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August 31, 2007

LNC Staff Member in Washington Post

A little free publicity for one LNC staff member.

Posted by Andrew Davis at 12:37 PM | Comments (4)

Internal DOJ probe sets sights on Gonzales

Many people questioned the fate of deposed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales after he resigned from office amid a deluge of scandals. For some, his resignation was a sufficient closure to what has been one of the most controversial periods the Department of Justice has ever seen. However, others felt that a simple resignation should not be an easy ticket out of allegations of perjury, illegal firings of U.S. attorneys, and intentionally misleading Congressional investigators.

To the delight of these people, it is being reported that Gonzales may not get off so easily.

The Justice Department's inspector general acknowledged Thursday he was examining whether departing Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made false or misleading statements to Congress about the National Security Agency's (NSA) terrorist surveillance program, the fired U.S. attorneys affair and other subjects.

On Aug. 16, Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy sent a letter to Inspector General Glenn Fine, who is leading the investigation of Gonzales, asking Fine to investigate five points of contention. Fine responded that the department already had ongoing internal investigations of some of Gonzales' statements.

The disclosure by Inspector General Glenn Fine in a letter to Congress signals an expansion of the department's internal investigations into Gonzales' troubled tenure, probes that were not previously known to be focused so sharply on the attorney general and his testimony.

The Justice Department has declined to comment.

Gonzales' resignation is to take effect Sept. 17: the day the Constitution was signed in 1787. His resignation on Constitution Day should celebrate the departure of a man who spent two and a half years as Attorney General trying to destroy it.

Posted by Andrew Davis at 12:24 PM | Comments (1)

August 30, 2007

GAO report undermines tales of improvement in Iraq

The Washington Post has reported that a new report compiled by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative division of Congress, throws another stone at the rosy picture the White House has been painting of the surge in Iraq. The official report will be delivered to Congress on Tuesday of next week. However, the advanced copy obtained by the Washington Post indicates the GAO has found failure across the board with respect to both military and political objectives.

Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for political and military progress, according to a draft of a Government Accountability Office report. The document questions whether some aspects of a more positive assessment by the White House last month adequately reflected the range of views the GAO found within the administration.

Despite positive reports from the White House that have been echoed by Gen. Petraeus, the GAO has found that attacks on civilians has remained generally the same in the past sixth months. Additionally, the number of Iraqi army units capable of independent action decreased from 10 in March to six last month. A July report from the White House noted there had been a "slight" decline with the Iraqi units, though it did not mention the minimal drop had actually been one of 40 percent.

"Overall," the report concludes, "key legislation has not been passed, violence remains high, and it is unclear whether the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion in reconstruction funds," as promised. While it makes no policy recommendations, the draft suggests that future administration assessments "would be more useful" if they backed up their judgments with more details and "provided data on broader measures of violence from all relevant U.S. agencies."

The conflicting reports from the White House and other U.S. agencies casts a dubious light on what can actually be believed in the greatly anticipated Sept. 15 report.

Posted by Andrew Davis at 11:42 AM | Comments (4)

August 29, 2007

America's Economic Disaster

On March 4, 2007, U.S. Comptroller General David Walker appeared on 60 Minutes to discuss a national emergency. Was it terrorism? No. It was the economic disaster that is getting closer every day. I'm not entirely sure if this was covered on this blog, but it came to my attention again today and I felt it should be shared.

"We suffer from a fiscal cancer. It is growing within us. And if we do not treat it, it could have catastrophic consequences for our country." - David Walker, head of the Government Accountability Office

Posted by Andrew Davis at 01:24 PM | Comments (10)

August 28, 2007

Police face ammunition shortage

With military conflicts in both Afghanistan and Iraq, police are feeling the impact of ammunition shortage. This shortage in ammo is causing some police departments around the nation to scale-down training programs, and reduce target practice. Some chiefs feel the delay of ammo shipments, for which shipping times have nearly doubled, may begin to impact how police officers function on the street since training and practice will be reduced.

The U.S. military's soaring demand for small-arms ammunition, fueled by two wars abroad, has left domestic police agencies less able to quickly replenish their supplies, leading some to conserve rounds by cutting back on weapons training, police officials said.

Of course, the wars are not the only variables causing a shortage. Following the Sept. 11 terror attacks and the hurricane Katrina fiasco, police departments have increased ammo reserves dramatically, as well as stepping up the use of the AR-15 rifle, which uses the same type of ammo as the standard issue military rifle.

"What we're seeing is orders for law enforcement ammunition that have increased 40 percent in just the last year," said Brian Grace, a spokesman for Alliant Techsystems, a leading supplier for police departments across the country. The company plans a $5 million expansion to increase manufacturing capacity at two plants, he said.

