Jon Tester is, to the best of my knowledge, the first member of Congress to complain about FBI’s new investigative guidelines allowing agents to–among other thing–search potential informants’ trash.

As a strong believer in government accountability and person privacy rights, I find it unacceptable that you would lower the threshold further for engaging in surveillance on Americans who are not suspected of criminal wrongdoing. It is unconscionable for FBI to pursue policies that allow agents to search commercial or law enforcement databases–or even an individuals garbage–without adequate justification and proper record-keeping. I ask you to retain your current protocol, where agents must open such inquiries with due diligence before they can search for information. Until law enforcement agents have reason to investigate any American, it is unacceptable for those agents to cast a wide, non-specific net when they are evaluating a target as a potential informant.

I guess the other 534 members of Congress have no problem with the FBI rifling through their trash.

This week is the Canadian Grand Prix at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in Montreal. We will get to that shortly, but perhaps the most significant news from the Circus this week is the swing of F1 from reinstating the Bahrain Grand Prix, which was previously pulled from its season opening slot in mid-March due to civil unrest and corresponding governmental oppression, to again yanking it from the schedule.

The race was called-off Friday after Bahrain International Circuit (BIC) announced its withdrawal to stage the event in the wake of objections from the teams and its drivers. The FIA’s World Motor Sport Council last Friday had re-instated the race to October (28-30) but removal of it now is most likely to make way for the staging of the inaugural Indian Grand Prix on the same dates.

“We will be back to normal. We have to put it to the World Council. I sent something this morning, so it will be quick,” Ecclestone was quoted as saying by The Guardian Wednesday.

Ecclestone, while defending his earlier decision, said the teams had the right to object to the re-scheduling of the race that was cancelled in March due to anti-government protests.

“The truth of the matter is we put the calendar together and the teams race on the calendar,” he said. “We were trying to help Bahrain, who have been very helpful to Formula One, and hoping they could get themselves sorted out.

“I don’t know whether there is peace or not. I have no idea. The FIA sent somebody out to check and they said it was all OK. I think the teams had different information and they have the right to say they don’t want to change the calendar.”

Since not everybody can translate jive, here is the deal. After the Arab Spring uprising in Egypt began in late January and started to spread, there was a brutal crackdown on protesters in Bahrain. A wave of pressure was placed on F1 and its governing body FIA by supporters of the protesters and reform movement to pull the Grand Prix. I certainly doubt I was responsible for diddly squat, but I was among the early suggesters that putting the GP in play would be perhaps the biggest single blow that could be leveraged against the oppressive Bahraini government and the Khalifa clan that owns, runs, and dictates it.

They paid dearly and through the nose to build the facility and buy their way into the F1 schedule and, like the crown jewels to a monarchy, it is the very symbol of their belonging and relevance in the international community. It means everything to them. To Bernie Ecclestone, who does not just run F1, he IS F1, it is simply a giant wad of money. And Bernie likes money. Having seen Bernie in action over three plus decades, and casually meeting him a couple of times, my take is Ecclestone does not care about the Shia, Sunni, Arab Spring, oppression or anything else; the bottom line is his and F1’s deal. So, when Bernie said:

“The FIA sent somebody out to check and they said it was all OK. I think the teams had different information and they have the right to say they don’t want to change the calendar.”

What he meant was he sent someone to make sure the Khalifas had their little civil rights problem sufficiently snuffed out to allow the beautiful people to bring the circus to town. Here is how Foreign Poiicy’s Blake Hounshell aptly described it last Tuesday:

In making its decision, the FIA sent a “fact-finding mission” to Bahrain in late May to determine whether it would be safe to hold the race, which was canceled earlier this year amid the violence. According to Formula 1 chief Bernie Eccelstone, quoted in the Guardian, “The FIA sent people out there to check on the situation, they came back and reported everything is fine.”

The report, a copy of which was provided to FP by the New York-based human rights group Avaaz, was signed by FIA Vice President Carlos Gracia, who traveled to Bahrain on May 30 and May 31 along with an assistant, Carlos Abella.

It appears to be a complete whitewash.

