sostenere un'estensione della legge provvisoria. Bush ha detto che dare per una revisione permanente della legge 1978 di sorveglianza.
“The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.”
Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and noncitizen alike), and detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of “an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs.”
Beginning in 1999, the government has entered into a series of single-bid contracts with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States. The government has also contracted with several companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles, ostensibly to transport detainees.
According to diplomat and author Peter Dale Scott, the KBR contract is part of a Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of “all removable aliens” and “potential terrorists.”
Fraud-busters such as Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, have complained about these contracts, saying that more taxpayer dollars should not go to taxpayer-gouging Halliburton. But the real question is: What kind of “new programs” require the construction and refurbishment of detention facilities in nearly every state of the union with the capacity to house perhaps millions of people?
Sect. 1042 of the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), “Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies,” gives the executive the power to invoke martial law. For the first time in more than a century, the president is now authorized to use the military in response to “a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, a terrorist attack or any other condition in which the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to the extent that state officials cannot maintain public order.”
The Military Commissions Act of 2006, rammed through Congress just before the 2006 midterm elections, allows for the indefinite imprisonment of anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on a list of “terrorist” organizations, or who speaks out against the government’s policies. The law calls for secret trials for citizens and noncitizens alike.
Also in 2007, the White House quietly issued National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD-51), to ensure “continuity of government” in the event of what the document vaguely calls a “catastrophic emergency.” Should the president determine that such an emergency has occurred, he and he alone is empowered to do whatever he deems necessary to ensure “continuity of government.” This could include everything from canceling elections to suspending the Constitution to launching a nuclear attack. Congress has yet to hold a single hearing on NSPD-51.
U.S. Rep. Jane Harman, D-Venice (Los Angeles County) has come up with a new way to expand the domestic “war on terror.” Her Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (HR1955), which passed the House by the lopsided vote of 404-6, would set up a commission to “examine and report upon the facts and causes” of so-called violent radicalism and extremist ideology, then make legislative recommendations on combatting it.
According to commentary in the Baltimore Sun, Rep. Harman and her colleagues from both sides of the aisle believe the country faces a native brand of terrorism, and needs a commission with sweeping investigative power to combat it.
A clue as to where Harman’s commission might be aiming is the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, a law that labels those who “engage in sit-ins, civil disobedience, trespass, or any other crime in the name of animal rights” as terrorists. Other groups in the crosshairs could be anti-abortion protesters, anti-tax agitators, immigration activists, environmentalists, peace demonstrators, Second Amendment rights supporters … the list goes on and on. According to author Naomi Wolf, the National Counterterrorism Center holds the names of roughly 775,000 “terror suspects” with the number increasing by 20,000 per month.
What could the government be contemplating that leads it to make contingency plans to detain without recourse millions of its own citizens?
The Constitution does not allow the executive to have unchecked power under any circumstances. The people must not allow the president to use the war on terrorism to rule by fear instead of by law.
Lewis Seiler is the president of Voice of the Environment, Inc. Dan Hamburg, a former congressman, is executive director.
Keith Olbermann a MSNBC commentator has declared that President Bush is guilty of terrorism because of his warrentless eavesdropping program.
The Senate-passed eavesdropping measure unlike the earlier House-passed bill gives telecommunications company’s protection from privacy lawsuits for helping Bush conduct wiretapping without court warrants after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
In a scathing commentary against President George W. Bush, MSNBC commentator Keith Olbermann declared Bush guilty of terrorism for playing what he sees as the fear card in an attempt to get the House to pass retroactive immunity for telecommunication companies that illegally helped the US government in its warrantless wiretapping program Thursday evening.
“You are a liar, Mr. Bush, and after showing some skill at it, you have ceased to even be a very good liar,” Keith Olbermann declared.
“The lot of you,” he said, speaking of those who sought to pass immunity, “are the symbolic descendants of the despotic middle managers of some banana republic, to whom ‘Freedom’ is an ironic brand name, a word you reach for, when you want to get away with its opposite.” Keith Olbermann added.
He also called Bush a fascist,
“If you believe in the seamless mutuality of government and big business - come out and say it!” he said. “There is a dictionary definition, one word that describes that toxic blend. You’re a fascist - get them to print you a T-shirt with “fascist” on it! What else is this but fascism?”
US President George W. Bush plans to veto legislation passed by the Senate to bar the CIA from using harsh interrogation methods including waterboarding.
“The President will veto that Bill,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
“The United States needs the ability to interrogate effectively, within the law, captured al-Qaeda terrorists.”
“Bush doesn’t favour torture”
The Democratic-led Senate yesterday voted 51-45 in favor of a Bill calling for the Central Intelligence Agency to adopt the US Army Field Manual, which forbids waterboarding and other types of coercive interrogation methods.
However, the vote fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to overcome a presidential veto. The House of Representatives passed similar legislation in December.