Some police departments are reacting to the shortage by pooling resources with local departments, or preparing in advance for the delays by ordering more ammo when making purchases.

D.C. police, like many large urban agencies, have coped with the shortage by increasing the size of their orders and placing them six months in advance, officials said.

Posted by Andrew Davis at 11:09 AM | Comments (10)

August 27, 2007

Gonzales' failure as Attorney General

In what must be a collective relief for both the nation and the Bush administration, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has resigned today. Ever since Gonzales was announced to be the Bush appointee for the position vacated by John Ashcroft, he has been beleaguered by scandal after scandal. In honor of Gonzales' resignation, let us take a look at his failure in office:

The Torturing "Yes-Man"

In nominating Alberto Gonzales to be the next attorney general, President Bush has selected a man with a long record of giving him the kind of legal advice he wants. Unfortunately, that advice has not always been of the highest professional or ethical caliber.

Gonzales is perhaps best known for a controversial January 2002 memorandum to the president in which he argued that Geneva Convention proscriptions on torture did not apply to Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners, and that the conventions are, in fact, "obsolete."

The main criticism about Gonzales coming before his nomination was the fact that Gonzales seemed less concerned with the law than his loyalty to Bush. Cronyism in the Bush administration has been rampant, and Gonzales seemed to expound upon this trend. For an Administration that has shown contempt to dissent, having an Attorney General unwilling to uphold the law against what might be antithetical to the Bush agenda was a real concern for lawmakers in Congress--and for good reason.

Secondly, Gonzales' "torture memo" painted a clear picture of how Gonzales felt about the controversial interrogation methods pushed by the Bush administration. With the Attorney General standing in favor of these methods, Bush would have had little opposition to maintaining the controversial tactics, despite violating basic human rights and previous international agreements.

Perjury and Warrantless Wiretaps

The allegations of perjury leveled by Senate Democrats this week against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales revolve around the varied recollections concerning a deeply controversial and once top secret surveillance program.

In sworn congressional testimony on multiple occasions, the attorney general said there was no internal dissent among administration officials about the program and the surveillance was not at the center of a tense meeting in March 2004. Starkly different accounts have emerged of the same events and discussions.

When knowledge of Bush's warrantless wiretap program surfaced, Gonzales was quickly thrown into the fray because of allegations that he helped to orchestrate the highly questionable program. Gonzales constantly impeded the progress of the investigation into the program, and even went as far as to perjure himself on the circumstances of the program. In one hearing, Gonzales repeated some variation of "I don't remember" at a comedic rate.

Whether or not Congressional investigators pursue Gonzales for perjury is yet to be seen, as that his resignation changes the circumstances. One can only hope that if indeed the head of the justice system is found to be lying under oath, proper action will follow.

Denial of Habeas Corpus

One of the Bush administration's most far-reaching assertions of government power was revealed quietly last week when Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified that habeas corpus -- the right to go to federal court and challenge one's imprisonment -- is not protected by the Constitution.

"The Constitution doesn't say every individual in the United States or every citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas,'' Gonzales told Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Jan. 17.

Gonzales acknowledged that the Constitution declares "habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless ... in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.'' But he insisted that "there is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution.''

One can always decry the subversive attacks to the Constitution from Cheney or Bush; however, none come as blatantly as Gonzales' denial of the right to habeas corpus, or rather the right to defend yourself against charges in a public court. The fact that a U.S. attorney, nonetheless the head U.S. attorney, would admit to such a thing has legal experts and American citizens confounded.

For the head of the U.S. legal system to deny the right of habeas is by far the most disgusting affront to liberty and freedom Americans had seen from an Administration dogged by allegations of Constitutional infringements.

The Firings of Eight U.S. Attorneys

The testimony appeared to contradict statements Gonzales made during a March 13 news conference. "So far as I knew, my chief of staff was involved in the process of determining who were the weak performers," Gonzales said. He said he was "not involved in seeing any memos, was not involved in any discussions about what was going on."

New York Sen. Charles Schumer, one of the panel's leading Democrats in the investigation, said, "The credibility of the attorney general on this issue has been more or less shattered."

One of the final blows to the credibility of Gonzales was his contradicting role in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. Many claim that since the attorneys serve at the behest of the president, he may do with them as he wishes. However, firing U.S. attorneys for political reasons is illegal, and this is what many in Congress allege to be the motivation behind the firings. Gonzales claims that the firings were all done based upon performance, despite the majority of these attorneys having positive performance reports from previous reviews.

All in all, Gonzales' stint as Attorney General was one train wreck after another. Gonzales seemed to care little about the Constitution and maintaining law within the United States. Instead, this Bush crony sidestepped the law in order to preserve and progress the President's agenda. In light of his firing, I think the U.S. can breath a collective sigh of relief.