According to the report, Gracia and Abella met with several government officials, including Minister of Culture Mai bint Mohammed al-Khalifa, Interior Minister Rashid bin Abdullah al-Khalifa, Public Security Chief Maj. Gen. Tariq bin Dana, Bahrain International Circuit Chairman Zayed R. al-Zayani, and BIC CEO Salman bin Eissa al-Khalifa — and seem to have accepted their views uncritically.

They also met with Tariq al-Saffar of the pro-grovernment National Institute of Human Rights, who was appointed in 2010 by King Hamad. (Saffar is also managing director of advertising firm Fortune Promoseven, which lists the F1 Grand Prix as a client.)

Gracia and Abella did dine with several unnamed foreign business leaders — a dinner arranged by their government host — but met with zero members of the opposition or with independent rights groups, and did not tour Shiite neighborhoods that have reportedly been under siege for weeks, though they did visit a shopping mall.

And that would have been fine for Ecclestone, but the drivers and teams had other ideas. When F1 constructors – the actual teams – and respected commentators and former drivers like Martin Brundle start jawing that it is a mistake to sully the F1 brand with a trip to the oppressive Bahrain, it starts to leave a mark. Heck even Max Mosely, who has some issues with repressive governments, slammed it as a stupid idea:

“By running the race they hope to show the world the troubles were just a small, temporary difficulty and everything is now back to normal” said the 71-year-old.

“By agreeing to race there, Formula One becomes complicit in what has happened. It becomes one of the Bahrain government’s instruments of repression. The decision to hold the race is a mistake which will not be forgotten and, if not reversed, will eventually cost Formula One dear.”

Ouch. And, so, Bahrain is pulled again. Good; Max Mosely is exactly right in the message and damage that would have been done. If only the US Government and Barack Obama would have the decency and balls to call out their little client oil sultans for who they are and what they are doing. When Max Mosely and Bernie Ecclestone are making you look like moral midgets, it is time to recalibrate. Let’s hope the US does just that.

Now, back to the Canadian Grand Prix that is up on the plate this weekend. As said above, it is at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in Montreal. It is a fast course, but not particularly exciting not overly taxing on the drivers’ skill set. With the new rules and tire situation in place in F1 for 2011, pit ability and strategy could be critical. The walls are also a little tricky and unforgiving, as even Sebastian Vettel found in practice. As seems to truly befit the talent that young Vettel is (seriously, the guy is on a Senna trajectory), he and Red Bull recovered to claim pole. That is six out of seven poles this year for the German, with the remaining one seized by Red Bull teammate Mark Webber. that is pretty dominating.

But Ferrari is getting its act together and closing the competitive gap with the Red Bull boys, with Alonso and Massa taking P2 and P3 respectively. Michael Schumacher, somewhat sadly, continues to be outpaced by fellow Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg, a nice little driver but, unlike Vettel, will never be compared to Senna or Schumacher in his prime. That said, as Brad Spurgeon notes, Michael is certainly not embarrassing himself and, while improved over the initial two years of his “comeback”, his Mercedes equipment is certainly no match for the Red Bulls, Ferraris or McLarens.

The race is broadcast live on Fox instead of SpeedTV this week, with coverage starting at 1 PM EST and 10 AM PST.

[UPDATE: Bloch was sentenced to one month prison, one year probation and 200 hours of community service. His attorney indicated they will appeal, which could be interesting since the plea appears to, on its face, disallow appeal. And the saga of Scott the Blochhead rambles on…..]

Since mid-February an important, but little noticed, criminal case has been playing out in DC District court in which former Bush/Cheney administration Special Counsel Scott Bloch is charged with criminal contempt of Congress pursuant to 2 USC 192. As I summarized in an earlier post:

As you will recall, former former Bush/Cheney Administration Special Counsel Scott Bloch destroyed evidence by wiping government computers clean, lied to Congress about it and conspired with the DOJ to minimize the conduct and slough it off with a sweetheart plea deal. Then, outrageously, when the court indicated it was inclined to impose the mandatory minimum month in jail, which was mandated by the statute Bloch pled guilty to, Bloch and the DOJ conspired to get the plea, which had already been accepted and entered by the court, withdrawn.

When Bloch and DOJ both worked together to get the plea withdrawn, and frustrate justice, the egregious nature of the attempt was documented here in a fully argued and supported post published on Tuesday March 1, 2011. Subsequent to that post, the court also found questions with the attempt to withdraw the plea and ordered Bloch to file a reply supporting the attempt.

