A truly radical federal budget

The Republican Study Committee, a group of conservative GOP lawmakers, today released their version of the 2007 federal budget, titled "Contract with America: Renewed."

Their budget would cut the deficit by $358 billion over five years, compared with $60 billion in Bush's budget. But as you might imagine, the devil is in the details. Their proposal is a mixture of solid ideas and conservative fantasies.

NEUTRAL IDEAS

Increase defense spending to match Bush's request for 2007. Defense spending shouldn't be sacrosanct, but adequate funding is a must. Reserve judgement on this pending a detailed look at where the money goes.

Eliminate the Mars initiative and the space shuttle program. The Mars program is great, but not the way it's being funded: by gutting everything else NASA does. If the Mars mission doesn't come with extra money, it should die. The space shuttle needs to be retired, but we should have its replacement in hand before that happens.


BAD IDEAS

Gut foreign aid. This is a huge mistake. The war on terror demands *more* foreign aid spending, not less.

Dept. of Energy. Eliminate federal funding for energy conservation research, and arbitrarily cut the department's size by 35 percent. In an era of high oil prices and searches for alternatives, this makes little sense.

Interior and Agriculture. Arbitrarily cut the size of the Depts. of Interior and Agriculture by 10 percent and impose a wide variety of cuts in environment and natural resource programs, including eliminating the Energy Star program (that logo that lets you know if you're buying an energy-efficient appliance).

Transportation. Eliminate Amtrak and mass transit subsidies and transfer a whole bunch of responsibilities to the states, including railroad safety and regulation and (the biggie) highway construction spending. Eliminate the subsidies that maintain the U.S. merchant marine. Privatize the FAA.... Dumping funding on the states merely shifts responsibilities. Maintaining the merchant marine is a security issue. Privatizing the FAA would harm its regulatory function.

Deep cuts in education spending. Eliminate the Reading Is Fundamental program and programs to encourage learning a second language -- this at a time when a shortage of foreign-language speakers is hampering our security efforts. Freeze spending for Head Start. Eliminate the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities and cut the Dept. of Education by 30 percent.

Health. Cut National Institute of Health budget by 10 percent, eliminate family planning programs and turn Medicaid and SCHIP into a block-grant program -- cutting $36 billion a year from it in the process, largely by capping spending increases without regard to actual need.

Aid to the poor. Save $13 billion a year by arbitrarly restricting eligibility for Section 8 housing (cutting the number of vouchers in half) and eliminating heating-bill assistance for low-income households. Again, arbitrary cuts that evince no concern for the impact of those cuts.

Social Security. Doesn't touch Social Security at all. This may be politically expedient, but even minor tweaks -- raising the eligibility age and lowering the income limits for benefits, for example -- would save huge amounts of money.

GOOD IDEAS

Agriculture. Cut lots of subsidies and programs at the Dept. of Agriculture. The whole agricultural subsidy structure could be thrown overboard and the country would be better off for it.

Medicare. Cut $63 billion a year from Medicare, by raising premiums and means-testing benefits. This is a reasonable approach and politically courageous. But they also propose limiting cost increases to a percentage point below medical inflation. Hospitals and doctors are already reluctant to take Medicare because it pays so little; this will just make that worse.

Legislative reforms. They advocate a line-item veto, earmark reform, strict sunset provisions on most federal programs, a discretionary spending cap and restoring pay-as-you-go provisions. All of those are excellent ideas. Which raises the question: "why aren't they already in effect?"

Bad programs. One of the strengths of the document is specifically identifying a lot of wasteful or useless programs that could be eliminated. Doing so usually doesn't free up a great deal of money, but it should be done on principle. Of course, people will disagree on what's wasteful or useless. I would recommend establishing a bipartisan committee whose sole job was to eliminate bad programs. Objective criteria would be used whenever possible; a committee vote could settle more contentious cases, with a tie meaning the program lives.

Once you read the budget, you can see why they didn't trumpet the specifics. Budget cutting, of course, will require pain, and they do have some good ideas; but by ignoring defense and Social Security and heaping the cuts on social programs and other conservative pet peeves, they undermine their credibility. It's a start, but it's only a start.

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deficit, budget, politics, midtopia

Water found on Saturn moon

A NASA spacecraft has detected water on Saturn's moon Enceladus, raising the possibility that it could harbor life.

"Any life that existed could not be luxuriant and would have to deal with low temperatures, feeble metabolic energy and perhaps a severe chemical environment,'' said Jeffrey Kargel of the hydrology and water resources department at the University of Arizona in Tucson. "Nevertheless we cannot discount the possibility that Enceladus might be life's distant outpost.''

That makes three places in the solar system that are thought to have -- or have had -- liquid water: Mars, Enceladus and Jupiter's moon Europa.

I hope I live to see the day that we explore both Europa and Enceladus, and find out if life exists outside of Earth. But that requires adequate funding for NASA's space exploration program. Space probes are relatively cheap; it would be a real shame if budget concerns or the effort to mount a manned mission to Mars caused projects like this to fall by the wayside.

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Cassini, Mars, Saturn, space, NASA, extraterrestrial, Europa, Enceladus, politics, midtopia

Welcome to the 21st Century

The tiny island of Sark, in the English Channel, has decided to exchange feudalism for democracy.

After around 450 years of rule almost exclusively by landowners, the smallest independent state in the British commonwealth will allow each of the 600 residents to stand for election.

(snip)

Since around 1565, 40 heads of the island's farm owning families have raised taxes and decided on matters of law, part of an independence agreement brokered with Queen Elizabeth, after the English seized control of the island from France.

In 1920, 12 non-landowning deputies were appointed, voted for by all islanders over 18 -- the last concession made to democratic government.

I bet you didn't know there was an independent nation in the English Channel, much less a feudal one.

Still, the feudalism couldn't have been too bad. There were 40 landowners and 12 deputies overseeing an island of 600 people. That works out to one government official for every 12 people. Now *that's* representation!

The new system will cut that down to 28 officials, so representation will get diluted -- one representative for every 22 people. It still probably won't be too difficult to get an appointment with your elected legislator, though....

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Europe, feudalism, Sark, politics, midtopia

Give Bush the line-item veto

President Bush, who has yet to veto a single bill, has asked Congress for line-item veto authority.

He should get it. Though I doubt it will make much difference in his hands, given his lack of vetoes to date, it's one of the most effective ways to keep Congress from slipping bad legislation into "must pass" bills. It should be enshrined into law for the sake of future presidents who might actually use it.

Here's what Bush has proposed:

The legislation would allow the president to defer spending on items with which he disagrees, while signing the rest of a bill. Congress would then have 10 days to vote up or down on whether to fund the disputed items, without amendment or filibuster. Passage would be by majority, not the two-thirds margin traditionally required to override a veto.

It's a bit more cumbersome than most people would like, because it's trying to get around the problems with the last line-item veto, which the Supreme Court decided was unconstitutional in 1996. But it's probably the best we can do at the moment.

To *really* fix the problem would take a Constitutional amendment granting the president line-item authority. That's one of the few amendment proposals I could get behind.

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Bush, veto, politics, midtopia

Congress caves on NSA spying

A proposed Senate compromise would allow warrantless eavesdropping on Americans as long as the executive branch asserts it has probable cause.

The Republican proposal would give congressional approval to the eavesdropping program much as it was secretly authorized by Bush after the 2001 terrorist attacks, with limited notification to a handful of congressional leaders.

So much for holding the executive branch accountable.