Gonzales represented the disastrous consequences of appointing a patsy to a position of power, and the attempt to protect his agenda through such methods blew up in Bush's face. Because of Gonzales' contempt for truth or justice, his intimate ties to the Bush administration have left Americans even more suspicious of their government.

At least with his departure, our civil liberties are a little bit safer for now.

Posted by Andrew Davis at 04:11 PM | Comments (8)

August 24, 2007

New NIE report paints dark picture of Iraq

A new National Intelligence Estimate report discussing the conflict in Iraq was just released yesterday. The timing of this report is quite interesting, being that it paints a vastly different picture of Iraq than what is expected in the White House's Sept. 15 report.

A new assessment of Iraq by U.S. intelligence agencies provides little evidence that the American troop "surge" has accomplished its goals and predicts that the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki will become "more precarious" in the months ahead.

A declassified summary of the report released Thursday said that violence remains high, warns that U.S. alliances with former Sunni Muslim insurgents could undercut the central government and says that political compromises are "unlikely to emerge" in the next 12 months.

The report does suggest that violence has decreased somewhat, indicating it has more or less reached a plateau; however, it also states the levels of violence are still "high."

It also suggested that while violence is no longer increasing, any progress might be temporary. "The steep escalation of violence has been checked for now," the report said, noting, "Overall attack levels across Iraq have fallen during seven of the last nine weeks." It provided no specific statistics.

Despite the bleak forecast of the short-term future of Iraq, the NIE report suggested a troop withdrawal would be detrimental to the already deteriorating political environment, mentioning that regional neighbors are already planning for a U.S. troop withdrawal. The report warns that a withdrawal will undermine current military progress that has been made.

However, the question becomes that if political stability -- which any military progress would be useless without -- is seen as unlikely for the time being, would refusing to withdrawal troops simply be delaying the inevitable? Such was the question in Vietnam, where the refusal to pull out troops after the mission appeared impossible to complete cost tens of thousands of American lives.

The report didn't address each of those points directly, but it concluded that the "broadly accepted political compromises required for sustained security, long-term political progress and economic development are unlikely to emerge unless there is a fundamental shift in the factors driving Iraqi political and security developments."

Posted by Andrew Davis at 12:38 PM | Comments (7)

August 23, 2007

The future of Iraq

After a lull of public attention with the occupation of Iraq, the fervor has returned. A report on the troop surge in Iraq, with evidence of progress and a failing Iraqi government, has pushed the Iraq conflict to the front pages of the nation's newspapers once again. The Sept. report along with an analysis of the future prospects of the Iraqi Prime Minister, will undoubtedly determine the course of the war in Iraq for the next few years.

But what will be the future of Iraq? With speculation for what the report may reveal and the tenuous nature of the Iraqi government that is all too obvious, the following years may already be set in stone.

Bush has already said that while he is President, the troops will not be leaving Iraq. This expounds on a recent foreign policy faux pas by invoking the Vietnam War for comparison to Iraq, which the Bush administration for years has denied a semblance between the two conflicts. Bush stated that pulling out troops too early would be committing the same mistake that occurred in Vietnam using the same arguments Nixon cited in prolonging his withdrawal from Vietnam.

The Sept. 15 report will undoubtedly do two things: List the accomplishments of the military in Iraq since the beginning of the surge, and give a derisive depiction of the failures of the Iraqi government. The report will probably also suggest that troops added in Iraq for the surge be moved to other locations around Iraq to help with security issues and further training of the Iraqi army.

As for Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki, the report might suggest increased pressure upon Maliki with implementation of timetables to keep the government on track – both things Maliki has exclaimed are unfair for him and impede progress in the government. But aside from these two things, little will probably be done in terms of helping the political progress of the Iraqi government because the U.S. refuses to relinquish control to the Iraqis as they have requested.

Because the administration will seize upon the military progress and use it to defend the 'stay the course' message, as well as declaring these are signs of imminent victory, we can expect public opinion on the war to increase somewhat. This will give the Bush administration the go-ahead to keep American troops in the region and continue the occupation, at least until his term is up. However, one can expect that either a Democrat or Republican President will do the same because of political motivations and an inability to muster the power to do anything else, and we can expect to see troops in Iraq for the next several years.

This is the danger of the report from Iraq. It is true that conditions have somewhat stabilized in Iraq because of military progress in some regions where the troop surge was focused. At least it appears that they have stabilized the instability. This creates the illusion that things are improving and will continue to improve, when in fact attacks have merely hit a plateau for the time being.

The problem with Iraq is that no matter how well things are improving, the conditions are so volatile and fragile that one large-scale attack could set off civil war at any time. This was the case with attack on the Golden Mosque in 2006, which set off much of the sectarian violence that we are seeing right now.

