Friday, November 07, 2003
Stop asking so many damn questions!
The Bush White House, irritated by pesky questions from congressional Democrats about how the administration is using taxpayer money, has developed an efficient solution: It will not entertain any more questions from opposition lawmakers.
The decision -- one that Democrats and scholars said is highly unusual -- was announced in an e-mail sent Wednesday to the staff of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. House committee Democrats had just asked for information about how much the White House spent making and installing the "Mission Accomplished" banner for President Bush's May 1 speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.
The director of the White House Office of Administration, Timothy A. Campen, sent an e-mail titled "congressional questions" to majority and minority staff on the House and Senate Appropriations panels. Expressing "the need to add a bit of structure to the Q&A process," he wrote: "Given the increase in the number and types of requests we are beginning to receive from the House and Senate, and in deference to the various committee chairmen and our desire to better coordinate these requests, I am asking that all requests for information and materials be coordinated through the committee chairmen and be put in writing from the committee."
He said this would limit "duplicate requests" and help answer questions "in a timely fashion."
It would also do another thing: prevent Democrats from getting questions answered without the blessing of the GOP committee chairmen.
If they can't ask questions, we don't have to give any answers.
posted by chris at 12:05 PM
Framing the debate
The Los Angeles Times has ordered its reporters to stop describing anti-American forces in Iraq as "resistance fighters," saying the term romanticizes them and evokes World War II-era heroism.
The ban was issued by Melissa McCoy, a Times assistant managing editor, who told the staff in an e-mail circulated on Monday night that the phrase conveyed unintended meaning and asked them to instead use the terms "insurgents" or "guerrillas."
McCoy on Wednesday said that the memo followed a discussion among top editors at the paper and was not sparked by reader complaints. The memo first surfaced on the Web site L.A. Observed.
"(Times Managing Editor) Dean Baquet and I both individually had the same reaction when we saw the term used in the newspaper," McCoy said. "Both of us felt the phrase evoked a certain feeling, that there was a certain romanticism or heroism to the resistance."
McCoy said she considered "resistance fighters" an accurate description of Iraqis battling American troops, but it also evoked World War II -- specifically the French Resistance or Jews who fought against Nazis in the Warsaw ghetto.
Story.
posted by chris at 11:59 AM
Ooops.
For two days this week, Israel's communications satellite accidentally beamed a live feed from the control room of a highly classified test missile firing, meaning that they could be viewed by anyone in the Middle East with the simplest satellite dish.
Four of Israel's most senior generals and their foreign guests were shown in the control room discussing the relative merits of weapons systems and who they might be used against. Officials were seen punching in launch codes, and the latest missile control equipment and maps were on full display to anyone viewing.
At one point, believing they were in a secure area, Israeli officials were heard discussing access codes to defence industry computers.
The broadcast went out when someone - as yet none of the various agencies involved wants to accept responsibility - failed to encrypt the live feed that is sent from one weapons-testing control room to another via the satellite.
Sounds like someone will be looking for a new job soon. Maybe in television?
posted by chris at 11:54 AM
Patriot Act abuse
The FBI has used the sweeping powers of anti-terrorist legislation enacted in the panicky aftermath of September 11 against the owner of a Las Vegas strip club suspected of bribing local council officials.
Justice department officials say the events in Las Vegas mark the first time the FBI has tried to extend the use of the Patriot Act to a corruption investigation.
The move was described by civil rights groups yesterday as proof of the dangers of giving such a free hand to the security agencies.
The Patriot Act allows the FBI and other agencies to seize private documents - such as medical records and college transcripts - without obtaining a warrant, or showing probable cause.
It does not require the authorities to admit they have undertaken such actions.
"The attorney general didn't tell Congress that he needed the Patriot Act to raid nudie bars." - Laura Murphy, ACLU
posted by chris at 11:49 AM
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Thursday, November 06, 2003
Diebold's pesky memos
Diebold Election Systems, which makes voting machines, is waging legal war against grass-roots advocates, including dozens of college students, who are posting on the Internet copies of the company’s internal communications about its electronic voting machines.