At the previous date set for sentencing, on March 14, the court gave Bloch one last shot to brief his way out of the hole he dug for himself and ordered a tight briefing schedule therefore. Bloch filed his Motion for Reconsideration on March 14, The government filed their response, again colluding with Bloch, on March 17, and Bloch filed his reply on March 23.

Late yesterday afternoon, Judge Deborah Robinson ruled on Bloch’s latest attempt to get out of the mandatory incarceration sentence he pled guilty to, and entered her order denying his motion. The court fairly well blasted Bloch’s whining attempt to withdraw and, by extension, the continued craven collusion by the government in said attempt.

First the court gutted the claimed ability of Bloch to have a motion for reconsideration entertained on the merits at all:

In sum, while judges of this court have, on occasion, entertained motions for reconsideration of interlocutory orders in criminal cases, no Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure, or Local Criminal Rule of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, provides for such motions. The undersigned finds that although the pending motion is styled a “Motion to Reconsider[,]” it is effectively an effort “[to] rehash[] previously rejected arguments” regarding both the finding that the offense to which Defendant pled guilty carries a mandatory minimum sentence, and the order denying Defendant’s motion to withdraw his guilty plea.

Undoubtedly Judge Robinson, recognizing the significance of Bloch’s case to both the Executive Branch and Congress, not to mention the defendant himself, wanted to give Bloch every opportunity to make his record. But when decision day came, she followed the law and properly noted the procedural disfavor of such motions as Bloch was proffering. It was smart of Robinson, however, to let Bloch play out the string before so ruling.

And then the court got to the factual merits of Bloch’s argument. To say that the court found no merit in this regard is somewhat of an understatement:

The court finds that Defendant has failed to show that the court “made an error in failing to consider controlling decisions or data[.]” Defendant blithely proclaims that the court “fail[ed] to discuss in its Memorandum Opinion – or even mention – the only two prosecutions in the past twenty years which proceeded under 2 U.S.C. § 192: United States v. Miguel O. Tejada, Cr. 09- mj-077-01, and United States v. Elliot Abrams, Cr.-91-575 (AER)[]” (see Defendant’s Motion for Reconsideration at 4). However, Defendant’s proclamation is belied by the record: the court has, in fact, considered both of those prosecutions

….

The court finds that Defendant’s claim that “the Plea Agreement contemplated eligibility for probation” (Defendant’s Motion for Reconsideration at 4) is equally specious. No such provision is included in the plea agreement; moreover, Defendant “acknowledge[d] that [his] entry of a guilty plea to the charged offense authorizes the sentencing court to impose any sentence, up to and including the statutory maximum sentence, which may be greater than the applicable Guidelines range.”

…..

Finally, the proffer of the advice of counsel, offered, for the first time, through the affidavit of one of the lawyers who represented Defendant (see Affidavit of Ryan R. Sparacino, Esq. (“Sparacino Affidavit”) (Document No. 49-1)), is of no moment.

…..

To the extent which the affidavit of counsel has probative value at all in this context, it is that it serves to highlight the court’s finding that Defendant was aware that the offense to which he pled guilty was one for which a mandatory minimum sentence was provided.

….

Counsel’s advice that the court was not likely to impose the mandatory minimum sentence simply because two other judges apparently had not done so is not

germane to any issue now before the court.

Ouch. That’s going to leave a mark. And that mark should be on the DOJ and its assigned attorney in this case, Glenn Leon, as well. It was nothing short of a craven attempt by the Obama DOJ to collude with a defendant to escape punishment because the administration does not want to have a precedent that – gasp – Executive Branch officials that lie to and are otherwise in contempt of Congress could be sent to prison. Good bet Mr. Tim Geithner is paying close attention to this ruling.

At any rate, Scott Bloch will be sentenced by Judge Robinson on his guilty plea conviction today at 4:00 pm EDT. Bloch will be sentenced to at least one month of prison. He should be sentenced to the full six months that are the upper end of the sentencing guidelines range for his plea, but it is unlikely, under the circumstances, the court will impose more than the mandatory one month.

As we’ve known for years, the May 6, 2004 OLC opinion authorizing the warrantless wiretap program shifted the claimed basis for the program from inherent Article II power to a claim the Afghanistan AUMF trumped FISA.

