Live from Austin!

First we had an election landslide against the Republicans, in which the Iraq war was the #1 concern of voters.

Then we had an Iraq Study Group. It was described by the mainstream media as “bipartisan”. Here’s what “bipartisan” actually means:

• Chairman James A. Baker III—Chief of Staff, Reagan; Secretary of State, Bush I.
• Co-chairman Lee H. Hamilton—allegedly a Democrat. As chair of a previous Select Committee, he chose not to investigate Reagan or Bush I for their roles in the Iran-Contra scandal. He now sits on Bush II’s Homeland Security Advisory Council.
• Lawrence S. Eagleburger—Secretary of State, Bush I.
• Edwin S. Meese III—US Attorney General, Reagan.
• Alan K. Simpson—Republican Senate whip, Reagan and Bush I.
• Sandra Day O’Connor—ex Supreme Court justice appointed by Reagan.
• William J. Perry—Secretary of Defense, Clinton; hence in charge of a decade of bombing of Iraq.
• Charles S. Robb—the only Democrat to vote in favor of every item in the Republican “Contract with America”.
• Leon Panetta—Democrat, but ex-Republican. Chief of Staff, Clinton, worked with Perry on killing tens of thousands of Iraqi children.
• Vernon Jordan—an actual no-holds-barred Democrat?

So, not exactly a bunch of pinko French-speaking peaceniks. Everyone seemed to expect that their report would recommend deeper engagement. Bush said that the report would give the country an “opportunity to find common ground”. But when the actual report was read, it said that the Iraq war is an ongoing disaster and that we should try to pull out:

The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating. There is no path that can guarantee success [...]

Our most important recommendations call for new and enhanced diplomatic and political efforts in Iraq and the region, and a change in the primary mission of U.S. forces in Iraq that will enable the United States to begin to move its combat forces out of Iraq responsibly. We believe that these two recommendations are equally important and reinforce one another.

And the result? The neocons turn on Baker and denounce him, and Bush opts for more troops for the long term fight. Allegedly sane Republican John McCain calls for more troops as well, in Afghanistan too.

Senior military staff are skeptical. There’s also the problem of where to get the actual troops, since the army is described as being at breaking point and in need of additional assistance from the National Guard and Reserves (who, remember, were supposed to be a strategic reserve to deal with crises within the USA).

But the big question I’m left wondering is: what would it take to get Bush and crew to listen? I can understand them ignoring intelligence reports, ignoring testimony from Iraqi defectors, ignoring millions of protesters marching in the streets, and so on. It’s harder to imagine how they can widen their ignorance until they’re even prepared to ignore and denounce their own people.

You may know that the NSA are not supposed to carry out surveillance against American citizens, as per US Signals Intelligence Directive 18, unless given special permission by the Attorney General.

You may also know that the Supreme Court has ruled that the NSA cannot spy against US citizens. They used to get around this by working with GCHQ in the UK—GCHQ would spy on Americans, the NSA would spy on the English, and they’d exchange data.

Well, the New York Times reports that the Bush administration let the NSA off its leash in 2002. It can now spy on anyone, with no judicial oversight whatsoever.

Americans may wish to read up on the ECHELON network and its capabilities. In the interests of balance, I will point out that ECHELON caught at least one 9/11 terrorist. Whether that’s sufficient to justify the fact that your telephone calls and e-mails are almost certainly all being scanned, is for you to decide.

And cordial greetings to my readers in Fort Meade.

It’s US election day, and you don’t need to be The Amazing Kreskin to predict how things are going to go: badly.

Barring a miracle, we’re going to end up with another statistical dead heat, with Kang and Kodos splitting the popular vote and electoral college vote almost 50/50. Unfortunately, there are a lot of black box voting machines in marginal areas—with no tamper-proof audit trail and no way to re-count the votes. So in a close finish, we’re going to be left with literally no way to determine who actually got the most votes, or who actually won closely-fought states with electronic voting machines.

