Whoops, it was on the Army not planning to leave thread.

Posted by: Malooga | Aug 16 2007 15:03 utc | 3

coverage slant on the following depends on your location
lagos’ this day: Nigeria: Chevron to Face Trial in U.S. Over Nigeria Killings

In a landmark development which could open the door for a flood of lawsuits against oil companies operating in the country, Chevron Nigeria Ltd is to stand trial later this year in the United States for the alleged murder of villagers in the Niger Delta region in two separate incidents in 1998 and 1999.
In a series of ruling issued yesterday, the United States (US) District Court Judge in San Francisco, Susan Illston, ruled that Chevron was directly involved in the alleged attacks by acting in consonance with Nigerian government security forces, paving the way for a trial which the company had made spirited attempts to avoid for eight years.
The lawsuit was brought against Chevron eight years ago in San Francisco Federal Court by nine Nigerian plaintiffs for alleged deaths and other abuses in the two incidents in 1998 and 1999. The plaintiffs assert claims ranging from torture to wrongful death.
According to information made available to THISDAY, Judge Illston “found evidence that CNL [Chevron Nigeria Limited] personnel were directly involved in the attacks; CNL transported the GSF [Nigerian government security forces], CNL paid the GSF; and CNL knew that GSF were prone to use excessive force.”
The report alleged that the crime occurred when the Nigerian Military and Police were paid by Chevron to shoot and torture protesters opposed to the company’s activities in the troubled region. Chevron helicopters and boats were used by the security forces, resulting in torture and wrongful death, it further alleged.
The said evidence, the Judge said, will allow a jury to find that Chevron knew the attacks would happen and supported the military’s plan.
“We’re pleased that our clients will finally get justice for Chevron’s crimes,” said the plaintiffs’ counsel Theresa Traber, partner at Traber & Voorhees.
Continuing, she said, “Chevron conspired with and paid the notorious Nigerian military to attack our clients and their loved ones, murdering at least seven people, torturing others and burning two villages to the ground. The court correctly refused to let narrow legalistic excuses allow Chevron to escape responsibility for these brutal attacks.”
…
Mr. Oronto Douglas, Deputy Director of Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria and one of the lawyers representing the case here in Nigeria, told THISDAY last night that the decision is a “demonstration that there is no hiding place for corporate criminals.” He saluted “the courage, the forthrightness, the clarity and the firmness of the pronouncements of the judge. This is a lesson to other corporations who think they can ride roughshod over defenceless communities who live on lands where vital resources are in abundance. The judgment also indicates that there is hope for other communities in other parts of the Niger Delta where environmental vandalism and human rights abuses have gone on without redress.”
Chevron officials in Nigeria did not make any comments when contacted last night.

l.a. times: Chevron to face human rights suit

A U.S. judge ruled that a lawsuit claiming Chevron Corp. violated human rights in Nigeria should proceed, throwing out some charges against the U.S. oil company but leaving the centerpiece of the plaintiffs’ case intact.
A group of Nigerians filed suit against Chevron in May 1999, charging that Chevron Nigeria recruited Nigerian military and police personnel to fire weapons on Nigerians staging a protest at a Chevron oil platform in 1998, killing two.
The group also claims that the San Ramon, Calif.-based company was complicit in an attack on two villages in the Niger Delta, during which at least four villagers were killed.
Judge Susan Illston of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California gave summary judgment Tuesday in favor of Chevron on some issues, throwing out, for instance, claims of property damage by the villagers.
But the judge allowed wrongful-death and other suits to proceed and reinstated some human rights claims against Chevron.
“A jury could conclude that Chevron Nigeria Ltd. had the power to hire, supervise and train the government security forces, and that Chevron Nigeria Ltd. did so, or failed to do so, negligently,” Illston said in one order.
She said a jury could also conclude that the company’s hiring and failure to train the security forces were a proximate cause of the alleged injuries.
Chevron has denied involvement in the incidents, has said it wasn’t liable for militia actions and has disputed parts of the Nigerians’ accounts.

Posted by: b real | Aug 16 2007 15:12 utc | 5

Feds Train Clergy To “Quell Dissent” During Martial Law

In May 2006, we exposed the existence of a nationwide FEMA program which is training Pastors and other religious representatives to become secret police enforcers who teach their congregations to “obey the government” in preparation for the implementation of martial law, property and firearm seizures, mass vaccination programs and forced relocation.