But one problem with that argument (hard to fathom now that Afghanistan has once again become our main forever war) is to sustain the claim that we were still at war in 2004, given that so many of the troops had been redeployed to Iraq. And to sustain the claim that the threat to the US from al Qaeda was sufficiently serious to justify eviscerating the Fourth Amendment.

So, they used politicized intelligence and (accidentally) propaganda to support it.

Use of the Pat Tillman Propaganda to Support Case of Ongoing War

As I’ve noted, Jack Goldsmith made the unfortunate choice to use an article reporting Pat Tillman’s death as his evidence that the war in Afghanistan was still going on.

Acting under his constitutional authority as Commander in Chief, and with the support of Congress, the President dispatched forces to Afghanistan and, with the cooperation of the Northern Alliance, toppled the Taliban regime from power. Military operations to seek out resurgent elements of the Taliban regime and al Qaeda fighters continue in Afghanistan to this day. See e.g., Mike Wise and Josh White, Ex-NFL Player Tillman Killed in Combat, Wash. Post, Apr. 24, 2004, at A1 (noting that “there are still more than 10,000 U.S. troops in the country and fighting continues against remnants of the Taliban and al Qaeda”).

That article was not really about the ongoing war in Afghanistan; rather, it told a lie, the lie that war hero Pat Tillman had died in combat, rather than in a friendly fire incident.

Pat Tillman, the Arizona Cardinals safety who forfeited a multimillion dollar contract and the celebrity of the National Football League to become a U.S. Army Ranger, was killed in Afghanistan during a firefight near the Pakistan border on Thursday, U.S. officials said yesterday.

Tillman, 27, was killed when the combat patrol unit he was serving in was ambushed by militia forces near the village of Spera, about 90 miles south of Kabul, the Afghan capital. Tillman was hit when his unit returned fire, according to officials at the Pentagon. He was medically evacuated from the scene and pronounced dead by U.S. officials at approximately 11:45 a.m. Thursday. Two other U.S. soldiers were injured and one Afghan solider fighting alongside the U.S. troops was killed.

The death of Tillman, the first prominent U.S. athlete to be killed in combat since Vietnam, cast a spotlight on a war that has receded in the American public consciousness. As Iraq has come into the foreground with daily casualty updates, the military campaign in Afghanistan has not garnered the same attention, though there are still more than 10,000 U.S. troops in the country and fighting continues against remnants of the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Now, I say the choice was unfortunate because, in spite of the fact that Tillman’s commanding officers knew within 24 hours of his death on April 22 that it was a friendly fire incident, in spite of the fact that General Stanley McChrystal sent an urgent memo within DOD on April 29 that the death was probably friendly fire, and in spite of the fact that the White House learned enough about the real circumstances of Tillman’s death by May 1 to make no claims about how he died in a Bush speech, there’s no reason to believe that Jack Goldsmith would have learned how Tillman died until it was publicly announced on May 29, 2004.

In other words, it was just bad luck that Goldsmith happened to use what ultimately became an ugly propaganda stunt as his evidence that the Afghan war was still a going concern.

Producing Scary Memos to Justify Domestic Surveillance

I’m less impressed with the description of the role of threat assessments that we’re beginning to get.

Goldsmith’s memo includes an odd redaction in its description of the threat assessment process.

As the period of each reauthorization nears an end, the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) prepares a memorandum for the President outlining selected current information concerning the continuing threat that al Qaeda poses for conducting attacks in the United States, as well as information describing the broader context of al Qaeda plans to attack U.S. interests around the world. Both the DCI and the [redacted] review that memorandum and sign a recommendation that the President should reauthorize [redacted name of program] based on the continuing threat posed by potential terrorist attacks within the United States. That recommendation is then reviewed by this Office. Based upon the information provided in the recommendation, and also taking into account information available to the President from all sources, this Office assess whether there is a sufficient factual basis demonstrating a threat of terrorist attacks in the United States for it to continue to be reasonable under the standards of the Fourth Amendment for the President to authorize the warrantless involved in [redacted, probably name of program]. [my emphasis]

Now, there are any number of possibilities for the person who, in addition to the DCI, reviewed the threat assessment: John Brennan and others who oversaw the threat assessment are one possibility, David Addington or Dick Cheney are another.

