New CIA director Hayden plans massive expansion of spying on Americans

Now that he is officially sworn in as the new head of the Central Intelligence Agency, General Michael Hayden plans to build a vast domestic spying network that will pry into the lives of most Americans around the clock.

President George W. Bush told Hayden to “take whatever steps necessary” to monitor Americans 24/7 by listening in on their phone calls, bugging their homes and offices, probing their private lives, snooping into their financial records, and watching their travel habits.

Can I prove this in a court of law? No. Do I know it is happening? Yes, without a doubt. Enough sources within the CIA, FBI, NSA, and Pentagon have come forward in recent days to warn about Hayden’s plans for an expanded, consolidated spy network aimed at Americans—not terrorists—and violating numerous laws that prohibit such activities against citizens of this country.

“What Hayden plans to do is not only illegal, it is immoral,” says a longtime CIA operative who may retire early rather than participate in what he sees as an illegal extension of the spy agency’s activities.

Hayden, who oversaw the National Security Agency’s questionable monitoring of phone calls and emails of Americas, plans to consolidate much of the country’s domestic spying into a new desk at the CIA, calling it a “domestic terrorism prevention” operation.

The desk will oversee not only the NSA’s increased monitoring of electronic communications by Americans but also the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s “terrorist information awareness” program that monitors travel and financial activities by Americans by gathering real-time data from banks, airlines, travel agencies, and credit-card companies.

The CIA operation will also coordinate with the Pentagon’s domestic spying program that monitors activities of anti-war groups, organizations critical of the Bush administrations, and others tagged as enemies of the state.

FBI agents will step up monitoring of journalists to identify leaks of stories embarrassing to the government. The bureau is already monitoring reporters’ phone calls and emails on a routine basis and has increased surveillance of writers for major news organizations and monitoring of travel and financial records using the DARPA computers.

“This is not ‘total information awareness’ but ‘total information control’ aimed at watching Americans fulltime and ignoring the protections that are supposed to be guaranteed by the Constitution,” says an FBI agent familiar with the programs. “I didn’t sign on for this, and I’m getting the hell out.”

In fact, resignations at major U.S. spy agencies are at an all-time high. Exact numbers are classified but sources say field agents, data analysts, and others are leaving in droves rather than joining the frenzy to spy on Americans.

Hayden sailed through the Senate confirmation process defending his domestic spying program at NSA, claiming it was legal. Privacy experts and constitutional law professors say otherwise, but the Senate rubberstamped Bush’s choice anyway, choosing to ignore the threats to freedom.

Hayden will have little problem concealing the operation from the public and Congress. Many of the CIA’s programs are classified and the agency has, in the past, concealed programs even from the intelligence committees in both the House and Senate. The DARPA project and the Pentagon domestic spying programs are “black bag” operations that do not require Congressional approval or oversight.

Likewise, many of the details of the NSA domestic spying program were withheld from Congress and escaped public notice until media reports unearthed them. The Bush administration now threatens to jail the reporters who broke the story.

I wish I could prove this. I wish one—just one—source on the inside was willing to come forward and allow his or her name to be used. But to those who might be tempted: See what happened to Mary McCarthy, the CIA employee fired and under threat of prosecution for leaking information about CIA torture camps in Europe.

But I know it is happening. People I’ve known for years and trust tell me that it is happening, and that the past record of spying, lies, and deceit by the Bush administration point to just such an operation.

This nation is under attack. We, the people, are under attack. And the enemy in this case is not an Islamic radical hiding in a cave in Afghanistan but a cabal of truly evil men and women at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and on Capitol Hill aided by carefully-picked, law-ignoring appointees at the Hoover Building on Pennsylvania Avenue; a black glass-walled building at Fort Meade, MD; and a complex in Langley, Virginia.

The above article copyright © 2006 Doug Thompson of Capitol Hill Blue. The article has been archived—it will eventually disappear—and copyedited.

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Twelve-year-old girl describes Iraq atrocity

This is absolutely horrible:

After a small group of Marines stormed the Younis family home in Haditha last November, everybody inside was killed—except one person.

ABC News has obtained an interview with the sole survivor, twelve-year-old Safa Younis. The interview was done by a local Iraqi journalism student about one week after the killings on November 19, 2005.

The U.S. military continues to investigate what happened in Haditha, where a total of 24 civilians died. But one congressman—Rep. John Murtha (D-PA)—said today that he’s convinced the incident was mass murder and that it was covered up.