Democratic New York Senator Charles Schumer said that if Bush “vetoes intelligence authorisation, he will be voting in favour of waterboarding.”
Future techniques not ruled out
Asked by a reporter if President Bush, who leaves office in 2009, would be labelled as the first US president who favored torture, Ms Perino rejected the assertion and dismissed Senator Schumer’s argument as simplistic.
“Across the board people will see, over time, that this was a president who put in place tools to protect the country against terrorists,” Ms Perino said.
“The president does not favour torture. The president favours making sure we do all these programs within the law,” she said, adding that “all the interrogations that have taken place in this country have been done in a legal way”.
Ms Perino said the United States does not currently use waterboarding, a simulated drowning technique denounced by rights groups as torture, even though the CIA has admitted using the technique in the past.
She reiterated the administration’s assertion last week that it would not rule out the use of such techniques in the future.
“Currently under the law it is not (allowed),” she said.
“As we said last week as well, we are not going to talk about what may or may not be lawful in the future.”
Manual too weak
The Senate Bill would limit the CIA and other intelligence agencies to the 19 interrogation techniques outlined in the military’s manual. Waterboarding is not among them.
Ms Perino said the intelligence community’s view is that the Army Field Manual sets an inappropriate standard for seasoned CIA interrogators who are working to extract information from sophisticated militant operatives.
“Today with this Bill that they are sending to us they would basically repeal the terrorist interrogation program in favor of something that will definitely weaken our ability to protect the country,” Ms Perino said.
McCain votes against Bill
Rival Democratic White House hopefuls Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were on the road campaigning and did not take part in the vote Wednesday.
The likely Republican nominee, Arizona Senator John McCain, voted against the Bill. The former prisoner of war however said that his vote was consistent with his anti-torture stance.
“We always supported allowing the CIA to use extra measures,” he said.
“I believe waterboarding is illegal and should be banned,” Senator McCain said.
President Bush, in remarks meant to spur House Democrats into accepting a controversial new bill that would expand the government’s ability to spy on Americans, warned that the country faced terror strikes that would make September 11 “pale by comparison.”
In response, critics of the new bill accused Mr. Bush of “fear mongering,” and of trying to deflect attention from the bill itself. Its most controversial provision would prevent Americans from suing phone companies that helped the administration spy on them since the White House surveillance program was instituted in 2001.
Mr. Bush has made immunity from civil prosecution for the telecoms a must-have element for revamping the nation’s surveillance laws, repeatedly saying he would veto any bill that does not exempt telecoms from lawsuits.
The battle lines are being dug in more deeply as House and Senate members prepare to meet in conference to match competing versions of the legislation, an update of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (or FISA).
The House-passed version does not include telecom immunity. This past week, the Senate approved a similar version which includes a provision that protects telecoms from civil lawsuits.
There are approximately 40 lawsuits now brought by citizens and consumer groups against companies that enabled the government to illegally eavesdrop on Americans’ phone and Internet communications.
Opponents of the administration’s program, which engaged wiretaps against any and all Americans without obtaining court-ordered warrants, say the telecoms’ participation was illegal. They say that, given the Bush administration’s penchant for secrecy, lawsuits against the telecoms are the only way to obtain disclosure about the facts from the government.
Information being sought includes details about the origins of the program. The administration admitted that the sweeping domestic surveillance originated in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. However, declassified documents obtained by the National Security Archive and testimony that is part of these lawsuits suggest the National Security Agency program was put into place shortly after Mr. Bush was inaugurated, long before 9/11.
Mr. Bush claims that unless the telecoms received assurance that they will not be sued for breaking the law (and therefore be liable for damages), those companies will not agree to enact future wiretaps, therefore undercutting the government’s intelligence capabilities:
“If these companies are subjected to lawsuits that could cost them billions of dollars, they won’t participate; they won’t help us; they won’t help protect America.”
On Wednesday, after the Senate approved a bill granting immunity, the president for the first time admitted that the telecoms participated in the wiretaps which were not authorized by court-issued warrants - a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Mr. Bush also raised the specter of what would happen if telecom immunity is not accepted by the House, by recalling the crime scene on 9/11:
“At this moment, somewhere in the world, terrorists are planning new attacks on our country. Their goal is to bring destruction to our shores that will make September the 11th pale by comparison.”
Yet Mr. Bush said he would choose to allow current surveillance law (which expires at midnight Saturday) to pass without an extension, rather than sign a bill that does not contain immunity. Instead, he wants the House to rubber-stamp the Senate bill so he can sign it into law immediately.
House Republicans managed to defeat a House proposal to grant a 21-day extension of current law.
Critics jumped on the president’s refusal to extend FISA.
