"For I Have Promises To Keep ..."

(Cartoon by Matson and found here.  Click on image to enlarge.)

Karen Greenberg (a professor at Fordham University) had an interesting analysis of Obama's presidency from the standpoint of some of the promises he made during his campaign and during the early days of his administration.  Those in the progressive base who worked so hard to get him elected were elated.  The eight-year long nightmare of the Bush Administration was finally over.  Unfortunately, things haven't exactly worked out the way many of us hoped. Greenberg's scorecard on several issues nicely captures our disappointment.

From the 2/27/14 Los Angeles Times:

Ending torture

On his first day in office, Obama ordered an end to the practice of torture, or as the George W. Bush administration preferred to call it, "enhanced interrogation techniques." In the president's words, "effective immediately" individuals in U.S. custody "shall not be subjected to any interrogation technique or approach, or any treatment related to interrogation, that is not authorized by and listed in the Army Field Manual."

Of the four promises, this is the one the president has come closest to keeping.

Greenberg notes that the "black site" prisons were closed down and Obama did set some limits on interrogation techniques (although forced-feeding continued.)

Closing Guantanamo

On his first day in office, Obama also pledged to close the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention facility — home at the time to 245 detainees — within a year. That proved politically impossible. As of January, 155 detainees remained at the prison, including 77 who had been cleared for release. But the president insists he is still trying. In his State of the Union address last month, he urged legislative action: "This needs to be the year Congress lifts the remaining restrictions on detainee transfers and we close the prison at Guantanamo Bay."

But even if the president is successful, there's a catch: He has made it clear that he means to close Guantanamo only in the most technical sense. While he would like to empty the facility, he is quite prepared to keep the strikingly un-American Guantanamo system of indefinite detention itself intact, allowing some suspects in Washington's war on terrorism to be held indefinitely without charges or trial if they are considered a risk to national security.  [Emphasis added]

Unless and until President Obama ends the concept of indefinite detention of anyone, including citizens, not only has this promise been broken, but is totally unacceptable treatment by an allegedly constitutional government.

Ending unnecessary secrecy

Another goal Obama identified on his first day in office as key to his presidency was establishing a "sunshine" administration. He pledged to end the excessive secrecy of the Bush administration and put more information in the public arena.

Obama's self-professed aim was to restore trust between the people and their government by pledging to promote accountability and provide "information for citizens about what their government is doing." Toward that end, the president quickly released a number of previously classified documents from the Bush years on torture policy.

But that, as it happened, was the end of the sunshine. In the five years since, little of note has occurred in the name of transparency and much, including a war against whistle-blowers, has been pursued in the name of secrecy. The administration has also, even after Edward Snowden's devastating revelations, continued for the most part to defend the  NSA's massive, secret, warrantless surveillance.  [Emphasis added]

The NSA has been strengthened and has extended its reach into who knows how many homes and computers, and there is no way for the victims to do anything about it because they don't know about it.  The drone program operates in a similar super-secret fashion, spying and even assassinating.  This is not the transparent government Obama promised.

An end to war without limits

At the outset of Obama's presidency, the administration downplayed the notion of a borderless battlefield that encompassed the globe. It also threw on the trash heap of history the Bush administration's term "global war on terror."

In his recent State of the Union address, the president stated his continued aversion to the notion that Washington should pursue an unlimited war. He was speaking by now not just about the geography of the boundless battlefield but of the very idea of warfare without an end point. "America," he counseled, "must move off a permanent war footing."

But despite the president's insistence on placing limits on war, and on the defense budget, his brand of warfare has helped lay the basis for a permanent state of global warfare via "low footprint" drone campaigns and special forces operations aimed at an ever-morphing enemy usually identified as some form of Al Qaeda."  [Emphasis added]

The use of drones, satellite imagery, and interception of phone and email messages, justified by the use of the magic words "Al Qaeda" and "terrorists", has continued to burgeon under the Obama administration. 

The cartoon, showing Obama morphing into George W. Bush, provides an apt image for what we have seen over the past five years.  All those promises broken, and in the most expensive way imaginable, and I'm not talking about just the dollar cost.

 This is not what I voted for.  Not at all.

Good On Him

I am not a fan of the "hold," a process by which a single senator can stop a bill dead in its tracks for any reason at all. It always seemed to me to be antithetical to the democratic process. I may have to reassess my position, however, thanks to a Democrat.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) will seek to block passage of an intelligence bill that extends the government’s eavesdropping authorities because the intelligence community won’t say how many Americans are being monitored, he said Tuesday.

At issue is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was passed in 1978 in response to revelations of political wiretapping. The law was updated in 2008 in a way that essentially legalized President George W. Bush’s “warrantless wiretapping” program aimed at stopping terrorism plots. The intelligence bill, approved Monday by the Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence, would extend the 2008 changes until 2015. Those changes greatly expanded the government’s surveillance authorities. The targets must be foreigners out of the country, but their conversations with Americans are fair game. ...

