Britain’s denials that its territories have been used for ‘extraordinary rendition’ were dramatically undermined last night after the United Nations claimed that Diego Garcia has been used as a detention centre to hold US suspects.

Manfred Novak, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on torture, who is charged with investigating human rights abuses, said he had received credible evidence from well-placed sources familiar with the situation on the island that detainees were held on Diego Garcia between 2002 and 2003.

Novak pledged he would consider a request by the UK government to share his information. ‘I spoke to my sources on condition of anonymity and it would take time to trace them; I couldn’t do it [brief the UK government] without the explicit authorisation of these people,’ Novak said. ‘But under this caveat, I could share more information.’

Novak said he had spoken to people who had been held on the atoll, situated in the Indian Ocean and home to a large US naval base. They had been treated well in comparison with the regime some endured at places such as Guantánamo Bay. ‘There were only a few of them and they were not held for a long time,’ he said.

In 2004, the then Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, confirmed to parliament that there was a detention centre on Diego Garcia. Planning documents show it was ‘upgraded’ in December 2001. Ships operating offshore have also been used as floating ‘black sites’ to hold detainees, according to human rights groups.

The revelations raise fresh questions about the island’s role in the process of extraordinary rendition - moving suspects to interrogation centres in third-party countries where they are held outside the law - and why the UK government was apparently unaware that its ally was operating a prison on Diego Garcia to house so-called ‘high-value detainees’.

Last month the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, was forced to admit that two US planes carrying rendered suspects had landed in Diego Garcia in 2002, a major humiliation for Gordon Brown’s administration, which had until then repeatedly denied the claims.

The British government continues to deny allegations that the island has been used to hold terrorist suspects, saying it has been given reassurances by the US authorities that this was not the case. ‘As the Foreign Secretary set out in his statement to parliament on 21 February, the US have told us that no US detainees have ever been held on Diego Garcia,’ a spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said.

But a former US military general, Barry McCaffrey, said in 2006 that Diego Garcia has been used to hold detainees, though he has subsequently retracted the claims. McCaffrey declined repeated requests for an interview.

Evidence has also emerged that the US has held prisoners on ships operating outside the three-mile zone around the island that defines Britain’s territorial waters. It is believed that the ships are serviced by craft from the atoll. Novak said he was told that some detainees had in the past been held for up to four months. ‘There is an obligation on member states to carry out extensive investigations into what happened,’ he said.

Human rights groups have long suspected that the seas around the island have been used to facilitate rendition. ‘If it turns out any [rendition] boat is being supported by Diego Garcia, Britain would have a duty to investigate what is going on on those boats,’ said Clara Gutteridge, an investigator with human rights group Reprieve.

Evidence supplied to Reprieve confirms that prisoners have been held on US-operated vessels serviced by Diego Garcia. The US authorities have admitted holding eight detainees, including John Walker Lindh, the American who was captured in Afghanistan fighting for the Taliban, on board the USS Bataan.

Another US naval vessel that has operated in the waters off Diego Garcia, the USNS Stockham, is also suspected of housing prisoners. ‘We have heard from very reliable sources that this boat was used as a floating prison for high-profile prisoners while it was in the vicinity of Diego Garcia,’ Gutteridge said.

A prisoner released from Guantánamo described to Reprieve a fellow prisoner’s account of his detention on board a US ship. ‘There were about 50 other people on the ship,’ the detainee said the prisoner had told him. ‘They were beaten even more severely than in Guantánamo.’

A spokesman for the US naval base in Diego Garcia, based in Japan, was not immediately available for comment.

By DAVID STOUT and BRIAN KNOWLTON

Using some of his toughest language in weeks, President Bush prodded Congress on Thursday to pass his preferred version of surveillance legislation, asserting that every day of delay could put the country in danger.

Mr. Bush said again that renewing the surveillance legislation is “a very urgent priority,” and that it must include controversial provisions that would shield telecommunications companies from wholesale lawsuits over their assistance in monitoring the phone calls and e-mail messages of suspected terrorists without warrants.

Failure to give the legal protection to the telecom companies would not only be unwise and dangerous policy but plain unfair, the president said at a White House news conference. The companies were told by government leaders after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, “that their assistance was legal and vital to national security,” the president said. “Allowing these lawsuits to proceed would be unfair.”

Contrary to what administration critics say, “people who analyze the program fully understand that America’s civil liberties are well protected,” President Bush.

The Senate passed a surveillance bill to the president’s liking on Feb. 12, by a hefty margin. The chamber rejected a series of amendments that would have imposed greater civil-liberties checks on government surveillance powers, and it afforded legal protection to the telecom companies.

