Boy, was Biden ever right

During the vice presidential candidates debate last October, Joseph Biden referred to Dick as "the most dangerous Vice President in our country's history".

This past week or 10 days, as he looks forward to leaving office next month, Cheney has been appearing in different venues unapologetically defending his views and the actions of the Bush administration for the last eight years, pressing the notion of the "unitary executive". He claims it was wrong for the Supreme Court to allow Guantanamo detainees to be allowed to challenge their continuing detention without charge in US courtrooms (since the SC is the ultimate arbiter of such matters, this claim is wrong by definition). He claims the US has not tortured prisoners, while subsequently admitting to a major role in causing prisoners to be water-boarded.

One of his claims in the Wallace interview which has been the subject of outrage is the following:

"(The President) could launch a kind of devastating attack the world's never seen. He doesn't have to check with anybody. He doesn't have to call the Congress. He doesn't have to check with the courts. He has that authority because of the nature of the world we live in."

This looks worse than it is, since the preceding paragraph has generally been left out. Here is the comment again, in full:

"The president of the United States now for 50 years is followed at all times, 24 hours a day, by a military aide carrying a football that contains the nuclear codes that he would use and be authorized to use in the event of a nuclear attack on the United States.

He could launch a kind of devastating attack the world's never seen. He doesn't have to check with anybody. He doesn't have to call the Congress. He doesn't have to check with the courts. He has that authority because of the nature of the world we live in."

I think most people would agree that if our nation was hit with a massive nuclear attack there is not going to be time for Congress to meet before determining our response. However, this statement does do a lot to help explain Cheney's mindset - he's pushing the idea the nation has been in a constant state of emergency since 9/11, a state where the President essentially has ultimate power on all decisions.

This belief is, of course, horse shit.

The administration, largely at Cheney's urging, has consistently engaged in illegal activities, ranging from torture to illicit wiretaps. Cheney's recent appearances are almost brazenly daring his successor to do anything about these actions.

It's a challenge which must be accepted, or Biden will have been proven more correct than even he knew.

Pathetic dogs

Congressional Democrats rolled over like abused dogs and exposed their cute, furry bellies to be stroked by the President today while signing off on a "compromise" wiretapping bill that gives the White House virtually everything it wants, including effective immunization from prosecution for telecom companies which blatantly and repeatedly violated individual personal privacy laws.

What's worse is there was no reason or need to make this horrid deal. None. Whatsoever. The previous (bad) temporary agreement expired in February, and its not like there have been huge issues since then, or even a lot of political pressure on Dems to come to an agreement, any agreement. The FISA law which has been in effect since the 70's has been more than sufficient. The next time I see masses of Americans rallying along the Mall in support of providing lawsuit immunization for big corporations will be the first.

I assume telecom lobbyists made enough monetary promises to buy what they needed. Sometimes I wonder why we even bother.

Eager ears are listening

Remember back in January and February, when there was a great deal of huffing and puffing and general hoo-hah over the desperate need to renew the Protect America Act or President Bush would not be able to protect our country. The Act was allowed to expire on Feb. 17, and from all the overblown rhetoric, one can only presume it's a miracle of God we all are still alive despite such folly.

Of course, when the house passed a bill which (unlike the Senate version) did not include immunity for past indiscretions which Telecom companies may have committed, it became apparent that protecting the business issues was even more important than protecting the country, as Bush immediately threatened a veto for any bill without the immunity clause. Not that we didn't all know where his priorites lay, but it was nice of him to spell it all out so clearly for us.

Back to the PAA and eavesdropping ... as it turns out, the Act was never necessary ... the required tool has always been in place, in the form of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which (among other provisions) allows for requesting wiretap permission in front of a secret court, and also makes allowance for immediate wiretapping when time is critical, and retroactively applying for a warrant within 48 hours.

Our government made steady use of this law last year, gaining a record 2,370 eavesdropping warrants last year. That's 9% more than 2006, and more than double from 2001. Meanwhile, a grand total of four requests were denied (even one of those was only partially denied). That's a 99.83% success rate. How, exactly, is this an overwhelming burden on our government? Given those figures, consider how ridiculously unfounded those four requests must have been in order for the court to have denied them.

On the other hand, for a President who is used to getting his way 100% of the time, having someone say "No" to you even once, much less four times within a year, is tantamount to letting the terrorists win.

Fear-mongering at its finest

ThinkRight has a post about a recent Republican ad describing how we will all die horrible deaths if we don't immediately give the President everything he petulantly demands in terms of wiretapping, etc. He follows it with another post listing a press release Senator Kyl discussing the same matter, and ascribing the same horrible eventualities.