Yes, it’s going to be worse than 2000. In 2000, at least there were ballots that could be examined to determine who the voters really intended to vote for. The fact that the Supreme Court wouldn’t let that be done and instead handed the keys to the White House to Bush was regrettable, and it wasn’t exactly surprising that the corporate media decided to bury the actual vote results when they were finally tabulated by independent journalists. Nevertheless, there was at least the sense that we knew what was going on. This time, we’ll never know. No matter who wins, the other side will have entirely justifiable grounds for considering them fraudulently elected.

Election officials love all-electronic voting machines, precisely because there’s no way to do a recount. Recounts are boring, embarrassing, and can be disrupted by rioting partisans. If there’s nothing to be done but read the computer’s totals off the screen again, the supervisors are guaranteed that they’ll be at home in bed by midnight. So what if it means the results are meaningless? That’s somebody else’s problem.

But let’s look on the bright side. As a result of Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo Bay and the Iraq war, most people in the world hate America as a political entity, but love American people. If it were possible to re-elect the people who approved the torture, there’s a distinct danger that Americans would do so, and suddenly being American would be about as socially uplifting as being (say) a white South African in the 1980s.

So, when the polls fail to reach a conclusion, I say celebrate—it means you’re off the hook for another four years.

The 9/11 Commission recommended setting up an organization to help safeguard civil liberties. Sure enough the Bush administration has gone ahead and created a President’s Board on Safeguarding Americans’ Civil Liberties.

Ignoring for the moment the issue that civil liberties should, constitutionally, be protected for everyone and not just US citizens, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the people who are being put in charge of safeguarding your freedoms.

• The Deputy Attorney General, James B. Comey.

  Quote from Comey: A court of the United States has no jurisdiction…to enjoin the president in the performance of his official duties.

  He also explained at length why he thought it was right that Jose Padilla was thrown in a military jail indefinitely and not allowed to talk to a lawyer, even though he is a US citizen and was not officially charged with any crime. Comey’s position was overruled by the Supreme Court, thank goodness.

• The Assistant Attorney General (Civil Rights Division), R. Alexander Acosta.

  Acosta seems to be one of the Good Guys, having (amongst other things) defended a Muslim student’s right to wear her head scarf at school.

• The Assistant Attorney General (Office of Legal Policy), Daniel J. Bryant.

  Bryant is a strong supporter of a Constitutional amendment to ban flag-burning. Need I say more?

• The Under Secretary for Border and Transportation Security at the Department of Homeland Security, Asa Hutchinson.

  Hutchinson was formerly head of the DEA, that bastion of concern for the civil liberties of the individual. He pushed the “drugs support terrorism” angle, and favored intensifying the War On (Selected) Drugs. He also supports Constitutional Amendments to ban flag burning and allow official school prayer, and supports banning abortion and gay adoption.

• The Assistant Secretary for Information Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security, General Patrick Hughes. He was a member of the 9/11 Commission, and wrote a series of articles on the theme of global threats to the USA and its interests abroad, for various audiences. His major focus in recent years has been building a massive information sharing network to ensure that law enforcement, homeland security and private contractors at federal, state and local level share information freely, so I’m sure he’ll have something to say about preserving your privacy.

• The Assistant Secretary (Policy), Directorate of Border and Transportation Security, part of the Department of Homeland Security; that would be a Mr C. Stewart Verdery, I believe.

  Quote from his nomination speech: We all remember well the bipartisan effort which spawned a host of responses to the terrorist attacks, including the PATRIOT Act and the creation of the Transportation Security Administration. Those days exemplified the kind of public service which is truly gratifying.

  His department is responsible for visa policy, and is pushing biometric passports—including forcing foreign countries to use biometric passports if they wish to take part in US visa waiver programs.

• The Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the Department of Homeland Security, Daniel W. Sutherland. He’s another of the good guys, having written in favor of immigration reform and against mandatory biometric national IDs.

• The Privacy Officer at the Department of Homeland Security, Nuala O’Connor Kelly. She was the Chief Privacy Officer for…wait for it…DoubleClick. Joking aside, though, she seems to be on the side of light.