But the House has resisting passing that bill, prompting a heated debate over the proper balance between individual liberties and national security in the age of terrorism. If the final legislation does not include protection for the companies, a wave of lawsuits could reveal how the United States conducts surveillance “and give Al Qaeda and others a road map as to how to avoid surveillance,” Mr. Bush said.

Without the cooperation of private companies, “we cannot protect our country from terrorist attack,” the president declared, adding that the dispute was “not a partisan issue.”

Although there was nothing really new in the stance the president took, he adopted unusually robust language — saying, for instance, that it was “dangerous, just dangerous” for the legislation to be delayed, and pledging to continue speaking out about the issue until the American people understand and, by implication, the lawmakers follow the will of their constituents.

Mr. Bush also used one of his favorite themes, that of the trial lawyer who salivates at the money to be made through frivolous lawsuits. Perhaps, he said, these lawyers “see a financial gravy train” if they can sue the deep-pockets telecom companies.

Democrats counterattacked while the president was still speaking.

“If the President had not rejected an extension of current law and refused to negotiate with Congress, it is very likely that the new FISA bill could already be law today,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, using the acronym for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. “It is disingenuous for the president to claim the country is less safe when he is the one responsible for holding up the legislative process.”

And Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts said the president was using “the specter of terrorism” to push his own agenda.

“If the telecommunications companies didn’t break the law, they do not need immunity,” the senator said. “If they broke the law, the American people deserve to know the size and scope of their lawbreaking. Adhering to the rule of law would not ‘aid our enemies’ — it would uphold the very principles we are fighting for. The President’s position has nothing to do with protecting Americans and everything to do with sweeping under the rug illegal activity by his administration and his corporate partners.”

Mr. Bush used the news conference to reiterate several other long-held positions: The “temporary” tax cuts set to expire over the next few years, he said, should be made permanent to bolster the economy, which he said was not slowing down but was not skidding into recession. Big new taxes on the major oil companies would backfire, driving up energy costs, he said.

And the president showed no interest in getting acquainted with Raúl Castro, whom he described as just an extension of his brother Fidel, whose half-century tenure as president of Cuba has kept the island in isolation and poverty.

President Bush was asked whether he agreed with Senator Barack Obama that the United States would be better off if the president were willing to hold direct talks with leaders of countries like Iran and Cuba.

Republicans, and some Democrats, have harshly criticized Mr. Obama for his original suggestion that he would be willing to sit down with people like President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran in order to explore important differences. Mr. Obama has since clarified his stance, saying he would do so only if adequate preparations were made for such talks.

Though the president has generally shied away from commenting directly on the presidential campaign, he launched immediately into a vigorous criticism of Mr. Obama’s idea.

“Embracing a tyrant?” he asked, seeming worked up at the idea. “It’ll send the wrong message. It’ll send a discouraging message to those who wonder if America will continue to work for the freedom of prisoners, it’ll give great status to those who have suppressed human rights and human dignity.”

Mr. Bush said he had been deeply moved by meetings with the wives of Cuban dissidents, and that embracing a leader like Mr. Castro without first bringing greater pressure for improvements on human rights in Cuba “would be counterproductive and send the wrong signal.”

Mr. Bush continued in the same critical vein: “Sitting down at the table, having your picture taken with a tyrant such as Raúl Castro lends the status of the office and the status of our country to him,” he said. “He gains a lot from it by saying, ‘Look at me: I’m now recognized by the president of the United States.’ ”

The president indicated that there was no chance his policy on meeting such leaders would change.

In a similar vein, he was asked whether his plan to attend the Summer Olympics in Beijing this year might undercut the impact of American complaints about Chinese human rights violations.

“I’m going to the Olympics because it’s a sporting event,” he said. But he said that this would not preclude him from trying to persuade Chinese leaders that freedom of religion, for example, can “benefit society as a whole.”

He said he was “not the least bit shy” about bringing such questions up, and expected to do so.

Mr. Bush was also asked whether he was concerned that Turkey might keep a protracted military presence in Kurdish regions of northern Iraq.

“I strongly agree with the sentiments of Secretary Gates, who said the incursion must be limited and must be temporary in nature,” he said. “The Turks need to move, to move quickly, achieve their objectives and get out.”

Pressed by a reporter about whether quickly meant a matter of days or weeks, he declined to be specific, saying only, “As quickly as possible.”

But he also expressed sympathy over the problems Turkey faces in its border region.