“The President and House Republicans refused to support the extension and therefore will bear the responsibility should any adverse national security consequences result,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Expiration of the current Protect America Act would not mean an immediate end to wiretapping. Existing surveillance could continue under the law for a year from when it began - at least until August. Any new surveillance the government wants to institute could be implemented under underlying FISA rules, which may require warrants from the secret court.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., accused the president and Senate Republicans of being more interested in politicizing intelligence than resolving the debate.
Reid said the issue would not even be before Congress if Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, “in their unyielding efforts to expand presidential powers,” had not created a system to conduct wiretapping, including on U.S. citizens, outside the bounds of federal law.
“The president could have taken the simple step of requesting new authority from Congress … but whether out of convenience, incompetence, or outright disdain for the rule of law, the administration chose to ignore Congress and ignore the Constitution,” Reid said.
Caroline Fredrickson, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s legislative office in Washington, lambasted the president for scare tactics and urged the House not to pass the Senate bill.
“The House should stand up to the bullying from the president and reject the administration’s lies and fear mongering,” she said. “This administration has abused its power over and over again and it is time for the House to reject any attempts to consider the unconstitutional Senate Intelligence Committee FISA bill.
She also demanded that Americans not be denied their day in court in their suits against phone and Internet companies. “Let the American system of justice decide this case,” Frederickson said. “Do not give the phone companies a ‘get out of jail free’ card. If the companies really ‘did the right thing’ as the president said, then they have nothing to fear from going to court.
“Terrorism is a threat. But ignoring the Constitution is also a threat.”
The 68-29 Senate vote Tuesday to update the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act belied the nearly two months of stops and starts and bitter political wrangling that preceded it. The two sides had battled to balance civil liberties with the need to conduct surveillance on potential adversaries.
While giving the White House what it wanted on immunity for the phone companies, the Senate also expanded the power of the court to oversee government eavesdropping on Americans. An amendment would give the FISA court the authority to monitor whether the government is complying with procedures designed to protect the privacy of innocent Americans whose telephone or computer communications are captured during surveillance of a foreign target.
The Senate bill would also require FISA court orders to eavesdrop on Americans who are overseas. Under current law, the government can wiretap or search the possessions of anyone outside the United States - even a soldier serving overseas - without court permission if it believes the person may be a foreign agent.
CBSNews.com producer David Morgan contributed to this report.
As the Guardian Newspaper wrote it: “Rumours of a link between the US first family and the Nazi war machine have circulated for decades”.
Of course they were alledged to be “Conspiracy Theory” though such author as Tarpley in his book “George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography“ did provide some material proofs when he wrote “On Oct. 20, 1942, the U.S. government ordered the seizure of Nazi German banking operations in New York City which were being conducted by Prescott Bush… under the Trading with the Enemy Act”
But the Guardian revealed that with a multibillion dollar legal action for damages by two Holocaust survivors against the Bush family, new documents formely secret have been declassified, which reveal that the firm Prescott Bush worked for, Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH) [In their student years, Prescott Bush and “Bunny” Harriman were chosen for membership in the Elite Yale Society Skull and Bones], acted as a US base for the German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen, who helped finance Hitler in the 1930s before falling out with him at the end of the decade. The Guardian has seen evidence that shows Bush was the director of the New York-based Union Banking Corporation (UBC) that represented Thyssen’s US interests and he continued to work for the bank after America entered the war.
This is not so surprising after the declassification of National Archives about the role of National Chase Bank of David Rockefeller in the confiscation of Jewish Accounts in France. It is even less surprising than the participation of the Bank of England (see BBC History Channel) controlled by the Rothschild.
Roland Harriman, Prescott Bush, Knight Woolley und R. Lovett
The Bush administration failed to comply with a congressional subpoena seeking documents related to Sanofi-Aventis SA’s antibiotic Ketek.
An investigative subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee sought briefing papers used to prepare Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach for testimony he gave at a hearing on the drug in March. The administration’s response was released today by the panel.
The subcommittee last year began investigating whether von Eschenbach gave misleading testimony on Ketek at the hearing. The commissioner and the FDA are under scrutiny from lawmakers who say the agency hasn’t done enough to ensure the safety of Ketek and other medications. The subcommittee is holding a hearing today on Ketek, which has been linked to fatal side effects.
“The department has serious concerns about providing the kind of materials the committee has subpoenaed,” said officials of the FDA and its parent agency, the Health and Human Services Department, in a letter to the committee.
Providing “such highly confidential and deliberative materials used to prepare witnesses testifying before Congress risks chilling the open exchange of views that is essential to the effective conduct of agency business,” wrote Vincent J. Ventimiglia Jr. of the health department and Susan C. Winckler of the FDA.
The agency offered to brief the committee on issues concerning von Eschenbach’s testimony, and the panel hasn’t responded, according to the letter.
`Evidence of Perjury?’
Representative John D. Dingell, a Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Energy and Commerce panel, said at today’s hearing that he supports holding the health secretary, Michael Leavitt, in contempt for failing to comply with the subpoena.
