8.15.2007 A prelude to war: What's really behind Bush's Iran move Attytood

8.15.2007 Time Warner Destroys America and a Political Mag Near You Josh Marshall

I haven't had time to look far enough into this to know all the details. But even in its outlines I can tell it's a pretty big deal -- and one that doesn't seem likely to get a lot of attention. The short and sweet of it is that Time Warner has proposed and postal regulators have accepted a proposal which is actually reducing postage costs for mega-mags like Time and Newsweek while dramatically raising them for small independent publishers. From small mags on the right and left I've been deluged in recent weeks by letters saying the new rates are tipping them into financial crisis.

Administration and military officials acknowledge that the September report will not show any significant progress on the political benchmarks laid out by Congress. How to deal in the report with the lack of national reconciliation between Iraq's warring sects has created some tension within the White House.

Despite Bush's repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration officials said it would actually be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government.

And though Petraeus and Crocker will present their recommendations on Capitol Hill, legislation passed by Congress leaves it to the president to decide how to interpret the report's data.

8.14.2007 "Proposed rules would let the attorney general sign off on 'fast tracking' death penalty appeals." By Richard B. Schmitt, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

8.13.2007 Re: Rove

For one of the most powerful men in the world to walk away from this position in such short order, a mere 18 days, means that there truly is something coming on down the pike. There is about to occur an event or action, which even Rove won't be a party to. Such a sudden departure, when Bush has such little time left to serve, has President Cheney's stench all about it. Reading the President's under-reported directive on establishing martial law and suspending the Constitution; in light of the strengthened Patriot Act and increased domestic surveillance legislation; and the several completed military plans enabling a military take-over of state and local government makes for an alarming future. Why would all this exist if not to be used? All it takes is one incident to make the country willing to trade the Constitution for security. Maybe, this either goes too far for Rove or he's an impediment to Cheney. This is not a simple resignation. Posted by: profmarcus | August 13, 2007 at 08:50

See also: New presidential directive gives Bush dictatorial power By Larry Chin

The National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive, signed on May 9, 2007, declares that in the event of a “catastrophic event,” George W. Bush can become what is best described as a dictator, "The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government."

This directive, completely unnoticed by the media, and given no scrutiny by Congress, literally gives the White House unprecedented dictatorial power over the government and the country, bypassing the US Congress and obliterating the separation of powers. The directive also placed the secretary of Homeland Security in charge of domestic “security.”

8.13.2007 "Why the new FISA bill is worse than I thought." Anonymous Liberal

... But the more I look at the scope of the authority granted under 105B, the more I can see why the government would want to invoke it. Above and beyond any concerns related to the FISA framework itself, 105B appears to authorize the circumvention of a number of other laws and thereby significantly increase the government's ability to secure information from private parties.
...
But what 105B does do is provide the government with the authority to collect, without warrants, just about any non-content information, so long as it "concerns" people believed to be located outside of the country.

That's significant because FISA is not the only law that requires the government to seek warrants. There are a number of other laws (such as the Communications Act, the Stored Communications Act, and the Pen Register Statute) that either require the government to get a warrant before collecting information or bar the custodians of that information from turning it over absent a court order.

Comments from a Marty Lederman article: 105B all by itself is national security letters on steroids, the equivalent of administrative warrants allowing direct-connect, real-time acquisition of a universe of data that never was part of the TSP. # posted by JaO : 4:21 PM

As a panelist on the NPR game show "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" suggested this weekend, I believe the reason for the Democratic capitulation is because somewhere Bush or the Republicans have "a picture of Democrats naked with a goat," or something of that sort. The illegal spying by this administration is probably being used for political blackmail and manipulation, IMHO. # posted by ewastud : 4:39 PM

... This provision, which has always been a part of FISA, does two very important things. In the first half, it expressly disclaims any intent to interfere with the president’s foreign intelligence gathering powers except with respect to “electronic surveillance” as defined by FISA. The second half–which is often referred to as the exclusivity provision–makes it clear that, with respect to “electronic surveillance,” FISA’s procedures are exclusive, i.e, that Congress did not intend to leave the president with any residual power to conduct this sort of surveillance outside of the FISA framework.

Unlike previous administration proposals, the bill that Congress passed last week left this provision intact. But, and this is critically important, the bill significantly narrowed FISA’s definition of “electronic surveillance.” Here’s what the amendment says:

Nothing in the definition of electronic surveillance under 101(f) shall be construed to encompass surveillance directed at a person reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States.

...