The "probable cause" standard is better than the "reason to believe" standard the administration was using, but it's toothless because the administration will not have to prove "probable cause" before a court; they can just assert it.

Because the FISA court standard for issuing a warrant is also "probable cause", the only logical reason to bypass the court is because the executive branch doesn't think it's assertion of probable cause will stand up to scrutiny.

The bill does impose more Congressional oversight:

after 45 days, the attorney general would be required to drop the eavesdropping on that target, seek a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court or explain under oath to two new subcommittees why it could not seek a warrant.

So what is essentially happening is that we're extending the period where the government can eavesdrop without a warrant from three days to 45. But instead of then having to prove its case before the FISA court, the administration can simply explain itself to a subcommittee. There's no indication that the subcommittee has any power to end a surveillance if the "probable cause" is found lacking. So there's really no effective limitation on government spying.

This is what impresses me the least:

the Republican senators who drafted the proposal said it represented a hard-wrung compromise with the White House, which strongly opposed any congressional interference in the eavesdropping program.

"The administration was intransigent, and this was the best we could do." Well, nonsense. Consulting the executive branch is a good idea, but Congress should be deciding for itself what the law should be and enacting it, not seeing how well they can do in negotiations with the executive branch. It's an abdication of power.

Congress should investigate the program and then have a full and open debate on how we should handle eavesdropping on Americans. This attempt to squelch the issue should be rejected.

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terrorism, nsa, eavesdropping, politics, midtopia

Redefining success

I found a couple of interesting takes on how we've begun defining success in Iraq: anything short of disaster.

Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune writes:

There is good news in Iraq: The chaos of recent days has not led to all-out civil war. At least not yet.

Never mind that one of the major Shiite religious shrines was blown up Feb. 22. Never mind that about 500 Iraqis have died in the ensuing frenzy of sectarian violence. Never mind that if this is not civil war, it's not very far from it. In Iraq, the Bush administration has learned to set the bar low: Avoiding the worst possible outcome now passes for success.

For nearly three years, Americans have been told that we are making progress in bringing stability and democratic government to Iraq. But that state of affairs, like the horizon, keeps receding as we approach. Lately, the carnage has been waxing, not waning. Last month, for example, Iraq suffered 39 "multiple fatality bombings." The previous February, there were 18.

But the administration feigns nonchalance about events that once would have been considered disastrous.

Some of that is human nature: as events occur, you reevaluate your objectives to account for the new reality. But only the most self-deluded continue to call a venture a "success" once you start doing that. So it's instructive to see how low the bar has fallen in the last three years.

WesPac -- Wesley Clark's political action committee -- had a similar but broader take back in December:

This President is unrivaled at using worst case scenarios to make himself look good. Here we are, three years after America invaded Iraq, and almost no Iraqis got slaughtered on their way to the polls. We have George Bush to thank for that.

(snip)

So what about Iraq? Almost everything that could possibly go wrong with our invasion of Iraq has gone wrong already. Almost yes, but not quite, which leaves George Bush plenty to still take credit for. Al Quada, essentially non-existent inside Iraq before our invasion, hasn't fully secured a theocratic terrorist free state within it's borders yet. Guess who takes credit for that?

To listen to George Bush is to enter an alternate universe in which everything that's failed so far is inconsequential, while any disaster not yet upon us is a tribute to his leadership, and a result of his steely resolve. The costs America pays for his misguided policies are always well worth it, because Bush doesn't calculate those costs against how little if anything America actually gains, he measures them against how much more we stand to lose in a worst case scenario, one that allegedly can only be averted through Bush's continuing leadership.

I'd never really thought about it in precisely those terms, but they have a point.

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Bush, terrorism, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Bush is channeling John Kerry

I was wondering if anyone else had noticed that Bush's current policy on Iran -- provide them with closely monitored nuclear fuel so they don't enrich it themselves -- is pretty much exactly what John Kerry suggested we do back in 2004. A suggestion, by the way, that was roundly panned by Republicans, who labeled it "appeasement."

Then I found this article in the New York Sun.

President Bush's endorsement of a plan to end the nuclear standoff with Iran by giving the Islamic republic nuclear fuel for civilian use under close monitoring has left some of his supporters baffled.

One cause for the chagrin is that the proposal, which is backed by Russia, essentially adopts a strategy advocated by Mr. Bush's Democratic opponent in the 2004 election, Senator Kerry of Massachusetts.

(snip)

Republican commentators accused the senator of favoring "appeasement" and warned that the Iranians could divert nuclear fuel to make bombs.

A Pentagon official under President Reagan, Frank Gaffney Jr., skewered the plan in a column entitled, "Kerry's Nuclear Nonsense." Mr. Gaffney, who did not return a call seeking comment for this story, declared, "Mr. Bush understands the folly of going that route."

Writing in National Review, a Defense Department official under President George H.W. Bush, Jed Babbin, called Mr. Kerry's proposal "ignorant" and "dangerously wrong."

Of course, now that Bush supports it, I'm sure these fine folks think it's a dandy idea.

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bush, kerry, iran, politics, midtopia

Half-mast in Minnesota

Kirby Puckett, perhaps the most beloved and well-known sports figure in Minnesota history, died yesterday of a stroke. He was 45.

He led the Twins to their World Series victories in 1987 and 1991 before glaucoma forced him to retire. He struggled a bit after that, but for many of us he will always be the smiling, hard-working example of what a baseball player should be.

RIP, Kirby.

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puckett, baseball, midtopia

Everyone should want the military on campus

The Supreme Court has ruled that colleges that accept federal money must allow military recruiters on campus. The case involved some law schools who had banned the recruiters because the military's policy on homosexuals violates the schools' own policies.

Justices rejected a free-speech challenge from law schools and their professors who claimed they should not be forced to associate with military recruiters or promote their campus appearances.

The ruling was unanimous, so there's not a lot of room for interpretation: if you want federal money, military recruiters come with it.

I sympathize with the schools to some extent. There's a fairness issue: Why should the military be exempt from rules that apply to every other recruiter or company that has access to a given school? In addition, there's the appearance of condoning discrimination.

But I bring another perspective to the case, having been commissioned through ROTC and witnessed the same debate and protests while I was in college in the late 1980s at the University of Minnesota.

First, let me be clear: I think the military's policy on gays is asinine, the discrimination both unfounded and unnecessary. The military has plenty of rules on conduct and fraternization that would maintain discipline even if soldiers were openly gay, just as they manage to maintain discipline in a military where heterosexual men and women serve alongside each other. And in an era when the military is having difficulty meeting recruiting goals, turning away thousands of otherwise qualified (in some cases, highly qualified) soldiers makes no sense from a national-security standpoint.

The problem, as I see it, is one of relative weight. Military access to college campuses is simply too important to be derailed by the military's gay policy. Protest? Fine. Work to change minds? Fine. Declare and demonstrate support for military gays? Of course. But banning ROTC and recruiters goes too far, doing real damage to our security and further isolating the military from mainstream society.

When I was in the military, 70 percent of officers received their commissions through ROTC -- including some of the brightest and best-educated soldiers. Simply put, that is an irreplaceable source of military leaders. If we ban ROTC and recruiters, we cripple the future of the military -- and thus our security.

A second point that opponents should consider is a bit more subversive. Soldiers recruited from college campuses tend to have a broader education and life exposure than those who are educated in the hothouses of service academies and military schools. They bring that with them into the military, forming the main part of what might be considered the "liberal" wing of the military. They help ensure that mainstream American values continue to be represented in military culture.