Wyden and Sen. Mark Udall (D-Col.), who serve on the intelligence committee, asked the director of national intelligence earlier this month how many Americans have had their communications monitored under the law. The DNI’s office responded in a letter that “it is not reasonably possible to identify the number of people located in the United States whose communications may have been reviewed under the authority.”

But wait, there's more obfuscation involved.

At a Senate hearing July 26, Wyden, who serves on the intelligence committee, asked Matthew Olsen, NSA's general counsel and the nominee to direct the National Counterterrorism Center, whether government agencies “have the authority to use cell-site data to track the location of Americans inside the United States for intelligence purposes.”

Olsen replied, “There are certain circumstances where that authority may exist . . .” He did not elaborate.

Some answer, eh?

When Wyden and the committee did get some information, it wasn't the kind that satisfied, the senator. Not hardly.

“During a July 2011 committee hearing, the general counsel of the National Security Agency acknowledged that certain legal pleadings by the executive branch and court opinions from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court regarding the Patriot Act are classified,” Wyden and Udall said in dissent included in the Senate committee report on the bill. “We have had the opportunity to review these pleadings and rulings, and we believe that most members of the American public would be very surprised to learn how federal surveillance law is being interpreted in secret.”

And so Senator Wyden has placed a hold on the bill to renew the FISA law. Good on him. It's time for an honest appraisal of the job the intelligence authorities are doing, an appraisal that lets us know just far they have overreached and invaded our privacy just because they can.

I suggest you send senator Wyden a little love by letting your senators know you expect them to back him up on this quest for the truth.

Clean Cups!

I know, I know. Linking to a New York Times article this late in the month is a real drag. The "pay per view" scheme of the Grey Lady only allows for 20 articles to be read before a subscription is required, assuming one is playing by the rules. It's a pretty good article, though, and for all sorts of reasons.

It deals with the fallout from the latest WikiLeaks release, this time of documents concerning the prisoners held at the Guantanamo Bay Gulag. In the mad government scramble after the release, all sorts of truly bizarre rules have been imposed.

Anyone surfing the Internet this week is free to read leaked documents about the prisoners held by the American military at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to print them out or e-mail them to friends.

Except, that is, for the lawyers who represent the prisoners.

On Monday, hours after WikiLeaks, The New York Times and other news organizations began publishing the documents online, the Justice Department informed Guantánamo defense lawyers that the documents remained legally classified even after they were made public.

Because the lawyers have security clearances, they are obligated to treat the readily available files “in accordance with all relevant security precautions and safeguards” — handling them, for example, only in secure government facilities, said the notice from the department’s Court Security Office. [Emphasis added]

Just as silly is the fact that because the government deems those documents to still be classified, the lawyers are precluded from discussing them publicly, even though the public now has complete access to them (assuming, of course, they subscribe to the NYT).

Now, after all the published WikiLeaks in the past year, some of which are ongoing, you'd think the government might have figured out a way to respond in ways which are not quite so prima facie silly, but, alas, you would be wrong. Apparently the government feels its system of secret-keeping is far more important than anything else.

Lewis Carroll would be so proud.

And Who Is My Enemy?

While most of the attention in the WikiLeaks matters has been focused on Julian Assange, the head of that shadowy internet organization, Pfc Bradley Manning, the soldier who is charged with sending WikiLeaks a trove of emails and diplomatic cables, continues to sit in an Army jail awaiting a court martial. Military prosecutors have decided to amp up that proceeding by adding to the charges now pending.

From the Los Angeles Times:

The Army has charged Pfc. Bradley Manning, the soldier suspected of leaking thousands of documents published by WikiLeaks, with aiding and giving intelligence to the enemy, a significant escalation of the government's prosecution of the junior intelligence analyst.

As part of 22 additional counts filed against Manning, Army prosecutors said he "wrongfully and wantonly" caused intelligence to be published on the Internet, with the knowledge that it would be "accessible to the enemy."

The punishment for that charge is death, although the prosecutors have indicated they won't be seeking that penalty. So why the charge? One theory is that the prosecution hopes to force a plea bargain in order to avoid a trial, one that might be very difficult. It seems to me, however, that such a charge only complicates the trial further by imposing a heavier burden on the prosecution:

To violate the military statute against aiding the enemy, a defendant must knowingly harbor, give intelligence to or communicate with the enemy, "either directly or indirectly." The charges against Manning allege that he did so "through indirect means," apparently a reference to the fact that information was made public on the Internet, making it available to anyone.

That's a pretty tough row to hoe. If Manning refuses any plea deal, then the prosecutors have to at least identify an enemy and establish that Manning intended to aid that enemy.

Of course, we all know who the government considers the real enemy, and right now it isn't Osama bin Laden. It's Julian Assange, the man who with his organization is trying force some transparency on the US government and who has embarrassed the government time and again with revelations on just what secrets are being kept away from us.

And Pfc. Bradley Manning? He's just a pawn, one who very well might spend the rest of his life in an Army prison.

What a country.