“There has to have been a cover-up,” Murtha told ABC News’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos. “There’s no question about it.”

Why, how dare ABC publish such a story! Doesn’t ABC know that stories like this will only further convince the people that our war is wrong?

Did I just write that? I meant, uh—and now it’s time for a commercial break!

UPDATE, 10:19PM: My friend tells me that a bomb went off that killed one of the Marines that shot the family. He also tells me that the girl and her entire town knew where it was and wanted the Marines to die. I’m not sure if he’s right.

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SCOTUS rules: no whistle-blower free-speech right

Sheer insanity.

A closely divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that government whistle-blowers are not protected by free-speech rights when they face employer retaliation for trying to expose possible misconduct at work.

By a 5–4 vote, the high court ruled against a California prosecutor who said he was demoted, denied a promotion and transferred for trying to expose a lie by a county sheriff's deputy in a search-warrant affidavit.

Adopting the position of the Los Angeles prosecutor’s office and the U.S. Justice Department, the high court ruled that a public employee has no First Amendment right in speech expressed as part of performing job-required duties.

I’ll skip the commentary on this one.

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(PHOTO) My only friends are the weeds

Nothing wrong with posting a photo, is there?

I had a good Memorial Day. It’s not that I like the idea of celebrating D.C.’s wars. I prefer to remember the lives lost and other sacrifices made while fighting the government’s wars, and how it’s sad that people should be honored to fight and die for the state’s corrupt purposes.

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Action urged as civil liberties board convenes

The White House’s new civil liberties board is just getting to work more than a year after it was ordered by Congress, dogged by criticism that it must act more quickly and forcefully to protect Americans’ rights in the war against terrorism.

Why so long? Oh, right. Because the government doesn’t want to leave the people’s rights alone.

The nascent Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, whose members were picked by President George W. Bush a year ago, has held four formal meetings since being sworn in on March 14 and has met top officials and prominent privacy and civil liberties advocates over the past two months.

“Right now, there’s a lot of consultation, coordination, outreach, and taking stock of issues and trying to figure out how to be as useful as possible,” said the board’s vice chairman, Alan Raul, a lawyer specializing in privacy issues.

Washington wants the PCLOB to examine the government’s actions and say, “Yeah, it’s good. Don’t worry, American people, warrantless wiretapping, surveillance, and arrests are perfectly legal and constitutional, just as President Bush has been saying since 9/11. And the fact that we’re an indepedent government-created government-investigation board that’s approving Bush’s bold and constitutional actions proves that his actions are legal and constitutional!”

The White House Web site says the five-member board's office space is under construction and it is hiring staff.

“Well, uh, we decided to have a say before we were created.”

Some critics and rights advocates say progress has been unsatisfactory considering the need for oversight of post-September 11 government policies, such as eavesdropping on U.S. citizens' international telephone calls and e-mails.

They—or the Western media, at least—call it “unsatisfactory.” I call it inexcusable, totalitarian, and unconstitutional—but then again, “unsatisfactory” means that in Western media doublespeak.

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Gonzales pressures ISPs on data retention

CNET posted an interesting bit of news yesterday:

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller on Friday urged telecommunications officials to record their customers’ Internet activities, CNET News.com has learned.

They already do that. How else would the ISPs be able to comply with the RIAA’s subpoenas?

In a private meeting with industry representatives, Gonzales, Mueller and other senior members of the Justice Department said Internet service providers should retain subscriber information and network data for two years, according to two sources familiar with the discussion who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Oh. I’m pretty sure they don’t do that. And I’m pretty sure it’s a horrible idea.

The closed-door meeting at the Justice Department—which Gonzales had requested, according to the sources—comes as the idea of legally mandated data retention has become popular on Capitol Hill and inside the Bush administration. Supporters of the idea say it will help prosecutions of child pornography because in many cases, logs are deleted during the routine course of business.

Scratch that. I know it’s a horrible idea. Almost any law that’s “for the children” means a rise in the government’s power, and that’s definitely not a good thing.

Once ISP data retention becomes Federal law, Washington will have at its disposal the largest database of citizen information it’s ever had. People will be afraid to say anything against those in power or go anywhere that speaks against those in power because they’ll be terrified of Washington’s trumping up charges against them and throwing them in jail—or worse, Gitmo—for the rest of their lives.