This is crucial, coming as it does at a time when fewer and fewer people know someone who is in the military. If military culture grows too separated from civilian culture we risk a "Prussification" of the military: turning it into an insular society led by elites that have little in common with the people whom they ostensibly serve. That would be a disaster on many levels.

The military must be given access to college students both to maintain our physical security and to save the military from itself.

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ROTC, recruiting, supreme court, military, politics, midtopia

Held for two years without trial

Amnesty International reports that of about 14,000 detainees in Iraq, nearly 4,000 have been imprisoned without charge for more than a year -- 200 of them for more than two years.

"To hold this huge number of people without basic legal safeguards is a gross dereliction of responsibility on the part of both the US and UK forces," said Amnesty UK director Kate Allen.

Many Iraqis report they were tortured or abused, often at the hands of Iraqi guards, not coalition forces.

Here's our response:

Each detainee is given a form explaining the reasons for their imprisonment and their files are reviewed every 90 to 120 days, U.S. detention command spokesman Lt. Col. Guy Rudisill told AP in an e-mail response to questions.

That seems woefully inadequate to me.

The allegations of torture are just that -- allegations. The sheer number of them indicate that the problem should be taken seriously, but allegations alone do not constitute proof of abuse.

What is undisputed is that we are holding people for years without charge. If they are prisoners of war, document it and transfer them to a POW camp where the Geneva Conventions apply. If they are not, then charge them in a timely manner or release them.

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amnesty, terrorism, iraq, politics, midtopia

The Oscars were last night?

I suspect I'm the only blogger on the Internet who didn't actually care.

After putting the kids to bed, I spent last night watching a tape of Wednesday's episode of "Lost" -- much closer to "must see" television, IMO. Then my wife got home, and we watched the tail end of the Oscars -- in between flipping over to "Scary Movie III".

My sole commentary: Reese Witherspoon blew it with that acceptance ramble.

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oscars, midtopia

More details on Gitmo detainees

Here are some excerpts from the Pentagon release showing detainee identities. What they released was not a list of names, but transcripts of "enemy combatant" hearings containing the names of the person being assessed. Apparently it only identifies 317 of the 420 or so current detainees, which undoubtedly will cause a continuing furor.

-Abdul Rahim Muslimdost was a journalist for newspapers and magazines in Pakistan. U.S. authorities accused the Afghani of belonging to a Muslim militant group. He admitted membership but said he joined to help drive the Russians out of his country. He denied the accusation he had an al-Qaida contact in the province of Herat. Unknown whether still in custody.

-Mohammed Gul, a farmer and gas station owner in his native Afghanistan, was captured and held on suspicion of links to Taliban forces about six weeks after returning home from Saudi Arabia, where he lived for three years and worked as a driver. He told the tribunal he returned to Afghanistan to take care of his sick wife, and he urged the tribunal to release him. "I don't want to spend any more time here, not one more minute," he said.

There's a lot more like that. Some are pretty interesting. There's no way to judge the validity of their claims from the excerpts, so take most of it with a grain of salt. But the circumstances of their capture appear undisputed, and the other details start to put faces to the word "detainees."

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detainees, terrorism, guantanamo, politics, midtopia

Sizable increase in secret federal court cases

The AP reports that the number of federal court cases that are either fully or partly sealed has doubled in the last two years.

And in some cases the administration is resorting to unprecedented "secret dockets", where the mere existence of the case is officially denied.

Sealing records makes sense up until the trial, and that practice draws no criticism. What is unusual -- and damaging to the justice system -- is keeping records sealed after a trial has concluded.

Prosecutors argue that plea agreements must be sealed to protect witnesses and their families from violent retaliation. But Christ said that makes no sense after the trial when the defendants know who testified.

Exactly.

It's enough to make even a moderate scream "What is it with these guys?!" Yet one more example of the Bush administration's penchant for obsessive secrecy -- an obsession that has begun leaking out of the White House and Cabinet-level positions and into the everyday workings of the government.

To repeat: Excessive secrecy damages democracy, the justice system, foreign policy, the government, and a host of other national interests. It goes against the presumption of open government and the Sixth Amendment guarantee of public trials. It serves no purpose other than to shield government operations from public scrutiny.

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politics, midtopia, Bush, secrecy, courts

The ACLU and religious liberty

I've always been fascinated by the full-throated hostility many social conservatives, and conservative Christians in particular, bear toward the ACLU. Yes, the ACLU supports separation of church and state. But it also defends religious groups on free speech and religious liberty grounds.

After hearing far too many assertions that the ACLU has a secular, anti-Christian agenda, I e-mailed them. I asked for a list of religious liberty cases they've undertaken. Here's what they sent me -- and remember that it is merely a *partial* list.