Powerful Secrets

Professor Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of the UC Irvine Law School, has an important essay in the Los Angeles Times today which examines the uproar over the publication of tens of thousands hitherto classifed documents concerning the US prosecution of the war in Afghanistan. In that essay, he examines the striking parallels between the Wikileaks exposure of government documents and the Pentagon Papers, and concludes that the current hand wringing of government officials is not really over national security.

The most important lesson from the release of tens of thousands of pages of classified information about the war in Afghanistan seems to be getting lost: Far too much information is classified, often simply because it is embarrassing to the government. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that there "weren't any new revelations in the material,"and nothing has been identified that is likely to be damaging to national security. The question, then, must be why so much of this material was classified and kept from the public? ...

The Nixon administration vehemently opposed the release of the Pentagon Papers even though the documents were largely historical material about what occurred during prior presidencies. The Obama administration has decried the release of the information about the war in Afghanistan even though it appears to be primarily about what happened during the George W. Bush presidency. The reason is the same in both cases: The administrations feared that the disclosures would undermine public support for the wars in question. In both instances, the concern was that the revelations might make it harder to gain continued congressional support and to sustain public support for the war effort. [Emphasis added]

In the Wikileaks case, it almost worked. In fact, to some extent it did work: yesterday's vote in the House on the "emergency appropriation" for continued funding of the war in Afghanistan was far closer than it would have been as some Democrats who know that the public is growing weary of perpetual war were given some cover by the revelations and voted against the appropriation bill.

But the undue government classification of matters as secret for national security purposes does more than shape policy, it hides both embarrassing mistakes made by the government and outright criminal activity engaged in by the government. If it weren't for publication of materials on what was going on at black prisons run by the CIA and the military and on the incredible domestic spying program being run by the NSA, those activities might have continued unabated and even expanded.

Professor Chemerinsky's conclusion is one that our government, our free press, and we-the-people should always keep in mind:

The free flow of information, at times, may be embarrassing to the government and may keep it from pursuing its desired policies. But that is exactly why it is so important in a democratic society.

Dammed Information

Yesterday, McClatchy DC featured a commentary written by Edward Wasserman for the Miami Herald on the continuation by the Obama administration of one of the Bush administration's most egregious faults: the control of information provided to the public. For all of his promises of a more transparent government, Barack Obama has not only embraced the Bush tactics of managing the flow of information, he has, in some instances, extended it.

In at least one area of political life the spirit of bipartisanship is strong, and the Obama administration has picked up pretty much where the Bush team left off.

That's in the realm of information control: treating the news media like a pestilence, using secrecy rules to stem inconvenient disclosures, ducking informed scrutiny in favor of staged encounters, punishing unauthorized leaks vigorously and generally regarding publicly significant information as something officials are entitled to handle as a political resource of their very own.

Wasserman provides a list of examples, including one that has to rank right up there with the worst of those from the Bush-Cheney administration for being downright stupid:

...is national security really at stake in the prosecution of a former senior National Security Agency official named Thomas Drake? He was indicted in April for leaking classified information to a Baltimore Sun reporter about several big NSA programs that, as The New York Times reported, "were plagued with technical flaws and cost overruns."

Surely secrecy laws aren't being applied to save face, are they?

Good question.

The answer probably explains why several journalists have been banned from Guantanamo Bay for doing their job too well and why the administration is only too happy to exclude reporters from coverage of the Gulf oil spill and its clean-up under threat of huge fines and imprisonment.

Yet the American press has been rather reticent to complain about the obstruction, something which Mr. Wasserman notes, but partially excuses. It is as if journalists became so accustomed to being used as stenographers for eight years that they've settled into continuing that role for at least another eight. It's the path of least resistance, even if it does mark a profound betrayal of the goals of a free press.

That said, however, at least Wasserman has noted the problem:

So the governmental overreaching continues. The temptation among those in power is to view themselves as the owners of public information when they are, in fact, only its custodians, and their job is to ensure its free flow. Obama pledged to roll back some of the harsher strictures of the Bush years, and it's a promise he has yet to deliver on.

Now, if only the press would push back we might get somewhere.

Truth To Power

There's an astounding op-ed piece in today's Los Angeles Times, and, no, I am not talking about Jonah Goldberg's latest smarm. Written by Jesselyn Radack, herself the target of harassment by the Justice Department for releasing information to the press when she was a Justice Department ethics attorney, the piece reminds us that there is a crucial difference between "leaker" and "whistleblower."

What undoubtedly provoked Ms. Radack's column was news that Thomas A. Drake, the former NSA official, had been indicted for releasing "classified" information to the press. She freely admits that the news brought back some unpleasant memories of what happened to her during her stint with the Justice Department and after, right up to the present day (she is still the subject of a DOJ investigation).

Here's a brief summary of the crime Mr. Drake allegedly committed:

I submit that Drake, the former NSA official, did not leak. He made valid disclosures revealing the failings of several major NSA programs that use computers to collect and sort electronic intelligence. These mistakes cost billions of dollars. He also described how the agency had rejected a program that would collect communications while protecting Americans' privacy — disclosures eerily similar to those made by Thomas M. Tamm, the former Justice Department lawyer who revealed the NSA's secret surveillance of Americans. Such disclosures are clearly in the public interest. They evidence a violation of law, a gross waste of funds and a patent abuse of authority — the very definition of a protected disclosure under the whistle-blower law. ...