But the IG Report provides another possibility or two that makes this whole passage that much more interesting:

The CIA initially prepared the threat assessment memoranda that were used to support the Presidential Authorization and periodic reauthorizations of the PSP. The memoranda documented intelligence assessments of the terrorist threats to the United States and to U.S. interests abroad from al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist organizations. These assessments were prepared approximately every 45 days to correspond with the President’s Authorizations of the PSP.

The Director of the Central Intelligence’s (DCI) Chief of Staff was the initial focus point for preparing the threat assessment memoranda. According to the former DCI Chief of Staff, he directed CIA terrorism analysts to prepare objective appraisals of the current terrorist threat, focusing primarily on threats to the U.S. homeland, and to document those appraisals in a memorandum. Initially, the analysts who prepared the threat assessments were not read into the PSP and did not know how the threat assessments would be used. CIA’s terrorism analysts drew upon all sources of intelligence in preparing these threat assessments.

After the terrorism analysts completed their portion of the memoranda, the DCI Chief of Staff added a paragraph at the end of the memoranda stating that the individuals and organizations involved in global terrorism (and discussed in the memoranda) possessed the capability and intention to undertake further attacks within the United States. The DCI Chief of Staff recalled that the paragraph was provided to him initially by a senior White House official. The paragraph included the DCI’s recommendation to the President that he authorize the NSA to conduct surveillance activities under the PSP. CIA Office of General Counsel (OGC) attorneys reviewed the draft threat assessment memoranda to determine whether they contained sufficient threat information and a compelling case for reauthorization of the PSP. If either was lacking, an OGC attorney would request that the analysts provide additional threat information or make revisions to the draft memoranda.

[snip]

NCTC personnel involved in preparing the threat assessments [beginning in 2005] told the ODNI OIG that the danger of a terrorist attack described in the threat assessments was sobering and “scary,” resulting in the threat assessments becoming known by ODNI and IC personnel involved in the PSP as the “scary memos.” [my emphasis]

This passage names one entity personally who reviewed what would later become known as the “scary memos:” the Office of General Counsel. Of course it also mentions an unidentified “senior White House official” (remember, there was a classified version of this report that might have described who it was in more detail) who provided the DCI’s Chief of Staff with the language to use for the authorization.

It’s the function of OGC here I find particularly interesting (and which might provide a reason why DOJ chose to redact mention of OGC’s rule on Goldsmith’s memo): lawyers at CIA reviewed the threat assessment “to determine whether they contained … a compelling case for reauthorization of the PSP. If [such a case] was lacking, an OGC attorney would request that the analysts provide additional threat information make revisions to the draft memoranda.”

So let’s be clear what these two descriptions of the scary memos tell us. It is clear that the entire claim that surveillance in the US was justified was based on the argument that there were dangerous people here in the US who were plotting attacks, in the US. It seems that, either for PR reasons or legal ones (heh), the White House (or maybe DOJ) took this requirement pretty seriously. The IG Report invokes the possibility that “a case for reauthorization” might be “lacking,” suggesting someone, at least, wanted to see proof of the threat.

But look at what constituted that proof.

First, a bunch of CIA analysts were asked to do “objective analysis” of the current terrorist threat, focusing on threats to the “US homeland.” These analysts, at least for some time, had no idea how their report would be used. After they prepared the report, the DCI COS slapped language that Cheney Addington someone at the White House had told them to slap onto the report, presumably creating the incorrect documentary appearance that the analysts who did the “objective analysis” had bought off on the conclusion that the terrorists they had discussed had the “capability and intention” to commit further attacks in the US, all of which justified vacuuming up all the international phone traffic coming into the US.

Apparently, on at least some occasions, the “objective analysis” did not sufficiently back up the claims slapped on courtesy of Cheney Addington someone at the White House; it was OGC’s job to make sure it did. Mind you, if the “objective analysis” did not back up the conclusion, OGC did not issue a report saying, “sorry, Cheney, you’re going to have stop wiretapping Americans,” but instead, they found information to fluff out the request. Perhaps they went back to the “objective analysts” and told them they had to fearmonger some more about domestic threats. Perhaps they simply “ma[de] revisions” to the “objective analysis” themselves. [Update: Mary has convinced me I misread this–that the analysts, not the OGC lawyers–would make the changes.]