Because military progress is being emphasized while political failures are being ignored, a lack of infrastructure and political stability could possibly bring to disastrous ruin any military gains that may have been made. In fact, the political unrest has been the source of many of the troubles Iraq sees right now. Police are lining up with militias and U.S. troops say they are training police during the day who take part in the insurgency at night.

It appears the course of action in Iraq will not change even after the report, and the U.S. will still maintain the same course of action in the region because of what appears to be promising results from the surge. But in reality, these improvements will be overshadowed by a failure to address the Maliki's requests for more control over Iraq's internal affairs and less interference from the United States. Without relinquishing power, the Iraqi government will struggle to unite, and remain incredibly vulnerable to falling apart should another calamity occur. If this happens, all military progress will go back to square one, and the U.S. will find itself in the same situation it is in now, if not worse.

The only solution to the Iraq quagmire are the steps either side of the aisle fails to push: Increasing the role Iraqis play in their own reconstruction, and beginning to reduce the presence of the United States in the affairs of the Iraqi people by starting a safe withdrawal of U.S. troops.

Posted by Andrew Davis at 12:35 PM | Comments (4)

August 22, 2007

Optimism fades for Iraqi democracy

In a follow up to yesterday's blog entry regarding re-intervening in Iraq with US officials' calls for Prime Minister Maliki's removal, CNN has published a very interesting article about the diminishing optimism of American officials for democracy in the Iraq.

Nightmarish political realities in Baghdad are prompting American officials to curb their vision for democracy in Iraq. Instead, the officials now say they are willing to settle for a government that functions and can bring security.

It appears the reality of the situation in Iraq is setting in. This article comes at a very interesting time, as that some Congressmen who were previously against the Iraq war are now calling for more time after seeing positive results from the troop surge. One of these individuals is Washington Congressman Brian Baird, who said he would now like to see the troops stay until Iraq was stable and secure. But many in the United States have little faith that stability and security will come through a democratic form of government.

But for the first time, exasperated front-line U.S. generals talk openly of non-democratic governmental alternatives, and while the two top U.S. officials in Iraq still talk about preserving the country's nascent democratic institutions, they say their ambitions aren't as "lofty" as they once had been.

These sentiments seem to be catching on, and for good reason. Despite military successes in the country, the Iraqi government has still failed to unite for any tangible progress in the country, except a month long recess for a little R&R. Meanwhile, the country's infrastructure is failing, and even things like electricity and water are unreliable for most of the country.

The U.S. government has long cautioned that a fully functioning democracy would be slow to emerge in Iraq. But with key U.S. senators calling for al-Maliki's removal, some senior U.S. military commanders even suggest privately the entire Iraqi government must be removed by "constitutional or non-constitutional" means and replaced with a stable, secure, but not necessarily democratic entity.

The question regarding Iraq in the next month will be the balance between continuing with military operations and the risk that a democratic government in Iraq may never occur. The tough question that will have to be answered is how long do American troops stay while Iraqis figure out the next step towards political stability. Additionally, the U.S. will have to decide if it's going to give the Iraqis more freedom to do this.

Iraqi government officials concede things aren't working, but they say that's because the United States doesn't allow Iraq to really control its own destiny.

Without the United States granting the Iraqis a more central role in establishing their country, one can reasonably expect conditions to remain the same. However, by releasing control of the country to Iraq, the U.S. may very well see a non-democratic form of government take place.

Although at this point, it seems to be a welcomed change of pace.

Posted by Andrew Davis at 04:31 PM | Comments (9)

August 21, 2007

Intervening in our own intervention

In a bog created by U.S. intervention overseas, the U.S. looks to intervene once again, except this time it's in its own intervention. In what must be the paradigm of foreign policy snafus and a complete abdication of the enthusiastic approval of Iraqi democracy, one U.S. Senator is calling for regime change in Iraq once again.

Declaring the government of Iraq "non-functional," the influential chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said yesterday that Iraq's parliament should oust Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his cabinet if they are unable to forge a political compromise with rival factions in a matter of days.

Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) has finally voiced an opinion that reflects a growing sentiment of U.S. officials. Yet even with the signs of improvement, the progress can't help but be overshadowed by the absolute political failure in the country. Therefore, some are beginning to believe a regime change of a democratically elected leader in elections that were pushed by the United States is the answer to fixing a problem an interventionist U.S. foreign policy created in the first place. Scratching your head yet?

"I hope the parliament will vote the Maliki government out of office and will have the wisdom to replace it with a less sectarian and more unifying prime minister and government," Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) said after a three-day trip to Iraq and Jordan.

Levin's call for change reflects what has previously been a problem for the U.S.: Democracy in the Middle East does not always yield the results America would like to see. What does one do about it? If the U.S. had only learned from a century of experience in the region, intervention would be completely off the table. But, even in America's own foreign policy debacle, intervention is looking to be the only option left.