The common denominator of whistle-blowers is the same: They disclose information of significant public importance that reveals illegal, unconstitutional or dangerous conduct, often at the highest levels of government. The government should not be allowed to hide illegal conduct under official-sounding labels such as "classified," "privileged" or "state secrets," which confer an aura of legitimacy on alleged crimes, and whistle-blowers should not be prosecuted. The billions of dollars wasted on modernizing the NSA's vast eavesdropping system is what needs to be investigated, not Drake. [Emphasis added]

Mr. Drake has been charged, essentially, with leaking "classified" information. Here is where Ms. Radack's steps in to note the profound difference between the terms "whistleblower" and "leaker, and she gives the perfect example of the latter:

In contrast, when I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, unmasked covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, he was not trying to disclose evidence of wrongdoing; in fact, quite the opposite. He put at risk national security and people's lives to undermine a critic. He was trying to punish former Ambassador Joseph Wilson by outing his wife. Libby was leaking, not whistle-blowing. His disclosure to the media had no intrinsic public value whatsoever, and he was rightly prosecuted and convicted. [Emphasis added]

The federal Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 was designed to protect whistleblowers from retaliation so that evidence of fraud, waste, or illegality can be brought to the public's attention. Instead of abiding by that law, the federal government continues to punish people for pointing out activities that harm the public interest, often in critical ways. The hope, obviously, is that people like Thomas Drake and Jesselyn Radack and, yes, Daniel Ellsberg will be frightened into silence.

What is so outrageous about the current case is that it was filed with President Barack Obama's implicit approval.

I guess we shouldn't expect too much change out of this guy.

More Sunshine, Please

Candidate Barack Obama proclaimed that there were too many secrets in Washington and promised to change that. Recently, President Barack Obama took a step to do just that by changing the rules on classified information. Unfortunately, according to Jon Wiener, it was a baby step. From the Los Angeles Times:

...Last week, Obama announced he was replacing Bush's executive order on classified documents with a new one designed to reduce secrecy. Obama's policies are a distinct improvement, but they don't really solve the underlying problem.

The basic idea is a simple one. As Obama said in the order: "Our democratic principles require that the American people be informed of the activities of their government." Officials rely on secrecy to avoid being held responsible for their failures and to conceal illegality and misconduct -- waterboarding of suspected terrorists, for example. If practices like waterboarding are a good idea, the details of why, when, how and who should be knowable and defendable in public debate. That's the principle behind the Freedom of Information Act, which permits "any person" to request government documents.

That's the good news. The bad news is that the president's order doesn't go far enough to stop the delaying tactics of the various agencies when it comes to declassifying millions of documents, some more than 50 years old. The even worse news is that President Obama has extended the secrecy rules in his own administration. The excuse is the perennial one: the president, the vice-president, and now those commissions appointed by the president need to be able to meet and confer in an atmosphere of frankness which would be impossible if every word were reported to the public. It wouldn't be prudent. That's how the last administration got away with its disastrous energy policy. It's also the way the administration got away with adding kidnapping and torture to its arsenal of weapons.

Mr. Wiener quite properly suggests that more must be done if we are to remain a viable democracy. Here are a couple of his suggestions:

To start, all documents more than 25 years old should be automatically declassified. Cold War secrets are irrelevant in today's world. We don't need to spend taxpayer dollars going through these documents page by page. (In fact, a Department of Defense task force concluded that "perhaps 90%" of technical and scientific information could be safely revealed within five years of classification.)

Then we need a requirement that declassification rules serve the public's right to know. Without such a directive, it will be much easier for the Obama administration to continue to keep secret aspects of Bush-era national security policy. Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU National Security Project, has a list: "The CIA is still withholding documents about its rendition, detention and interrogation program. The Justice Department is still withholding the legal memos that supplied the basis for the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program. The Defense Department is still withholding the interrogation directives used by special forces in Afghanistan." We need this information if we are to avoid repeating abuses from the past and to evaluate the wisdom of government policy in the present.

From you lips, Mr. Wiener. From your lips ...

Much Ado

Today's NY Times has an editorial which made me blink a few times. Here's the thesis:

Under federal law, people who pose a heightened risk of violence cannot buy or own firearms, including convicted felons, domestic abusers, the seriously mentally ill and several other categories. Suspected terrorist is not one them.

Individuals on the government’s terrorist watch list can be barred from boarding airplanes, but not from purchasing high-powered guns or explosives. Bipartisan legislation in both houses of Congress would end this ridiculous loophole, commonly known as the “terror gap.”

That's blink number one. I mean, who could object to restricting gun sales to terrorists, right? Well, I would have agreed but for the insertion of the phrase "terror gap." Come on, didn't the editorial board see the movie "Dr. Strangelove"? That phrase made me go back and re-read these first two paragraphs.

