The Bush Watch - Chapter 2

[Miulang]

Re: The Bush Watch - Chapter 2

Interesting little anecdote about Gen. Eric Shinseki post "shit-canning". He lives in Hawai'i now, so I wonder if either the Repubs or the Dems have approached him about running for an elected office? My guess is because of his low key style, he'd probably demur the offer, but oh the stories he could probably tell (if he wanted to spill the beans) on the inner workings of the current Administration!

Miulang

[Miulang]

War of the Generals-Round Two

To counter the assertions of the 6 retired generals for Rumsfeld's resignation, 4 former generals wrote an op-ed piece in this weekend NYT editorials. The fact that there is open, public dissention among the ranks of the retired generals is truly remarkable.

And since the Pres. continues to say that Rummy has his "full support and deepest appreciation" (a similar compliment to the "you're doing a heckava job, Brownie" praise heaped upon disgraced FEMA director Michael Brown) that leads me to believe that the Pres. again is not following the news and just listening to his close circle of "friends".

Miulang

[Miulang]

Another one bites the dust...

The guy brought in by the White House to specifically shake up the halls of the CIA resigned very unexpectedly on Friday. And today, when interviewed by reporters about his hasty departure, Porter Goss termed his resignation "a mystery".

Hmmmm... so the White House brings in someone who's supposed to restore America's confidence in its spooks and then 2 years later, he abruptly leaves town? Rumors have it that he had constant clashes with his boss, the Number One Spook, John Negroponte.

So who is the frontrunner to replace Goss? An Air Force general by the name of Michael Hayden, the current principal deputy to Negroponte and former head of the NSA. He was the head of the NSA at the time immediately after 9/11 when all the illegal spying began.

If he gets confirmed, be afraid...be very afraid...

Miulang

[Miulang]

Re: The Bush Watch - Chapter 2

Legal scholars note that the current Pres. Bush has deliberately set aside 750 laws enacted by Congress since he took office. Among the types of laws he'd like to think he can ignore are "...military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ''whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.

Legal scholars say the scope and aggression of Bush's assertions that he can bypass laws represent a concerted effort to expand his power at the expense of Congress, upsetting the balance between the branches of government. The Constitution is clear in assigning to Congress the power to write the laws and to the president a duty ''to take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Bush, however, has repeatedly declared that he does not need to ''execute" a law he believes is unconstitutional..."

...Many legal scholars say they believe that Bush's theory about his own powers goes too far and that he is seizing for himself some of the law-making role of Congress and the Constitution-interpreting role of the courts.

Phillip Cooper, a Portland State University law professor who has studied the executive power claims Bush made during his first term, said Bush and his legal team have spent the past five years quietly working to concentrate ever more governmental power into the White House.

''There is no question that this administration has been involved in a very carefully thought-out, systematic process of expanding presidential power at the expense of the other branches of government," Cooper said. ''This is really big, very expansive, and very significant."..."

I'm surprised at how willingly the Congress has enabled the White House to disregard laws that were constitutionally voted upon and which he is supposed to uphold....

Miulang

[Miulang]

Re: The Bush Watch - Chapter 2

Speaking of thumbing one's nose at the law with impugnity...in today's USA Today was a report that ATT, Verizon and Bell South have been cooperating with the government by sending call detail records (the date, length of call and the number dialed) to the NSA, which in turn is creating this huge database of Americans in order to "determine the calling patterns of terrorists." In one of my former jobs, I used those CDR records to track down people making malicious threats, so even though you're not actually recording conversations, the phone numbers alone can reveal lots about the callers.

Now my question is, were these landline calls or cellular calls? I think cellular calls can legally be traced, but landline calls (according to the attorney who lectured during my recent course on contracts and laws) said that it was illegal to trace landline calls without a warrant.

This program is different and separate from the one that was actually eavesdropping (i.e., taping) calls between the US and foreign countries, but nonetheless, it was going on without knowledge of the Congressional Intelligence Committees or anyone outside the NSA and the White House.

And to think, Pres. Bush wants to have Gen. Michael Hayden, the guy in charge of the superspooks at the time this program was instituted immediately after 9/11, as the new head of the CIA?

It'll be interesting to see how Congress and the American public react to how the Administration is going to handle this hot potato.

Miulang

[Miulang]

Re: The Bush Watch - Chapter 2

This is the USA Today story that touched off the current furor over illegal gathering of telephone information from innocent citizens.

Miulang

P.S. what's equally odd about the timing of this latest revelation is that just yesterday the DOJ announced abruptly that it was dropping its investigation of the warrantless eavesdropping allegations posed a couple of months ago because the NSA would not give the DOJ lawyers the security clearances they needed in order to thoroughly investigate the case. Hmmm...