“What is in those briefing books that he does not want either my Republican colleagues or our side to see?” Dingell said. “Is there evidence of perjury? Are there statements embarrassing to the administration?”
The panel has been investigating the FDA’s 2004 approval of Ketek. Lawmakers have said the drug made by Paris-based Sanofi is an example of the FDA’s weak oversight. The agency approved the product even after certain data suggested safety risks and agency scientists expressed concern.
The FDA prohibited marketing Ketek for sinusitis and bronchitis last year after it was linked to liver damage and death in some patients. The drug remains on the U.S. market for pneumonia.
Accuracy of Testimony
During the March 22 hearing before the investigative subcommittee, lawmakers questioned the accuracy of von Eschenbach’s written testimony about Ketek.
People with first-hand knowledge of the FDA’s oversight of Ketek “have also raised questions about whether the commissioner or those who helped prepare his testimony intentionally misled the subcommittee,” wrote Dingell and Representative Bart Stupak, a Democrat from Michigan, in a letter to Leavitt after last year’s hearing. Stupak is chairman of the investigative panel.
The letter from the lawmakers included an article quoting David Ross, a former FDA scientist who worked on Ketek, saying von Eschenbach’s written testimony contained erroneous comments about the agency’s handling of the medication. Ross, who detailed his objections to the testimony to reporters at the hearing, took issue with descriptions of what the FDA knew about a falsified clinical trial and what information regulators took into account when approving the drug.
Clinical Trial Scrutinized
Today’s hearing focuses on what Aventis, a predecessor company to Sanofi, knew about falsified results in a clinical trial of Ketek run by Maria “Anne” Kirkman-Campbell, a researcher who pleaded guilty to mail fraud in the case and was sent to prison. Sanofi has repeatedly said the company didn’t know about the fraud before submitting the data to the FDA.
Aventis failed to supervise properly the researchers in the Ketek trial, the FDA said in an October warning letter to Sanofi. The company didn’t “adequately investigate” reports that Kirkman-Campbell produced false data and enrolled ineligible patients, the letter said.
“Aventis was not aware of fraud until after it had submitted the study to the FDA,” Sanofi spokeswoman Emmy Tsui said last month in an e-mailed statement. The company has “learned to improve policies and procedures” and is “committed to conducting clinical trials that are rigorous, ethical and compliant,” she said.
Ray McGovern says there is enough evidence to impeach Bush, Cheney over torture, Iraq and Iran
Chris Gelken
After 27 years as an analyst with the Central Intelligence Agency, Ray McGovern is now one of the most vocal critics of the government he once served. A founder member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, or VIPS, McGovern is highly critical of the way the Bush administration manipulated or fabricated intelligence to justify its war on Iraq.
McGovern spoke to PressTV on a range of issues, including the recent scandal over waterboarding.
You are on record as saying you had no desire to be associated, however remotely, with an organization that engaged in torture. You say the agency bowed to political pressure, who was responsible in the administration and the agency for giving the go-ahead for torture?
Ray McGovern: Well that’s really no secret. If you look at Richard Clarke for example, the head of the counter terrorism operation at the White House. He wrote that on the very evening of 9/11 the President convened his top national security advisers in the bunker under the White House and said to them, “We’re at war. There are no restrictions. We will need to do what we have to do, and there will be nothing in the way here.”
And when someone objected and said there is international law that applies to attacking a country, for example like Iraq, the president turned on him and shouted, “I don’t care what the international lawyers say, we’re going to kick some ass.”
That set the tone and the torture followed very quickly after. Actually the first person tortured was an American citizen, John Walker Lindh, who was captured in Afghanistan and was subjected to very harsh treatment.
You have called for the impeachment of George Bush — on what grounds exactly, and what prospects to you see for impeachment in the final eleven months of his presidency?
We are strong devotees of the Constitution of the United States. The people who drafted that document had a very foresighted view, given that human nature was at work here.
I think they would be surprised that it took 240 years before a President started acting like a King.
You see, they were used to the King experience in England, and they were hell-bent and determined that this would not happen here in this country. So they made a provision in this basic document that were a President to start acting like a King, were he to accrue powers that were not due him, were he to diss the Congress, then there would be an orderly process to remove that President and it’s called impeachment.
The clause that pertains here says that the President or the Vice President shall be removed from office upon impeachment for and conviction of high crimes and misdemeanors.
It would be hard for me in five minutes to detail all the high crimes and misdemeanors, but let’s just take one, one that I feel very close to, and that is the deliberate falsification, the deliberate forgery, the deliberate manufacture of intelligence to “justify” an unjustifiable war of aggression.
That’s what we had with respect to Iraq, and it’s very clear in retrospect that the President knew exactly what he was doing.