Yes, we're talking about the government's terrorist watch list, a list developed by the Bush administration in response to 9/11, primarily because they were caught ignoring all the evidence and warnings from the Clinton administration and from our intelligence agencies before that horrendous event. That list contains thousands of names that don't belong there and doesn't include the names of a number of suspected terrorists who do, according to a March, 2009 DOJ Inspector General Report. The NRA, in response to the proposed bipartisan legislation, pointed this fact out (thereby providing one of the few times I have agreed with that group, which is blink number two).

The editorial tries to reassure such sceptics as I am at this point:

The terror-gap measure is more modest and balanced than its opponents make it appear. It would not automatically disqualify people on the watch list from purchasing a weapon. Rather, the attorney general would be given discretionary power to deny the issuance of a firearm or explosives in instances when the government has reason to believe the person may use the weapon in connection with terrorism. The authority would have to be exercised according to written guidelines. Due process safeguards are built in to permit the affected person to challenge a denial.

Blink the third.

Um, yes. That sounds reassuring. Due process, eh?

What happens when an individual actually challenges the denial? Does the government get to use the "government secrets" ploy? "No, you can't buy a gun, but the reason you can't is classified. Sorry, chump."

Look, I'm all in favor of gun control. I still don't see the reason any civilian gun enthusiast or hunter needs an AK-47. But I don't see why that unconstitutional terrorist watch list, comprised of names obtained by warrantless email snooping and wire tapping, should be used as the basis for anything.

Here's a quarter, NY Times. Go buy a clue.

Science For Our Benefit

Startled by its swiftness, the scientific community was enabled to make studies of the melting ice caps by our spy satellites this week. In the vast expanse of ice that remains, melting pools which increase the rate of melt have been hard for scientists to study. The new release of photos has made their studies much easier.

In an unusually speedy move, a U.S. government agency released more than a thousand intelligence images of Arctic ice just a few hours after the National Academy of Sciences recommended the action to help scientists study the impact of climate change.

The Interior Department made the images public on Wednesday afternoon. The academy's report urging the release of the pictures was issued at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT) on Wednesday.

Some 700 images show swatches of sea ice from six sites around the Arctic Ocean, with an additional 500 images of 22 sites in the United States. The images can be seen online at gfl.usgs.gov/.

Changes in the Arctic affect global climate, since the Arctic region acts as an "air conditioner" for the planet.

The Arctic images have a resolution of about 1 yard (1 metre), a vast improvement on previously available pictures of sea ice, said Thorsten Markus of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

"These are one-meter-resolution images, which give you a big picture of the summertime Arctic," Markus said on Thursday. "This is the main reason why we are so thrilled about it. One meter resolution is the dimension that's missing.
(snip)
The images were derived from classified images made as part of the Medea program, which lets scientists request spy pictures from environmentally sensitive locations around the globe.

While our new administration makes steps toward turning the government back to uses that actually benefit the U.S., criticism about the smallness of those steeps mount. Last night Bill Moyers' Journal presented arguments from representatives of environmental groups demonstrating for much more and faster reduction of pollution.

BILL MOYERS: Give me a simple summary of what you think is wrong with this bill.

ERICH PICA: There's a number of things. But the big ones are, one, the bill doesn't reduce global warming emissions in the United States fast enough. And the emission reduction targets are just inadequate. Particularly if we're trying to be a global leader. Two, it strips away the EPA's authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

BILL MOYERS: The Environmental Protection Agency.

ERICH PICA: The Environmental Protection Agency. Which is a key tool that environmentalists have been using to shut down coal plants. Three, it gives away a tremendous amount of money. Hundreds of billions of dollars to the polluting industries that have, essentially, caused the problem of global warming. The Duke Energies, Shells, Conocos of the world. Gives a lot of a lot of free giveaways in the in terms of permits. Four, and this is kind of overwhelming the entire system, is that it relies on Wall Street to help solve the problem of global warming.

BILL MOYERS: By?

ERICH PICA: By allowing them to manage the trading system that's created underneath this bill:

BILL MOYERS: A derivative, right?

ERICH PICA: Subprime mortgages. We feel there's going to be subprime carbon in this market. Where they're going to be trading these derivatives and these various securities that may have global warming emission reductions associated with them. May not. But it's going to be so large. And Wall Street is going to work feverishly to erode any of the standards and protections that are put into this bill to prevent Wall Street from gaming the system. Then, a matter of time, it's not going to matter what we put in this bill, 'cause Wall Street, as we've seen over the last 20 years, seems to always win. When it comes to deregulating the very agencies that are responsible for monitoring and enforcing the rules.

MARY SWEETERS: You know, it's just it's been an entrenched system. They're there to, just further their profits. To continue business as usual. And they see this as potentially a threat. So they've turned this bill into something that's a gain for them.

The threat to our economy that produced worldwide disaster has, of course, other causes than Wall Street's profit taking. But the plan to make a real use for the institutions of government as an instrument working for, rather than against, public interests, will take a firm hand.