Furthermore, the bill passed by Congress did not amend FISA’s criminal and civil liability provisions, which, like the exclusivity provision, are still tied to the definition of “electronic surveillance.” For instance, section 1809 of FISA makes it is a felony to “engage[] in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute.” All of the other punitive provisions are similarly worded.

Therefore, as long as the government is engaged in “surveillance directed at a person reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States,” it cannot possibly run afoul of FISA’s criminal or civil liability provisions, even if it totally disregards all of the procedures and oversight requirements spelled out in the bill. There’s no penalty for non-compliance.

If we take either Dreher and Ignatieff at their word, then I think we really have to ask: why are people who are, by their own account, not just mistaken but completely clueless among the people who are given platforms to express their opinions? Why does anyone take those opinions seriously? Weren't their cognitive defects clear earlier? How could they not be?
...
Again, I don't mean this to be some sort of "I was right" triumphalism. What interests me is not so much who was right and who was wrong, but this particular version of being wrong -- a version that involves not just error, but errors like "I didn't realize until it was too late that I had to take reality into account", or: "I didn't fully appreciate the fact that making nice speeches isn't all there is to being President." And I'm also interested in why people seem willing to confess these kinds of profound error without any sense of intellectual shame, and why they continue to be given platforms in public life. Because until we find some way to ensure that we hear the opinions of people who know these sorts of things in advance, rather than having to learn them after hundreds of thousands of people have died, we are in deep, deep trouble.

The Federal Reserve added $38 billion in temporary funds to the banking system through the purchase of securities including mortgage-backed debt to meet demand for cash amid a rout in bonds backed by home loans to riskier borrowers.

What’s been happening in financial markets over the past few days is something that truly scares monetary economists: liquidity has dried up. That is, markets in stuff that is normally traded all the time — in particular, financial instruments backed by home mortgages — have shut down because there are no buyers.

This could turn out to be nothing more than a brief scare. At worst, however, it could cause a chain reaction of debt defaults.
...
But when liquidity dries up, the normal tools of policy lose much of their effectiveness. Reducing the cost of money doesn’t do much for borrowers if nobody is willing to make loans. Ensuring that banks have plenty of cash doesn’t do much if the cash stays in the banks’ vaults.

There are other, more exotic things the Fed and, more important, the executive branch of the U.S. government could do to contain the crisis if the standard policies don’t work. But for a variety of reasons, not least the current administration’s record of incompetence, we’d really rather not go there.

The episode was the culmination of a shameful era in which serious issues related to national security and civil liberties were debated in a climate of fear and intimidation, saturated by political calculation and the quest for short-term electoral advantage.

Politically, Republicans won this round in two ways. They got the president the bill he wanted and, as a result, they created absolute fury in the Democratic base. Pelosi has received more than 200,000 e-mails of protest, according to an aide, for letting the bill go forward.

8.9.2007 Citing Four-Day Old Surveillance Law, Bush Seeks Dismissal of Lawsuit Challenging NSA Spying By David Kravets

Four days after President Bush signed controversial legislation legalizing some warrantless surveillance of Americans, the administration is citing the law in a surprise motion today urging a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the NSA spy program.
...
The Center for Constitutional Rights, the plaintiff in the lawsuit, is expected to argue today that the new law violates the Fourth Amendment's requirement that judges approve warrants for surveillance.

8.10.2007 "Gitmo Lawyers File Constitutional Challenge Of Recently-Passed FISA Bill"

What if someone had predicted 50 years ago that someday all this once-private information would be captured and stored? Psychiatrists would have issued a quick and definitive diagnosis: paranoia.

Experts are still digesting the revision to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act signed (pdf) by President Bush yesterday, known as the Protect America Act. It's a fairly safe bet, judging by the amount of expert disagreement about the act's provisions, that most members of Congress don't know what they've just passed.
...
According to the New York Times, some telecoms already feel uncomfortable with the new surveillance requirements.

Democratic Congressional aides said Sunday that some telecommunications company officials had told Congressional leaders that they were unhappy with that provision in the bill and might challenge the new law in court. The aides said the telecommunications companies had told lawmakers that they would rather have a court-approved warrant ordering them to comply.

So telecoms may now be the ones we look to to bolster civil liberties, even as the President wants to exempt them from liability for complying -- allegedly! -- with warrantless surveillance before it was explicitly authorized by Congress. Rarely has more hinged on a company living up to the maxim, "Don't Be Evil."

When Congress returns in September the Intelligence committees and leaders in both parties will need to complete work on the comprehensive reforms requested by Director McConnell, including the important issue of providing meaningful liability protection to those who are alleged to have assisted our Nation following the attacks of September 11, 2001."