Also see, Freaky News Report About Clergy Used In US Martial Law
Praise Jesus! Now get in your box car.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 16 2007 15:32 utc | 7

Saw this just today:
9/11/07 General Strike
If it has been discussed earlier, I have missed it. So is the thought of a general strike getting traction, are people planning to participate?

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Aug 16 2007 17:10 utc | 9

Duh, thats were I read it first! Thought it seemed familiar 🙂
Anyway, I just saw this video:
Cheney’s neighbors topple him in protest

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Aug 16 2007 17:26 utc | 11

piero gleijeses: Remembering Cuba’s Sacrifice for African Liberation

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the opening of the battle of Cuito Cuanavale, in south-eastern Angola, which pitted the armed forces of apartheid South Africa against the Cuban army and Angolan forces. General Magnus Malan writes in his memoirs that this campaign marked a great victory for the South African Defense Force (SADF). But Nelson Mandela could not disagree more: Cuito Cuanavale, he asserted, “was the turning point for the liberation of our continent – and of my people – from the scourge of apartheid.”
Debate over the significance of Cuito Cuanavale has been intense, partly because the relevant South African documents remain classified. I have, however, been able to study files from the closed Cuban archives as well as many US documents. Despite the ideological divide that separates Havana and Washington, their records tell a remarkably similar story.
Let me review the facts briefly. …

Posted by: b real | Aug 16 2007 17:43 utc | 13

guilty on all counts Jose Padilla American Citizen.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 16 2007 18:31 utc | 15

This is somehow ridiculous too:
Iraqi leader announces new alliance

The Iraqi prime minister and president announced a new alliance of moderate Shiites and Kurds in a push to save the crumbing government Thursday, saying a key Sunni bloc refused to join but the door remained open to them.
…
At the news conference announcing the accord, al-Maliki was flanked by President Jalal Talabani, the leader of the northern autonomous Kurdish region, elder statesman Massoud Barzani and Shiite Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi.

The four men signed a three-page agreement they said ensures them a majority in the 275-member parliament that would allow action on legislation demanded by the U.S.

Ok – the major goal of building a new coalition, without any Sunni arab voice, was to get a majority (which isn’t one) to yeah to US “demanded” legislation?!

What a muppet show …

Posted by: b | Aug 16 2007 19:12 utc | 17

what kind of world is this when it is almost impossible to find a media that can tell the story, the most important developments in venezuela this week with the changes in the constitution
b real – if you could link to a site you have referred to a number of times – i think it is by an american living in caracas
sick as i am these stupid fucks whether it is french tv, al jazeera or bbc with their banal but brutal bias bores the living fuck out of me

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Aug 16 2007 23:36 utc | 19

hahahahahahaha, uh, ahhh, hahahahahaha…
excuse me, while I go puke now…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 17 2007 2:17 utc | 21

The White House is generous!
US rushing $100k in quake aid to Peru

“In consultation with the US ambassador to Peru, USAID is providing an initial $US100,000 in funds to be used for immediate emergency needs of those affected by the quake,” said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

