Live from Austin!

To celebrate its redesign, The Guardian is offering free access to its online edition for the next two weeks. If you live in America and have always wondered what a real newspaper would be like, now’s your chance to find out.

(If you think the New York Times is a real newspaper…well, they ditched their entire technology section to make way for more articles on shopping, fitness and fashion. Says it all really.)

To my mind, there are three reasons why The Guardian is a great newspaper.

The first is accuracy—the paper has a policy of correcting every factual error, and the Corrections and Clarifications column can make for very entertaining reading. The paper even does a pretty good job of covering technology and science.

The second is that the paper does real investigative reporting into things that actually matter. For example, today:

MPs from all parties are planning to campaign against the CIA’s use of British airports and RAF bases when abducting terrorism suspects who are then flown to countries where they are allegedly tortured. An all-party group is to be established this autumn to coordinate the campaign and to inquire into the extent of Britain’s support for the operations, which are said to violate international law.

The development was announced as the UN began inquiring into the operations, known in US intelligence circles as “extraordinary renditions”, and as an investigation by the Guardian uncovered the extent of British logistical support. [...]

And elsewhere there’s the first full account of the May 13th massacre in Uzbekistan. If you have no idea what that’s about, it may be because the violence was carried out by paramilitaries sent in by one of the USA’s crucial allies in the war against (some) terrorists.

The third reason I like The Guardian is diversity of opinion. Although it’s popularly believed to be ‘left wing’ or ’socialist’, The Guardian in fact gives space to all kinds of (often contradictory) viewpoints. Today, for example, the opinion section has an article arguing that the UK road haulers’ threatened strike and fuel blockade should be smashed the way Thatcher smashed the miner’s strike. That’s like FOX News suggesting that Michael Moore should be elected President.

I should mention that the digital edition is having a few teething troubles right now; normally all the stories are available indexed, but at the moment some pages are only readable as PDF. Still, stick with it, I think you’ll find it worthwhile.

Here’s a brief run-down of the lowlights from the “REAL ID Act” passed by the House yesterday.

• Overstaying a visa becomes grounds to deny a driver’s license. There are many, many people who are now legal immigrants who have at some stage overstayed a visa period. Overstayed a student visa by a few days back when you were a student? No license for you!

  Plus, do you want all those illegal immigrants driving around with no license, no insurance, and without having passed a driving test? The government thinks you do and that it will improve your personal security…

• The act reduces the allowed list of reasons to be granted asylum, so the petitioner now has to prove that their claim arises from persecution due to race, nationality, religion, or political group membership. Merely having your life at risk will no longer be sufficient. There will also need to be corroborating evidence; even if the state knows full well that the petitioner was tortured, they’ll be able to demand proof.

• The act amends the law to allow the US to deport victims of terrorism. For example, Colombian refugees who were forced to make “protection money” payments to FARC death squads would now be liable for deportation for financial ties to a terrorist organization, without the government actually needing to present any evidence that the payments supported terrorism. The mere fact of monetary ties to FARC, whatever the circumstances, would be enough—and it’s believed that the majority of Colombian refugees have had money extorted from them by FARC.

  Also, the government can refuse entry if they think you might be likely to engage in terrorist activity in the future. They don’t need actual evidence that you’ve ever committed any crime.

• If a person is barred under the act, their spouse and children are also barred, even if they had nothing to do with the alleged activities.

• Homeland Security can override any law short of the Constitution if it’s to enable them to build barriers or roads. If it’s cost-efficient to build a new road across your back yard, using toxic waste carried there by 12 year old kids working 18 hour days, the government can now contract Halliburton to build it that way. Oh, and there’s no judicial oversight allowed; “no court shall have jurisdiction”.

• Oh, and everyone who’s an official of the PLO is now banned from the USA, including the UN building in New York. That’ll help the peace process.

I know it’s churlish of me to keep harping on about this, but:

…investigators have found no support for the two main fears expressed in London and Washington before the war: that Iraq had a hidden arsenal of old weapons and built advanced programs for new ones. In public statements and unauthorized interviews, investigators said they have discovered no work on former germ-warfare agents such as anthrax bacteria, and no work on a new designer pathogen—combining pox virus and snake venom—that led U.S. scientists on a highly classified hunt for several months. The investigators assess that Iraq did not, as charged in London and Washington, resume production of its most lethal nerve agent, VX, or learn to make it last longer in storage. And they have found the former nuclear weapons program, described as a “grave and gathering danger” by President Bush and a “mortal threat” by Vice President Cheney, in much the same shattered state left by U.N. inspectors in the 1990s.

[…]

The defection of Hussein Kamel was a turning point in the U.N.-imposed disarmament of Iraq in the 1990s. Kamel, who had married one of Saddam Hussein’s daughters, Raghad, and controlled Baghdad’s Military Industrial Commission, told his Western debriefers about major programs in biological and nuclear weaponry that had gone undetected or unconfirmed. Iraq was forced to acknowledge what he exposed, but neither inspectors nor U.S. officials were sure Kamel had told all there was to tell.

A handwritten Iraqi damage report, composed five days after the defection, now suggests that Kamel left little or nothing out.

[…]

The most significant point in [Hossam] Amin’s letter, U.S. and European experts said, is his unambiguous report that Iraq destroyed its entire inventory of biological weapons.