The rescue of the economy won't happen if our new administration can't keep Wall Street under supervision and control. The rescue of our environment will take those firm measures as well.

The surprising, and immediate, use of spy satellites in the interests of preserving our world shows a good beginning.

Assassination and Enemies

The power trip in the recently dislodged maladministration went much farther than its proponents would have expected when it set up a program to do in its enemies list. As TPMuckraker points out, there was not just the mindset of declaring 'enemies', left over from the Nixon criminal gang. There was also a commitment to do away with those enemies here as well as at large through the world.

Since the news broke (sub. req.) at the start of the week that CIA director Leon Panetta had pulled the plug on a secret program to assassinate or capture al Qaeda leaders, we've been raising questions about one key aspect of the story. In particular, what was it about the program that was so shocking that Dick Cheney reportedly ordered it kept secret from Congress, Panetta quashed it as soon as he heard about it, and Congressional Democrats risked being painted as soft on terror by shrieking about being kept in the dark?

We may have gotten a good piece of the answer here: The Washington Post reports today on how the program had been revived and then put on hold several times since 2001. But it also says, referring to the "presidential finding" with which President Bush authorized the program in 2001:

The finding imposed no geographical limitations on the agency's actions, and intelligence officials have said that they were not obliged to notify Congress of each operation envisaged under the directive.

"No geographical limitations" presumably means that operations could potentially be carried out in countries, friendly or unfriendly, that are far from any war zone -- including even the US itself. And it seems likely that they would be carried out without notifying the foreign country in question.

The methods used by the gang in power in the executive branch just past are more those of a takeover by a foreign power than those of a real and valid executive. The remains of that takeover are still present, and still exercising public powers, and will take time to oust entirely.

During some discussions of the DOJ conversion to political purposes, I have to insist that simply replacing prosecutors from the previous maladministration would weaken the case against that practice. When they are removed, it should be for cause, not for political purposes, not as the war criminals acted. When we have the plots against 'enemies' again shown as a basic part of the winger psyche, it is a good lesson in what we should avoid repeating.

The service if public interests is being returned to our government's agencies, and that should be the prime reason for government, once again. Putting down opponents was much too real a threat from the political purposes of the wingnuts in power so recently. That enmity should be avoided by decently functioning members of the government, government that we need. Our government is there to serve the people rather than subjugate them.

Prosecution of the criminals would be the best prevention of their criminal conduct for the future.

Cry Me A River

It's hard for me to summon up much sympathy for hand wringing CIA officials and agents who now are worried that their jobs and future might be jeopardized by the decision to ban torture and to restrict interrogation techniques to those outlined in the Army Field Manual. Agents have already been assured by President Obama that they won't be prosecuted for using the torture specifically condoned by the Bush era Justice Department, even though those agents knew full well that some of the techniques they were using were in clear violation of both domestic and international law. What are they so worried about?

This article by Walter Pincus in today's Washington Post, as oddly disjointed as it is, gives us a few hints. Here's the most obvious one:

Although President Obama has said no CIA officers will be prosecuted for their roles in harsh interrogations if they remained within Justice Department guidelines in effect at the time, agency personnel still face subpoenas and testimony under oath before criminal, civil and congressional bodies.

As part of an ongoing criminal inquiry into the CIA's destruction of videotapes depicting waterboarding, CIA personnel will appear before a grand jury this week, according to two sources familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case is continuing. The Senate intelligence committee is pursuing its investigation into whether harsh interrogations, including waterboarding, brought forward worthwhile intelligence, as agency and Bush administration officials have maintained. [Emphasis added]

Apparently the CIA is not happy about all the attention. The way it does business and the very techniques that it uses are about to hauled into semi-public attention. The CIA will have some light shone on it, and that is something it clearly does not appreciate.

While intelligence gathering depends on some measure of secrecy, nowhere is it written that the CIA (or any other intelligence agency, for that matter) can do whatever it pleases, especially when what it pleases involves the kind of heinous behavior we have discovered agents engaged in. President Obama has already approved the "I was just following orders" defense for agents, even though that defense was deemed to be unacceptable at Nuremberg. Their personal backsides have been covered. Now it's time to find out just what was done, why, and what we have to do to make sure it doesn't happen again.

And if it upsets the suddenly sensitive feelings of the CIA officials and agents to have to provide testimony to the country that pays their salaries, well, I'm sure there are plenty of tissues to mop up the sweat and tears which will flow.

Worst of the Worst's Crimes Continue

It's been a frenzied few days, and I had the privilege of watching a live performance yesterday starring one Ed Liddy that was truly star quality. The brouhaha about bonus payments is so well known, forgive me if I don't go into it. The crux of the matter is that we have Liddy telling us all that that phrase from Camelot, 'the best and the brightest' is supposed to invoke respect that will convince us we owe something to the perpetrators of our economic demise. If we don't pay outrageous bonuses, they might hold their breath until they turn blue, and this time we will really be sorry.