It's enough to make you wonder how we've managed to survive the last two weeks.

Both the ad and the press release are misleading or downright false. For example, Kyl's statement:

"So long as a call is routed through a U.S. telecommunications network – which virtually all calls are these days because of changes in technology – U.S. agents now need to obtain a warrant in order to monitor a call between a Taliban chief in Pakistan and an al Qaeda leader in Afghanistan. "

... is simply wrong. There is no limit whatsoever on monitoring of communications between foreign individuals in foreign locations. None. What's more, Kyl either knows this, in which case he is outright lying, or he doesn't, in which case he's incapable of very basic reading comprehension (i.e., he's a moron). Actually, those aren't mutually exclusive.

Warrants are needed when a communication involves a U.S. citizen (or legal permanent resident) who is currently within the U.S. Foreign communications, fair game, doesn't matter where they are routed through. Even if a U.S. citizen within the country is involved, intelligence agencies can still monitor the communications. However, they must then retroactively (within 48 hours if memory serves) apply for a warrant in front of a secret FISA court. These applications are reputedly rarely denied.

No, the real goal of the administration and it's mouthpieces such as Kyl is made open in this statement:

"And Congress must protect the private companies who cooperate with our intelligence agencies to collect the information. Allowing litigation against these companies not only will promote highly damaging leaks about terrorist surveillance programs; it also will ensure that U.S. agents will not receive full cooperation from the telecommunications companies they rely on for access to these calls."

In other words, those Telecom companies who for years let us illegally listen in on your phone calls, read your email, etc., are frantic they might actually be held responsible for their actions, and god forbid we can't be having actual accountability - what kind of bad precedent would that set?

Recall, that "full cooperation" the companies gave so nobly, so patriotically, came to a screeching halt when the bills weren't paid on time. Qu'elle surprise. What Republicans are demanding is amnesty for the telecoms in the truest, purest sense of the term.

Weren't these guys against "amnesty" before they were for it?

The wheels of justice turn ...

... they just turn at a glacial pace.

The House of Representatives finally got around to issuing contempt citations for Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolton for refusing to respond to a summons to testify about their knowledge of the fired U.S. Attorney scandal.

Hey, it only took eight fricking months to finally take this much needed step. Good thing they expedited it.

In response, House Republicans had a sit-in, most of them leaving the chambers for the vote and terming it a "witch hunt". If I were Harriet, I wouldn't put up with being called such names by such people.

There was a nice side-effect of the Republican pouting though - the House adjourned without resolving the FISA issue, meaning the current temporary bill lapses this weekend, despite all our President's foot-stomping over the need to get a new bill or he can't protect us, even as he threatened to veto another temporary extension, or a bill which didn't include telecom immunity, which clearly demonstrates his priorities are, in order:

1. Getting his way.
2. Protecting his telecom friends from the angered reactions of their repeated law-breaking.
3. (At best) Protecting the country. I suspect this is actually well down his list.

I suspect the country will get along just fine without the administration minimally less fettered abilities to spy on U.S. citizens within in the U.S. without benefit of court oversight, and without the telecom companies being pardoned for their misdeeds.

Omentum and other things

Obama continued to roll last night, sweeping three more primaries and taking the delegate lead for the first time over Clinton.

Recent reports in various papers report a Clinton campaign team in increasing turmoil. She replaced her campaign manager two days ago, and the deputy campaign manager resigned yesterday. The Clintons have loaned $5 million of their personal funds to the campaign as Obama continues to pull ahead in the fund raising race at a record clip. Even previously "committed" superdelegates are talking off-the-record of switching their allegiances.

The Clinton campaign seems to be bunkering in with a Rudy Giuliani approach - hoping to take the large state primaries of Texas and Ohio on March 4 to stop the Obama march, which by then is expected to have garnered a full month of uninterrupted victories. Even Clinton campaign staffers are admitting if she doesn't win both, her campaign is likely doomed. We saw how well this approach worked for Rudy9/11.

I have seen some Clinton campaign remarks trying to downplay the effect of the recent String of Obama wins, pointing out how his win in Iowa didn't carry over to New Hampshire, but the circumstances are entirely different. First of all, the win in Virginia last night was especially indicative, as Obama swept every voting demographic, showing strength with constituents outside his "base". Clinton has yet to show anything similar in any primary.

Second, going into New Hampshire only one state had been settled, and there was only one week in between. Going into March 4 Clinton will be facing a full month of losing primaries, along with the associated "Obama on a roll" stories. Unlike in New Hampshire, Obama can be expected now to significantly outspend Clinton on advertising in both of the big states. The Obama wave after Iowa was a small swell. The Obama wave going into next month won't be a tsunami, but it will be a nice 40-footer, and much harder for Clinton to break.