2004: Indiana Civil Liberties Union defends the rights of Baptist minister to preach his message on public streets: LINK
2004: After ACLU intervention on behalf of Christian valedictorian, Michigan high school agrees to stop censoring religious yearbook entries: LINK
2004: ACLU of Washington defends right of evangelical minister to preach on sidewalks: LINK
2004: ACLU of Virginia threatens lawsuit and officials agree not to prohibit baptisms on public property in Falmouth Waterside Park in Stafford County: LINK
2004: ACLU of Nevada supports free speech rights of evangelists to preach on the sidewalks of the Strip in Las Vegas: LINK
2004: ACLU of Nebraska defends church facing eviction by the City of Lincoln: LINK
2003: ACLU of Rhode Island supports rights of carolers to sing outside women's prison on Christmas Eve. Prison officials back down, agree to let the caroling take place.
2003: ACLU of Massachusetts defends students punished for distributing candy Canes with religious messages: LINK
2002: ACLU of Pennsylvania files discrimination lawsuit over denial of zoning permit for African American Baptist church: LINK
2002: ACLU of Massachusetts files brief supporting right of Church of the Good News to run ads criticizing the securalization of Christmas and promoting Christianity as the "one true religion" after the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Agency refuses to allow the ads on subways.
2002: ACLU of Iowa supports right of students to distribute Christian literature in public schools during non-instructional times. Files amicus brief in case for students barred from doing so in Davenport: LINK
2002: ACLU helps Reverend Jerry Falwell win ruling that state of Virginia must allow churches to incorporate: LINK
2002: ACLU defends Christian church's right to run "Anti-Santa" ads in Boston subways: LINK
2001: ACLU of Utah negotiates settlement enabling evangelical Christian ministry to set up booth at state fair on same terms as other vendors. Group previously had been excluded from the fair because some patrons objected to content of their message.
2000: ACLU of Maryland supports Baltimore police officer suspended for wearing his hair in locks for religious reasons.
1999: The ACLU of Maryland assists the March for Life Committee in getting a permit for an anti-abortion march in Annapolis without having to pay a $5,400 fee the city was seeking. The ACLU worked with the American Center for Law & Justice to revise a proposed city ordinance so as to keep free speech free.
1999: ACLU of West Virginia files suit on behalf of a minister who declined, for religious reasons, to have his photograph taken for a driver license.
1998: ACLU of New Jersey files a lawsuit on behalf of the right of two police officers in Newark to wear beards as a matter of religious freedom. As Muslims, the officers wore beards as part of their religious beliefs.
1998: ACLU of Eastern Missouri win job back and permission to wear pin for a nurse who lost her job because she refused to remove a cross-shaped lapel pin from her uniform. The hospital had claimed the nurse violated its employee dress code when she expressed her Christian beliefs by wearing the pin.
1997: Arizona Civil Liberties Union sues City of Phoenix to challenge an ordinance under which the City refused to allow the Children of the Rosary, an anti-abortion group, to place ads on City buses. The lawsuit was filed jointly with the American Center for Law and Justice.
1996: ACLU of Virginia files lawsuit for church in Richmond threatened with closure of its Sunday meal program by city officials because of zoning regulations.
1995: ACLU of Washington supports right of a Baptist minister to distribute religious tracts in a park in Renton after police asked him to desist because he lacked City permission. The City relented after the ACLU pointed out that the law cited against the minister applied only to commercial activities.
1995: ACLU of Vermont wins ruling from state Human Services Board waiving state Social Welfare Dept. requirement for use of Social Security numbers by students receiving Medicaid and food stamp benefits. Their parents believed that such permanent numbers represent mark of the Anti-Christ, according to the Book of Revelations. ACLU argued that their religious beliefs could be protected by use of random identifying numbers.
1995: ACLU of Massachusetts successfully defended rights of prisoners to possess and use religious articles in their cells. Worcester County Sheriff had seized rosaries, prayer beads, religious medals, books and symbols, claiming they were signs of gang membership. ACLU of MA filed suit on behalf of the prisoners' rights to practice their religion under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 and the state constitution.
1995: ACLU of Massachusetts filed friend of the court brief in support of two women who were fired for refusing to work at the racetrack on Christmas Day.
1995: ACLU of Iowa successfully sued City of Waterloo to defend right of conservative Christian activist to broadcast on public access television.
1994: ACLU of Rhode Island files a federal lawsuit on behalf of the RI State Right to Life Committee, the RI State Rifle and Revolver Association and numerous other non-profit groups challenging a House of Representatives rule that bars private, but not government, lobbyists from the floor of the House while it is in session.
1994: ACLU of Pennsylvania assisted a pregnant 17-year-old whose parents wanted her to have an abortion she didn't want. She had moved away from home to continue her pregnancy, but her parents called police to have her brought home. ACLU convinced officials to let her continue her pregnancy and live away from parents.
1993: ACLU successfully defends the right of a woman to refuse, on religious grounds, to submit to a court-ordered caesarian section.
1993: ACLU of Northern California defends an 8th-grade student's right to wear a shirt saying "Real Women Love Jesus" in school by writing letters to principal. Result: School district lifts ban on shirt. LINK
1993: ACLU of New Jersey files an amicus brief on behalf of anti-abortion picketers. "Our defense of freedom of speech clearly cannot vary, and has not varied, with the views expressed." -- ACLU attorney Frank Corrado.
1993: ACLU of Florida offers legal assistance to Operation Rescue, who refused the offer.
1993: ACLU joins battle to overturn a court ruling which banned a minister from holding meetings at a public school in New York State.
1992: ACLU of Rhode Island files a friend-of-the-court brief challenging a state judge's increase of bail for anti-abortion defendants, charged with obstructing a clinic, who refused to provide their Social Security numbers.
1991: ACLU of Northern California offers support for man arrested for displaying photographs of human fetuses. "The ACLU is pro-choice, but the fact that we might disagree with their message would never dissuade us from defending their right to speak out." --Elaine Elinson, Public Information director, ACLU-Northern California.
1990: ACLU of Southern California files a brief supporting Operation Rescue's appeal of a federal judge's ruling upholding the use of "pain compliance" techniques by L.A. police.
1990: ACLU of Rhode Island files a friend-of-the-court brief in state Supreme Court in support of anti-abortion protesters challenging the constitutionality of a town ordinance limiting residential picketing.
1990: ACLU of Central Florida backs televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker's attempt to challenge to zoning laws in Orlando, claiming the law's prohibition of churches in industrial zones violates church/state separation.
1990: ACLU of Iowa supports anti-abortionists' challenge to an Iowa City picketing ordinance.
1989: ACLU of Connecticut offers assistance to Operation Rescue demonstrators subjected to pain compliance holds. ACLU state director calls for state legislature to hold hearings on the issue and consideration forbidding their use.
1988: ACLU of Rhode Island favorably settles an administrative complaint challenging the use on police applicants of a standardized psychological test which asks questions relating to fundamentalist religious beliefs.
1982: ACLU of Rhode Island mounts a successful federal challenge on behalf of an unendorsed Democratic right to life candidate, to a state law allowing only political party committees to hold raffles to raise funds for political campaigns.

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ACLU, religion, politics, midtopia

The right thing, four years late

In response to an Associated Press lawsuit, the Pentagon today released the names of all the inmates being held at Guantanamo Bay.

The names were scattered throughout more than 5,000 pages of transcripts of hearings in which detainees defended themselves against allegations that they were "enemy combatants." That classification, Bush administration lawyers say, deprives the detainees of Geneva Convention prisoner-of-war protections and allows them to be held indefinitely without charges.

Which sums up why it will be a great day for this country when the "enemy combatant" designation is retired for good.

"You can't just draw a veil of secrecy when you are locking people up," said Jamie Fellner, director of the U.S. program for Human Rights Watch. "You have to do at least the minimum, which is to acknowledge who you are holding."

Precisely.

I look forward to finding out what news organizations discover after poring through the data. I also hope many of the documents make their way online so we can examine them ourselves.

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terrorism, Guantanamo, civil liberties, civil rights, politics, midtopia

Archives halts reclassifying of documents

Speaking of government openness, in a follow-up to this post, the National Archives does the right thing.

After complaints from historians, the National Archives on Thursday directed intelligence agencies to stop removing previously declassified historical documents from public access and urged them to return to the shelves as quickly as possible many of the records they had already pulled.

Allen Weinstein, the nation's chief archivist, announced what he called a "moratorium" on reclassification of documents until an audit can be completed to determine which records should be secret.

What's sad is that this is even an issue in 2006.

Technorati tags
terrorism, national archives, politics, midtopia

Government data and privacy

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty has proposed removing public access to a lot of government data on individuals, on the grounds of protecting those individuals' privacy.

Pawlenty called for rewriting Minnesota's Data Practices Act to eliminate a presumption that all information governments collect is open for public inspection and replace it with a presumption that most personal information in government files is confidential.

(snip)

His plan also includes:

1. Barring the state from releasing, except in special circumstances, personal information it collects from driver's license applications.

2. Making it illegal for anyone to divulge another person's telephone records.

3. Barring private businesses from using Social Security numbers to identify patients or customers, and requiring companies to restrict employees' access to the Social Security numbers of their co-workers.

This could be a fascinating debate, turning as it does on two issues I hold dear: personal privacy and governmental openness.

Let's narrow the debate down to the important points. The three specifics above aren't very controversial, since they largely reflect current law. The biggest one is the driver's license data. It's already restricted, but the rules are interpreted to mean that media organizations can have access. That allows journalists to quickly double-check details on people in their stories, as well as do more general analyses of all sorts of demographic data. The media have a responsibility to use that access carefully -- a responsibility that could be made statutory. But completely eliminating media access to the database would be a mistake.

Rewriting the Data Practices Act is the biggie, one that could have far-reaching implications, and isn't something to be done lightly.

It can already be difficult to get public information from the government; a 2000 survey by a group of Minnesota journalists found that many governmental bodies refused to release information that was clearly public domain:

57% of county jails refused access to the names of prisoners. Itasca County charged $5 per inmate for the information -- which is supposed to be free except for a nominal copying charge.

