Thursday, March 25, 2004
I always feel like somebody's watching me . . .
Shoppers in a suburban Tulsa, Okla., Wal-Mart were unwitting guinea pigs earlier this year in a secret study that two of America's largest corporations never expected you'd know about.
In the study, uncovered by the Chicago Sun-Times, shelves in a Wal-Mart in Broken Arrow, Okla., were equipped with hidden electronics to track the Max Factor Lipfinity lipstick containers stacked on them. The shelves and Webcam images were viewed 750 miles away by Procter & Gamble researchers in Cincinnati who could tell when lipsticks were removed from the shelves and could even watch consumers in action.
The study involved a new technology, known as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), that enables retailers to use radio signals to electronically track products in warehouses and on store shelves, a technology critics fear ultimately could be used to track people once they leave the store.
Manufacturers and retailers are looking at ultimately putting the tiny chips into everything from soda cans and cereal boxes to shoes, clothing and car tires.
This worries privacy-rights advocates who envision tags in shoes and other personal items being linked to credit-card information so that retailers and government agencies could spy on the public.
More on RFID tags. And just to make it more ominous, the article reports that "Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, has required that its top 100 suppliers tag their products by 2005." They're talking about tagging pallets and shipmentst, but the article goes on to say it's only a matter of time before tagging is done on individual products. Wal-Mart is so huge and carries such weight, that by demanding their top 100 suppliers to tag their products, they are effectively setting an industry standard. Other retailers will soon follow. They'll essentially have no choice.
posted by chris at 3:15 PM
There is no fear in this dojo, is there?!?
NO, SENSEI!!! Not only is Donald Rumsfeld the Secretary of Defense, but he is also a kung-fu master. Can you defeat the 1000 styles of Rumsfeld? How do you defend against the Drunken Temple Boxing?
posted by chris at 2:22 PM
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Wednesday, March 24, 2004
"Under God" relatively new term
A merica's highest court will be urged today to order the removal of the words "under God" from the pledge of allegiance, a move that could spark an ugly battle over the role of patriotism, religion and tradition in advance of the presidential election.
The challenge, which has been brought by a single father, has infuriated the whole of the United States Senate, President George Bush and the district court for eastern California.
But Michael Newdow has defied the criticism and will argue today that the phrase "one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all," recited by American schoolchildren across the country, violates the separation of church and state.
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The pledge of allegiance was first written - without the phrase "under God" - in 1892 in Boston, and recited by schoolchildren, a tradition that continues today.
The pledge was endorsed by Congress in 1942, just after the US joined the second world war.
In 1954, at the height of McCarthyism, "under God" was added to distinguish the "inalienable" rights of US democracy from those of communist states, where rights were conferred on citizens.
I'll do the math for you. "Under God" was not part of the pledge for 62 years, and has only been in the pledge for 50 years.
posted by chris at 12:53 PM
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Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Our way or the highway
Jay Garner, the US general abruptly dismissed as Iraq's first occupation administrator after a month in the job, says he fell out with the Bush circle because he wanted free elections and rejected an imposed program of privatization.
In an interview to be broadcast on BBC Newsnight tonight, he says: "My preference was to put the Iraqis in charge as soon as we can, and do it with some form of elections ... I just thought it was necessary to rapidly get the Iraqis in charge of their destiny."
Asked by the reporter Greg Palast if he foresaw negative repercussions from the subsequent US imposition of mass privatization, Gen Garner said: "I don't know ... we'll just have to wait and see." It would have been better for the Iraqis to take decisions themselves, even if they made mistakes, he said.
"What I was trying to do was get to a functioning government ... We as Americans like to put our template on things. And our template's good, but it's not necessarily good for everyone else."
Story here. Thanks to Body and Soul for the reminder.
posted by chris at 5:24 PM
Claim vs. Fact
Once again, the Center for America Progress steps up to the plate and refutes the Administration claims about Richard Clarke.
CLAIM #1: "Richard Clarke had plenty of opportunities to tell us in the administration that he thought the war on terrorism was moving in the wrong direction and he chose not to."
– National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04
FACT: Clarke sent a memo to Rice principals on 1/24/01 marked "urgent" asking for a Cabinet-level meeting to deal with an impending Al Qaeda attack. The White House acknowledges this, but says "principals did not need to have a formal meeting to discuss the threat." No meeting occurred until one week before 9/11.
– White House Press Release, 3/21/04
CLAIM #2: "The president returned to the White House and called me in and said, I've learned from George Tenet that there is no evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11."
– National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04
FACT: If this is true, then why did the President and Vice President repeatedly claim Saddam Hussein was directly connected to 9/11? President Bush sent a letter to Congress on 3/19/03 saying that the Iraq war was permitted specifically under legislation that authorized force against "nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11." Similarly, Vice President Cheney said on 9/14/03 that "It is not surprising that people make that connection" between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks, and said "we don't know" if there is a connection.