If you add to that the torture, the warrantless eavesdropping, and a whole string of other abuses you have quite enough to impeach the President and the Vice President.
The problem is there is a political season here and the opposition party, the Democrats, are reluctant to cause any waves. The President’s polling numbers are very low, the Vice President’s are even lower, and their political advisers are telling them don’t make any waves now, just hang on there, don’t do anything for eleven months now, and we’ll have a sweeping victory in November, then we can do what we want.
That is not what the Constitution says, that is not what will get our troops out of Iraq, it is really a cave in to political maneuvering rather than doing the proper thing in conscience. They should impeach the President, and they could easily do it.
They say there’s not enough time, but you don’t need a lot of time when you have the evidence that we have against President Bush and Vice President Cheney. It’s a matter of political will and the people in charge now don’t have that political will. They are more cowardly than determined to protect the Constitution.
You have accused the Bush administration of manipulating or fabricating intelligence before the War in Iraq. Why didn’t more people in the agency “come out” if you will and publicly denounce the administration for going to war — as you have said for oil, Israel and logistics — that is permanent bases in the Middle East?
It is very difficult to do that, and the tone set by the Director, George Tenet, was very mischievous. He was the worst example of an intelligence officer that I can imagine. He saw it as his duty to help the President do whatever the President wanted. And when you set that tone at the highest level it’s very difficult for people at lower levels to speak out and say “this isn’t right, we shouldn’t be doing it.”
There still should be some who do that, but it didn’t happen.
Now, the good news is, there have been at least four National Intelligence Estimates that have told the truth. They have been rather courageous in telling the truth. For example the most recent one which said that according to our analysts Iran stopped its nuclear weapons related program four years ago and as far as we can tell, has not restarted it.
Why is that courageous? Because Dick Cheney and George Bush himself were saying just the opposite in the months prior to the release of that estimate.
So there is a lot of hope that there are good people left in the intelligence community, and that not only are they inclined to tell the truth, but some of their superiors are making sure that the truth does get out.
You’ve said Israel should not be considered an ally of the United States — and critical discussion of Israel comes with the risk of being tagged an anti-Semite. Just how strong is the Israeli lobby in the United States — and who is doing whose bidding?
Well, it is very difficult to sort it all out, but it is very clear that the state of Israel has inordinate influence over our body politic. There is nothing that can happen in our country that is not conditioned by the worry about the reaction of the Israel lobby. This is just a fact of life here. It is a matter of courage to speak out and say that this doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense for Israeli interests over the long term.
Last August I believe you published an article that asked the pertinent question: Do we have the courage to stop a war with Iran? Well, does the American public and military have the courage?
I think the National Intelligence Estimate that says that Iran does not have an active nuclear weapons program helps, but I count on the senior military, Admiral Fallon and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who have been responsible, so far, in my view in preventing the President and the Vice President from doing what they want to do, and actually what they have promised the state of Israeli they would do, and that is deal with the Iranian nuclear problem.
Is George Bush losing control of the military, are they acting in a way to protect the best interests of the United States and not the Commander in Chief?
I think this time they have insisted on sitting down with the President and saying we can do this, but look what will happen on week one. Look what will happen on month two, look what we can expect in terms of retaliation three months down the road. That is very scary because it is not like the situation in Iraq. And I think the President is chastened by his experience in Iraq and has had to listen to the senior military on this one and I hope he continues to listen.
The above interview was conducted by the author and first broadcast on PressTV News on Feb. 9, 2008.
The Bush administration, the most secretive society since Skull & Bones, has shut out the American people once again.
After President Bush signed into law just a few weeks ago modest changes to the federal Freedom of Information Act, his administration took one of its best innovations and shuffled it off to Buffalo.
The administration’s plan “violates both the explicit text of the Open Government Act and its legislative intent,” said U.S. Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, the sponsors of the act.
The law created a new ombudsman’s office that can mediate disputes between citizens and the government over the release of information. The law signed by Mr. Bush placed that office in the national Archive and Records Administration. But lo and behold last week the administration squirreled away that new office in the Justice Department, which would effectively gut its very purpose. This latest outrage against open government was discovered on page 239 of the appendix to the president’s massive budget proposal. It formally eliminates the new Office of Government Information Services within the National Archives and moves it to Justice.
To put an ombudsman’s office charged with mediating secrecy issues in the Justice Department is quite simply a bad joke, or more precisely a slap in the face of the people’s right to know. The Justice Department argues to keep government documents secret.
Congress “sought to make the FOIA ombudsman independent of the Department of Justice … to enhance the office’s independence, as well as to avoid real or perceived conflicts of interest,” Sens. Leahy and Cornyn wrote last week to the director of the Office of Management and Budget.
They “strongly oppose” the administration’s unannounced effort to alter “the essential character of (the ombudsman) as an independent, disinterested office serving FOIA requestors.”