“I will reach out personally to the CEOs of the leading service providers and to other industry leaders,” Gonzales said. “Record retention by Internet service providers consistent with the legitimate privacy rights of Americans is an issue that must be addressed.”

And in other news, murderers have declared that murder consistent with the life rights of Americans is an issue that they will soon address. More at 11.

Until Gonzales’ speech, the Bush administration had generally opposed laws requiring data retention, saying it had “serious reservations” about them. But after the European Parliament last December approved such a requirement for Internet, telephone, and VoIP providers, top administration officials began talking about the practice more favorably.

The administration has taken to the bandwagon approach to prove that data retention is a good thing. “Hey, look! Europe mandates it, so we should, too!” And it’s extremely unlikely that the administration ever had “serious reservations” about mandating data retention. They warmed up to the idea rather quickly, didn’t they?

Any government that sees an opportunity to grow its power will seize that opportunity.

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Official: Iraq civilian deaths unjustified

Military investigators probing the deaths last November of about two dozen Iraqi civilians have evidence that points toward unprovoked murders by Marines, a senior defense official said Friday.

Ah, so they’re finally admitting to what we already knew.

The Marine Corps initially reported 15 deaths and said they were caused by a roadside bomb and an ensuing firefight with insurgents. A separate investigation is aimed at determining if Marines lied to cover up the events, which included the deaths of women and children.

Why wouldn’t they lie? For some reason, they needed to cover their butts, so they lied. I don’t know why they would actually need to lie to protect themselves, though, since the U.S. already approves torture.

If confirmed as unjustified killings, the episode could be the most serious case of criminal misconduct by U.S. troops during three years of combat in Iraq. Until now the most infamous occurrence was the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse involving Army soldiers, which came to light in April 2004 and which President Bush said Thursday he considered to be the worst U.S. mistake of the entire war.

I think this “episode” and the Abu Ghraib prisoner torture scandal are on-par with each other. Have I mentioned how much I love it when Western media uses doublespeak to convey in a soft sense something horrible? If I haven’t before, I have now.

If you wish to read the AP article 30 days from now, you should save it on your computer. In Firefox, press Cmd+S (OS X) or Ctrl+S (Windows) on your keyboard and choose the location to save the article.

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Senate confirms Hayden as CIA director

Not surprising, but still depressing and enraging:

General Michael Hayden won confirmation to be the 20th CIA director Friday in a lopsided Senate vote, placing a career Air Force officer in charge of the civilian spy agency that is grappling with intelligence reform at home as well as al Qaeda and other international threats.

I’m guessing that by “intelligence reform,” they mean “making sure that no one ever finds out about illegal spying on citizens.”

The Senate approved Hayden in under three weeks by a vote of 78–15. He is expected to be sworn in next week.

The sooner, the worse.

If you wish to read the AP article 30 days from now, you should save it on your computer. In Firefox, press Cmd+S (OS X) or Ctrl+S (Windows) on your keyboard and choose the location to save the article.

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Bush to talk incentives if Iran halts nuclear moves

President George W. Bush said on Thursday he would consider providing incentives to Iran if it agreed to resume a suspension on nuclear enrichment activities that the United States believes is aimed at producing a nuclear bomb.

Washington can believe whatever it wants to believe, but that doesn’t make it true; that is, unless Washington makes it true, if you catch my drift.

Bush, at a White House news conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, said the two leaders spent a lot of time discussing strategy on how to resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis.

The two B’s sure do like to waste time. They’re creating a strategy to solve a problem they’ve created in their own minds and in the minds of the British and American people.

I’ve got a solution. It’s a bit radical, but stick with me.

United States, do nothing. Britain, do nothing.

Iran says it has a right to a nuclear program, and denies U.S. accusations it is trying to create an atomic bomb. It says it only wants to enrich uranium to a level suitable for use in atomic power reactors.

“Iran must be lying! You know why? Because we say they are! That’s why! And as you know, we’re never wrong. It’s really just too bad that the WMDs never showed up. But believe us—we were right then, and we’re right now!”

Bush said one of his goals with Blair has been “to convince others in the world that Iran with a nuclear weapon would be very dangerous.”

The United States and Britain, both with their own armies, are very dangerous.

“And this fundamental question is how do you achieve that goal, obviously? We want to do it diplomatically,” he added.

So you want to use diplomacy in order to scare people into believing that Iran will get nuclear weapons? I think you’ll just further convince everyone that you and your armies and your preemptive wars are dangerous.