In other news ... the US Senate yesterday decided sure, we're fine with expanding the wiretapping of US citizens, even though we already have the FISA act which allows federal agencies to conduct wiretapping without a warrant if time is of essence, and get the warrant retroactively. Just as an added bonus, they decided to throw in retroactive immunity for all the communications companies which violated the law by allowing the government to tap their systems without warrants.

The House did pass a bill without the immunity clause, and the two bills still need to be reconciled. One hopes the immunity clause dies there, but one shouldn't be holding one's breath.

Finally, the government presented a tortured legal justification for waterboarding yesterday. I'm not sure how to feel about this ... certainly, I don't find the justification at all convincing, but on the other hand if it might one day allow me to legally justify waterboarding the Senators who voted in favor of the wiretapping immunity legislation (particularly the Democratic ones) I could be persuaded to see the usefulness of the technique.

Outsourcing Wiretapping

It's not enough that our government has already, for years, been engaged in illegal wiretapping of US citizens, but apparently the administration has decided to borrow from current business practice and outsource it's insatiable demand to listen in on conversations of Americans.

Mexico has, for years, had a program to wiretap calls made into the country, a fact which has been publicly known. The new angle is the Mexican government intends to expand and modernize the system -- using funding from the US.

By Sam Enriquez, Times Staff Writer
May 25, 2007

MEXICO CITY — Mexico is expanding its ability to tap telephone calls and e-mail using money from the U.S. government, a move that underlines how the country's conservative government is increasingly willing to cooperate with the United States on law enforcement.
...
The system will allow authorities to track cellphone users as they travel, according to contract specifications. It includes extensive storage capacity and will allow authorities to identify callers by voice. The system, scheduled to begin operation this month, was paid for by the U.S. State Department and sold by Verint Systems Inc., a politically well-connected firm based in Melville, N.Y., that specializes in electronic surveillance.
...
But the contract specifications say the system is designed to allow both governments to "disseminate timely and accurate, actionable information to each country's respective federal, state, local, private and international partners."
...
It's unclear how broad a net the new surveillance system will cast: Mexicans speak regularly by phone, for example, with millions of relatives living in the U.S. Those conversations appear to be fair game for both governments.

Legal experts say that prosecutors with access to Mexican wiretaps could use the information in U.S. courts. U.S. Supreme Court decisions have held that 4th Amendment protections against illegal wiretaps do not apply outside the United States, particularly if the surveillance is conducted by another country, Georgetown University law professor David Cole said.
...
Renato Sales, a former deputy prosecutor for Mexico City, said Calderon's desire to expand federal policing powers to combat organized crime was parallel to the Bush administration's use of a secret wiretapping program to fight terrorism.

"Suddenly anyone suspected of organized crime is presumed guilty and treated as someone without any constitutional rights," said Sales, now a law professor at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico. "And who will determine who is an organized crime suspect? The state will."

Federal lawmaker Cesar Octavio Camacho, president of the justice and human rights commission in the lower house of Congress, said he too worried about prosecutorial abuse.

"Although the proposal stems from the president's noble intention of efficiently fighting organized crime," he said, "the remedy seems worse than the problem."

The LA Times has the full article here.

Leaving aside issues internal to Mexico, the article makes clear one target of the wiretapping program will calls to Mexico made by US citizens (and calls made from Mexico to US citizens). These citizens needs not be suspects in any matter, yet it's possible, likely even, their private conversations will be listened into, and any information could be shared back with the US government.

It's not hard at all to think of scenarios where this system could be used and abused. For example, the US government has person X they want to get some info on, but no reasonable grounds for it. However, conveniently person X makes and receives regular phone calls to Mexico. Problem solved! Get the Mexican government to tap all phone calls to and from person X and pass information back to the US. All 4th-amendment rights have been nicely skirted.

As always, there are reasonable purposes presented to justify the program -- Mexico has a real problem with drug violence, particularly in the north of the country along the US border, and a program like this really could help address the issue. However, given the long history of abuse of such programs in Central America (which the article alludes to), who would really trust the government to limit the scope of the program? Historically, governments are addicted to this sort of thing -- give them a little in and they start continuously looking for ways to wedge the opening wider and wider, until the program is far broader than was ever intended.

The direct consequences would be an issue for Mexico to deal with, but if the program expands and more and more information gets shared with our government, then it affects us to. I certainly don't trust any administration, much less the current one, to act properly with regard to programs like this.

If Mexico wants to expand the program, fine, that's their choice -- but then Mexico should pay for it. The US government should not be in the business of forking over funding so foreign governments can do a better job of spying on US citizens.