The Sunshine in Government Initiative advocated for the changes to the FOI act. It is a consortium of 10 news media organizations: the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Associated Press, Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, Coalition of Journalists for Open Government, National Association of Broadcasters, National Newspaper Association, Newspaper Association of America, Radio-Television News Directors Association, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the Society of Professional Journalists.
The Sunshine Initiative has written the bipartisan leaders of the House Appropriations Committee seeking to reverse the administration’s attempt to thwart the new reform. The independent ombudsman office creates “a potentially valuable and effective tool to help the public reduce long delays and avoid costly litigation by mediating disputes that can arise when the public seeks documents held by government,” it said.
The White House claims that the Department of Justice’s office of Information and Privacy serves some functions applicable to the new ombudsman’s functions, but Justice can’t act as an advocate for FOIA requesters, or even a neutral mediator, because that creates an obvious conflict with Justice’s role as the government’s lawyer defending FOI denials.
I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that with one hand George Bush signs a new law helping citizens to see the workings of government and with the other hand tries to snuff out the new modicum of light it would shed.
Secret prisons, secret meetings, secret historical documents. He is the most secretive president we have ever elected. He makes a mockery of “we the people.”
Whether you love his war or don’t, whether you think he’s a draft-dodging chickenhawk or the reincarnation of George Patton, whether you are liberal or conservative, as a citizen of a democracy you cannot condone his efforts to keep the people at bay and in the dark.
Was Jefferson writing gibberish as we threw off the yoke of England’s George III? Do we not believe that “all men” are “endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights”? Did he not write, “to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”?
How can the people give consent if we don’t know what the government is doing? The president receives his power from us — “the governed.”
Be wary of a president or a governor or a mayor or any public official who thwarts your basic right to know what he is doing.
At the very least, write U.S. Reps. Chris Shays and Rosa DeLauro and tell them not to approve the president’s budget until this skullduggery is pulled out of there.
Bush threatens to veto surveillance bill lacking telecom protections
By LARA JAKES JORDAN
WASHINGTON — President Bush threatened a veto Tuesday in the debate to update terrorist surveillance laws, assailing Democratic plans to deny protection from lawsuits for telecommunications providers that let the government spy on U.S. residents after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The threat came in a 12-page letter to Senate leaders from Attorney General Michael Mukasey and National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell. It was issued as lawmakers prepare to vote on legislation seeking to update a 1978 surveillance law without violating privacy rights.
“If the president is sent a bill that does not provide the U.S. intelligence agencies the tools they need to protect the nation, the president will veto the bill,” wrote Mukasey and McConnell.
The letter was sent to Senate leaders and the top Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence committees.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the letter was premature since there still isn’t any legislation yet.
“It’s a little early to have a veto threat,” he said.
The existing surveillance law will expire Feb. 15. Bush has said he would resist extending it again.
After nearly two months of legislative wrangling, Reid announced the Senate would begin voting on amendments today. Debate began Tuesday evening.
The administration’s veto threat was aimed at amendments that would bar retroactive immunity to phone companies and other telecom providers that have given the government access to e-mails and phone calls linked to people in the United States.
“Private citizens who respond in good faith to a request for assistance by public officials should not be held liable for their actions,” Mukasey and McConnell wrote.
A bill already approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee “is not perfect,” Mukasey and McConnell wrote. But since it provides the legal shields, they said they would support it if the amendments are dropped.
The Senate could vote on the surveillance bill and amendments this week.
Some 40 civil lawsuits have been filed against telecommunications companies. They carry with them a threat of crippling financial penalties, which the White House says could bankrupt the companies.
Congress has struggled to strike a balance between catching terrorists and improperly spying on U.S. residents since last summer, when it sought to update the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. That law requires the government to get approval from a secret court when it seeks to electronically eavesdrop on suspected terrorists or spies in the United States. The law does not apply to government wiretaps on people outside the country.
Over the years, however, foreign communications have been routed through technology based in the United States — raising the question of whether the government should have FISA court approval to listen in on those conversations. The bill being debated now seeks to resolve that issue.
Civil rights and privacy advocates say current law, which Congress approved in August in a hasty attempt to update the 1978 version, still allows the government to eavesdrop on Americans without court oversight. That law was set to expire Feb. 1 but was extended for two weeks as Congress works to hammer out a compromise.
The administration also rejected proposals to have the secret FISA court decide whether to give immunity to telecom firms, arguing that doing so could merely result in lengthy legal battles.
“It is for Congress, not the courts, to make the public policy decision whether to grant liability protection to telecommunication companies who are being sued simply because they are alleged to have assisted the government in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks,” Mukasey and McConnell wrote.
On January 25th, I had a telephone conversation (40 mins +) with a legislative assistant in Conyers’ office regarding impeachment. He had obviously been well-instructed on how to express their current policy. Our conversation included both Bush and Cheney, and took some strange turns, but this is basically the stand they’re taking:
* Impeachment’s not necessary. The next election will take care of EVERYTHING. Just ELECT DEMOCRATS. (This chorus was repeated throughout our discussion.)