But the result was, apparently, that every time the program was up for renewal, CIA produced a report that claimed there was sufficient danger to the US domestically that they had to continue wiretapping Americans.

As Goldsmith describes, there was one more level of review done within OLC. OLC, you see, did not limit itself to what appeared in writing in the scary memos. Instead, it sometimes supplemented the threats described in the scary memos by considering “information available to the President from all sources.” Nothing says the additional information that came from the President was ever documented. Or vetted by actual intelligence professionals. But OLC could and apparently did invoke it in finding the warrantless wiretapping program necessary.

This is, Goldsmith tells us, the review process they used to ensure “relevant constitutional standards of reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment.”

It was, of course, a classic case of politicized intelligence, a Team B operating in secret, serving as the only check on abuse of the Fourth Amendment.

“All Sources,” Including Tortured Confessions

The IG Report says the “objective” analysts “drew upon all sources of intelligence” to write their scary memos.

Goldsmith says OLC also took “into account information available to the President from all sources.”

And he also says this:

As explained in more detail below, since the inception of [redacted program name] intelligence from various sources (particularly from interrogations of detained al Qaeda operatives) has provided a continuing flow of information indicating that al Qaeda has had, and continues to have, multiple redundant plans for executing further attacks within the United States. These strategies are at various stages of planning and execution, and some have been disrupted. They include plans for [several lines redacted; my emphasis]

Ahem.

Before I point out the obvious problem with relying “particularly” on detainee interrogations to justify the illegal wiretap program, let me note that the passage where Goldsmith “explain[s] in more detail below” the intelligence that has justified the scary memos does not appear in the unredacted parts of the memo. So between the several lines redacted here, and what must be Goldsmith’s more extensive discussion redacted somewhere else in this memo, there’s a whole bunch of alleged threats to the US that DOJ doesn’t really want us to read.

But we don’t have to guess, entirely, at what kind of threats to the US the scary memos were reporting that detainees had said. We can refer to one of Dick Cheney’s two favorite reports on detainee reporting, the report “Khalid Sheikh Muhammad: Preeminent Source on Al-Qa’ida” released on July 17, 2004, not long after Goldsmith wrote this memo. Here’s what that report said about threats to the US:

KSM steadfastly maintains that his overriding priority was to strike the United States but says that immediately after 11 September he realized that a follow-on attack in the United States would be difficult because of new security measures. As a result, KSM’s plots against the US homeland from late 2001 were opportunistic and limited, including a plot to fly a hijacked plane into the tallest building on the US West Coast and a plan to send al-Qa’ida operative and US citizen Jose Padilla to set off bombs in high-rise apartment buildings in a US city.

[snip]

Striking the United States. Despite KSM’s assertion that a post-11 September attack in the United States would be difficult because of more stringent security measures, he has admitted to hatching a plot in late 2001 to use Jemaah Islamiya (JI) operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into the tallest building on the US West Coast. From late 2001 until early 2003, KSM also conceived several low-level plots, including an early 2002 plan to send al-Qa’ida operative and US citizen Jose Padilla to set off bombs in high-rise apartment buildings in an unspecified major US city and an early 2003 plot to employ a network of Pakistanis–including Iyman Faris and Majid Khad–to target gas stations, railroad tracks, and the Brooklyn Bridge in New York. KSM has also spoken at length about operative Ja’far al-Tayyar, admitting that al-Qa’ida had tasked al-Tayyar to case targets in New York City in 2001.

[snip]

KSM stated that he had planned a second wave of hijacking attacks even before September 2001 but shifted his aim from the United States to the United Kingdom because of the United States’ post-11 September security posture and the British Government’s strong support for Washington’s global war on terror.

So the guy whom Dick Cheney himself considered to be the best detainee source on al Qaeda’s plans at the time Goldsmith wrote this memo said that the threats to the US consisted of the Library Tower plot that was canceled before 2002, Jose Padilla’s purported dirty bomb plot that ultimately amounted to filling out an application to join al Qaeda by the time it got to the courts, Iyman Faris’ plot to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch, and Ja’far al-Tayyar, who may have cased NY subways three years before Goldsmith wrote the memo (and ultimately may have had ties with Najibullah Zazi). But actually–Cheney’s favorite detainee source kept insisting–he had given up on attacking the US, and had instead focused on the UK.