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Witness: harsher Abu Ghraib methods condoned

Senior U.S. officials silently condoned harsher methods at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison and one general urged guards to use dogs to the “maximum extent possible” to control detainees, witnesses said on Thursday.

That sure is a surprise. Who knew that the government wouldn’t report the full extent of horrible acts it committed?

The testimony came on the fourth day of the military trial of Army dog handler Sgt. Santos Cardona, 32, who is accused of taking part in abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib that the U.S. government blames on rogue low-ranking soldiers.

Defense attorneys are trying to show that Cardona—who faces 16 years in prison if convicted on all charges—and other soldiers were acting on orders from their superiors.

As we all know, you can never trust the defendant. Ever.

Prosecutors say he and an already convicted colleague were “corrupt cops” who used dogs to terrify detainees into urinating and defecating on themselves.

They were ordered to. If they hadn’t, they would have been “disciplined.”

Steven Pescatore, a former Air Force officer who worked as a civilian interrogator at Abu Ghraib, said in written testimony that silence from superiors on the treatment of prisoners was widely seen as meaning consent.

“We still had to submit a memo requesting the harsher techniques, but we could go under the assumption that a technique was approved unless we heard back otherwise,” he said.

Don’t ask, don’t tell, eh?

“There was a lot of pressure and stress among the interrogators; we were constantly being told that we needed to get more information from the detainees.”

Information gathered from torture is 100% accurate and would not ever be fabricated in order for the torture to stop. Thus, torture works.

Despite evidence of pressure from above to extract more information from prisoners, there are few signs that senior Army leaders or administration officials will be charged with condoning the abuse.

Of course not. The seniors have so many connections that there’s no way anyone would ever consider thinking about potentially seeking advice on whether or not he should file charges.

The U.S. government, which often justifies its foreign policy on the grounds of improving human rights, was severely embarrassed when photographs showing prisoners being abused and sexually humiliated were leaked in 2004.

“Severely embarrassed”? Severely embarrassed because it tortured prisoners? It’s such a shame that photos proving U.S. government torture would ever get leaked, because they shatter our squeaky-clean we’re-the-good-guys mentality that the government’s given itself over the past half-century!

If I continue any further, I’ll lose it. And then I’ll be committed.

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Bush and Blair acknowledge Iraq “setbacks”

President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair acknowledged difficult times in the Iraq war they launched together in 2003, but both vowed to keep troops there until the new Iraqi government takes control.

This is indeed great news, as we who opposed the war simply have to wait till the Iraqi government can take control. (Well, maybe it’s not such great news, since it appears that the new government won’t be ready for anything until Bush and Blair say so.)

“Despite setbacks and missteps, I strongly believe we did and are doing the right thing,” Bush said Thursday evening in a White House news conference with Blair.

Back when I was a neocon, I listened to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. They both said that Democrats and liberals don’t care about the outcome of their social programs; as long as those who instituted the programs had good intentions and believed they were doing “the right thing,” they were successes—whether they failed or not. Limbaugh and Hannity, of course, felt that it was stupid to count failures as success, and I did and still do agree with that.

However, good intentions and the-right-thing feelings are meaningless when they come from Republicans, too. And why shouldn’t they be meaningless? Saying you’re doing the right thing because you think it’s the right thing is like saying that telling your wife that you thought about getting her a present for her birthday is just as good as actually getting her the present.

(And didn’t BTK think he was doing the right thing?)

For his part, Blair declared that after a meeting earlier this week with Iraq’s new prime minister, “I came away thinking the challenge is still immense, but I also came away thinking more certain than ever that we should rise to it.”

Of course, because it really wouldn’t be a success unless we were there to see it through.

Bush declined to discuss news reports that the Pentagon hoped that the U.S. force, now at 131,000 troops, could be reduced to about 100,000 by year’s end.

He called that “speculation in the press.” He said he has not discussed troop levels with commanders on the ground. “We’ll keep the force level there necessary to win,” Bush said.

I thought we won the war shortly after we started it? That sign behind the president said “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED,” did it not? Of course, the definition of victory keeps on shifting at the coercion of the coalition so as to prolong our stay over there in order to convince citizens of the countries in the coalition that their governments are “doing the right thing.”

There’s much “more” to the article, but I don’t have the stomach to comment on all of it.