What is at the core of this myth, that the worst financial manipulations in history ought to be financed by the taxpayers they cheated, is the presentation of economics as profoundly beyond the facilities of the ordinary taxpayer - me and you. If we had all run our own affairs into the ground, maybe that might be believable. I didn't, and I know that if you did it was on the advice of financial reporters who are shilling for the mogul horde. We taxpayers are regarded as useful as long as we work hard for a living, and just believe that the financial community - that makes our production into a faraway ground where their fantasy money begins - is essential while we are not. If we just accept and trust in our economic manipulators, everything will be fine. Sadly, nothing is fine, and won't be for a long time to come.

The least productive element of our society has proved to be the inventive faculty - called entrepreneurship - that has produced worthless bundles of sham mortgages that the financial community has used to make itself obscenely wealthy. The work that produces real value has been increasingly pushed off into wage slavery, while the moguls insisted that everyday work is not worth the paper our money is no longer printed on.

Eight years of power given over to this fantasy has produced disaster.

At the core of the disaster is transfer of wealth from the worker to the financier. Instead of value, we have 'consumer confidence', based on the concept that if we just can be induced to believe their mantra, wealth will result. Wealth will go where it is earned, to those actors on the stage of financial drama.

This drama has a killer ending, and that's where we are now, the worst economy since the 1920's.

While the blowup takes public attention away from the regulatory crisis we have been through, an effort is on to use this crisis to make it permanent. Former Secretary Paulson has been at work for awhile to bring every regulation into one 'independent' agency. The action of the Fed recently - representing itself as responsible and public interested while isolating congress and the executive branch from its work with AIG - should tell you all you need to know about the purpose of this proposal. From its taking no action to pass on knowledge to congress and the executive branch made way for the payout of huge bonuses to the worst of the worst, we can see the purpose of the Paulson proposal. A single agency put together by our financial community would embody again the agents of deregulation of the industry that has proven disastrous every time it has happened.

Today's financial crisis 'has made abundantly clear that our financial system would benefit from a regulator whose focus is on risks across the financial system,' Paulson said.

There is support for giving the Fed this duty, he added. 'It would require the Fed to have access to information from a broader set of financial organizations, including hedge funds and systemically important payment systems.'

He said such a regulator would need 'the power to intervene if it concluded that the financial system was at risk.'

He called on Congress to find ways to unwind failing non-bank institutions to avoid a repeat of the 2008 collapses of investment banks Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers.

Sounds like a real winner, doesn't it? Under the smoke and mirrors going on in Congress, the mogul horde thinks to use the old Trojan horse gimmick. A great offering of solving those regulatory problems in the guise of an 'independent' agency that would do it all, now there's the answer we are looking for. Of course, grounds are being laid by the Liddy sort to foist off the only ones who can understand the operations of the money market, financial 'experts', on us in the guise of regulators. If the thinking community hasn't learned in the eight years of government by the worst of the worst we just passed through, that putting wolves in charge of the sheep is not good for the flock, we've learned nothing.

The independence of the agencies during the maladministration just past was an independence from Rule of Law and standards of decency. The results have been massive theft, in addition to wars and hideous crimes against humanity in the executive branch - crimes that have produced a massive disaster in every field for this country.

Checks and balances are crucial to our functioning government. An attempt to consolidate powers under regulators to be chosen by the mogul horde is an attempt to return to the criminal conduct of the eight years just past.

Liebury Going Down, Down

As I knew readers here have been supporting the opponents of locating the worst president ever's liebury at SMU, this looked like good news for us here at the cab.

Susan lives down in bugman territory, the place even Tom DeLay left behind, and is always a treat to read. This one is stellar.

Okay, y'all, figured as much but I hate having to hear it from a foreign country --

As President George W Bush eyes his legacy, his presidential library at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, threatens to be a white elephant.

Threatens? Ya think? Oh, apparently they've only raised enough money for a door and a couple of windows.

So far, fundraising has been “very modest”, according to Dan Bartlett, a former senior White House aide and spokesman for the library.

Modest? In this economy, modest means they're hanging a sign on this sucker down at Mobile Melvin's PreOwned Trailer Emporium and Bait Camp. It'll say "The Dubya Liberry."
And, fortunately, this is all they'll need because the old joke about Dubya's Liberry only having one book appears to be true.

Despite their propagandist function, the libraries provide valuable access to archives that show the president “warts and all”, according to Hufbauer. But after 9/11 Bush signed an executive order granting presidents the right to withhold documents held in the libraries from the public.

So, he's using his library for a big ole safe. He's gonna put stuff in there, but you can't see it. Kinda like his Presidency.
By the way, for you outta staters, Dallas is now a blue city. And that's partly because of Bush. So, I guess it's fitting that they get his liberry.

Long may that Freedom Institute go begging. I believe a lump of coal in its stocking is very appropriate.

Funding an institute to promote the ideology that has given us eight years of disaster would appear to be a thankless task, and not attractive to anyone who has a chance to make it in the real world.

U.S. Found Not Trustworthy

British officials are convinced of the same thing that the U.S. public has learned the hard way, that the occupants of the White House are not to be trusted. Their word is not good, and the British government can no longer act on it. The American government is not directed toward the good of its allies, any more than it is the good of the citizens it was elected to serve.