Not everybody is certain of what will happen if Maliki goes. They only know that they want him gone.

Still, Democrats have quietly begun to voice a view that Maliki must go; Durbin said he told White House national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley that last week. But they acknowledge that they do not know what would happen next. If it appeared that Maliki had been ousted at Washington's behest, his replacement would be seen as a U.S. puppet -- a "kiss of death" in the region, Durbin said.

Maliki's political failures because of sectarian civil war -- something long predicted by Middle Eastern experts and ignored by the Bush administration -- stand in the way of improving conditions in what is America's metaphorical "thorn in the lion's paw." One dangerous aspect of this short-term military progress in Iraq is that politicians hungry for any signs of improvement will use this evidence to justify continuing the Iraqi occupation.

Republican leaders have seized upon any positive statements from lawmakers returning from Iraq to portray Democratic leaders as wedded to failure there while the Democratic Party grows increasingly divided over the war's progress.

Just the other day, Democratic Congressman Brian Baird said the evidence of improvement he saw in Iraq now convinces him that the U.S. must remain in the country until 'the job is done,' as goes the mantra of those still supporting the invasion.

Last Friday, Baird told the Olympian, a newspaper in his district, that he now believes the United States should stay in the country as long as necessary to ensure stability.

Unfortunately, some have been taken in by the short-term progress and falsely believe this is indicative of long-term success. Baird may wish to stay in Iraq until the country is stable, but what if that takes years more, or even decades? Stability in Iraq is not going to come from military victories; it will have to be through political victories, and this is something the U.S. has no idea how to achieve.

Such as the soldiers recommended in Sunday's NY Times op-ed, the best idea is to give the Iraqis more of a leading role in running their country, and intervening in the Iraqi political process is likely to cause more instability than is currently seen. The Iraqi civil war is something the Iraqis must deal with themselves because it is the Iraqis who are infighting and it was the Iraqis whom freely elected Maliki in the first place.

"Imagine if we have to step in with a brand-new leader and a new government," Durbin said. "How many more months would we have to wait?"

Actively undermining Maliki would do many things, and none of them would be to the betterment of Iraq. Firstly, it would show the heavy hand of the American government that has been a widely recognized catalyst of anti-American sentiment in the region for decades now. Secondly, it expresses how little the United States cares about democratic elections that aren't favorable to American interests. Lastly, it commits the same mistake America made in the first place: Intervening into the personal affairs of the Middle East.

We're fours years from this mistake and still paying for it in spades.

Posted by Andrew Davis at 11:39 AM | Comments (15)

August 20, 2007

Soldiers write about Iraq

Yesterday, the NY Times ran an op-ed penned by a handful of soldiers who wrote an analysis of the situation they saw firsthand in Iraq. The picture these soldiers paint of the situation in Iraq is far bleaker than the propagandists in the Bush administration would lead U.S. citizens to believe. Additionally, the juxtaposition of this article compared to the expected report from Gen. David Petraeus (the U.S. commander in Iraq) should show just how unwilling the Bush administration is to accepting the reality in Iraq.

I'm posting this link for mainly comment and discussion, as that the soldiers' analysis essentially reflects the vocalized concerns the LP has made in the past.

In summation, the soldiers call for Iraqis to take center role in security and dealing with domestic issues how they see fit, with U.S. support only coming from "the margins," as they call it. I love how they conclude:

This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities.

Talk about hitting the nail on the head.

You can read the article by clicking here.

Posted by Andrew Davis at 12:40 PM | Comments (2)

August 15, 2007

The ever-watching eyes

I have always heard the comparison between the Bush administration and Orwell's 1984, yet I had never actually read the book. So last weekend I went out and bought it, and finally got to start on it last night. I'm only three chapters into the book, but the parallels I once thought clichГ© now suddenly make sense. And the striking similarities make it all the more frightening.

Today, Drudge highlighted two stories that fit in with the LNC's recent media campaign against the Bush administration's blatant attack on civil liberties and privacy rights. The first article discusses the Director of National Intelligence's decision to open up spy satellite to domestic law enforcement agencies and some civilian agencies.

The U.S.'s top intelligence official has greatly expanded the range of federal and local authorities who can get access to information from the nation's vast network of spy satellites in the U.S.

The decision, made three months ago by Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell, places for the first time some of the U.S.'s most powerful intelligence-gathering tools at the disposal of domestic security officials. The move was authorized in a May 25 memo sent to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff asking his department to facilitate access to the spy network on behalf of civilian agencies and law enforcement.

Until now, only a handful of federal civilian agencies, such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the U.S. Geological Survey, have had access to the most basic spy-satellite imagery, and only for the purpose of scientific and environmental study.