The students say that, by trying to spread the word about problems with the company’s software, they are performing a valuable form of electronic civil disobedience, one that has broad implications for American society. They also contend that they are protected by fair use exceptions in copyright law.
Diebold, however, says it is a case of copyright infringement, and has sent cease-and-desist orders to the students and, in many cases, their colleges, demanding that the 15,000 e-mail messages and memorandums be removed from each Web site. “We reserve the right to protect that which we feel is proprietary,” a spokesman for Diebold, David Bear, said.
The files circulating online include thousands of e-mail messages and memorandums dating to March 2003 from January 1999 that include discussions of bugs in Diebold’s software and warnings that its computer network are poorly protected against hackers. Diebold has sold more than 33,000 machines, many of which have been used in elections.
Advocates and journalists have mined the trove of corporate messages to find statements that appear to suggest many continuing security problems with the software that runs the system, and last-minute software changes that, by law, are generally not allowed after election authorities have certified the software for an election.
Keep in mind that Diebold hasn't actually denied the authenticity of these emails and memos,they just want them stopped. In fact, by claiming copyright infringement, they're essentially verifying them. The memos include information like this:
* I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216 gave Al Gore a minus 16022 [votes] when it was uploaded. Will someone please explain this so that I have the information to give the auditor instead of standing here "looking dumb."
* For a demonstration I suggest you fake it. Progam them both so they look the same, and then just do the upload fro [sic] the AV. That is what we did in the last AT/AV demo.
* Right now you can open GEMS' .mdb file with MS-Access, and alter its contents. That includes the audit log. This isn't anything new.
* Elections are not rocket science. Why is it so hard to get things right! I have never been at any other company that has been so miss [sic] managed.
Thanks to Tom Tomorrow.
posted by chris at 2:02 PM
Get out of jail free card
A change in enforcement policy will lead the Environmental Protection Agency to drop investigations into 50 power plants for past violations of the Clean Air Act, lawyers at the agency who were briefed on the decision this week said.
The lawyers said in interviews on Wednesday that the decision meant the cases would be judged under new, less stringent rules set to take effect next month, rather than the stricter rules in effect at the time the investigations began.
The lawyers said the new rules include exemptions that would make it almost impossible to sustain the investigations into the plants, which are scattered around the country and owned by 10 utilities.
The lawyers said the change grew out of a recommendation by Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force, which urged the government two years ago to study industry complaints about its enforcement actions.
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Under the old rules of the so-called New Source Review program, power plants, oil refineries and industrial boilers that were modernized in ways that increased harmful emissions generally had to install more pollution controls.
Under the new rules, any renovation project that costs less than 20 percent of the power-generating unit's value will be exempt, and no pollution controls will need to be added even if the project increases emissions. Critics say thresholds set at that level would exempt most of the power plants that have been under investigation.
One career E.P.A. enforcement lawyer said the decision, coupled with the changes in the underlying rules, could mean that the utility industry could avoid making as much as $10 billion to $20 billion in pollution-control upgrades.
And people say Cheney's energy task force was pro-industry.
posted by chris at 11:48 AM
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Wednesday, November 05, 2003
Bringing back the draft?
The community draft boards that became notorious for sending reluctant young men off to Vietnam have languished since the early 1970s, their membership ebbing and their purpose all but lost when the draft was ended. But a few weeks ago, on an obscure federal Web site devoted to the war on terrorism, the Bush administration quietly began a public campaign to bring the draft boards back to life.
"Serve Your Community and the Nation," the announcement urges. "If a military draft becomes necessary, approximately 2,000 Local and Appeal Boards throughout America would decide which young men ... receive deferments, postponements or exemptions from military service."
Local draft board volunteers, meanwhile, report that at training sessions last summer, they were unexpectedly asked to recommend people to fill some of the estimated 16 percent of board seats that are vacant nationwide.
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Not since the early days of the Reagan administration in 1981 has the Defense Department made a push to fill all 10,350 draft board positions and 11,070 appeals board slots. Recognizing that even the mention of a draft in the months before an election might be politically explosive, the Pentagon last week was adamant that the drive to staff up the draft boards is not a portent of things to come. There is "no contingency plan" to ask Congress to reinstate the draft, John Winkler, the Pentagon's deputy assistant secretary for reserve affairs, told Salon last week.