• The Counsel for Intelligence Policy, Department of Justice, James A. Baker III. You might recognize that name if you’ve seen Farenheit 9/11. He’s the Senior Counsel for the Carlyle Group, the 10th largest defense contractor in the US, heavily tied to ENRON and the Bin Laden family. He even has a bio page on the George Bush Foundation web site.

• The Under Secretary for Enforcement, Department of the Treasury, Stuart Levey. Coincidentally, he’s was a partner in James Baker’s law firm.

• The Assistant Secretary (Terrorist Financing), Department of the Treasury, Juan Zarate. His job focus has been on stopping the flow of cash to terrorists—while assuring Muslim charities that Bush administration policies were not intended to hurt them.

• The General Counsel, Office of Management and Budget. I think that’s Raymond J. McKenna. His office is part of the General Services Administration, responsible for helping to improve government efficiency by providing office space, office supplies, technology, and services.

  I must confess to being unclear why he’s on this particular committee.

• The Deputy Director of Central Intelligence for Community Management, Larry C. Kindsvater. He’s strongly in favor of reorganizing the US intelligence system, which is probably why he was picked.

• The Chair of the Privacy Council at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I can’t find any record of a Privacy Council at the FBI; a search of their web site produces 0 hits.

• The General Counsel for the Central Intelligence Agency. These are the people who advise the CIA on the legality of their assassinations, foreign government coup attempts, and drug running.

  The CIA OGC web site doesn’t provide any information naming anyone who works there. They do mention that you can’t work for the CIA OGC in any capacity without a Top Secret clearance, polygraph test, and 6 month background screening. I believe the current General Counsel is still Scott W. Muller. Interestingly, Muller had no intelligence background before getting the job; his background was investigating white collar crime.

  Muller apparently thinks the PATRIOT Act didn’t go far enough. As he said at his nomination hearing:

  Well, let me start, Senator, by saying that I think the changes that were made in the U.S.A. Patriot Act were clearly necessary in light of the events of September 11 and I think have gone a long way toward creating at the operational level the kind of sharing and collaboration that this Committee and the Intelligence Community and the Bureau and law enforcement think need to occur. There’s a lot of work left to be done.

• The General Counsel for the National Security Agency. I believe this is still Vito T. Potenza, though obviously it’s very hard to find any information on who the NSA’s General Counsel is, or even who Mr Potenza is.

• The Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, Stephen Cambone. The Center for American Progress describe his qualifications as a fierce loyalty to Donald Rumsfeld and an unshakeable right wing ideology and note that he was responsible for sending Major General Geoffrey Miller to Iraq with orders to find more effective ways to interrogate prisoners.

• The General Counsel of the Department of Defense, William J. Haynes II

  Mr Haynes is the man who wrote the infamous memo listing “interrogation techniques” (i.e. torture) authorized for use at Guantanamo Bay, and was also involved in numerous other dubious legal arguments.

• The Legal Adviser at the Department of State, James H. Thessin. I can’t find much of anything about him.

• The Director of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, John O. Brennan, a 23 year CIA veteran. His is the department which is supposed to glue together all the other departments and make sure that the left hand knows what the right hand is doing. It’s also the department that was blamed for embarrassing inaccuracies in the 2003 “Patterns of Global Terrorism” report. It was initially released to a fanfare of congratulation, as it showed that deaths from terrorist activity had fallen thanks to the Bush “War on Terror”. Then, the spurious figures were quietly revised to show that things had actually gotten worse. Brennan explained the errors by saying that their computers were too old and they were understaffed.

So, there we have it. Not a totally one sided panel, but definitely stacked carefully in a particular direction.

Remember the Oliviero Martinez story I mentioned back in January? Well, the Supreme Court has ruled on the case.

Just as a recap: Martinez was riding his bike past a drug bust when police ordered him to stop. He complied. The cops searched him, and found a pocket knife, at which point they wrestled him to the ground and then shot him five times, in the eyes, spine and legs. One of the cops later claimed that he had started shooting because he had seen Martinez reaching for his partner’s gun.