Nevertheless, detainee reporting like this served as one particularly important source, Goldsmith tells us, for the scary memos that created the justification for illegally wiretapping American citizens.

One more thing. Goldsmith published this report on May 6, 2004. The very next day, CIA’s Inspector General would publish the report that Goldsmith had been discussing for weeks, which showed, among other things, that CIA’s “preeminent source” had been waterboarded 183 times. CIA’s IG would also raise questions about the efficacy of the intelligence (though he did say it revealed plots in the US). Goldsmith knew of the problems in the detainee interrogation program when he wrote about the role of detainee interrogations in this memo.

They tortured the detainees to get claims of plots against the US. And then–even though the detainees insisted they had stopped planning against the US–they used intelligence about canceled or absurd plots to write scary memos so they could continue to use their illegal wiretap program. Mind you, now they use entrapment to do the same thing. But back in the day KSM’s tortured confessions gave Dick Cheney his excuse to wiretap you.

Thought I’d share some pics from the rally today in Lansing. It’s a decent sized crown–6,000 around noon; they expect to get a whole bunch of teachers out for the last set of speakers at 4:30.

Here’s the crowd just outside of the Capitol in Lansing. Lots of signs about the Constitution protesting the Emergency Financial Manager law.

Look who showed up to Lansing to control Rick Snyder?

The mitten they’re afraid of.

Obviously, this one isn’t from the rally. I took it while I was walking McCaffrey the MilleniaLab this morning. But I thought I’d share it because it seemed like such a hopeful omen and because it gives you a sense of what a magical spring day it is today. You could literally hear the sap dripping into the buckets.

I have some pretty cool souls in my ‘hood. And more than one rock star. But none bigger than Alice Cooper. He is actually much different that most people think; a great father, a community leader in several ways (some pretty public, some not really known as well), producer of the spring play for the local grade school, and a guy I often have seen at school functions where our kids go.

Oh, and he has been one kick ass rock and roll motherfucker since, well, a long, long time ago. First time I saw him, I was a kid and my mother, who was a high school teacher, took me to a school dance where a band called the Spiders played. They went on to become Alice Cooper and the Billion Dollar Babies.

Tonight Alice was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Long overdue. Cheers and salute dude!

Remember when that ignorant fool opined, “They hate us for our freedoms”?

As one American still ashamed by that comment, let me thank Egypt for such an amazing display of what freedom is about. Congratulations!

May it inspire those of us watching from America to reclaim our own democracy.

Well, it is here. The most exciting weekend of the pro football calendar, divisional playoff weekend. And I am posting Trash a little early, because otherwise Marcy was threatening to post this music video (Danger Will Robinson Danger!!) which clearly would have been traumatic for the entire universe. So having prevented said disaster, let us proceed to the nitty gritty.

By the way, before we get to the games, I want to make sure that everybody is familiar with the newest star on the Patriots, Danny Woodcock.

First game on Saturday is Baltimore at Pittsburgh. Black versus Blue (okay, purple). You know the drill here by now, and there is nothing new. Big Ben and Hines Ward against Ray Lewis, Terrell Suggs and Ed Reed on the one hand and Joe Flacco, Ray Rice and Anquan Boldin against James Harrison and Troy Polamalu on the other. They are all ready to rumble. The Steelers have won the last six games with the Ravens when Big Ben has been on the field, but the cheeky pick seems to be the Ravens. Not here; Steelers win at home.

The late game on Saturday is Green Bay at Atlanta. This is flat out tough to call. Both Aaron Rodgers and Matt Ryan are playing lights out. There are two prime considerations though. The Pack defense has jelled into an awfully solid and imposing unit, but the Dirty Birds rarely lose in their home dome. The Pack has a new star running back, James Starks, who set a franchise rookie playoff record with 123 yards last weekend. Hey, how about a shout out to Donald Driver, one of the good guys and long time underappreciated great receivers in the league for a long, long time. The guy just keeps getting it done. The Falcons have Burner Turner who has been rumblin through foes as usual. I have no idea who will win this, but since I have to choose, I am going with my childhood favorite team, the Packers.