The U.S. government justifies the expansion of the spy network's users in the name of domestic security, especially in regards to tracking smugglers and helping with border security.

This should scare the bejeezus out of every American.

Since satellite spying is basically a whole new ballgame for domestic surveillance, there aren't many guidelines or rules to regulate who can use the technology and for what purposes. The satellites provide high-resolution, detailed images of their target, so we're not just talking about a government version of Google Earth. This is real-time video footage with startling clarity.

"You are talking about enormous power," said Gregory Nojeim, senior counsel and director of the Project on Freedom, Security and Technology for the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit group advocating privacy rights in the digital age. "Not only is the surveillance they are contemplating intrusive and omnipresent, it's also invisible. And that's what makes this so dangerous."

With elaborate camera surveillance systems being erected in major cities, warantless wiretaps on phones and now the ever-watching eye in the sky, one can reasonably expect that every aspect of a "private" life have been erased. I don't want to sound alarmist, but alarm seems rather appropriate at this point in time.

However, the eye in the sky isn't the only eye that will be watching you. The second article discusses the Transportation Safety Administration's new army of "specially trained" agents who look for facial expressions in airports that connote ill intent. These agents, called Behavior Detection Officers (I kid you not), will scan crowds and pull out those suspected of having not-so-nice intentions – like blowing things up.

At the heart of the new screening system is a theory that when people try to conceal their emotions, they reveal their feelings in flashes that Ekman, a pioneer in the field, calls "micro-expressions." Fear and disgust are the key ones, he said, because they're associated with deception.

Behavior detection officers work in pairs. Typically, one officer sizes up passengers openly while the other seems to be performing a routine security duty. A passenger who arouses suspicion, whether by micro-expressions, social interaction or body language gets subtle but more serious scrutiny.

A behavior specialist may decide to move in to help the suspicious passenger recover belongings that have passed through the baggage X-ray. Or he may ask where the traveler's going. If more alarms go off, officers will "refer" the person to law enforcement officials for further questioning.

So, the next time you're at the airport – angry and disgusted at the long security lines and your flight having been delayed – try to be civil with any TSA official. Should you give them any lip, you might just find yourself in a backroom being asked: "Do you know Osama bin Laden?" (yes, that happened).

The only positive feeling I got from the article was when reading the comments, and someone had posted a comment quoting 1984:

"There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live — did live, from habit that became instinct - in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized. Winston kept his back turned to the telescreen. It was safer, though, as he well knew, even a back can be revealing. " --Orwell's 1984

My how apt that seems.

Posted by Andrew Davis at 05:03 PM | Comments (21)

August 14, 2007

Iowa electricians and NYC cab drivers

What does an electrician in Iowa have to do with a taxi cab driver in New York? Well, that Iowa electrician may soon be paying for a new system that raises money for the city of New York from regulating the cab driver and others. That's right, the city of New York with eight other cities are petitioning the federal government for funding of new traffic congestion tolls that will raise money for the cities, and NYC just got the green light.

Transportation Secretary Mary Peters is scheduled to announce today that the federal government will fund New York's pilot plan to reduce traffic by charging tolls to drivers entering the busiest part of Manhattan, congressional aides said last night.

And we're not talking about just some spare change. No, in line with other massive federal projects that benefit a specific area, the city of New York looks to receive more than half a billion dollars.

The dollar value of the federal aid for New York was still unclear, but officials hoped for as much as $537 million from Washington.

Why is federal money being spent on this? The article doesn't say. But one thing is for sure: There are going to be a lot of upset electricians in Iowa.

The full article can be read here.

Posted by Andrew Davis at 10:48 AM | Comments (11)

August 10, 2007

American support: The "kiss of death" for M.E. democracy

What is it about the Bush administration that seems to keep from them information for many years that is plainly obvious to everyone else? I suppose it has to do with the belief that if they deny reality, then maybe it isn't true after all. Take for instance Iraq. Prior to the invasion, Saudi Arabia warned of vicious sectarian violence that could send the country into civil war should the U.S. remove Saddam from power. A couple of years and a couple hundred billion dollars later, our troops are babysitting a bunch of whiney children, except these children don't just pull hair and bite.

The other little factoid experts could have told Bush, and probably did, was that forcing democracy is not only an irony in and of itself, but it just doesn’t work in places like the Middle East.

"The Americans think that supporting democracy should create positive reactions," said Nicola Nassif, a columnist with the left-leaning Lebanese daily Al Akhbar. "No one can be against democracy, sovereignty, independence and freedom. But not if it upsets the internal power balance, not if it empowers one party against the other, especially in a country where supporting one group can lead to violence and even civil wars."