CLAIM #3: "[Clarke] was moved out of the counterterrorism business over to the cybersecurity side of things."
– Vice President Dick Cheney on Rush Limbaugh, 3/22/04
FACT: "Dick Clarke continued, in the Bush Administration, to be the National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and the President's principle counterterrorism expert. He was expected to organize and attend all meetings of Principals and Deputies on terrorism. And he did."
– White House Press Release, 3/21/04
CLAIM #4: "In June and July when the threat spikes were so high…we were at battle stations…The fact of the matter is [that] the administration focused on this before 9/11."
– National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04
FACT: "Documents indicate that before Sept. 11, Ashcroft did not give terrorism top billing in his strategic plans for the Justice Department, which includes the FBI. A draft of Ashcroft's 'Strategic Plan' from Aug. 9, 2001, does not put fighting terrorism as one of the department's seven goals, ranking it as a sub-goal beneath gun violence and drugs. By contrast, in April 2000, Ashcroft's predecessor, Janet Reno, called terrorism 'the most challenging threat in the criminal justice area.'"
– Washington Post, 3/22/04
CLAIM #5: "The president launched an aggressive response after 9/11."
– National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, 3/22/04
FACT: "In the early days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush White House cut by nearly two-thirds an emergency request for counterterrorism funds by the FBI, an internal administration budget document shows. The papers show that Ashcroft ranked counterterrorism efforts as a lower priority than his predecessor did, and that he resisted FBI requests for more counterterrorism funding before and immediately after the attacks."
– Washington Post, 3/22/04
CLAIM #6: "Well, [Clarke] wasn't in the loop, frankly, on a lot of this stuff…"
– Vice President Dick Cheney, 3/22/04
FACT: "The Government's interagency counterterrorism crisis management forum (the Counterterrorism Security Group, or "CSG") chaired by Dick Clarke met regularly, often daily, during the high threat period."
– White House Press Release, 3/21/04 (See also this response.)
Etc.
posted by chris at 12:57 PM
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Monday, March 22, 2004
DoJ vs. Terrorism
From the invaluable Center for America Progress:
Since September 11, President Bush and his supporters have repeatedly intimated that many of the President's political opponents are soft on terrorism....
...But the real story is far different, as the following internal Department of Justice (DoJ) documents obtained by the Center for American Progress demonstrate. The Bush Administration actually reversed the Clinton Administration's strong emphasis on counterterrorism and counterintelligence. Attorney General John Ashcroft not only moved aggressively to reduce DoJ's anti-terrorist budget but also shift DoJ's mission in spirit to emphasize its role as a domestic police force and anti-drug force. These changes in mission were just as critical as the budget changes, with Ashcroft, in effect, guiding the day to day decisions made by field officers and agents. And all of this while the Administration was receiving repeated warnings about potential terrorist attacks.
PRE-SEPTEMBER 11 - Reno Makes Counterterrorism DoJ's Top Priority
5/8/98 – FBI Strategic Plan: Mission statement from internal FBI Strategic Plan dated 5/8/1998 in which the Tier One priority is counterterrorism. This document clearly proves that the FBI under the previous Administration was making counterterrorism its highest priority. As the document states "Foreign intelligence, terrorist, and criminal activities that directly threaten the national or economic security...To succeed we must develop and implement a proactive, nationally directed program."
4/6/00 – DoJ Budget Goals Memo: Official annual budget goals memo from Attorney General Janet Reno to department heads dated 4/6/2000 detailing how counterterrorism is her top priority for the Department of Justice. In the second paragraph, she states, "In the near term as well as the future, cybercrime and counterterrrorism are going to be the most challenging threats in the criminal justice area. Nowhere is the need for an up-to-date human and technical infrastructure more critical."
PRE-SEPTEMBER 11 – Ashcroft Shifts Direction Away From Counterterrorism
5/10/01 – Ashcroft New DoJ Budget Goals Memo: Official annual budget goals memo from Attorney General Ashcroft dated 5/10/2001 (directly compares to the 4/6/2000 Reno memo). Out of 7 strategic goals described, not one mentions counterterrorism, a serious departure from Reno.
8/9/01 – Internal Draft of New Ashcroft DoJ Strategic Plan: Internal draft dated 8/9/2001 of DoJ's plans to revamp the official DoJ Strategic Plan strategic in which Attorney General Ashcroft's new priorities for DoJ were highlighted in yellow (because of color constraints with PDF, the items with black boxes were the ones actually highlighted). As it says, highlighted items equal the specific goals of the new Attorney General. Specifically highlighted by Ashcroft are domestic violent crime and drug trafficking prevention. Item 1.3 entitled "Combat terrorist activities by developing maximum intelligence and investigative capability" is passed over. After September 11, Ashcroft quickly amended his plans for DoJ's reorganization. The final strategic mission, which was released in November looks starkly different than Ashcroft's pre-September 11 draft.