First up Sunday is the SeaSquawks at………Da Bears. Seattle is a huge underdog here. Brian Urlacher and the Bears defense are back to Monsters of the Midway mentality and swagger. Jay Cutler has quietly become much more efficient and less error prone under Mike Martz. The difference I see here is the weapons other than quarterbacks (Matt Hasselbeck played lights out last weekend in the upset over the Saints). In that department, I actually like the Squawks skill people on offense better than the Bears counterparts on offense. But I like the Bears defense better. I know I am going to regret this, but I am taking Seattle in an upset.

The last game of the weekend is the one everybody is waiting for. Yep, it is Wes Welker’s FOOTball game, where all the FEET play FOOTball. Bieber Brady has just got it all over young Mark Sanchez. The Pats defense has really come into its own over the course of the season, which you knew it would under Bill Bel. Where has the Jets running game gone?? LT has disappeared and Shon Greene is out. Here is the deal, since Rex Pyan has been the Jets’ coach, the home team has won every game in this series. The Pats are at home. And there is that Brady thing (not to mention tom is undoubtedly a little geeked up by all the chattering the Jets have been doing. The Jets just cannot keep up with the Pats; Pats win.

That’s it folks, lets rock and roll. By the way, the music is something I think a lot of you have probably never heard, Arthur Lee and Love with a song called Between Clark and Hilldale which is the location of the old Whiskey a Go Go in West LA. Love was a regular act there back in the day. It is very different and I think you will really like it.

The UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights’ Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression issued a statement Wednesday laying out several principles parties should keep in mind in regards to WikiLeaks.

It balances the importance of journalists’ self-regulation to weigh the public interest of classified material against public authorities’ responsibility to protect their own classified information; it is not an unlimited endorsement of WikiLeaks.

But it does have this to say, which (particularly given that I was listening to Garry Wills’ Bomb Power as I drove across the Rust Belt yesterday) really resonated with me:

The right to access information held by public authorities is a fundamental human right subject to a strict regime of exceptions. The right to access to information protects the right of every person to access public information and to know what governments are doing on their behalf. It is a right that has received particular attention from the international community, given its importance to the consolidation, functioning and preservation of democratic regimes. Without the protection of this right, it is impossible for citizens to know the truth, demand accountability and fully exercise their right to political participation. National authorities should take active steps to ensure the principle of maximum transparency, address the culture of secrecy that still prevails in many countries and increase the amount of information subject to routine disclosure. [my emphasis]

Mind you, the statement does take the necessity of protecting information that could cause substantial harm to national security with its release quite seriously. But only after first laying the foundation of knowing what your government is doing in your name.

I was somewhat agnostic about this latest WikiLeaks dump when it began. I wasn’t sure whether–particularly given WikiLeaks’ efforts to redact harmful information–this dump would be all that useful. But as we go on, I’m more and more convinced of its importance. Not just because revelations of our bullying of the Germans and Spaniards to back off of torture prosecutions and (in the case of Germany) to sacrifice its citizens’ privacy to unfettered American access might pressure those countries to stand up to us in the name of rule of law. Not just because of revelations about how corporations–like Pfizer in Nigeria–and the Church–in Venezuela and elsewhere–drive our foreign policy. Not just for the way our country has a seeming obsession with Michael Moore’s films.

But because at a time when our country is returning to a perennial debate about whether or not we are an exceptional country–the bestest!–we need to see what the wizard behind the curtains of that purported exceptionalism really looks like.

All the ugly things WikiLeaks has revealed our government has been doing behind the curtain of diplomacy? They’ve been doing those things in our name. They’ve been invoking us when they did those ugly things.

And we deserve to know what they’ve been doing in our names.

In the race to see which would be discounted more quickly, Cheney’s freedom won out over cheap Chinese toys at Christmas season: the final price for Cheney’s freedom is $35 million.

Oilfield contractor Halliburton has agreed to pay Nigeria $35 million to settle bribery allegations that led to charges against former Vice President Dick Cheney and other executives, the company announced Tuesday.

But Halliburton also agreed to help Nigeria get the $130 million bribe sitting in a Swiss bank account.

Halliburton also agreed tp help Nigeria recover money from a Swiss bank account set up by a former agent for its Nigerian joint venture TSKJ, the company said. Nigerian officials said as much as $130 million had been stashed in Switzerland.

Which suggests that Mary’s take on this — that it was all about the $130 million in Switzerland — was spot on.