Well, apparently Bush must have been out the day they talked about Middle Eastern politics in class. Had he been there, he would have gotten a great history lesson in the failure of American intervention in the Middle East, as well as why implementing democracy in a region not hospitable to such a doctrine just won't work. It's not that Islam and democracy aren't compatible. Turkey is a great example of how democracy can still exist even in a country where the majority of people are Muslim. But it's just that radical Islam and democracy are rather like oil and water. They don't mix.

What Bush failed to see is that in order for democracy to work in a region where religion comes before anything else, even freedom, is that the people: a) have to be in favor of a "western" idea, and b) the people have to truly believe in a clear separation of church and state. Pakistan used to be a relative democratic state until the extreme forms of Islamic law began seeping into the system, and now we see a country near political chaos.

Arab liberals who have embraced America continue to see their influence fade in the region, as more conservative and Islamist forces continue to rise, Mr. Rasheed said. Voters invariably frown on strength coming from abroad, he said; the only legitimate sources of strength any Arab politician can turn to is based on either tribal power or religious ties.

The American army may have removed the extremists from power, but the extremism of Islam in that region still flourishes. And that's not something you can just beat out of people. Bush gave the people a right to vote, but the people didn't vote for people who had the same goals as Bush, and thus creates quite a tremendous problem.

But this isn't something new for the U.S. It's long been the history of the region. That's why it's so staggering to see Bush make the same mistakes over and over again.

Lebanon's voters in the Metn district, in other words, appeared to have joined the Palestinians, who voted for Hamas; the Iraqis, who voted for a government sympathetic to Iran; and the Egyptians, who have voted in growing numbers in recent elections for the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. "No politician can afford to identify with the West because poll after poll shows people don't believe in the U.S. agenda," said Mustafa Hamarneh, until recently the director of the Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan. Mr. Hamarneh is running for a seat in Jordan's Parliament in November, but he says he has made a point of keeping his campaign focused locally, and on bread-and-butter issues. "If somebody goes after you as pro-American he can hurt you," he said.

Until Bush finally wakes up and sees that the Middle East he envisions won't come about from the business end of an M-16, the United States is going to continue to find itself beating its head against the wall. Democratic reform in the Middle East must come from within, first starting with a liberalizing of the Islamic religion there. How does one exactly do this? Well, that's the million-dollar question, or should we say $400 billion question. However, one way you DON'T do it is by waltzing in and telling everybody they're going to democratize their country whether they like it or not.

Mr. Nassif added, "Since then, every time the Americans interfere, it ends in a war or in their expulsion."

Posted by Andrew Davis at 11:16 AM | Comments (44)

August 09, 2007

Try not to look guilty

For the guys who sport tin foil hats and live in remote cabins nestled deep in the woods of New England, I have to give them some credit. It appears that after decades of unsubstantiated paranoia, they might just have something to fear with the recent moves by the Bush administration to monitor nearly every move an American makes.

Under Project Hostile Intent, scientists will aim to build devices that can pick up tell-tale signs of hostile intent or deception from people's heart rates, perspiration and tiny shifts in facial expressions.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security commissioned the project, and appealed to private security firms and other government laboratories for help.

The plans describe how systems based on video cameras, laserlight, infra-red, audio recordings and eye tracking technology are expected to scour crowds looking for unusual behaviour, with the aim of identifying people who should be approached and quizzed by security staff, New Scientist magazine reports.

DHS officials hope the system to begin trail phases in U.S. airports by 2012.

The project is also expected to investigate developing a lie detector-type test that can be used remotely - an advantage because it would not interfere with the flow of a crowd and it could be used without the target's knowledge.

The government is using their typical justification for this program, saying it will help identify would-be attackers. Just how many would be attackers come through U.S. airports? A rough estimate would put it at well below statistically irrelevant. Therefore, just who will be pulled aside, interrogated and perhaps detained? Well, anybody who might be a little nervous about hiding a few Cuban cigars, or maybe even travelers jittery about possibly forgetting to unplug the coffee pot before leaving for a trip.

Experts suggest that the program has many obstacles in its way, such as how "terrorists" might show an array of issues to fool the system, or how innocent people will frequently show up on the radar as potential "terrorists."

Anthony Richards, a counter-terrorism expert at St Andrews University who has worked on Britain's ability to pre-empt a major terrorist attack, agreed that the project faced substantial hurdles. "There could be all kinds of reasons that might make people behave in certain ways that have nothing to do with terrorism. If you have heightened security and there are a lot of police around, it could be possible that you can feel and look guilty even when you haven't done anything wrong.

But this doesn't seem to be a problem for an administration that has no issue with wrongly detaining innocent people or spying on citizens as long as it's in the name of national security.