See also Jack Balkin: Bush to Democratic Congress: Your Complete Capitulation is Not Good Enough

...Apparently "allegedly helped us stay safe" is Bush Administration code for telecom companies and government officials who participated in a conspiracy to perform illegal surveillance. Because what they did is illegal, we do not admit that they actually did it, we only say that they are alleged to have done it. Or perhaps the Administration is suggesting that although such parties are alleged to have helped the country stay safe, there's no evidence that their repeated violations of federal law actually did much to promote our security. No, they couldn't mean that.

8.6.2007 Senate Simpering Sellout 16 Sabotage Surveillance Sanity

... Women as doormats in the Senate. Why does that get my gall, I wonder: Feinstein, Mikulski, Lincoln, Landrieu, McCaskill, and Klobuchar. Six of the 16 were women, a very disproportionate number of women doing the capitulating. NOT my idea of how women display independence. This was out-and-out deference to the powers that be, to make them all the more powerful. And this on the very day that yet more new revelations came forth about Gonzo’s relentless untruths, misrepresentations … and then they turn around and authorize him to have MORE power???

And any ONE of these made all the difference: Both parties had agreed that 60 votes were required for passage….

8.6.2007 Jack Balkin:

Whether controlled by Republicans or Democrats, Congress seems willing to bestow more and more unaccountable power to the President of the United States. The Democratic Party, which has long prided itself on its support for civil liberties, seems altogether to have lost its soul, and the Republican Party, which long contained a strong element of libertarianism and respect for individual freedom-- particularly in economic matters-- has given up any claims to providing a counterweight to a deluded and incompetent President.

8.6.2007 Dover Bitch:

Could the Iraqis suffer more if we leave? It's a possibility. But they don't want us there and the fools who started this war and the lunatics who want to expand it just can't be taken seriously when the question is debated.

Feingold on Lessons Not Learned:

I am also encouraged by Speaker Nancy Pelosi's call for fixing this flawed legislation as soon as Congress reconvenes in September. We should not delay passing a bill that will end Alberto Gonzales's six-month, oversight-free surveillance holiday. The president will undoubtedly oppose these efforts and the Republicans in the Senate will no doubt filibuster any efforts to reinstate judicial involvement and tighten the controls around the president's eavesdropping authorities. In the face of that expected opposition, Democrats will need to stick together this time to fix the mess that we just created. And at least some Republicans will have to be convinced to support the Constitution. (Here)

8.5.2007 Secret Log at Heart of Wiretap Challenge

Belew and Ghafoor, the two lawyers whose calls were allegedly intercepted by NSA, appear to be the only U.S. citizens with actual proof that the government eavesdropped on them. They're demanding $1 million each from the federal government and the unfreezing of Al-Haramain's assets.

The 9th Circuit has scheduled arguments for Aug. 15 on the administration's request to dismiss the Al-Haramain case and another lawsuit by telecommunication customers who allege logs of their calls were illegally accessed by the NSA.
...
More than 50 other lawsuits pending before a San Francisco federal judge are awaiting the appeals court's ruling in the two cases, but none have the kind of hard evidence Al-Haramain purports to have _ through its lawyers' recollections of the call log _ that warrantless eavesdropping of American citizens occurred.

I find this interesting for several reasons. First, it suggests that Ashcroft was complaining that his staffers weren't given security clearances to be read into this program. Recall that Bush refused to give some Office of Professional Responsibilities investigators security clearances, which meant they couldn't investigate the program. We also know that Cheney and Addington were working directly with John Yoo, bypassing Ashcroft, to pull off their shredding of the Constitution. But this detail suggests they were also shrouding their program by preventing top DOJ officials from getting security clearances.

One of the biggest problems facing the national grid is the move by provinces to disconnect their power plants from the system, reducing the amount of electricity being generated across the country. Provinces say they have no choice because they are not getting as much electricity in return for what they produce, mainly because the capital requires so much power.

"Many southern provinces such as Basra, Diwaniyah, Nassiriyah, Babil have disconnected their power plants from the national grid. Northern provinces, including Kurdistan, are doing the same," al-Shimari said. "We have absolutely no control over some areas in the south," he added. via Cernig

It’s been a good Democrats, bad Democrats kind of week. The bill expanding children’s health insurance that just passed in the House makes you want to stand up and cheer. Reports that Senator Charles Schumer opposes plans to close the hedge fund tax loophole make you want to sit down and cry.