Posted by: b | Aug 17 2007 4:40 utc | 23

Is this how it starts?
Right There on the Tarmac, the Inmates Revolt

By JOE SHARKEY
Published: August 14, 2007
ON July 29, Continental Flight 1669, a 737-700 with about 120 passengers aboard, was bound for Newark from Caracas, Venezuela, when bad weather caused the plane to be diverted to Baltimore. It sat there for about five hours with passengers on board as food and water ran low and toilets became filthy.
Since Dec. 29, there have been hundreds of reports of passengers unable to get off parked airplanes for 6, 8 and even 12 hours. Just last weekend, for example, a Customs computer breakdown at Los Angeles International Airport stranded more than 17,000 international passengers on planes, some for more than 10 hours.
But what made the Continental flight somewhat different was that passengers organized and protested by clapping in rhythm and drumming on overhead bins. Finally, the pilot, worried about mayhem, called the police.
“People were clapping, but nobody got out of hand,” said Israel Niezen, a developer of interactive media who was returning to his home near Los Angeles through Newark when Flight 1669 was diverted to Baltimore Washington International Airport.
“We wanted answers, rather than mixed signals,” Mr. Niezen said. “Some people were getting sick. The flight attendants were understanding, except for one older one who got on the public-address system when the drumming started and told us we were destroying airline property and we were all going to be arrested.”
Jonathan O. Dean, a spokesman for the Maryland Aviation Administration, confirmed that police officers from the airport agency and United States Customs officers boarded the plane about 6 p.m.
“Apparently the pilot radioed and asked for some assistance; I guess the passengers were becoming angry after having sat for a number of hours,” he said. The police, he said, “assessed the situation and worked with the airport” to offload the passengers into a secure area until the plane was cleared to take off for Newark.
About 70 passengers signed a petition, later attached to a letter to Continental written by Mr. Niezen. “We did not have water, food, toilet paper” on the plane, the letter said. “The toilets were clogged and completely unsanitary. Moreover, there were a number of children and older and special-needs passengers, including a diabetic and a pregnant woman, who desperately needed attention.”
In a statement, Continental said there was “no question, the flight took a lot longer than planned because of the diversion.” The fact that the flight was international caused further complications, since passengers could not just be released into a terminal. The toilets on the plane were always operating and the waiting area had “chips and pretzels and water,” the airline said, adding: “Assistance was provided to customers with special needs, including a sandwich for a diabetic customer and wheelchairs for everyone who needed one.”
As passengers described it, once the police ordered the plane emptied, they filed out into the secure area, where some said they felt as if they were being treated like suspects.
“As we walked down the hallway, we were yelled at like we were scary criminals by this female cop who had a dog. She kept yelling: ‘Stay against the wall!’ ” Mr. Niezen said.
While he and other passengers credited the officers who boarded the plane with quickly assessing the situation and removing the passengers, in the waiting area it was a different story, they said.
“We had to negotiate” with airline agents to obtain wheelchairs for passengers needing them, said Caroline Murray, a community organizer from Amherst, Mass.
One of the officers “told us the report they got was that passengers were violent and out of control,” Ms. Murray said.
After the plane finally arrived in Newark about 7 p.m., passengers desperate to rebook missed connections said they hit a wall of indifference.
“At Newark, the service just got worse,” Mr. Niezen said. “People were shouting at us. One agent told Caroline Murray to shut up about her connecting flight.”
Ms. Murray said she stood at a counter behind Mr. Niezen, who was vehemently insisting on being rebooked that night. “They made him say he was sorry before he could continue speaking to someone,” she said. When she got to the front of the line and complained about inattentive service, one of the men behind the counter called her a derogatory name, she said. A spokesman for Continental declined to comment on those accusations.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 17 2007 7:54 utc | 25

Floyd: “We are all Jose Padilla now.”
Also, wanna talk about some bizarre o creepy shit, that I just ran across, Jose Padilla Jury Shows Up Dressed in Red, White and Blue ; The jurors showed up on July 3rd in celebration of Independence Day? And that wasn’t the first time the jury has dressed up either. Between this, Libby’s Valentine’s Day weirdness, (See, Leak jury thanks judge on Valentines Day ) Bush and his Kodachrome tie*, and the whole republican red tie thing, –the recent yellow tie thing–the point about the jurors in the Padilla and the Libby trials is utterly bizarre. There might be mundane explanations but at first sight the Padilla story has echoes of Twin Peaks-style weirdness. The Libby trial story sounds just plain nasty at first read.
You guys remember Bush’s speech and the weird blue light and shirt as well as his hypnotizing necktie during his New Orleans press conf even billmon mentioned something about it, like something out of the twilight zone. Or better some kind of creepy psychological/psyop shit.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 17 2007 9:32 utc | 27

Asia Times: U.S. STeps Closer to War With Iran

Posted by: Bea | Aug 17 2007 12:19 utc | 29

US Considering Terror Label for Eritrea

WASHINGTON (AP) – The United States is considering designating the Red Sea state of Eritrea a “state sponsor of terrorism” for its alleged support of Islamist militants in Somalia, the top U.S. diplomat for Africa said Friday.
The State Department is now compiling data to legally back up such a move, which would impose severe sanctions on the impoverished nation and put it on the same diplomatic blacklist as Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria and Sudan, said Jendayi Frazer, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs.
…
The designation, which is rarely used, is nearly a diplomatic death sentence and mandates a wide range of U.S. economic and financial sanctions. The last country added to the list was Sudan in 1993.