While Martinez lay bleeding in an ambulance for 45 minutes, the cops interrogated him, at no point informing him of his Miranda rights.

Martinez: “I don’t want to say anything anymore.”

Cop: “No?”

Martinez: “I want them to treat me, it hurts a lot, please.”

Cop: “You don’t want to tell what happened with you over there?”

Martinez: “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die.”

Cop: “Well, if you are going to die, tell me what happened, and right now you think you are going to die?”

Martinez: “No.”

Cop: “No, do you think you are going to die?”

Martinez: “Aren’t you going to treat me or what?”

Cop: “Look, think you are going to die, that’s all I want to know, if you think you are going to die? Right now, do you think you are going to die?”

By the customary 5:4 Republican:Democrat ratio, the Supreme Court has ruled that since Martinez was never charged with any crime, his treatment is not illegal under the Fifth Amendment.

Yes, that’s right: The police can beat and torture you as much as they like, ignoring your constitutional rights, so long as you aren’t charged with a crime.

The US has floated plans to turn Guatanamo Bay into a death camp, with prisoners to be tried by kangaroo courts of 3 to 7 US military officers, with a US air force Colonel as defence counsel, and no jury. Any defense lawyers wishing to defend the accused will need to agree to give up customary attorney-client privilege rights, give up the right to contest the proceedings, give up the right to work with other defense lawyers on joint defense tactics, and they’ll be shut out of part of the proceedings. Oh, and the US government has to approve them first.

Even NewsMax seems a little wary of the fact that the panel of 3 to 7 officers will be able to convict and sentence to death by a simple majority vote, and points out that the tribunals are contrary to the Geneva Conventions and have been formally condemned by the European parliament by a vote of 439 to 10. Attempts to challenge the Guatanamo Bay process via the Supreme Court have failed, though a more direct challenge may yet get heard. Only 36 of the 660+ prisoners have been released, but lawyers say only a few will be tried before tribunals. Let’s hope so, or once the trials get started they might need to build a crematorium. (In which case, perhaps they could get AEG to help out, those guys really know how to build big ovens.)

Meanwhile, Australian media outlets have stories about the teenage children being held in the camp, and the US government is lining up Iran as the next government for us to overthrow.

Republican Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who upheld laws prohibiting newspapers from publishing anonymous opinion pieces, is being given an award for supporting freedom of speech. Naturally, he’s banned the press from attending the awards ceremony.

As of January 15th, the Supreme Court has ruled that it is legal for copyright to be extended indefinitely, and retroactively. It is likely that no work created after 1920 will ever enter the public domain. Justice Clarence Thomas was amongst those voting in favor of Disney in Eldred vs Ashcroft.

In totally unrelated news, on January 9th Clarence Thomas was offered a book publishing deal worth $1 million from HarperCollins, a division of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.

A judge in Montana has ruled that suspects with Multiple Personality Disorder need to have their Miranda rights read separately to each personality.

Still, it may not matter. A case before the Supreme Court concerns a man who was riding his bike through a field where police were questioning someone suspected of selling drugs. Police ordered the man, Oliviero Martinez, to stop. When one cop found Martinez had a small knife used for cutting strawberries in a sheath on his belt, he decided to wrestle him to the ground. The cop’s partner allegedly saw Martinez reaching towards the cop’s gun, so he shot him five times—in the eyes, spine and legs. (Martinez is now permanently blind and paralyzed.)

The controversial bit is that while Martinez was screaming in agony in the ambulance, and later in the emergency room, the cop continued aggressively questioning him, and didn’t bother reading him his Miranda rights at any point. The cop eventually persuaded Martinez to agree that he was reaching for the gun, and that the shootings were justified, at which point the interrogation ended.

The Justice Department has filed a friend-of-court briefing saying that since Martinez was never charged with any kind of crime on the basis of the extracted testimony, the whole thing was completely OK.

The city has refused to pay any of Martinez’s medical bills.