The Lead Rubber Ducky in Grover's Bathtub
There's an interesting case study going on over at the Senate Commerce Committee. The Committee is trying to write legislation to return the Consumer Product Safety Commission to its former strength so it can prevent things like lead-filled toys from entering the toddler chew chain. Yet the Commission's acting head, Nancy Nord, is trying to preserve the Norquistian "ideal" of small government--she's objecting to Senate plans to give her Commission more
Blackwater Guards Given Immunity from Prosecution
I pointed out the other day that several of the Blackwater guards involved in the September 16 shooting have left Iraq. Now bmaz points to this AP story revealing that all the guards have been given immunity from prosecution.
The State Department promised Blackwater USA bodyguards immunityfrom prosecution in its investigation of last month's deadly shootingof 17 Iraqi civilians, The Associated Press has learned.
[snip]
Three senior law enforcement officials said all the Blackwaterbodyguards
Exxon Would Like to be Excused
Back when I taught, at the beginning of the school year each year the school would hand professors a description of the incoming freshman class so the professors could understand what world their students were coming from. It usually read something like:
2007: This year's incoming freshmen were born in 1989.
The top TV series for most of these students' teen years was American Idol.
These students matured after the first big judgments against
We've Seen This Before
Kagro X has a post focusing, again, on Michael Mukasey's evasions about the Constitution. Kagro focuses not on Mukasey's confusion about whether water-boarding is torture, but whether the President can ignore existing laws.
Any president -- and I mean any president -- ought to beable to depend on a certain amount of deference from his or herAttorney General, of course.
McConnell's Earmarks
I'm less interested in the local angle on Mitch McConnell's placement of earmarks to benefit BAE in this year's defense appropriations bill than what it says about our military industrial complex.
Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is pushing $25 million in earmarkedfederal funds for a British defense contractor that is under criminalinvestigation by the U.S.
Patrick Philbin
SJC will meet on Wednesday to take up SSCI's FISA Amendment. We'll get to see whether the Administration has sufficiently satisfied Scottish Haggis and Patrick Leahy to get the bill through committee with the telecom immunity still attached.
But there may be other reason to tune in, something I noticed on Selise's weekly Congressional hearing schedule:
Panel I:
Kenneth L.
Funny Money
Atrios provides some crack former econ professor analysis on the dollar ...
WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Dollar sinking.Thedollar fell as low as $1.4426 per euro, the weakest since theintroduction of the 13-nation common currency in 1999, before tradingat $1.4420 as of 6:29 a.m. in Tokyo from $1.4393 in late New York onOct. 26.
Update on Gaming Intelligence to Justify War
I wasn't so disturbed by the news that DNI Mike McConnell had decided to reverse the recent practice of producing unclassified Key Judgments from an NIE ... until I read Scott Horton's take on it.
Michael McConnell started his first two months on the job with asolid record for candor and accuracy.
The Dodge on Retroactive Immunity
Okay. This will serve as a summary of my analysis of the SSCI report on their FISA bill and to show how the SSCI managed to convince themselves to give retroactive immunity to the telecoms. Thus far, I have shown that:This report suggests that the Authorization to Use Military Force was central to the enactment of Bush's illegal warrantless wiretap program.The report claims they need to give telecoms immunity because, since
Minimization, the Whitehouse Way
Back from my pancake and sausage-inducted coma! Mmm pancakes. I've got just two more points about this SSCI report, then I'll let it drop and go clean the house.
A lot of people have been asking why Sheldon Whitehouse voted for the SSCI bill on FISA, even though it offers the telecoms retroactive immunity.
Why Do They Need to Spy on Americans Overseas without a Warrant?
Mr. emptywheel has started on the pancakes, finally, but I've got time for one more post.
According to public reports, Bush has threatened to veto SSCI's FISA bill as written. That's because of an amendment submitted by Ron Wyden which requires the Administration to obtain a FISA warrant if they want to wiretap an American overseas.
Shorter SSCI: The Immunity Is Really for Qwest
Nope. Mr. emptywheel hasn't made me my pancakes yet.
SSCI's report on the FISA Amendment uses remarkable logic for their justification for retroactive immunity.
It argues that, because the Administration has invoked State Secrets in all the suits against the telecoms, the poor telecoms cannot mount any kind of defense--cannot even prove their innocence, in the case of companies that refused to participate in the warrantless wiretap program.
They're Using AUMF in Their Justification for Warrantless Wiretapping
I'm going to have a whole slew of posts on this SSCI report on their FISA bill(you'll all be hoping mr. emptywheel gets up and distracts me withpancakes, no doubt). In this post, I want to show the language thereport uses to privilege the Authorization to Use Military Force. In it's description of the basis for the program, the report depicts the warrantless wiretapping program as distinctly military.
TheNSA program was described
The FISA Report
Laura links to a CQ story based on this SSCI report on FISA. As Starks noted in his CQ article, the report reveals that the telecom companies did not have the requisite approval from the Attorney General for the period following the hospital confrontation; rather, they had White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales' approval.
The committee’s published report on legislation (S 2248) that wouldrewrite the rules for government surveillance states thattelecommunications companies participating
About that Need for a Whistleblower Law...
I believe it was just the other day when I was saying it was more urgent to implement whistleblower protection than to write a new journalist shield law. This doesn't change my opinion in that regard.
This summer the House Judiciary Committee launched an effortto collect tips from would-be whistleblowers in the Justice Department.The U.S.
The Wilkes Firestorm
Chrisc, who thankfully made it safely through the San Diego fires, didn't let them distract her from the matter at hand: the Wilkes trial. Mark Geragos took the opportunity of a big natural disaster to sneak his client onto the stand to testify--apparently taking the government by surprise. I'll review a few of the details, but I'd like to compare the account of Seth Hettena and that of Allison Hoffman.
Hot and Cold Running Classification
According to the NYT, the White House has very generously allowed the entire SJC to view the documents justifying the domestic wiretapping program--at least that's what Tony Fratto says.
The White House on Thursday offered to share secret documents on the National Security Agency’sdomestic surveillance program with the Senate Judiciary Committee, astep toward possible compromise on eavesdropping legislation.
Razed
Okay, I mean this to be an honest question. The NYT has scary pictures up--courtesy of William Broad, who was glued to Judy's hip on Mobile Bioweapons Lab stories in summer 2003--showing that the purported nuclear reactor the Israelis took out in Syria has been razed to the ground.
That offers proof, the accompanying article states, that the Syrians were up to no good, and that the bombed site was a nuclear
Trying to Peel the Haggis
The White House must be trying to peel Scottish Haggis away from the Democrats on the SJC who oppose granting the telecoms immunity for illegally spying on citizens. Why else show Leahy and Specter the family jewels--the justification for the domestic wiretap program--without sharing them with the rest of SJC?
The White House has offered leaders of the Senate JudiciaryCommittee access to legal documents related to the National SecurityAgency’s warrantless surveillance program,
Shorter GOP: It's Okay if Maliki's Govt Supports Insurgents, So Long as It's Not OUR Money
I'd like to return to an interchange between Waxman and Condi from the hearing today. Condi made a verygenerousoffer to let Waxman's committee review documents pertaining to corruption. Waxman pointed out that that offer did not allow the committee to discuss what it discovered in those documents publicly.
He raised the example of whether Iraqis were laundering money for use in militias.