28% of school districts refused to reveal the superintendent's salary.

2% of City Hall officials refused to allow access to the minutes of council meetings.

The survey demonstrated that despite a law that says otherwise, many public employees are reluctant to share indisputably public data with citizens. A new, more restrictive law would just provide a whole raft of new reasons to deny access to legitimately public data.

And that's *if* the law includes a very careful definition of what is public and what isn't. A vaguely written law would just compound the problem.

Why should we care? Two reasons. One, open access to government information is one of the most important ways we have to keep tabs on our government. If we allow it to operate in secrecy, oversight becomes nearly impossible.

Second, much useful research -- on health, on crime, on population growth, on infrastructure -- relies on access to government data. It may be possible to allow access to aggregate but not individual data, but in some cases even that would not be enough. Sometimes you have to know the individual data in order to make sense of the aggregate results.

I applaud the governor's concern for privacy. I just think his sledgehammer approach is a very careless one that practically guarantees massive unintended consequences. Rather than presume all data is private, a better approach would be to carve out narrow, specific exceptions for certain data -- much as driver's licenses are handled now.

Technorati tags
pawlenty, minnesota, privacy, politics, midtopia

Katrina and leadership

A nice take on the Mike Brown/Bush/Katrina fiasco at the Centrist Coalition.

The latest revelation that the President was told by Brown that there were doubts about the levies surrounding New Orleans and the ability to respond, is IMO, the smoking gun. As David Gergen put it, the fact that the President of the United States did not ask any questions in the final briefing before the disaster is most troubling and further exposes a leadership style from this President that in many ways has failed the country that put its' trust in him.

We now know the statements from the White House that Katrina was a 9/11 like surprise that couldn't be prepared for is simply untrue, and although Mike Brown's level of blame isn't clear, his failure as the head of FEMA was the least of the government's problems before the Hurricane. The President was asleep at the wheel and relied too much on a former judge with little administrative experience and Brown, whose own qualification are questionable, to get the job done.

For more, click on the link. I don't necessarily agree with their assessment that Rudy Giuliani has proven he's up to the job because he managed an ungovernable city through an unimaginable crisis -- the federal government is orders of magnitude more complex than New York City -- but there's a lot of food for thought there.

Technorati tags
katrina, bush, giuliani, fema, politics, midtopia

Where blame for Iraqi prisoner abuse belongs

An excellent article in the New York Times by a former Army interrogator who worked in several Iraqi prisons, including Abu Ghraib. I hate to quote so much of the article, but it's a compelling read.

Following orders that I believed were legal, I used military working dogs during interrogations. I terrified my interrogation subjects, but I never got intelligence (mostly because 90 percent of them were probably innocent, but that's another story).

Perhaps, I have thought for a long time, I also deserve to be prosecuted. But if that is the case, culpability goes much farther up the chain of command than the Army and the Bush administration have so far been willing to admit.

When the chief warrant officer at our interrogation site in Mosul first told me to use dogs during interrogations, it seemed well within what was allowed by our written rules and consistent with what was being done at Abu Ghraib and other detention centers.

The dogs were muzzled and held by a handler. The prisoners didn't know that, though, because they were blindfolded; if they gave me an answer I didn't like, I could cue the handler so the dog would bark and lunge toward them. Sometimes they were so terrified they'd wet their jumpsuits.

About halfway through my tour, I stopped using dogs and other "enhancements" like hypothermia that qualify as torture even under the most nonchalant readings of international law. I couldn't handle being so routinely brutal.

In training, we learned that all POWs are protected against actual and implied threats. You can never put a "knife on the table" to get someone to talk. That was clear. But our Iraqi prisoners weren't clearly classified as POWs, so I never knew what laws applied. Instead, a confusing set of verbal and written orders had supplanted the Geneva Conventions.

When an Army investigator asked Col. Thomas Pappas, the top military intelligence officer at Abu Ghraib, how intimidation with dogs could be allowed under this treaty, he gave the chilling reply, "I did not personally look at that with regard to the Geneva Convention."

Pappas later testified that he was taking his cue on the use of dogs from Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who took over detainee operations in Iraq after running them in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Miller has denied recommending the use of guard dogs to intimidate prisoners during interrogations in Iraq. He also recently said he would not testify in the courts-martial of Cardona and Smith, invoking his right to avoid self-incrimination.

As someone who voluntarily spoke at length about my actions in Iraq to investigators, without a lawyer present, I can't have a favorable opinion of Miller. By doing the military equivalent of "taking the Fifth," he's decided to protect himself, apparently happy to let two dog handlers take the fall - a stunning betrayal of his subordinates and Army values.

(snip)

In the military, orders are orders unless there is clear, uncluttered law transmitted from far above our commanders' rank and station. Instead of a clear message prohibiting torture, our top commanders gave us a deliberate muddying of the waters.

(snip)

I know, from personal experience, that any leeway given will be used to maximum effect against detainees. No slope is more slippery, I learned in Iraq, than the one that leads to torture.

Amen. Torture and abuse are counterproductive, immoral and unAmerican. And superiors letting subordinates take the fall for allowing such treatment betrays military values. Soldiers deserve clear bright lines of authority. Instead they got carefully ambiguous situations such as prevailed at Gitmo, Bagram and Abu Ghraib.

We can do better than that.

Technorati tags
terrorism, Iraq, torture, abu ghraib, politics, midtopia

Saudi charity alleges NSA spied on it

A defunct Saudi charity is suing the government, saying that conversations with its lawyers were illegally intercepted by the NSA.

According to a source familiar with the case, the records indicate that the National Security Agency intercepted several conversations in March and April 2004 between al-Haramain's director, who was in Saudi Arabia, and two U.S. citizens in Washington who were working as lawyers for the organization.

The charity in question isn't exactly squeaky clean:

The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control froze the foundation's U.S. assets in February 2004, pending an investigation, and designated it a terrorist organization in September 2004, citing ties to Osama bin Laden. Al-Haramain was indicted in February 2005 on charges of conspiring to defraud the United States in connection with a scheme to funnel money to Chechen fighters. The charges were later dropped because the Oregon branch of the organization had shut down.

But unproven allegations and suspicions don't justify warrantless eavesdropping or monitoring lawyer-client conversations. It's important to note that the alleged monitoring took place *before* the group was designated a terrorist organization.

I am not suggesting that we shouldn't eavesdrop on people who pose a potential threat. I merely think that the government should have to get a warrant to do so, ensuring that there is at least some evidence to justify the eavesdropping. Otherwise the government can spy on anyone it wants to, for any reason.

In a later post I will outline why you should be concerned about this, even if you feel you have nothing to hide.

Technorati tags
terrorism, nsa, civil liberties, civil rights, politics, midtopia

Warrantless eavesdropping deductions

In the post below this one, I lay out what I consider the known facts about the NSA spying program. Here's what I think those facts mean:

1. First, the government's argument in the Court of Review case that it should be granted warrants even if there was *no* foreign intelligence component was a breathtaking power grab, which would have rendered warrants meaningless in a legal sense.

2. The legality of Bush's actions turns on a few important questions:

a. Did the NSA eavesdropping involve a massive data-mining program aimed at domestic targets? If so, the legality of it is somewhat murky. NSA was specifically prohibited from turning its capabilities on domestic targets. But if all it did was listen to international communications that happened to include a lot of domestic callers, they at least have an argument. If they were monitoring purely domestic targets, however, that's clearly illegal.