—Washington Post

So Saddam’s brother-in-law, #1 in charge of weapons programs, personally defects and sings like a canary. The story says he told us about “major programs”; what it doesn’t mention is that he told us they were all shut down. However, the government didn’t want to believe him, and we went ahead with the war anyway. Now we discover from the reports of Iraq’s #1 guy in charge of intelligence, that Saddam’s brother-in-law was telling the truth. Well, duh.

To paraphrase Mr Francesco Zappa, these days they have lies so big you can’t see ’em. I feel like it would be worth doing a “lie a day” feature… there’s so much material.

Let’s look at a selection of lies: That Iraq did not cooperate with UN weapons inspections, that Iraq kicked UN inspectors out of the country, that inspections did not achieve anything, and that Iraq was not cooperating at the time when war began.

Iraq’s nuclear weapons program was shut down by inspections, according to the people who were actually there. That is, until the inspectors were withdrawn for safety reasons, because America wanted to carry out some airstrikes. The inspectors were subsequently not allowed back because Iraq discovered that several of them were CIA spies. So far from refusing to comply with UN resolutions, Iraq reluctantly disarmed under UN supervision until America broke the terms of the disarmament agreement by planting spies in UNSCOM. In spite of that, inspections resumed in November after Iraq said that it would comply with the most recent US-drafted UN resolution. Did they? Well, Hans Blix said just before the war that Iraq was providing more cooperation than it had in over a decade. (Note that the Iraqis also let the UN inspectors leave freely before the start of the bombing, rather than trying to use them as “human shields”.)

Acting President Bush has proclaimed Sunday 19th as National Sanctity of Human Life Day.

Coincidentally, January 22nd is the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade.

On a completely unrelated note, the United Nations estimates that the forthcoming Iraq war will result in the death or wounding of 500,000 people, with 900,000 Iraqis becoming refugees, and a further 2 million being driven from their homes but remaining in Iraq.

Also, in case you missed it, the US used its veto power to block a deal signed by 143 countries which would have allowed Africa to obtain cheap AIDS drugs to treat an estimated 30 million HIV positive people in sub-Saharan areas.

The UN report has concluded that there was no massacre at Jenin, and the Palestinians really were stockpiling arms there.

Also, in case anyone’s still not aware of it, there really were Palestinians dancing in the streets after 9/11. The claim that it was old footage was shown to be false.

I got in to work, and my boss passed me in the hallway and said something about terrorist activity and a plane hitting the World Trade Center. I thought he was talking about a little Cessna or something, so I got in and sat and started on my coffee, glanced over my e-mail, and then hit the BBC News web site to see what was going on. I soon had the live BBC News video stream going, and sat watching it in disbelief. I cried a little. I wanted to hug someone, but the only person around was our Latvian admin assistant Evija, and I decided that would probably be a bad idea.

I sat on three separate chat networks (AOL IM, DALnet IRC and our internal one), passing information back and forth and putting together a summary as things happened. Working together with people on IRC, we collected information from several channels of news media, filtered out the contradictory stuff, and noted what was confirmed and by whom. Since a lot of people internally seemed unable to get to news sites, I also posted screenshots from the video. It reminded me a little of Tienanmen Square and the shelling of the Russian Parliament—in both of those cases, I got the news from the Internet.

Around 11, my boss said that unless there was a compelling reason to be in the office, senior management was advising us to go home. The Hancock and Prudential buildings had been evacuated. What with two of the planes being Boston ones, I think it was probably justified paranoia. So I left the office and walked back towards Kendall. I had a bad feeling about the T initially, and instead went to the MIT lunch trucks and had something to eat. After that, the red line seemed pretty empty, so I chanced it and got home around 12:30.

Sara was watching the news on NECN, which was OK, but really full of wild speculation. We switched to BBC America, which was giving over its entire lunchtime news slot to the… crisis? disaster? outrage? I’m having trouble finding the right word here. We made various attempts to call friends and acquaintances in Manhattan, and I sat online with the ThinkPad. Eventually people showed up online and we were able to confirm that they were OK; the phone system stayed useless all afternoon. I couldn’t reach my mother either—I knew she’d be worrying, as I’ve made business trips to IBM Madison Avenue in the past. I sent SMS messages, but they didn’t arrive. Finally e-mail made it.

Right now I’m mostly feeling apprehensive. A lot of people online seemed furiously angry, patriotic, and ready to string up anyone the government identified as responsible. Maybe I’m too Zen; I just didn’t get angry. My feeling is that anger is inappropriate and unhelpful. But right now, it seems like I’m in a tiny minority, and that probably means a big crackdown on immigrants and troublemakers—and of course, I’m both. Sure, I have white skin, but bad laws are color-blind. The trial by media has already started—I’ve seen pundits reminding everyone how previous terrorist actions have been carried out by resident aliens. Politicians are talking about “eradicating”, and language like that from people in power always makes me nervous.

So I’ve been offline, trying to get away from it all. The next few days are going to be bad—endless speculation will be the order of the day. Was it Osama bin Laden? Was it a CIA conspiracy to introduce martial law, confiscate firearms, and place the USA under the control of FEMA operatives in black UN helicopters? Who should the drunken gangs be beating up?

The US has been thrown off the UN International Narcotics Control Board. This follows being thrown off the UN Human Rights Board a week ago. Seems fair to me. After all, the US is years overdue with its UN membership fees, has a terrible human rights record compared to almost every other western country, and its drug laws are racist and cruel. Not to mention that the US has treated the UN with contempt for years by ignoring its resolutions and refusing to sign half a dozen world treaties, including treaties on getting rid of land mines, reducing CO2 emissions and ending slavery.