If you wish to read the AP article 30 days from now, you should save it on your computer. In Firefox, press Cmd+S (OS X) or Ctrl+S (Windows) on your keyboard and choose the location to save the article.

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BellSouth: NSA story is bogus

According to CNN.com, BellSouth is demanding that USA Today retract its call-log story:

[BellSouth] sent a letter to USA Today on Thursday asking it to retract last week’s story that BellSouth and two other companies helped the NSA compile a massive database of records on domestic phone calls.

It’s disgusting that USA Today would dare publish a story that’s actually true! We can’t have that: The people might actually get upset! (Though they haven’t yet.)

BellSouth faxed the letter to the attention of Craig Moon, the newspaper’s president and publisher, and its general counsel, BellSouth spokesman Jeff Battcher said. The letter calls for the paper to retract the “false and unsubstantiated statements the paper made regarding BellSouth.”

Everything that harms a company in bed with the government and said government is “false and unsubstantiated.” We can’t allow either to be portrayed accurately: The people might actually stop supporting them! (The world would end were that to happen.)

“We did receive the letter this afternoon. We’re reviewing it, and will be responding,” said USA Today spokesman Steve Anderson.

Earlier this week, USA Today said it stands by its story, but that it would investigate the denials issued by BellSouth and Verizon.

USA Today, don’t you dare drop the call-logging story down the memory hole, or there will be a backlash like you never imagined!

AT&T, the third company named in the article, has not denied the story outright, but said it would not provide such information without legal authorization.

Either AT&T did or didn’t pony up the information to Washington; there’s no middle ground on the issue. (And what did they mean by “legal authorization”?)

USA Today reported that the NSA doesn’t record or listen to conversations. Rather, the article said, the agency uses the data—including phone numbers, times and locations—to look for patterns that might suggest terrorist activity.

If I’m doing nothing wrong, the government has no cause to watch me.

The Bush administration has neither confirmed nor denied the existence of such a program.

Silence can be a rather strong admission of guilt.

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Rights group requests wiretapping probe

Reuters posted a nice bit of news today regarding the NSA’s wiretapping and call-logging:

The American Civil Liberties Union launched a 20-state campaign on Wednesday to stop warrantless eavesdropping by the National Security Agency and prevent telecoms firms from providing it with phone records.

Good. I, for one, am not comfortable with what the NSA does. Aside from the fact that it’s illegal—do you see anything permitting domestic surveillance in the Constitution?—it smacks of Soviet-government practices.

Under a secret program set up under President George W. Bush after the September 11 attacks, the NSA was authorized to monitor the international phone calls and emails of U.S. citizens without first obtaining warrants, while pursuing al Qaeda suspects.

For the sake of argument, let’s say that the government really was trying to catch al Qaeda suspects. That automatically makes warrantless wiretapping and call-logging a good idea in the minds of your average American. He believes the government is protecting him from terrorists. What he doesn’t realize, however, is that the Fourth Amendment prevents such acts:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

But who reads that damned piece of paper anymore anyway?

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The president and his cut-in commanders

The above picture is from a Reuters article entitled “Bush seeks diplomacy to resolve Iran nuclear issue.”

Its caption is as follows:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (front row C) sits with commanders from the Basij Militia in Tehran May 7, 2006. The United States aims to resolve the Iran nuclear stand-off peacefully and diplomatically, President George W. Bush said on Tuesday.

There’s a problem, however: The image appears to be photoshopped. (The flatness of everyone is not necessarily evidence, for objects in a photo can be made to appear flat by manipulating the image’s depth of field.)

If you’ll take a look at the man with the white turban—farthest to the right on the row immediately behind Ahmadinejad—you will notice that his face “hangs” in front of the turban, which is off-center.

Now, let’s take a gander at the man at 10:00 from Ahmadinejad. Now look at the man behind him. The man behind Mr. Ten O’Clock looks like he’s standing outside with the sun in front of or above him. The edges of his head are rather lightly lit.

For my final bit, I would like to direct your attention to the turbaned man in the fourth—possibly fifth or sixth—row from the top of the image. Look at his face. It’s not there; it’s merely a black rectangle.

Whoever made this image did a poor job making it look convincing, and I’m not entirely sure why one would need to fake it.

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Horrific killing in Hamburg

Looney Green Fascists—excuse me, Little Green Footballs—is my favorite neocon blog. LGF is the epitome of what’s wrong with “conservatism” today: They hate people, especially Muslims.