One thing arguing against the program being a data-mining program is that Bush said it was aimed at "a few numbers." That implies targeted eavesdropping, not data-mining.

b. Did the eavesdropping involve only "foreign powers"? If so, it's clearly legal. One thing arguing against this explanation is that the administration has not claimed it. Since it's essentially a get-out-of-jail-free card, I would expect Bush to use this explanation if it were true.

c. Was the eavesdropping aimed at U.S. persons? Then a warrant clearly was required under FISA, even post-Patriot Act.

d. Perhaps Bush does not recognize any limits on his "inherent authority." But if that's the case, he unilaterally ignored one court decision (Truong), a law (FISA) and later another court decision (Court of Review), and is saying he has the right to spy on anybody he wants to if he thinks it's important for national security, regardless of what the other branches of government think. If he *does* think that, he will lose very, very badly. One thing that argues against him thinking that, however, is that in the government has never argued that warrants aren't required, and Bush has himself said that wiretaps require a court order.

So I'm left with the following logical conclusions:

1. It can't be only foreign persons, because Bush would have said so;

2. It can't be a data-mining operation, becaus Bush said it was aimed at only a few people;

3. It can't be an "inherent authority" dispute, because the law is very clear on that point and the administration has never argued to the contrary.

That leaves just two possibilities:

1. It was a limited operation aimed strictly at international calls to known terrorists. But there would be no reason to bypass FISA in such a case, because known terrorists overseas can be monitored without a warrant, and a showing that a domestic number was linked to an overseas terrorist would be a slam-dunk as far as getting a FISA warrant.

2. It was illegal, and Bush knew it. But he wanted to spy anyway, so he bypassed FISA.

Bush's motives might have been pure; we won't know until more details come out. But the most reasonable conclusion is that his actions were illegal. And he knew -- or should have known -- that.

Technorati tags
terrorism, nsa, fisa, bush, civil liberties, civil rights, politics, midtopia

Warrantless eavesdropping primer

I'm going to attempt, with this post, to summarize what we *know* about warrant law and the Bush spying allegations, as a base of reference for future posts.

I'm going to rely on two main sources.

One is the text of the opinion written by the FISA Court of Review. It basically outlines the history of warrant requirements, and its ruling spells out current law.

The second is the text of the FISA law.

So, here's what I consider the known, uncontestable facts:

1. The Truong case in 1978 was the first (and, until the Court of Review, only) case to address head-on the scope of the executive branch's "inherent authority" to conduct warrantless searches for "foreign intelligence" purposes.

2. The Truong case defined and thus limited that power, saying any such search must be "primarily" for "foreign intelligence" reasons, and must not have a substantial likelihood of ensnaring a "U.S. person", defined as a U.S. citizen or legal alien.

3. When FISA was passed later that year (largely in response to revelations of government spying during the Vietnam war), it incorporated the Truong standard into the law, and established the FISA court to hear warrant applications for searches aimed at U.S. persons.

4. Other laws or actions at the time banned the CIA and NSA from domestic surveillance and shut down various FBI and military monitoring programs.

5. Over time, the distinction between foreign and domestic surveillance evolved into a "wall".

6. The Patriot Act attempted to weaken that wall, allowing intelligence and law enforcement agencies to share data and downgrading the standard of evidence for a FISA warrant to foreign intelligence being merely a "significant purpose" for the search.

7. The FISA court, however, kept trying to apply what it considered the legal precedent of the "wall" -- not over sharing intelligence, which the Patriot Act directly addressed, but over the purpose of the search. So they kept insisting on procedures designed to keep an intelligence search from transforming into a criminal prosecution search.

8. The government appealed that approach to the Court of Review.

9. The Court of Review agreed with the government that such procedures were based more on tradition than on actual law. But it also reaffirmed that "foreign intelligence" must be a "significant purpose" of the search, and that a warrant was required if the search involved a U.S. person.

10. That leaves us with the current standard for "foreign intelligence" searches domestically:
a. If it involves a foreign power, no warrant is necessary and the court need not be consulted.
b. No warrant is needed for searches or monitoring overseas.
c. If a domestic search involves a U.S. person, a warrant is needed. And "foreign intelligence" must be a "significant purpose" of the search.

11. During the Court of Review appeal, the government didn't argue that warrants weren't needed; rather they argued about what standards of evidence were required for granting a warrant.

12. In that context, however, the administration argued that it must be granted a warrant even if the search contained *no* foreign intelligence component. In other words, it was arguing that the court was obligated to approve any warrant for any purpose, including a purely criminal investigation. The Court of Review rejected that reasoning.

13. The Bush administration has admitted that it authorized the NSA to eavesdrop on "a few numbers" without seeking FISA warrants. The New York Times says that number was up to 500 people at a time.

Technorati tags
terrorism, nsa, fisa, bush, civil liberties, civil rights, politics, midtopia

The upside to civil war

I don't know the context of this piece on Fox News, but it's pretty hilarious no matter how you slice it.

A segment about escalating sectarian violence in Iraq on the February 23 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto featured onscreen captions that read: " 'Upside' To Civil War?" and "All-Out Civil War in Iraq: Could It Be a Good Thing?"

Minnesota Organization of Blogs

Redistricting revisited

As a follow-up to my earlier post about redistricting, here's one idea for how a fair redistricting plan would work.

6. Each district shall be as contiguous as compact as practicable. With respect to compactness, to the extent practicable a contiguous area of population shall not be bypassed to incorporate an area of population more distant.

a. Respect for contiguous and compact districts shall be secondary to the goals of representativness and competitiveness.

7. District boundaries shall conform to the existing geographic boundaries of a county, city, or city and county, and shall preserve identifiable communities of interest to the greatest extent possible. A redistricting plan shall provide for the most whole counties and the fewest county fragments possible, and the most whole cities and fewest city fragments possible. For the purposes of this section, communities of interest are defined by similarities in social, cultural, ethnic, and economic interest, school districts, and other formal relationships between municipalities.

They also suggest forming large, multirepresentative districts out of (for example) three individual districts, and then electing the top three votegetters. That way you get fair minority representation without having to gerrymander individual districts.

Couple this with instant-runoff voting and you'd go a long way toward making elections fair, competitive and representative.

Technorati tags
elections, texas, supreme+court, redistricting, gerrymandering, civil rights, politics, midtopia

The cost of ignoring civil liberties

The United States has agreed to pay $300,000 to an Egyptian man detained after 9/11.

NEW YORK -- The U.S. government has agreed to pay $300,000 to an Egyptian man who was detained for nearly a year following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but was never linked to terrorism, his lawyer said.

The settlement was filed in Brooklyn federal court on Monday, said attorney Haeyoung Yoon, who represents Ehab Elmaghraby. She said she believed it was the first settlement involving the claims of people detained after Sept. 11.

Elmaghraby, a former restaurant worker, was held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn from Oct. 1, 2001, until August 2002, Yoon said.

(snip)

Elmaghraby said he was shackled, shoved into walls, punched and called a terrorist and epithets at the facility. Yoon said he was subjected to repetitive strip searches and a correction officer penetrated his anal cavity with a flashlight.

While in custody, Elmaghraby's thyroid condition was misdiagnosed as asthma, worsening it, Yoon said. He wanted to continue with the lawsuit but settled because of his mounting medical costs, she said.

This may well be just the first of many lawsuits, not counting a class-action suit that has been filed on behalf of all such detainees. It demonstrates once again the high cost of arbitrary detention and abuse of prisoners.