The British government should not rely on US assurances that it does not use torture, a report by MPs says.

The foreign affairs select committee said the UK and US differ on their definitions of what constitutes torture and it urged the UK to check US claims.

It recommended the government carry out an "exhaustive analysis of current US interrogation techniques."

The MPs also said the government should check claims that Britain is not used by the US for "rendition" flights.

The committee highlighted the technique of "water-boarding" - a practice which simulates drowning.

The US describes it as "a legal technique used in a specific set of circumstances" and President Bush has refused to ban it.

Given the clear differences in definition, the UK can no longer rely on US assurances that it does not use torture
Foreign Affairs Select Committee

However, the UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband said it is torture and "the UK unreservedly condemns the use of torture."

In its report, the committee said: "Given the clear differences in definition, the UK can no longer rely on US assurances that it does not use torture, and we recommend that the government does not rely on such assurances in the future."
(snip)
The MPs also urged the Foreign Office to investigate allegations that the UK "outsourced" interrogation of six terror suspects to Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency, where they were tortured and interrogated by British intelligence officers.
(snip)
The committee's conclusions amount to saying that we can no longer rely on assurances from a US administration that purports to uphold the civil and political standards of behaviour, while in fact kidnapping people and taking them to places where they may be maltreated.

"Only by practising what we preach will we be able to win back the support of Muslim communities at home and abroad and build the strongest coalition around the world against terrorism."

The damage done by this executive branch filled with criminals is immense, internationally and at home. The infection is being excised by the British, has already been tossed by many other nations. Now we need to get serious about cutting it out, down to its hideous roots in criminality, here in our own country, while we can still call it our own.

Cngress last Wednesday passed a bill the White House threatens to veto, which would set up an inspector over intelligence, give Congress basis for cutting off funds when it has not been properly informed and require sharing of intelligence information with the Congress so that it can perform its oversight function.

As for the demand to up the flow of classified information to congressional oversight committees, the White House says it "goes beyond any legitimate oversight function" and simply encourages "micromanagement of [Intelligence Community] activities." If the bill makes it to the president's desk with any of these provisions attached, "senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill."

This is not the first time that an intelligence authorization bill has run smack into White House instransigence. It's now been three years since Congress and the White House have been able to reach an accommodation. Why? "This administration wants maximum authority and maximum discretion," says Steve Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, who blogs at Secrecy News. "It lashes out at any semblance of checks and balances."

The Congress needs to take charge, it is obvious that we have an executive branch that is determined to end the rule of law. The mantra of war powers cannot continue to be allowed to take the reins from the constitutionally mandated controlling branch.

A beginning has been made, by the bare majority given to Democrats in Congress in 2006. It hasn't been enough. We need to elect progressives everywhere we can, and get the criminal element under control. It will take more than casual observation, it will take intense remedial action.

The Whole World Is Watching.

More Secrecy

The Bush administration has taken another step towards walling government off from the public. This time it's a new designation for information that the government can't justify calling "Secret" but which it doesn't want anyone to know about. From Walter Pincus in today's Washington Post:

Sometime in the next few years, if a memorandum signed by President Bush this month ever goes into effect, one government official talking to another about information on terrorists will have to begin by saying: "What I am about to tell you is controlled unclassified information enhanced with specified dissemination."

That would mean, according to the memo, that the information requires safeguarding because "the inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure would create risk of substantial harm."

Bush's memorandum, signed on the eve of his daughter Jenna's wedding, introduced "Controlled Unclassified Information" as a new government category that will replace "Sensitive but Unclassified."

Such information -- though it does not merit the well-known national security classifications "confidential," "secret" or "top secret" -- is nonetheless "pertinent" to U.S. "national interests" or to "important interests of entities outside the federal government," the memo says. ...

Left undefined are which laws or policies generated the requirement for protecting such information, and which interests are pertinent. ... [Emphasis added]

What is known is that the decision to impose the CUI designation on information is going to be left to the head of the agency or department involved, in other words, to the political appointees. That itself is rather frightening, given the executive appointees of the last 7+ years. And those people are going to be given some pretty expansive powers in the designation of information as CUI:

Designating information as CUI is left to the "head of the originating department or agency," based on "mission requirements, business prudence, legal privilege, the protection of personal or commercial rights, safety, or security."

Will the terms of government contracts with private businesses qualify for CUI? How about plans to undercut elections by instigating bogus election fraud investigations?

Perhaps the most distressing part of this new system is that the public just might not be able to stop any abuses by the government because they won't be able to find out about them in one of the few ways we have, the Freedom of Information Act:

The "controlled" classification "may inform," but will not determine, whether information can be made public in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

We'll have to trust to the courts, now packed with Bush appointees because the Democrats in both the 109th and 110th Congresses caved in.

Here is just one more reason why we really do have to rally around the Democratic nominee for President, no matter which one it is. Sen. McCain will just continue the tradition.

246 days.