As Atrios remarked, Eritrea was a member of the higly praised “coalition of the willing” …
Then again, the U.S. is now best friend with the dictatorship in landlocked Ethiopia which wants to regain access to the seas, preferable by annectating Eritrea (and killing its people if nessessary.)

Posted by: b | Aug 17 2007 15:16 utc | 31

Just getting back after following Uncle $cam’s link 26 above.
It’s quite a good read, thanks Uncle.

Posted by: jonku | Aug 18 2007 0:21 utc | 33

re #31
more harassment & intimidation of eritrea by the u.s., plus it takes headlines away from the human rights watch rpt condemning ethiopian war crimes in mogadishu.
here’s the DoS transcript from frazier’s briefing
On-The-Record Briefing On U.S.-Eritrea Relations

QUESTION: So I’m just slightly confused. So you say you don’t want to go down this route, but you are looking at it? So it’s right to say you are considering putting Eritrea on the State Sponsor list?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY FRAZER: It is right to say that we are considering that if they continue their behavior and if we get the file that — you know, through the evidence, that — you know, we can go through our interagency process and make that determination. That determination hasn’t been made at this point, but it is absolutely part of the consideration. And the primary reason is not because of U.S. relations with Eritrea, but because of what’s going on in Somalia.

the hypocrisy in that briefing is sickening

Posted by: b real | Aug 18 2007 5:00 utc | 35

McClatchey: Commerce, Treasury funds helped boost GOP campaigns

Top Commerce and Treasury Departments officials appeared with Republican candidates and doled out millions in federal money in battleground congressional districts and states after receiving White House political briefings detailing GOP election strategy.
Political appointees in the Treasury Department received at least 10 political briefings from July 2001 to August 2006, officials familiar with the meetings said. Their counterparts at the Commerce Department received at least four briefings — all in the election years of 2002, 2004 and 2006.

Posted by: b | Aug 18 2007 9:34 utc | 37

re U$ at 26, this excerpt really hit home. as an expat myself I have experienced the very same thing and still do whenever I return to the homeland.

When he told them he lived in Iran, they would mostly look him up and down, shake their heads, and with doubt shading through scorn to open hostility ask him ‘Where’s that?’ And when he told them where it was, they would shake their heads again and dismiss what he said as ‘a sack of porkey-pine shit’. He had never noticed before how parochial and ignorant of the world American kids were.
‘It struck me about this time,’ Coleman says, ‘that they seemed to lie more than kids from other places. They didn’t do it with purposed deceit — it was just part of America’s fast-hustle, three-card-monte morality. When a person tells the truth, other people, looking at themselves in the mirror and seeing a liar, assume that the truth-teller is a liar, too. You see America differently after you’ve been away for a while. All us expatriate kids had the same experience. When we got home and tried to communicate with our peers who had never left the United States, they’d look at us like we’d just landed from Mars.’

Posted by: dan of steele | Aug 18 2007 10:22 utc | 39

@35,
once again, are we looking at a pre-meditated chaos theory at work or is incompetence the answer ? Or is it both ?
Ethiopia receives a massive boost of arms & money from the USA to invade its neighbor Somalia and the Eritreans wonder if they might be the next target. However, with the increasing prospect of quagmire in Somalia and heightened unrest at home, Ethiopia must now be very worried about a re-opening of war on its eastern Eritrea front.
And there is likely to be lots of blow-back. One outcome that can no longer be dismissed if this carries on is the eventual disintegration of Ethiopia. All of Ethiopias governments in the last 40 years or so have led the nation down a path of disaster after disaster. Ethiopia may now be headed towards war on two fronts and civil war at home. At which point, they will almost certainly need direct USA military intervention.
the USA may need to begin to prepare for full-spectrum warfare in Africa. Possibly simultaneously in five separate theatres : Somalia, Eritrea, Darfur, Ethiopia & the Niger-Delta. And its not going to get any help at all from other Africans. And there are’nt enough resources in Africa to get even the Brits on board if this gets really nasty.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Aug 18 2007 14:45 utc | 41

drawing attention to some of the stmts frazer made in her briefing linked in #35. (frazer is the highest ranking state dept official on africa)
at the beginning in her prepared remarks, frazer states