8.4.2007 Rand Beers:

Unable in this environment to foresee what the United States and the international community will do next, Iraqis are choosing the proximate security of their faction over any broader vision. Unable to depend on the central government, the United States now aligns itself with local militias in hopes of achieving local success, but, in reality, merely reinforcing factionalism and undermining the national government we profess to defend.

As a young lieutenant, I was taught that a failing strategy demanded alternatives. Committing one's forces to costly frontal assaults in the Iraqi quagmire is better replaced by a strategy allowing flexibility and economy of force. The time for more time has passed. It's time for Iraq's neighbors to join the political reconciliation process in Iraq or, at minimum, to contain the violence to Iraq. It's time for serious U.S. involvement in the Middle East Peace Process. And it's time to focus on the real Al Qaeda along the Pak-Afghan border. But only beginning the U.S. disengagement from Iraq will allow such alternatives to prosper.

8.3.2007 "President George W. Bush ordered on Thursday a freeze on the U.S. assets of anyone Washington deems to be undermining Lebanon's pro-Western government." (Here)

8.3.2007 Video on Crooks and Liars: of Turley and Olberman re FISA

8.3.2007 Obama, Ambition, and Misogyny No More Mister Nice Guy

Hidden among such trivial stories as Rove's absolute immunity from everything, Gonzales' 'confusing' testimony, and the Sunni withdrawal from the Iraqi government was this week's greatest bombshell: Brack Obama, it turns out, is ambitious.
...
The further implication of this is that to the extent that negative stereotypes of Democrats are gender-related, it is futile to try to defeat them by playing against type. 'Toughness' (or more precisely, machismo), even when it is genuine (as in, say, a Vietnam war hero), is naturally seen as phony because it cuts against the visceral perception of Democrats as 'feminine'; meanwhile, even a whiny little coward like Bush has no trouble looking 'tough' because he's a guy in the Guy Party. Democrats are doomed to inauthenticity, while Republicans (however phony) are 'comfortable in their skin'.

What does it mean? That the just passed Senate GOP version will be offered in the House tomorrow and pass and the President will sign it. It is amazing how a President with a 25% approval can roll this Congress so easily. Pathetic.

4. [This apparently is potentially the most important section -- it's certainly the most inscrutable.] "The Attorney General shall establish guidelines that are reasonably designed to ensure that an application is filed under section 104, if otherwise required by this Act, when the Attorney General seeks to initiate electronic surveillance, or continue electronic surveillance that began under this section, of a United States person." If anyone understands what this means . . .

U.S. Republican lawmakers on Friday blocked an effort by Democrats to temporarily allay President George W. Bush's concerns about the government's anti-terrorism spying program, saying it did not go far enough.

There's only one problem with Bush's statement: it isn't true.

A key Democrat in the negotiations, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), says that a deal had in fact been reached with McConnell, who has been busy lobbying Congress on a FISA update all week. "We had an agreement with DNI McConnell," Hoyer spokeswoman Stacey Bernards tells TPMmuckraker, "and then the White House quashed the agreement."

See also Marty Lederman who says: "DNI McConnell took the negotiated legislation back to the White House . . . and the White House rejected it as insufficient."

Tony Fratto speaks for DNI McConnell

8.3.2007 Court Sides With Congressman on FBI Raid MATT APUZZO

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she wanted to work with the Justice Department to set up a policy for handling future searches.

"The court's decision restates the central role in the separation of powers and the separation of checks and balances in our system," Pelosi said. She added, "The White House wouldn't like it if we sent the Capitol Police over there to search Karl Rove's desk."

8.3.2007 Minn. Bridge Problems Uncovered in 1990

In 1990, the federal government gave the I-35W bridge a rating of "structurally deficient," citing significant corrosion in its bearings. The bridge is one of about 77,000 bridges in that category nationwide, 1,160 in Minnesota alone.

"If you think about it technically, it is pretty clear that the NSA desk that does communications intercepts is separate from the desk that does data mining of call records," said Kim Taipale, executive director of the Center for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology Policy, a New York-based nonprofit group. "Those are separate processes, and to think of them as separate programs is not a stretch."

On the other hand, the activities were authorized under a single presidential order and were all part of an NSA effort to gather communications about suspected terrorists after the Sept. 11 attacks. That helps explain why many Democratic lawmakers and administration officials - including FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III - viewed the wiretapping as part of a larger NSA program, rather than a separate effort, as Gonzales's testimony has suggested.

Just to make you feel better, the White House plan to 'reform' FISA takes the oversight for domestic surveillance away from the FISA court and give it to the highly trustworthy Alberto Gonzales.

Here's Sen. Leahy's response ...