One question yet to be answered is how will this impact behavior. Former Congressman Bob Barr raises this point in his op-ed piece published recently in the Washington Times about the New York surveillance program:

Whether in Bentham's world, or Plato's or Orwell's, the central task is to modify behavior by convincing people that the government — that entity with power over their lives — may be watching them all the time or at any particular time. As 20th-century American philosopher and advocate of personal freedom Ayn Rand noted, taking away a person's privacy renders to the government the ability to control absolutely that person.

Barr also notes studies that have proven this effect on behavior from surveillance.

Among secret wiretaps, Executive Orders that can strip you of your financial assets without even being charged and now a system that can have you hand-cuffed for appearing apprehensive for any reason, one has to wonder if we're now entering a period of the American legal system where suspicious intentions are just as guilty as the crime itself.

Didn't this happen in Minority Report?

Posted by Andrew Davis at 11:01 AM | Comments (14)

August 08, 2007

Executive Order Defies Constitution

A few weeks ago, a startling executive order issued by the President was brought to my attention by an LP member, which despite its odious implications got very little coverage in the national press.

However, the San Francisco Chronicle ran an incredible article on the order three days ago, and I've just stumbled across it.

This far-reaching order of July 17 may be Bush's most brazen defiance of the Constitution, which is no small feat for an administration that thinks it can set its own rules on electronic surveillance, torture, kidnapping, rendition, and the designation of "enemy combatants" who can be arrested on U.S. soil and held indefinitely without judicial review.

The article is probably the best piece I've seen written on the Bush administration to date. Also, this is especially important for all Libertarians, as that you could now have all your assets frozen if the Bush administration considers your donation to our party to be a violent action taken against the war in Iraq.

You can read the full article here. To read the executive order, click here.

Posted by Andrew Davis at 01:01 PM | Comments (12)

August 07, 2007

LP stickers find their way to eBay

Apparently, one of our entrepreneurial members is trying to turn a profit off our "rare" LP stickers. Ahhh, you have to love capitalism.

If you would like our stickers without buying them off of eBay, all members receive these stickers when joining with the party, or renewing a membership.

Posted by Andrew Davis at 11:30 AM | Comments (11)

August 06, 2007

Weapons Missing in Iraq

Just last week, the United States announced a plan giving $20bn. worth of weapons to Middle Eastern countries in order to create an incentive for these countries to "isolate Iran" and to help foster regional stability. These countries include Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and others. Critics both in the United States and abroad were skeptical of how introducing new weaponry into a region constantly in a state of conflict would help with stability. After all, the regulation and tracking of this weaponry isn't exactly what one would call ''top-notch,' and the United States may find itself fighting against the same weapons it had just sold only a few years before.

It appears the concerns were valid.

According to an article published today in the Washington Post, nearly 30 percent of small arms given to Iraq are unaccounted for, and officials in the region are confident some are being used against American soldiers:

One senior Pentagon official acknowledged that some of the weapons probably are being used against U.S. forces. He cited the Iraqi brigade created at Fallujah that quickly dissolved in September 2004 and turned its weapons against the Americans.

But just how many weapons are unaccounted for? Approximately 110,000 AK-47s and 80,000 pistols are not documented. While these are small arms, insurgents use small arms fire to manipulate the route of convoys, often towards pre-planned positions where roadside bombs can be used.

The author of the report from the Government Accountability Office says U.S. military officials do not know what happened to 30 percent of the weapons the United States distributed to Iraqi forces from 2004 through early this year as part of an effort to train and equip the troops. The highest previous estimate of unaccounted-for weapons was 14,000, in a report issued last year by the inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

Pentagon officials said their arms were tied, and there was no way to avoid such things. They claim many of these arms went to equip American-backed, Iraq army units going into battle.

But, the commander argued, "there was, frankly, not much of a choice early on: We had very little staff and could have held the weapons until every piece of the logistical and property accountability system was in place, or we could issue them, in bulk on some occasions, to the U.S. elements supporting Iraqi units who were needed in the battles of Najaf, Fallujah, Mosul, Samarra, etc."

Regardless of excuses, there is no doubt that these tax-payer purchased weapons are now being used against American troops in Iraq, and there seems to be little the United States can do. Additionally, more pressure is mounting on the United States to better equip Iraqi forces, especially as the U.S. wants to push for further independence of these forces from American support. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki made such a request for more weapons this past January. But if the arms the United States is providing to Iraq are funneled to the insurgency, be it through corruption within the Iraqi government or plain negligence on the part of U.S. officials, then is this a good idea?

"They really have no idea where they are," said Rachel Stohl, a senior analyst at the Center for Defense Information who has studied small-arms trade and received Pentagon briefings on the issue. "It likely means that the United States is unintentionally providing weapons to bad actors."

Thus appears yet another Catch 22 of the current debacle we call the Iraqi invasion.

Posted by Andrew Davis at 10:56 AM | Comments (19)