On the Vienna Convention, essentially, Eritrea continues to use — to illegally detain Embassy diplomatic pouch bags and refuse to provide visas to temporary duty diplomatic support personnel for the last two years.

yet, at the end of the questioning there is this

QUESTION: Can you explain to me the link between — you said that they had been detaining diplomatic pouches and they had been refusing to grant visas to TDY personnel. That has interfered with your consular services in Eritrea why? Because consular officials couldn’t get in or because you couldn’t transfer passports or whatever —
ASSISTANT SECRETARY FRAZER: That’s right. That’s right. And they’re not detaining our pouches. They’ve insisted on inspecting them, which is against the Vienna Convention. And because they insisted on inspecting them, we can’t send them forward because we won’t allow our material to be inspected in that way which has obviously sensitive personnel information in them.

besides the non-answer to a specific question, frazer contradicts the talking point (read: lie) in her prepared remarks.
here’s another bold-faced lie:

QUESTION: How much do you think that your growing ties with Ethiopia and your support for Ethiopia and Somalia, the Ethiopian military in Somalia, is kind of fueling the relationship?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY FRAZER: Well, our ties aren’t growing with Ethiopia. We’ve always had very strong ties with Ethiopia. I mean, historically, we’ve had very strong ties with Ethiopia and we don’t in any way financially support the Ethiopian military in Somalia. In fact, I’ve said many times that we urged the Ethiopian military not to go into Somalia. They did so because of their own national interests, their own national security interests.

history-wise, let’s take a quick look back at era of the reagan revolutionaries’ rollback program

With the Sandinista-led Nicaraguan Revolution of 1979, the center of gravity of the Cold War shifted from southern Africa to Central America, although the Reagan administration’s foreign policy was very wide ranging. Once Jean Kirkpatrick had rationalized the dual strategy of embracing right-wing dictatorships while targeting left-wing regimes, the Heritage Foundation translated the theoretical maxim into a practical proposal that identified nine countries for rollback: Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Iran, Laos, Libya, Nicaragua, and Vietnam.
— mahmood mamdani, good muslim, bad muslim: america, the cold war, and the roots of terror, p. 100

ethiopia was targeted by the heritage foundation for military regime change. from a 1987 backgrounder

As Ethiopia’s largest aid donor, the U.S. should take the lead in coordinating effective international action. The Reagan Administration should: push Moscow to bring to heel its Ethiopian client regime; call for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council to condemn Ethiopia and design a mechanism for rushing food into Eritrea and Tigre; and mobilize America’s African friends to press for action in the Organization of African Unity. Washington also should consider direct military action to bring in emergency famine assistance from neighboring Sudan, and to overthrow the Mengistu regime and replace it with one that cares for the Ethiopian people.

one thing that the reagan admin did was to use food as a weapon to starve the population there in order that the people would turn & rise against the mengistu govt in addis ababa. [i’d like to find more information on u.s. support for the tigre meles & his rise to power if anyone knows of good sources.]
but getting back to the frazer’s attempts at revisionism, it is entirely untrue that the u.s. is not financially supporting the ethiopian military in somalia or that it tried to encourage meles not to invade. we’ve investigated & documented that much over the past eight months at MoA. the u.s. has had to warn ethiopia several times, whenever it the regime makes public stmts about starting to withdraw some of its forces, that it must not pull out until the u.s. says it’s okay for it to pull out, and the next day we read about how the world bank is loaning ethiopia large sums of cash, etc…
it’s my impression that frazer & meles get along so well together b/c they are both such big liars. take, for instance, frazer’s comments back in mid-december, when she says the u.s. was encouraging ethiopia to not invade somalia.