* A sitting President is not subject to court actions. Nothing in the Constitution says a President is subject to the law. He finally conceded this remains an “unsettle” question in the courts. (I insisted on documentation to support his statements, and he emailed me a Congressional report, 1978 “CRS Report for Congress” #98-186 A, on impeachment, about 30 pgs.)
* Congress does not have an OBLIGATION or duty to investigate or take any action to prevent a President from breaking the law or abusing his powers. It’s totally up to THEIR DISCRETION.
* It’s okay for their decision to be based on party politics rather than Constitutional considerations because the decision is solely theirs to make.
* The courts can follow up with any illegal acts of the President or Vice-President AFTER they’re out of office, and all will be fine.
* Correcting power-abuse really has no meaning because power is what it’s all about. They all abuse it. So what? It’s just politics.
We both agreed that according to what he was telling me, it boils down to the following:
A sitting President is not subject to the law as long as he remains in office. He can CONTINUE to break laws as long as he remains in office. He can only be removed DURING his term of office (and therefore become subject to the law) through impeachment. Only Congress can impeach, and it’s solely up to their DISCRETION. So, as long as Congress successfully blocks the impeachment process, they are willfully allowing the President to remain completely outside the law, condoning that principle, and, in effect, shielding him from being removed from office so that he will be subject to the law and can be prosecuted. Congress has no OBLIGATION to intervene.
The aide seemed not the least bit disturbed by the gravity or import of my conclusions. It is, after all, just politics. And, by the way, electing Democrats to office will take care of everything (just in case I forgot to mention that).
It is difficult to know where Bush has accomplished the most destruction, the Iraqi economy or the US economy.
In the current issue of Manufacturing & Technology News, Washington economist Charles McMillion observes that seven years of Bush has seen the federal debt increase by two-thirds while US household debt doubled.
This massive Keynesian stimulus produced pitiful economic results. Median real income has declined. The labor force participation rate has declined. Job growth has been pathetic, with 28% of the new jobs being in the government sector. All the new private sector jobs are accounted for by private education and health care bureaucracies, bars and restaurants. Three and a quarter million manufacturing jobs and a half million supervisory jobs were lost. The number of manufacturing jobs has fallen to the level of 65 years ago.
This is the profile of a third world economy.
The “new economy” has been running a trade deficit in advanced technology products since 2002. The US trade deficit in manufactured goods dwarfs the US trade deficit in oil. The US does not earn enough to pay its import bill, and it doesn’t save enough to finance the government’s budget deficit.
To finance its deficits, America looks to the kindness of foreigners to continue to accept the outpouring of dollars and dollar-denominated debt.
The dollars are accepted, because the dollar is the world’s reserve currency.
At the meeting of the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, this week, billionaire currency trader George Soros warned that the dollar’s reserve currency role was drawing to an end: “The current crisis is not only the bust that follows the housing boom, it’s basically the end of a 60-year period of continuing credit expansion based on the dollar as the reserve currency. Now the rest of the world is increasingly unwilling to accumulate dollars.”
If the world is unwilling to continue to accumulate dollars, the US will not be able to finance its trade deficit or its budget deficit. As both are seriously out of balance, the implication is for yet more decline in the dollar’s exchange value and a sharp rise in prices.
Economists have romanticized globalism, taking delight in the myriad of foreign components in US brand name products. This is fine for a country whose trade is in balance or whose currency has the reserve currency role. It is a terrible dependency for a country such as the US that has been busy at work offshoring its economy while destroying the exchange value of its currency.
As the dollar sheds value and loses its privileged position as reserve currency, US living standards will take a serious knock.
If the US government cannot balance its budget by cutting its spending or by raising taxes, the day when it can no longer borrow will see the government paying its bills by printing money like a third world banana republic. Inflation and more exchange rate depreciation will be the order of the day.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
PROGRESS REPORT - Earlier this week, President Bush signed the National Defense Authorization Act of 2008, which included a statute forbidding the Bush administration from spending taxpayer money “to establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq.” But Bush quietly attached a signing statement to the law, asserting a unilateral right to disregard the ban on permanent bases in addition to three other measures in the bill.
“Provisions of the act. . . could inhibit the president’s ability to carry out his constitutional obligations. . . to protect national security,” the signing statement read. Reacting to the statement, Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Mark Agrast said, “On the merits, for the president to assert that Congress lacks the authority to say there shouldn’t be permanent bases on foreign soil is fanciful at best.”