“The Turks, the Americans and the Iraqis — including the Iraqi Kurds — share a common enemy in the P.K.K.,” he said, referring to an armed Kurdish group.

A reporter asked Mr. Bush what he knew about Dmitri Medvedev, the man chosen to be the next Russian president, succeeding Vladimir V. Putin. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator Obama had been asked about him in their debate Tuesday night, and Clinton wrestled with the pronunciation of his name.

“I don’t know much about Medvedev either,” Mr. Bush said.

He said he was waiting to see who will represent Russia at this year’s Group of Eight meeting in Hokkaido, Japan. Mr. Putin is in line to become prime minister, but it remains unclear how much power he will retain after Mr. Medvedev’s expected accession.

Above all, Mr. Bush sought to emphasize the importance for the United States of maintaining a good working relationship with the new Russian leadership, regardless of their unavoidable differences.

“I want to try to leave it so whoever my successor is will be able to have a relationship with whoever’s running foreign policy in Russia,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we have to agree all the time, and obviously we didn’t agree on Kosovo.”

The United States supports Kosovo’s recent declaration of independence of Serbia, while Russia has sharply criticized it.

Mr. Bush said he had appreciated Russian cooperation in efforts to halt Iran’s uranium-enrichment work, particularly Moscow’s offer to provide enriched uranium to Tehran so that it need not make its own.

“There’s areas where we need to cooperate,” the president said. His advice to the next president, he added, “is to establish a personal relationship with whoever’s in charge of foreign policy in Russia.”

At a time when both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama have been critical of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which they say has cost jobs in places like Ohio, Mr. Bush said bluntly that a unilateral withdrawal from the treaty “is not good policy.”

As a former Texas governor, he said, he had seen the South Texas border area evolve from an area of great poverty to one considerably more affluent. “This agreement has meant prosperity on both sides of our border, north and south,” he said.

Though both Democratic candidates have been critical of NAFTA, both have taken nuanced positions on the treaty in the past, and have supported similar trade deals.

Mr. Bush also strongly urged Congress not to block a free-trade agreement with Colombia that the administration signed in 2006. Democratic legislators have cited human rights violations in Colombia, and its inhospitable treatment of labor organizers, in refusing to go along.

The president said rejecting the trade agreement would “encourage false populism in our neighborhood.”

The Bush administration said on Saturday U.S. telecommunications companies have agreed to cooperate “for the time being” with spy agencies’ wiretaps, despite an ongoing battle between the White House and Congress over new terrorism surveillance legislation.The Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint statement saying wiretaps will resume under the current law “at least for now.”

“Although our private partners are cooperating for the time being, they have expressed understandable misgivings about doing so in light of the ongoing uncertainty and have indicated they may well discontinue cooperation if the uncertainty persists,” the statement said.

On Friday U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell said telecommunications firms have been reluctant to cooperate with new wiretaps since six-month temporary legislation expired last weekend. As a result, they told Congress, spy agencies have missed intelligence.

Democrats accused the Bush administration of fear-mongering and blamed it for any gaps.

President George W. Bush has said he would not compromise with the Democratic-led Congress on his demand that phone companies be shielded from lawsuits for taking part in his warrantless domestic spying program.

The measure passed by the Senate would provide retroactive lawsuit immunity to firms which cooperated with warrantless wiretaps that Bush authorized after the September 11 attacks. But the House of Representatives has opposed it, and Democratic leaders of both chambers said they would try to find a compromise.

Democratic leaders of congressional intelligence and judiciary committees issued a statement on Friday saying they were committed to passing new legislation and urged Bush to support an extension of the temporary law. Bush has said he would hold out for a permanent overhaul of the 1978 surveillance law.

© Reuters 2008 All rights reserved

Rule by fear or rule by law?

“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.”

- Winston Churchill, Nov. 21, 1943

Lewis Seiler,Dan Hamburg

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 MSNBC commentator

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?”

SG/HAR

By Kerry Sheridan in Washington

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: U.S. Could Face Attacks That Would Make 9/11 “Pale By Comparison”

CBS

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.

By thecounterpunch

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

By Justin Blum

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.

JAMES H. SMITH

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.

Mr. Shays:

1126 Longworth Building

Washington, DC 20515

Online at: www.house.gov/shays/

Ms. DeLauro

2262 Rayburn House Office Building

Washington, DC 20515

Online at: www.house.gov/delauro/

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.

Conyers Staffer Says They Are Choosing to Let Bush Continue Violating Laws

By Donna Norton, Sonoma County PDA

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.)

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).

The Profile of a Third World Country

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

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