[Miulang]

Free the Web!!!

"...the House and Senate commerce committees are promoting new rules governing the manner by which most Americans receive the Web. Congressional passage of new rules is widely anticipated, as is President Bush's signature. Once this happens, the Internet will change before your eyes.

The proposed House legislation, the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act (COPE), offers no protections for "network neutrality."

Currently, your Internet provider does not voluntarily censor the Web as it enters your home. This levels the playing field between the tiniest blog and the most popular Web site.

Yet the big telecom companies want to alter this dynamic. AT&T and Verizon have publicly discussed their plans to divide the information superhighway into separate fast and slow lanes. Web sites and services willing to pay a toll will be channeled through the fast lane, while all others will be bottled up in the slower lanes. COPE, and similar telecom legislation offered in the Senate, does nothing to protect the consumer from this transformation of the Internet.

The telecoms are frustrated that commercial Web sites reap unlimited profits while those providing entry to your home for these companies are prevented from fully cashing in. If the new telecom regulations pass without safeguarding net neutrality, the big telecom companies will be able to prioritize the Web for you. They will be free to decide which Web sites get to your computer faster and which ones may take longer - or may not even show up at all....

The proposed new rules have received surprisingly sparse media coverage. The new laws have economic, political and social ramifications. There are several explanations for the silence.

The most probable is simply that because the laws have strong bipartisan support in both houses of Congress, they do not appear particularly newsworthy. COPE has been promoted vigorously in the House by both Texas Republican Joe L. Barton and Illinois Democrat Bobby L. Rush. While a few legislators are attempting to preserve net neutrality - most notably Democratic Rep. Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts and Republican Sen. Olympia J. Snowe of Maine - they are clearly outnumbered...."

Miulang

[Miulang]

Re: The Bush Watch - Chapter 2

This is the USA Today story that touched off the current furor over illegal gathering of telephone information from innocent citizens.
...

To put some perspective on the insidiousness of what NSA has the capability of doing with those phone records, here is a brief and somewhat dated intro to data mining. I love the quote at the top of the article, "Turn computers loose on your data, and you don't know what they'll come up with -- that's the whole point
Edmund X. DeJesus, Senior Editor, Byte Magazine

[Miulang]

Re: The Bush Watch - Chapter 2

I guess this is a rhetorical question to ask, but if in fact ATT, Verizon and Bell South have the best interests of their customers in mind and are working diligently to protect these customers' Constitutional rights to privacy, why did they VOLUNTARILY turn over the call detail records of all their customers? What did these billion dollar corporations stand to gain by giving the government those lists without first being ordered to do so? More lucrative government contracts in the future? Preferential treatment and insider deals? Did they expect the government to trot them out as examples of what "good American citizens and corporations should do"?

Much as I hated Nacchio for what he did to some of my friends who worked for Qwest, I do appreciate the company's stance on the privacy issue. That means 14 million of us in Qwest territory don't have to worry that our phone records are part of that huge NSA database.

Is the US really turning into an Orwellian state? And why are we allowing the White House to run roughshod over our Constitutional rights without justification? is the government now saying that all Americans are guilty of terrorist conspiracies, unless proven otherwise? Has Lady Justice now not only been blindfolded but had her right arm amputated as well?

Miulang

P.S. And for those who say, "Oh, it's OK for the government to be monitoring my phone calls because I'm not doing anything wrong..." please consider this: once that information is in the government's hands, how sure can you be that they won't use it against you at some point to help them find one of your relatives or to figure out with whom you associate? If we allow the government to do things like this without getting legal clearance, what makes us think they won't eat away at some of our other rights too? Right now, 2/3 of Americans polled say it's OK for the government to collect phone records without a warrant. Wonder how that percentage will change as more 'opala comes out?

[Miulang]

DING DONG! Karl Rove is (almost) GONE!

Never in a million years did I think I would see this happen...Karl Rove is reportedly on the verge of being indicted in the Valerie Plame CIA outing case and will resign!!!!!

"... Within the last week, Karl Rove told President Bush and Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, as well as a few other high level administration officials, that he will be indicted in the CIA leak case and will immediately resign his White House job when the special counsel publicly announces the charges against him, according to sources.

Details of Rove's discussions with the president and Bolten have spread through the corridors of the White House where low-level staffers and senior officials were trying to determine how the indictment would impact an administration that has been mired in a number of high-profile political scandals for nearly a year, said a half-dozen White House aides and two senior officials who work at the Republican National Committee.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, sources confirmed Rove's indictment is imminent. These individuals requested anonymity saying they were not authorized to speak publicly about Rove's situation. A spokesman in the White House press office said they would not comment on "wildly speculative rumors." ..."