In Hamburg, a 40-year-old man beheaded his wife. Afterwards, he ran, his wife’s head in his hand, to a nearby gas station and turned himself in to police. At the time of the brutal murder, both daughters (6 and 13) were in the apartment of the married couple.

Drops of blood led from a gas station in Hamburg’s district Harburg to an apartment complex 100 metres away. The drops of blood ended in front of an apartment on the 2nd floor. This is where the crime took place Sunday night. Fatma S. was killed by multiple stabs, prior to her head being cut off by her husband with a kitchen knife. Then, the man took the head and walked to the nearby gas station. “The employee had just been outside at the gas pumps,” says a police officer.” He knew Atilla. At first, he did not notice what the man was carrying. “As soon as he realized the situation, he ran to the office and called the police. Atilla dropped the head off in the snow and waited for the police to arrest him.

In his apartment, police officers not only discovered the woman’s torso. In the children’s room, they found both daughters of the couple. “We do not know what the girls might have noticed,” says a female police officer. The girls, unharmed, were found in their beds.

Hamburg homicide investigators are utterly baffled by the crime.

Investigators now try to figure out the motive for this unbelievable homicide. The situation escalated without any reason, according to homicide detectives. Atilla S., who had been living in this apartment for 10 years together with his wife, has not been registered for any criminal offense.

I know it’s a crazy idea, but maybe there’s a clue in this statement from a relative?

“We were not very close to him and his family,” says a relative. “He is very conservative and attended the mosque on a regular basis. The rest of the family has a very Western lifestyle.” This created a gap between husband and wife.

Nah. Couldn’t have anything to do with that.

Yes, it is a horrible crime. But just because a Muslim committed this crime does not mean that all Muslims are like this. Islam is not necessarily a religion of peace, but many—if not most—Muslims are peaceful.

And keep in mind that it’s not just Muslims who murder and behead people. Whites and blacks are perfectly capable of it, as are white and black Christians. (BTK, anyone?)

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White House plays down troop withdrawal

Unfortunately, it looks as if Washington is not open to withdrawing troops from Iraq:

The White House on Tuesday played down prospects of major troop withdrawals from Iraq in the near future. “We’re not going to sort of look at our watches and say, ‘Oop, time to go,’ ” said spokesman Tony Snow.

The establishment of a unity government in Baghdad has stirred talk of troop reductions by the United States and Britain, the two major players in terms of soldiers in Iraq. But with violence still widespread, both the White House and Pentagon indicated it may be too soon to make decisions on troop cuts.

“The conditions on the ground tell us that our job’s not done,” Snow said.

At the Pentagon, Brigadier General Carter Ham told reporters that he is unaware of any numerical target for troop cuts this year, and he cautioned against expecting major reductions before Iraqi troops show they can handle the insurgents.

“We want to do it as soon as we can but you can’t do it too fast,” said Ham, who is deputy operations chief for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He cautioned against “rushing to failure.”

I wonder if the Feds realize that empire expansion will require infinitely more soldiers—and that, even with a draft, we will be greatly cutting into the citizenry to fund the flesh for the war. I’m sure they do. After all, it will weaken the United States further, giving our leaders an excuse to make North America more than the continent it is.

If you wish to read the AP article 30 days from now, you should save it on your computer. In Firefox, press Cmd+S (OS X) or Ctrl+S (Windows) on your keyboard and choose the location to save the article.

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Analysis: Senate acts wisely on Hayden

The U.S. Senate has given the Bush administration an extended blank check on domestic electronic phone surveillance.

Quoth Will Ferrell: “Fantastic!”

As we predicted in these columns last week, the U.S. Senate confirmation hearings on General Michael Hayden focused on data mining from U.S. domestic phone records during his tenure as head of the National Security Agency. But at no point did senators make any serious suggestion about imposing any new legal or congressional oversight procedures on the vastly extended surveillance programs that Hayden oversaw during his time running the super-secret NSA.

It doesn’t matter whether they did or did not do anything to restrain the NSA’s surveillance. It’s still a malevolent beast—and it’s illegal.

The senators, as we predicted, focused narrowly on Hayden’s record, and his performance before them defused, at least in the short term, many of the concerns that had been expressed on Capitol Hill about the long-term implications and dangers of the data-mining program.

This proves that they never had any intent on restricting the NSA, and they have no intent to ever do such.