“The Council of Islamic Courts is now controlled by al Qaeda cell individuals, East Africa al Qaeda cell individuals. The top layer of the court are extremists. They are terrorists,” U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer told reporters.
“They are killing nuns, they have killed children and they are calling for a jihad (holy war),” she added.

so my read of yesterday’s briefing is that it (1) continues the public demonization of eritrea, (2) is another effort to exert leverage, including threats, against eritrea to allow the u.s. & ethiopia to continue their war crimes, and (3) shift media attention away from the very damning human rights watch report on the war crimes & terrorism committed by ethiopia & their u.s. sponsors.
for instance, i’d consider this message from that briefing a veiled threat

QUESTION: The other thing is that I noticed on my favorite website, Shabeh.com, that Isaias is supposed to be speaking to the — going to give a — basically what you’re doing today — today. And I — just before I came out here, I looked to see that it hadn’t come — it hadn’t been posted yet. Do you have any idea what he’s going to — what he might be saying?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY FRAZER: No idea. I hope that what he would say is that Eritrea values its relationship with the United States and will look to improve it and will also stop any activities that are destabilizing Somalia. That’s what I would hope he would say, but I have no idea what he will say.

another message she repeats twice, “…what i’m saying is that if they stop their behavior, we’re not looking to go down this route” and “it’s an opportunity before they are put on the State Sponsor list for them to change their behavior.”
one of the impacts of closing eritrea’s consulate in oakland, california, frazer admits will be to collectively punish the people of eritrea.

…I believe it certainly will impact their ability to collect money from the Eritrean community and the United States which, after all, that money is being used to, as a UN monitoring report has indicated, to get weapons and to train fighters to go into somalia.

frazer mentions the UN monitoring group rpts multiple times, despite their general rejection as a transparent attempt to justify the invasion, w/ many allegations that have proven to be largely untrue, including an earlier one stating that iran was attempting to purchase uranium from somalia.
as one analyst points out

the planned press conference by Assistant Secretary Jendayi Frazer is designed to give some traction to the UN Somali Monitoring Group’s report because it did not seem to have had the reception Dr. Frazer and her office had hoped for. It is the same group that had said there were 2000 Eritrean troops in Somalia last year but could not find a single Eritrean soldier when Ethiopia invaded that country. Every bit of that report must have been fabricated because there was not even a single Eritrean soldier in Somalia. So, here is a question all concerned journalists should ask: It seems the group’s earlier allegation against Eritrea had no basis in fact, so, why should the international community believe these recent charges against this country? The monitoring group last year told the international community that it was going to be a proxy war–between Eritrea and Ethiopia– in Somalia. However, many now feel that allegation was in fact designed to provide a cover for Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia.

an earlier fpif rpt, The Making of Another Iraq, states

How did such a one-sided and potentially dangerous UN resolution pass with a unanimous vote in the Security Council? Again, the parallels with Iraq are disturbing.
This time around, no secretary of state was needed to deliver a “smoking gun” speech and no prime minister was needed to unveil a “dossier” of death and destruction. That pretext was conveniently provided by an 86-page report prepared by the Monitoring Group (MG) made up of four experts who have been almost entirely dependent on the United States and Ethiopia for intelligence. The report included almost all the sensationalized elements that made the Iraq War possible.

and, in yet another parallel to iraq, this week the warlord-TFG govt in somalia announced
Somalia to create Iraq-style ‘Green Zone’

NAIROBI, Kenya – The Somali government is trying to create a Baghdad-style safe “Green Zone” in Mogadishu to protect senior officials and foreign visitors from insurgent attacks, Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi said on Tuesday.
…
To counter the threat of attacks, a security zone was being set up in the bullet-scarred coastal capital, Gedi said.
“At the moment, the government security agencies are trying to create a Green Zone where international community workers, and those vulnerable, can stay for their security purposes,” he said, without giving more details.
“I hope that we will achieve positive results very soon.”

should this materialize, it will make it much easier to point out to the international audience that somalia is the third regime change in the u.s. gwot.