Bush’s “frequent use of signing statements to advance aggressive theories of executive power has been a hallmark of his presidency,” writes the Boston Globe’s Charlie Savage, who has authored a book on that topic. In 2006, the American Bar Association condemned signing statements as “contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional separation of powers.” Bush’s latest signing statement was immediately met with anger on Capitol Hill. “I reject the notion in his signing statement that he can pick and choose which provisions of this law to execute,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) added, “Congress has a right to expect that the Administration will faithfully implement all of the provisions” of the law — “not just the ones the President happens to agree with.”
Last November, Bush announced that he and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had signed a “Declaration of Principles for a Long-Term Relationship of Cooperation and Friendship” that set the parameters for negotiating an “enduring” U.S. occupation of Iraq. The negotiations have drawn fire in part because the administration said it does not intend to designate the declaration as a “treaty,” and so will not submit it to Congress for approval. Bush’s attempt to waive the ban on permanent bases is seen as one more step in the direction of establishing a long-term U.S. presence in Iraq.
“If Bush is allowed to negotiate a treaty with Iraq that binds the United States under international law, the next president will be handcuffed,” said John Isaacs, Executive Director of the Council for a Livable World. The Guardian notes that permanent bases “are broadly unpopular with Iraqis, who have voiced fears of an ongoing U.S. occupation.” Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), who has led the push to prevent permanent bases, explained that Bush’s statement is “sending a dangerous signal to the people of Iraq that the U.S. has a long-term interest in occupying their country, a move that will only enflame the insurgency.” Speaking on the Senate floor yesterday, Sen. Robert Casey (D-PA) said that while administration officials frequently state that they do not intend to permanently occupy Iraq, “this signing statement issued by the President is the clearest signal yet that the Administration wants to hold this option in reserve.”
Among the other provisions in the Defense Authorization Act that Bush asserted an unfounded right to ignore were two accountability measures aimed at private security firms accused of wartime abuses. One of these provisions would establish an independent, bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting. The Pentagon’s inspector general, whose office conducts internal investigations, endorsed the commission’s proposal, telling lawmakers in a November meeting, “We’re leaning forward in the saddle, we’re committed to this.” Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) said, “The idea that the president would stand in the way of a non-partisan, independent committee to look into waste and fraud by companies like Blackwater and Halliburton in Iraq is inexcusable and it’s irresponsible, and it ought to ruffle a lot of feathers across the country.”
The other provision Bush waived would extend whistleblower protections to employees of defense contractors. “The president doesn’t have the authority to cancel these rights,” said Tom Devine, legal director at the non-profit Government Accountability Project, “unless he sends in troops to stop a jury from hearing whistleblower cases.”
The fourth and last provision of the law that Bush sought to ignore was a requirement of the administration to turn over “any existing intelligence assessment, report, estimate or legal opinion” requested by the leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services committees within 45 days. The New York Times writes, “Clearly, this violates the power that Mr. Bush has given himself to cover up an array of illegal and improper actions, like his decisions to spy on Americans without a warrant, to torture prisoners in violation of the Geneva Conventions and to fire United States attorneys apparently for political reasons.”
Not content with spying on other countries, the NSA (National Security Agency) will now turn on the US’s own government agencies thanks to a fresh directive from president George Bush.
Under the new guidelines, the NSA and other intelligence agencies can bore into the internet networks of all their peers. The Bush administration pulled off this spy expansion by pointing to an increase in the number of cyber attacks directed against the US, possibly from foreign nations. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) will spearhead the effort around identifying the source of these attacks, while the Department of Homeland Security and Pentagon will concentrate on retaliation.
The Washington Post appears to have broken the news about the new Bush-led joint directive, which remains classified. The paper reported that the directive - National Security Presidential Directive 54/Homeland Security Presidential Directive 23 - was signed on Jan. 8. Earlier reports from the Baltimore Sun documented the NSA’s plans to add US spying to its international snooping duties.
The new program will - of course - drains billions of dollars out of US coffers and be part of Bush’s 2009 budget.
During Bush’s presidency, US citizens have come under an unprecedented spying regime. In addition to upping its focus on suspected criminals, the administration permitted a system for wiretapping the phone calls of Average Joes and Janes. The government is also funding specialized computers from companies such as Cray that can search through enormous databases at incredible speed. Ah, if only Stalin could see us now.
The government points to cyber attacks against the State, Commerce, Defense and Homeland Security departments as the impetus for expanding the NSA’s powers. “U.S. officials and cyber-security experts have said Chinese Web sites were involved in several of the biggest attacks back to 2005, including some at the country’s nuclear-energy labs and large defense contractors,” the Post reported.
Critics of the new directive will point to the NSA’s ability to operate in total secrecy as cause for concern.
More troubling, however, may be the Pentagon and Homeland Security’s aspirations to hit attackers with counter-strikes.
Proving that a nation rather than a rogue set of attackers are behind a cyber attack will likely be very difficult. In addition, the international community has yet to address the rules of cyber war in any meaningful way. ®
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