Increasingly, however, military experts and even some influential members of Congress are suggesting that if Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's prediction of a "long, hard slog" in Iraq and Afghanistan proves accurate, the U.S. may have no choice but to consider a draft to fully staff the nation's military in a time of global instability.
More here, thanks to Jason.
posted by chris at 11:50 AM
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Tuesday, November 04, 2003
Wise words from Daddy
"Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under the circumstances, there was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land."
Maybe Dubya should have listened to his pop.
posted by chris at 5:30 PM
CBS caves in
Barraged by accusations from conservatives that it was distorting the legacy of a president, CBS announced Tuesday it was pulling "The Reagans" miniseries off the air.
The network said it was licensing the completed film to Showtime, a pay cable network that, like CBS, is owned by Viacom.
CBS insisted it was not bowing to pressure about portions of the script, but that the decision was made after seeing the finished film.
"Although the miniseries features impressive production values and acting performances, and although the producers have sources to verify each scene in the script, we believe it does not present a balanced portrayal of the Reagans for CBS and its audience," the network said in a statement.
First of all, the people complaining about this miniseries haven't even seen the damn thing yet! They're protesting based on leaks and suppositions; essentially what it comes down to is that CBS wasn't treating Ronald Reagan like the deity his supporters believe him to be. So even if the producers had verified every scene in the film, it still might not put Reagan in the best possible light. Congressman John Dingle explains why:
"As someone who served with President Reagan, and in the interest of historical accuracy, please allow me to share with you some of my recollections of the Reagan years that I hope will make it into the final cut of the mini-series: $640 Pentagon toilets seats; ketchup as a vegetable; union busting; firing striking air traffic controllers; Iran-Contra; selling arms to terrorist nations; trading arms for hostages; retreating from terrorists in Beirut; lying to Congress; financing an illegal war in Nicaragua; visiting Bitburg cemetery; a cozy relationship with Saddam Hussein; shredding documents; Ed Meese; Fawn Hall; Oliver North; James Watt; apartheid apologia; the savings and loan scandal; voodoo economics; record budget deficits; double digit unemployment; farm bankruptcies; trade deficits; astrologers in the White House; Star Wars; and influence peddling."
Rep. Dingell concluded, "I hope you find these facts useful in accurately depicting President Reagan’s time in office."
So instead of standing its ground, CBS caved in to conservative complaints. Whatever happened to a free press? (See #6 on the 14 Characteristics of Fascism list.)
posted by chris at 2:55 PM
Not exactly a vote of support
The Senate gave its final approval on Monday to President Bush's request for $87.5 billion to occupy and rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, completing Congressional action on the largest emergency spending bill ever sought by a president.
The Senate's action came on a voice vote with only six members present, meaning that the decisions of individual members on the administration's vision for Iraq were not recorded. Not voting on the record appealed to both Republicans nervous about explaining the amount to their constituents, and Democrats who did not want their patriotism questioned for opposing the bill. On Friday, the House voted 298 to 121 in favor of the bill. The bill now goes to the president for his signature.
Senator Robert C. Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat who has been the loudest Congressional challenger of the administration's Iraq policy, was the lone voice shouting no during the vote, a contrast to the 12 senators who opposed the emergency spending bill, known as a supplemental, in a preliminary vote last month.
Bush, of course, put the proper spin on it - where does he come up with them??
In a statement issued by the White House on Monday night, Mr. Bush said, "The strong bipartisan show of support for this bill underscores that America and the world are united to prevail in the central front in the war on terror by helping build a peaceful, democratic and prosperous Iraq."
But we'll give Senator Byrd the final word:
The Iraq supplemental conference report before the Senate today has been widely described as a victory for President Bush. If hardball politics and lock-step partisanship are the stuff of which victory is made, then I suppose the assessments are accurate. But if reasoned discourse, integrity, and accountability are the measures of true victory, then this package falls far short of the mark.
posted by chris at 1:28 PM
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