Live from Austin!

Today’s news:

An authoritative US intelligence report pooling the views of 16 government agencies concludes America’s campaign in Iraq has increased the threat of terrorism.

[...]

The report, Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States, points out the “centrality” of the US invasion of Iraq in fomenting terrorist cells and attacks. One section of the 30-page report, Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement, describes how the American presence in Iraq has helped spread radical Islam by providing a focal point for anti-Americanism.

While arguing that there has been success in dismantling the leadership of al-Qaida and its ability to plan major operations, the report says that radical cells have moved to more than 5,000 websites to organise and spread their message.

—Guardian

Update: I note with interest that the State Department has quietly resumed publishing statistics on US civilians killed by terrorism, so I’ve updated my RedvsBlue postcard from 2004.

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.

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.

Sowing seeds for the future… and now it seems General Ricardo “Dirty” Sanchez was present during some of the tort^H^H^H^Hinterrogation sessions at Abu Ghraib.

It seems like we’re making progress—from tragedy into farce. So maybe the entire US intelligence community and the Bush administration were duped by Iran into wiping out their enemy neighbor? That’ll look good on W’s résumé. Meanwhile we get to watch the US military trying to convince us that a wedding was actually a secret terrorist cell—and they might have been believed, if it wasn’t for the pesky wedding videos showing up in the media. We definitely didn’t kill any children, say the military—and then video footage of a dozen dead kids turns up.