Late August 2001 – Internal FBI FY2003 Budget Request to Ashcroft: Internal FBI FY03 budget request to DoJ dated roughly late August 2002 (FBI submits its request to DoJ, DoJ adjusts and sends a request to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) which then puts it into the final budget). This is not FBI's total request - but only the areas where FBI is specifically requesting increases over the previous year's baseline. In this request, FBI specifically asks for, among other things, 54 translators to translate backlog of intelligence gathered (line 3 under Foreign Language Services, cost of $5.1 million), 248 counterterrorism agents and support staff (line 14 entitled CT field investigations, cost of $28 million), and 200 professional intelligence researchers (line 16, entitled Intelligence Production, at a cost of $20.8 million). FBI has repeatedly stated that it has a serious backlog of intelligence data it has gathered but simply does not have the staff to analyze or translate it into usable information.
9/10/2001 – Official FY2003 Dept. of Justice Budget Request To White House: Official FY03 DoJ budget request from Attorney General Ashcroft to OMB Director Mitch Daniels, dated September 10, 2001. This document specifically highlights only the programs slated for above-baseline increases or below-baseline cuts. On page 29 of the PDF, Ashcroft outlines the programs he is trying to cut. Comparing this document to FBI's request to DoJ, it shows that Ashcroft ignored FBI's anti-terrorism requests (detailed in this internal FBI document). More specifically, this document shows that Ashcroft was planning to ignore the FBI's specific requests for more translators, counterintelligence agents and researchers, mentioned above. It additionally shows Ashcroft was trying to slash funding from counterterrorism and grants and other homeland defense programs before 9/11.
POST-SEPTEMBER 11: Ashcroft Still Ignores FBI Counterterrorism Requests
Post 9/11 – Budget Document Detailing OMB Rejection of FBI Counter-Terror Request: Internal document showing that FBI requested $1.499 billion for counterterrorism for the post-September 11 emergency supplemental but received just $530 million from the White House, despite serious counterterrorism needs.
And this information isn't coming from news reports or whispers from unnamed sources. These are actual Department of Justice documents that speak for themselves.
posted by chris at 4:25 PM
60 minutes
Richard Clarke was Bush's counter-terrorism advisor before, during and after 9/11. He worked on counter-terrorism under Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton as well, so he knows from which he speaks. And his recent interview on 60 minutes is a damning indictment of an administration that didn't take the threat of terrorism seriously and was stubbornly determined to connect Saddam Hussein with 9/11. Here's just one excerpt:
After the president returned to the White House on Sept. 11, he and his top advisers, including Clarke, began holding meetings about how to respond and retaliate. As Clarke writes in his book, he expected the administration to focus its military response on Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. He says he was surprised that the talk quickly turned to Iraq.
"Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq," Clarke said to Stahl. "And we all said ... no, no. Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. We need to bomb Afghanistan. And Rumsfeld said there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan. And there are lots of good targets in Iraq. I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it.
"Initially, I thought when he said, 'There aren't enough targets in-- in Afghanistan,' I thought he was joking.
"I think they wanted to believe that there was a connection, but the CIA was sitting there, the FBI was sitting there, I was sitting there saying we've looked at this issue for years. For years we've looked and there's just no connection."
Clarke says he and CIA Director George Tenet told that to Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Clarke then tells Stahl of being pressured by Mr. Bush.
"The president dragged me into a room with a couple of other people, shut the door, and said, 'I want you to find whether Iraq did this.' Now he never said, 'Make it up.' But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said Iraq did this.
"I said, 'Mr. President. We've done this before. We have been looking at this. We looked at it with an open mind. There's no connection.'
"He came back at me and said, "Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there's a connection.' And in a very intimidating way. I mean that we should come back with that answer. We wrote a report."
Clarke continued, "It was a serious look. We got together all the FBI experts, all the CIA experts. We wrote the report. We sent the report out to CIA and found FBI and said, 'Will you sign this report?' They all cleared the report. And we sent it up to the president and it got bounced by the National Security Advisor or Deputy. It got bounced and sent back saying, 'Wrong answer. ... Do it again.'
"I have no idea, to this day, if the president saw it, because after we did it again, it came to the same conclusion. And frankly, I don't think the people around the president show him memos like that. I don't think he sees memos that he doesn't-- wouldn't like the answer."
Clarke also has a book out describing all this in great detail. More excerpts from the 60 Minutes interview, with commentary, can be found here as well as a transcpript written up by Sadly, No! And Uggabugga has a handy little chart to make this easier to understand for your Republican-challenged friends. All the stonewalling that the Bush administration has been doing in regards to a 9/11 commission is starting to make even more sense. They really do have something to hide - gross incompetence and dangerous ideological fixations.
posted by chris at 4:06 PM
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