The course of these hearings reveals several significant findings about current U.S. popular attitudes, as interpreted by the nation’s elected representatives, on national security issues.

First, despite President George W. Bush’s tumbling approval ratings over the economy, national security and the war in Iraq, domestic surveillance powers remain the third rail of American politics. No one in the Republican or Democratic Party mainstreams wants to risk touching them for fear of getting electrocuted.

In other words: “Neither major party is talking about it, so why should you—the bourgeoisie—talk about it?”

In the short term, this has spared Bush yet more embarrassments. USA Today’s report exposing the previously unsuspected extent of the NSA’s data mining program on national phone records was discussed throughout the media and led to much initial criticism of the administration from Republican as well as Democratic senators. But it did not translate into any serious effort to insist that the programs be curtailed, or even that they should have congressional oversight procedures imposed upon them to prevent their abuse.

A petrifying mindset has taken hold in the United States over the last few years: “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.” This belief, however, would not be held were it not for indoctrination. Over the last 50 years, the government has conditioned the people to trust it via public schooling, welfare, etc. The people have bought into the lie that the government is this benevolent giant whose only interest is the safety of the little people scurrying about his feet. Due to the fuzzy feeling in their hearts, the people don’t question the giant when it asks to monitor one aspect of their lives, and then another, and another.

For as we noted in these columns last week, major figures in neither party want to take the risk of exposing themselves to future criticism for reining in security surveillance programs in case they may be blamed at some point in the future for blocking the programs that could have prevented future mega-terrorist attacks as bad as, or worse than, those of September 11, 2001. In this very basic sense, therefore, the traumas of September 11, 2001, continue to be the driving force of American politics.

Hitler firebombed the Reichstag.

Second, the revelations about the NSA data mining do not seem to have significantly further damaged Bush’s opinion poll ratings, although since they were already in the low 30 percent range, they were already in the dog house. However much his credibility on Iraq has been destroyed, the American public still approves the general principle of empowering the U.S. domestic security services and intelligence agencies against potential terrorist threats.

The pollsters must be searching harder and harder for good patriotic Americans who have absolute trust, love, and loyalty for the Federal government. Perhaps people are waking up, or perhaps the neocons are angry that Bush hasn’t been aggressive enough in growing the government.

Third—this is not particularly good news for Bush, however—because recent polling data suggests that key centrist areas of American public opinion have already crossed the crucial barrier of trusting Bush to protect them against domestic and other national security threats better than anyone else. The public still wants any president to have those powers. But a clear majority of it no longer requires Bush above other political figures to exercise them.

This polling data UPI speaks of, is it that one poll of 500 Americans? After all, we know that 500 hand-picked Americans accurately depict how the entire country feels.

The American public continues to support giving the U.S. intelligence community wide-ranging powers of domestic surveillance to prevent another mega-terrorist attack like those of September 11, 2001. And they also believe—almost certainly with good reason—that the exercise of these powers has significantly protected them since those earlier attacks. But they also believe that these additional surveillance powers can and will be exercised by future presidents, either Democratic or Republican, at least as well as, if not better than, has been done by Bush.

As I stated above, the American people have bought into the notion of a benevolent government when it is, in reality, a malevolent leviathan. Because they believe the government has only the people’s best interests at heart, they also believe that surveillance is for their good and will protect them.

I hereby coin a new exclamation: “Reichstag!”

Fourth, the senators tacitly expressed their continuing confidence in Gen. Hayden by not using their cross-examination of him about the surveillance powers as a reason to block his nomination to be the next director of the CIA.

Yes, because we wouldn’t want the nominee for CIA director to be denied the position because he did anything illegal.

In an ideal world, the Senate would have approved Gen. Hayden’s nomination, agreed that the increased surveillance powers were necessary to combat the threats the United States still faced and also approved new oversight programs to make sure those surveillance powers were not abused. Two out of three wasn’t a bad start.

In an ideal world, the Senate would have rejected Hayden’s nomination; agreed that the increased surveillance powers were illegal and unnecessary; and made it clear that any attempts of the Executive to create new surveillance programs would be met with inquiries, investigations, and impeachment. Zero out of three isn’t a bad start for the neocons.

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Bolton: Iran regime can stay if it ends arms pursuit

Bolton, addressing a meeting of B’nai B’rith International, a Jewish humanitarian organization, cited Washington's move last week to normalize relations with Libya after that country gave up its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and said Iran's leaders faced a similar “clear choice.”