Ho man! What ever will the President do without his brain? Talk about a rudderless ship on the verge of being dashed on the rocks if he leaves. Another one down, only Cheney and Rumsfeld left of the Evil Empire...Bets on who's going to be next to fall?

Miulang

[Miulang]

Re: The Bush Watch - Chapter 2

OK, so you say you have nothing to hide from the government. How's about if you knew that ANYONE with the cash and the smarts to hook up with one of these services, could locate by via pinging your cell phone? As long as it's turned on, even if you're not making a call, you can be tracked.

"...Real-time tracking technology also opens disturbing entrepreneurial opportunities. Anyone who provides their kids, spouse or employees with a software-readied cell phone can secretly monitor them on the web. Wherify.com "locates loved ones within feet/meters in about a minute," and allows subscribers to "view location on both street and aerial mapping, to include date/time stamp, lat/long and block address" and "set breadcrumb schedule for periodic locates." Another Internet business promises to sell you the calling records for any phone number you provide. ..."


Fortunately, I keep mine turned off except when I'm making outbound calls, and I have an (808) area code instead of a (206) code on it.

Miulang

[Miulang]

Re: The Bush Watch - Chapter 2

For the 63% of Americans who believe the government has the right to your phone records without a warrant or specific cause, this article might refresh your memory. It's not just the current Administration that has used this type of information in bad ways and it's not just Republicans. The telecommunications laws in 1986 were created specifically to protect individuals who are not suspected of any wrongdoing from having their phone, email and other electronic communication records turned over to the government without a warrant. The current wholesale "mining" of billions of call detail records assumes that everyone is guilty unless proven otherwise.

Miulang

P.S. You know that "6 (or fewer) degrees of separation" thing we all keep joking about? This story talks about how the government can use data to determine social networks without actually knowing what is being said.

[Miulang]

Re: DING DONG! Karl Rove is (almost) GONE!

Ho man! What ever will the President do without his brain? Talk about a rudderless ship on the verge of being dashed on the rocks if he leaves. Another one down, only Cheney and Rumsfeld left of the Evil Empire...Bets on who's going to be next to fall?

Miulang

With Karl Rove's resignation imminent, it looks like the next man down will be
Dick Cheney:

"...The role of Vice President Dick Cheney in the criminal case stemming from the outing of White House critic Joseph Wilson's CIA wife is likely to get fresh attention as a result of newly disclosed notes showing that Cheney personally asked whether Wilson had been sent by his wife on a "junket" to Africa....

"...In the margins of the op-ed, Cheney jotted out a series of questions that seemed to challenge many of Wilson's assertions as well as the legitimacy of his CIA sponsored trip to Africa: "Have they done this sort of thing before? Send an Amb. [sic] to answer a question? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did his wife send him on a junket?"(my emphasis)

It is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for Cheney's own notes to be made public. The notes—apparently obtained as a result of a grand jury subpoena—would appear to make Cheney an even more central witness than had been previously thought in the criminal probe. Fitzgerald's prosecution has created continued problems for the White House. Karl Rove, the President Bush's chief political advisor, recently made his fifth grand jury appearance in the case and remains under scrutiny while Fitzgerald weighs whether to file criminal charges against him. For now, Libby is the only figure charged in the case...."

Miulang

P.S. Here's the actual filing that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald may already have filed on Friday.

[Miulang]

Re: The Bush Watch - Chapter 2

Heheheheh. This social networking stuff cuts both ways...maybe it'll force Congress to actually do something to protect our 4th Amendment rights...to protect more of them from this kind of revelation and possible prosecution!

Miulang

[Miulang]

Re: The Bush Watch - Chapter 2

Once upon a time, the US dollar was considered the standard for measuring a nation's worth. Sadly, we can no longer claim that honor because of our trade deficit and overall indebtedness. It's not as transparent to see this happening in this country because all we see is a few cents' increase in the prices we pay, but if you were a tourist in a European Union country, you'd really be in a world of hurt. It now takes US$1.29 to buy a Euro and the ratio keeps getting larger and larger with every passing day.

Besides control of the oil resources in Iraq, could it possibly be that the US HAD to get rid of Saddam because he was also going to force us to buy his oil using euros instead of the dollar? That is the reason being bandied about for our interest in attacking Iran...not because of its purported quest for nuclear weapons, but because of its intent to sell its oil for euros instead of the US dollar.

Miulanmg