Ignoring civil liberties is a bad idea to begin with. And now it's going to become an expensive one.

Technorati tags
terrorism, detainees, elmaghraby, civil+liberties, civil rights, politics, midtopia

Drawing a bead on drawing districts

The Supreme Court has agreed to examine the 2003 redistricting in Texas, which moved the Texas Congressional delegation from a 17-15 Democratic majority to a 21-11 Republican majority.

The arguments will be about legality and minority voting rights, but the underlying case is a more basic one: what are the limits of gerrymandering political districts?

The basic facts are straightforward. The districts are supposed to be redrawn after each Census. They were, but the Texas legislators couldn't agree, so the issue got bounced to the courts, where a panel of judges basically reaffirmed the existing boundaries while adding two new districts.

Three years later, Delay and Texas Republicans reopened the issue and redrew the boundaries to suit themselves.

Politically, you'll be outraged if you're a Democrat and you think the 2003 redrawing violated the tradition of only redrawing districts after each census. Or you'll feel justice was served if you're a Republican who thinks that legislatures, not courts, are supposed to draw the districts, and so the court-drawn districts were illegitimate.

Me, I hope (probably forlornly) that the case will lead to some reasonable rules about drawing political districts.

Gerrymandering is wrong, period. Districts should be drawn in ways that make sense, not solely to favor one political party or the other.

Those charged with drawing districts should be required to follow one or more basic rules for the boundaries, such as major geographical or political boundaries (mountains, rivers, city limits) or geometrical guidelines such as average distance from a central point. The boundaries should be susceptible to mathematical or logical analysis using those criteria; districts that fail the analysis are thrown out.

Hey, a guy can dream, right?

Technorati tags
elections, texas, supreme+court, redistricting, gerrymandering, civil rights, politics, midtopia

A new Guantanamo in Afghanistan

The New York Times reports that as Guantanamo has come under increased scrutiny, the detention center at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan is quietly turning into another version of the same problem.

Pentagon officials have often described the detention site at Bagram, a cavernous former machine shop on an American air base 40 miles north of Kabul, as a screening center. They said most of the detainees were Afghans who might eventually be released under an amnesty program or transferred to an Afghan prison that is to be built with American aid.

But some of the detainees have already been held at Bagram for as long as two or three years. And unlike those at Guantánamo, they have no access to lawyers, no right to hear the allegations against them and only rudimentary reviews of their status as "enemy combatants," military officials said.

Privately, some administration officials acknowledge that the situation at Bagram has increasingly come to resemble the legal void that led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling in June 2004 affirming the right of prisoners at Guantánamo to challenge their detention in United States courts.

While Guantánamo offers carefully scripted tours for members of Congress and journalists, Bagram has operated in rigorous secrecy since it opened in 2002. It bars outside visitors except for the International Red Cross and refuses to make public the names of those held there. The prison may not be photographed, even from a distance.

So Guantanamo has become an international embarassment -- and rightly so. And instead of learning that lesson and changing the way we run our "war on terror" prisons, we simply find another place out of the spotlight to keep doing the same old thing -- guaranteeing that the problem will continue.

To repeat once again:

1. It is sleazy and unethical to deliberately place a prison in a "legal limbo" so we do not have to afford the inmates even rudimentary legal protections.

2. It also violates core American values and actively hampers our fight against terror.

3. If a prisoner was captured on the battlefield, the Geneva Convention should apply. Technically we can ignore it for non-signatories, but it has been American tradition to heed the Conventions even when not legally required -- which is the practical *and* moral thing to do. Such POWs should be released when the fighting in Afghanistan ceases, rather than being held for the duration of a vaguely defined "war" on terror.

4. If a prisoner was captured elsewhere, they are entitled to the rights we afford all criminals, even serial killers: To be charged and tried before an impartial court, in a speedy manner and with legal help.

5. Keeping detainee's identities secret serves no practical purpose, but it can easily mask many unsavory purposes. Our detentions should be able to withstand outside scrutiny.

It's really not that difficult.

Technorati tags
terrorism, civil rights, Iraq, torture, Bagram, politics, midtopia

Blair calls for Gitmo camp to be shut down

When even our staunchest allies don't like something, perhaps we ought to listen.

While Mr Blair again described the five-year-old camp, which stills holds around 500 terror suspects, as "an anomaly", he told his monthly press conference in Downing Street: "It should end sooner rather than later."

(snip)

His comments about closing the camp came just hours after Lord Falconer said he believed Camp Delta should "come to an end" and Lord Goldsmith, the government's senior legal adviser, saying the rule of law "is, or should be, of universal application".

Yesterday, the foreign affairs committee said it was not good enough for ministers to lobby behind the scenes but called on them to voice "loud and (in) public" their protests about Guantanamo Bay. The MPs argued the camp in Cuba was a "hindrance" to the fight against terrorism and had diminished America's moral authority around the world.

From Gitmo to Abu Ghraib

The ACLU has released more details of FBI memos it obtained detailing interrogation methods at Guantanamo Bay in 2002 and 2003.

From a typical news story on the release:

FBI officials who were interrogating terrorism suspects at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2002 and 2003 strenuously objected to aggressive techniques the military was using and believed they could be illegal, according to FBI memos released yesterday.

The agents wrote in memos and e-mails that they were at odds with interrogators working for a Defense Intelligence Agency human-intelligence group and with guidance from senior Pentagon officials. The agents also repeatedly expressed their concerns to the senior military officer at the base, Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, and said that the less aggressive FBI-approved methods were more effective.

Miller later was sent to Iraq, bringing with him his advocacy for aggressive interrogation techniques. The Abu Ghraib scandal followed.


The key point:

"Now we can say that the documents show conclusively that abuse and torture at Guantanamo was not the result of rogue elements but was the consequence of policies deliberately adopted by senior military and Pentagon officials," said Jameel Jaffer, an ACLU lawyer.

The Pentagon responds with the technical defense that what occurred was perhaps abusive, but not illegal. That does not excuse it in my mind. Not only is such treatment immoral, it results in unreliable information -- as well as being inadmissible in court. And never mind the damage done to America's reputation.

What exactly occurred? In one case, this:

Military interrogators posing as FBI agents at the U.S. detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, wrapped terrorism suspects in an Israeli flag and forced them to watch gay pornography under strobe lights during interrogation sessions that lasted as long as 18 hours.

Does anybody think such treatment is liable to elicit information?

The same article notes a related development:

A federal judge Thursday ordered the Pentagon to release the identities of hundreds of detainees at Guantánamo Bay to the Associated Press, a move that would force the government to break its secrecy and reveal the most comprehensive list yet of those who have been imprisoned there.

Some of the hundreds of detainees in the war on terror being held at Guantánamo Bay have been there as long as four years. Only a handful have been officially identified.

Good. Such secrecy is, again, counterproductive. It tarnishes our image and renders hollow our criticisms of other countries' human rights violations when we imprison people secretly, without charge or recourse.

It's a tricky question, what to do with someone captured fighting for the Taliban, say. Military rules say we can imprison them until the end of the war. But which war? The war in Afghanistan, or the "war" on terror?

At a minimum we should accord them rights under either the Geneva Convention or U.S. law, instead of largely ignoring both. For a more comprehensive take on how to handle such prisoners, check out this essay.

Technorati tags
terrorism, civil rights, Iraq, torture, guantanamo, politics, midtopia

Fun with Ann Coulter

Because any chance to bash Ann Coulter should be embraced and doted on, I'd like to do my part to publicize her own personal Votegate.

Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections records show Coulter voted last week in Palm Beach's council election. Problem is: She cast her ballot in a precinct 4 miles north of the precinct where she owns a home — and that could be a big no-no.

Coulter, who owns a $1.8 million crib on Seabreeze Avenue, should have voted in Precinct 1198. It covers most homes on her street. Instead, records show, she voted in Precinct 1196, at the northern tip of the island.

(snip)

No matter, Florida statutes make it a third-degree felony to vote knowingly in the wrong precinct. Lying on a voter's registration can cost up to $5,000 and five years behind bars.

Follow up articles here and here.

Personally, I'm pulling for the five years in prison instead of the $5,000 fine....

Technorati tags
coulter, voting, palm beach, crime, florida, politics, midtopia

Human slugs

It is difficult to find words to adequately describe these folks.

On her way into the church where the funeral was to be held for her 23-year-old son Thursday morning, Deirdre Ostlund approached six men and women waving signs against gays and America and told them in a cold fury: "I'm Andrew's mother, and I want you to know you are truly hateful people."

As Ostlund turned away, Shirley Phelps-Roper taunted her: "Adulterer! You can't admit you sent your own child to hell! If she does not heed this warning, she will look up from hell with him."

Her small group continued to sing "God hates America."

Try to imagine the amount of drooling hate compressed into these protesters' bodies, to the point that they think nothing of hijacking a soldier's funeral to express their views.

If you wonder where they come from, they come from here.

We have met us, and he is the enemy

Okay, now this is funny.

The Russians aren't the only ones who do this. Don't get me started on how many times I've seen a self-propelled artillery piece or armored personnel carrier referred to as a "tank" in newspaper photo captions.

Portgate

I haven't weighed in on this issue yet, but I suppose I should.

I think this is largely a manufactured controversy. The main problem appears to be that this deal took everyone by surprise, including President Bush. But one would hope that mere surprise would yield more (or far, far less) than overheated rhetoric.

Was I surprised to find out our major ports were run by foreign firms? Yes. Is it a scandal? Not in the short-term political sense. It's been that way for years.

I would prefer that important parts of our nation's infrastructure remain in American hands. But if that's not going to be the case, it makes no sense to discriminate against a particular company based on nothing more than nationality. Dubai is not North Korea or Iran or some other loose cannon. Their only crime is being Arab.

As far as security goes, ownership is less important than who is doing the work on the ground -- and those will be American for the most part.

That said, this is an excellent opportunity to focus on the question of port security -- a topic given much lip service but limited action in the last four years.

Technorati tags
terrorism, dubai, portgate, bush, arabs, politics, midtopia

Technicalities and unanswered questions

Lewis Libby's lawyers are seeking to have the charges against him dismissed. On what grounds, you ask? Because, they say, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald lacks authority.

Lawyers for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby said his indictment violated the Constitution because Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald was not appointed by the president with the consent of the Senate.

The defense attorneys also said Fitzgerald's appointment violated federal law because his investigation was not supervised by the attorney general. They said only Congress can approve such an arrangement.

The lawyers said illegal assignment of "unsupervised and undirected power" to Fitzgerald requires that he be relieved of his duties in the investigation and that all actions he has taken be voided.

Okay, lawyers have a duty to defend their client by whatever means they can. But seeking a dismissal on a technicality such as this one isn't really the best way to go. It's strikingly similar to the defense Saddam Hussein is using, denying the legitimacy of the court rather than disputing the charges against him.

Here's my free legal advice: Not the best example to share company with, guys.

Especially because there are plenty of substantive questions on the topic.

Off the top of my head:

Was Valerie Plame undercover? As far as I can tell, revealing her name was a crime only if a) she was undercover and b) Libby knew it. You would think that answering those two questions would settle the whole affair, and pretty quickly, too. But here we are nearly three years into the case and neither question has been answered.

Why did Libby lie? He's innocent until proven guilty, of course. But let's assume that Fitzgerald can prove his case in that regard. What was Libby's motivation?

What about Cheney? Libby says Cheney authorized him to talk to reporters about Plame, and also to discuss parts of a classified National Intelligence Estimate with reporters.

This last is the most interesting part, but not for the obvious reasons. Parts of NIEs are regularly declassified, and if that's the case then no crime was committed. Yes, it's using classified info for political purposes. And yes, if the relevant parts of the NIE *weren't* declassified, then it may have been a crime. But let's put that aside for a moment.

Because the main reason it wouldn't be a crime is that Cheney says he has the power to declassify information.

Think about that. Because Cheney is authorized to declassify information, he can declassify and legally leak (er, release) anything he wants. But does that make it okay? How do you judge whether he's using that power responsibly, especially when his motivation for declassifying the info is to discredit or counter political opponents?

If you think it's okay in this case.... then where do you draw the line? I'm interested in seeing what people consider a general case when it comes to declassifying data for political purposes.

For a conservative take on it (including a very helpful explanation of exactly what Cheney was referring to), click here.

Finally, a minor side point: Having declassified it, they secretly leaked it to a reporter instead of simply going public with it. What's up with that?

Technorati tags
terrorism, plame, Iraq, libby, cheney, politics, midtopia

Clearing the smoke over "partial-birth" abortion

The Supreme Court yesterday agreed to weigh the constitutionality of a ban on partial-birth abortion.

I generally steer clear of abortion topics because they're almost always pointless. You either think it's okay or you don't. If you're a moderate the issue tends to be where to draw the line, but even then the lines don't move much.

But the bloviating over this case threatens to obscure the underlying facts. So I'll do my best to lay it out.

WHAT'S AT STAKE
The claims: Pro-lifers will have you believe they're trying to put an end to a horrifying procedure that kills thousands of babies every year merely for the mother's convenience. Pro-choicers will have you believe that if we restrict this procedure, it's only a matter of time before abortion itself is outlawed.

The facts: Late-term abortions (not all of which are "partial-birth" procedures) are exceedingly rare. In 2002 there were 1.5 million abortions. Only 320 occurred after the 26th week of pregnancy. There is not an epidemic of heartless women killing their babies at the last moment. Conversely, restricting this procedure will not significantly harm abortion rights.

MEDICAL NECESSITY
The claims: Pro-lifers say there is no medical reason for the procedure. Pro-choicers say there are times when it must be used.

The facts: The case filings are full of testimony from doctors and patients outlining why late-term abortions are medically necessary. On the other hand, pro-lifers may have a point if they argue that there are alternative procedures that achieve the same medical end without the gruesomeness of partial-birth.

THE LANGUAGE OF THE BILL
The claims: Pro-lifers say they are trying to outlaw a particularly gruesome and unnecessary form of abortion. Pro-choicers say they prefer that the procedure be rare, but that the definition of "partial-birth abortion" in the bill is so broad that it could outlaw procedures used as early as the 12th week, and there is no exception for the health of the mother.

The facts: Well, the claims are the facts in this case. But the bill's sponsors need to make sure the language is specific enough that it only affects the procedure they describe to the public. Otherwise it's a bait-and-switch. And there's no reason to exclude a "health" exception, since that exception was very clearly required by previous Supreme Court rulings. The bill's sponsors were picking a fight.

So in the end, the debate isn't about whether partial-birth abortion is a good thing or not. It's about how the term is defined and what exceptions the law should recognize -- for a procedure used in less than 0.02% of all abortions in this country.

Sensible people would carefully define the term and allow a "mother's health" exception. But sensible people are in short supply in abortion arguments.

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