“This is a sign to the rulers in Tehran that if they give up their long-standing support for terrorism and they give up their pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, that their regime can stay in place and that they can have a different relationship with the United States and the rest of the world,” he said.

Asked by reporters afterward about those comments, he said he did not mean to imply the United States would seek a change in the Iranian regime if Tehran refused to suspend its enrichment of uranium, as the U.N. Security Council has demanded.

How could he not have threatened Iran with regime change? He said that the leaders could remain in power if they stopped pursuing nuclear arms. If Bolton did not mean that the leaders would be removed should they fail to comply, what did he mean? Certainly his words weren't empty; otherwise, they wouldn't merit being said. The only thing he could have meant is what he denied saying—that the leaders would be removed if they did not end their pursuit of nuclear arms.

Iran insists it wants only to produce energy for civilian use, but Western powers led by the United States, Britain, France, and Germany argue it is using a civilian nuclear program as a cover for producing the highly enriched uranium needed for atomic bombs.

Of course the “Western powers” are saying that. They argued back in 2003 that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and that, since Hussein was not complying with UN inspectors, we had to take military action against Iraq.

The powers are saying that they don’t want war with Iran, but that’s exactly what they said in 2002, when they were getting uneasy with Iraq. The rest, as they say, is history.

Even if Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, the United States has no business disarming them: Iran has not attacked us. Preemptive war is a nasty thing. Attacking a country that we suspect might attack us is about as intelligent as shooting a random person on the street because you thought he might shoot you.

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Wired publishes AT&T documents

Looks like Wired News hasn’t adopted Rick Blaine’s motto:

A file detailing aspects of AT&T’s alleged participation in the National Security Agency’s warrantless domestic wiretap operation is sitting in a San Francisco courthouse. But the public cannot see it because, at AT&T’s insistence, it remains under seal in court records.

The judge in the case has so far denied requests from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or EFF, and several news organizations to unseal the documents and make them public.
AT&T claims information in the file is proprietary and that it would suffer severe harm if it were released.

Based on what we’ve seen, Wired News disagrees. In addition, we believe the public’s right to know the full facts in this case outweighs AT&T’s claims to secrecy.

As a result, we are publishing the complete text of a set of documents from the EFF’s primary witness in the case, former AT&T employee and whistle-blower Mark Klein—information obtained by investigative reporter Ryan Singel through an anonymous source close to the litigation. The documents, available on Wired News as of Monday, consist of 30 pages, with an affidavit attributed to Klein, eight pages of AT&T documents marked “proprietary,” and several pages of news clippings and other public information related to government-surveillance issues.

The AT&T documents appear to be excerpted from material that was later filed in the lawsuit under seal. But we can’t be entirely sure, because the protective order prevents us from comparing the two sets of documents.

The AT&T documents can be viewed here. I, for one, congratulate our online tech news overlords in their efforts to inform the public.

I wonder if LGF will disparage Wired for this. Considering the fact that LGF is a bunch of neocon statists, they will.

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Air marshals shoot man on plane

Federal air marshals shot and killed a man who said he had a bomb aboard an American Airlines plane at Miami International Airport, CNN said.

The man, who allegedly was acting in a threatening manner, reportedly ran down the aisle of the plane shouting that he had an explosive in his carry-on backpack, CBS Radio reported.

CBS said the gunfire occurred just outside the aircraft door on the Jetway ramp leading from the plane to the Terminal D concourse, when the man was challenged by air marshals who ordered him to lay on the ground.

There was no evidence the man had a bomb, CNN reported. CBS said a woman who claimed to be the man’s wife said he suffered from a bi-polar mental condition and had not taken his medication.

Clearly this man was rightfully shot. He should've taken his meds—otherwise this wouldn't have happened; after all, it's his fault he's bipolar! He shouldn't have screamed that he had a bomb while reaching into his bag!

Remember, too, that this incident does not mean that airport security needs to be reworked or dismantled; in fact, it proves that it's working! How would we know it's working unless the Federal air marshals shot someone every once in a while, eh? And while I'm proving my case so well, I propose that the two marshals be given medals to honor their bravery for shooting an unarmed bipolar man!

Don't give in to the Kooky Kool-Aid Kommies! If you really love America, you'll praise the actions of the Federal air marshals and continue to support this program that works so well!

No, I don’t actually believe a word up there in my “analysis” of the article and situation.

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