Posted by: b real | Aug 18 2007 17:09 utc | 43

NYT’s Lichtenblau and Risen: Concern Over Wider Spying Under New Law

Broad new surveillance powers approved by Congress this month could allow the Bush administration to conduct spy operations that go well beyond wiretapping to include — without court approval — certain types of physical searches of American citizens and the collection of their business records, Democratic Congressional officials and other experts said.
…
Several legal experts said that by redefining the meaning of “electronic surveillance,” the new law narrows the types of communications covered in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA, by indirectly giving the government the power to use intelligence collection methods far beyond wiretapping that previously required court approval if conducted inside the United States.
These new powers include the collection of business records, physical searches and so-called “trap and trace” operations, analyzing specific calling patterns.
For instance, the legislation would allow the government, under certain circumstances, to demand the business records of an American in Chicago without a warrant if it asserts that the search concerns its surveillance of a person who is in Paris, experts said.
…
The measure, which President Bush signed into law on Aug. 5, was written and pushed through both the House and Senate so quickly that few in Congress had time to absorb its full impact, some Congressional aides say.
Though many Democratic leaders opposed the final version of the legislation, they did not work forcefully to block its passage, largely out of fear that they would be criticized by President Bush and Republican leaders during the August recess as being soft on terrorism.
Yet Bush administration officials have already signaled that, in their view, the president retains his constitutional authority to do whatever it takes to protect the country, regardless of any action Congress takes. At a tense meeting last week with lawyers from a range of private groups active in the wiretapping issue, senior Justice Department officials refused to commit the administration to adhering to the limits laid out in the new legislation and left open the possibility that the president could once again use what they have said in other instances is his constitutional authority to act outside the regulations set by Congress.

1. lesson – the Dems agree to everything Bush asks for.
2. lesson – Bush will do whatever he likes to do no matter what Dems agreed to.

Homework assignement – consolidate 1 and 2.

Posted by: b | Aug 18 2007 20:17 utc | 45

Wondering if anyone here knows if it is possible to download from YouTube? I have been told I should do something with the embed button, but it looks like something that will only work with a site. I have also been told that there is something you can do with Quicktime. Any thoughts?

Posted by: conchita | Aug 19 2007 2:38 utc | 47

video webcast of aug 8 uc berkeley’s institute of int’l studies conservations w/ peter dale scott on his new book, the road to 911: wealth, empire, and the future of america

Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Professor Peter Dale Scott for a discussion of secrecy and its consequences in the making of U.S. foreign policy. Their discussion focuses on CIA interventions, the rise of al Qaeda, the role of U.S. government in supporting Islamic jihadists to counter Soviet power during the Cold War, and the response of the Bush administration to the 9/11 [ 1hr 1 min]attack.

Posted by: b real | Aug 19 2007 4:32 utc | 49

@tangerine #46:
Re: the Falwell quote: if you accept the Old Testament as true, then god is unquestionably pro-war. If you actually read the thing straight through, instead of cherry-picking verses that make you happy, you will find that god is a terribly bloodthirsty being. (He also didn’t know Adam and Eve had eaten the fruit of blah blah blah until he came back later and saw them, so he presumably isn’t all-knowing, and in I Judges we see that he can’t conquer iron chariots, either, so he isn’t all-powerful either. Between being as vicious as a spoiled 3-year-old and being terribly limited, the picture of god you get from a strict reading of the Old Testament is a lot more believable than what people usually imagine.)
If you go through the Old Testament and find every place where someone is killed directly by god or on his orders and a number of casualties is given — which means you ignore the flood, for example, because the text doesn’t say how many people are killed — then you end up with over two million dead. (The devil, on the other hand, is only given credit for the deaths of ten people in the entire Christian bible, and then only with god’s permission.)
This has not stopped anyone from claiming that the Abrahamic religions are forces for morality and peace — at least, not anyone who believes in them — and, indeed, many believers think that religion is the only valid source of morality. (That’s kind of grim, yes? The idea that everyone is demonically evil, and only act with a patina of civilization because there’s a divine Eye In The Sky waiting to condemn you to eternal damnation if you do anything wrong; what place in such a worldview for genuine human goodness?)
People come up with morality independently of faith, and then ignore anything in their belief system which contradicts the decisions they have already made. Just as an example: the jewish holy books don’t explicitly condemn pedophilia. Christianity sort of vaguely does, if you interpret a single verse the right way, but there’s nothing in the old testament about it, for example. (Which is odd, when you think about it — Moses had time to tell us not to eat shrimp or wear cotton-wool mix clothing, but he couldn’t mention that it was wrong to sexually molest a child?) If morality were based on faith, one would expect there to be disproportionately many pedophiles who were jewish. But there aren’t. There’s nothing in the New Testament about stem cells, but people have made up their minds ahead of time about what is and is not moral, and so it doesn’t matter. (Actually, if there were mention in the New Testament about stem cells, it would form a much more convincing argument that Christianity is true than anything I’ve ever heard of.)
I don’t know precisely where I’m going with this — I had a point in mind when I started, but I’ve forgotten in — so I guess I’ll just close with this: religious people being hypocrites is not news. Religious people being hypocrites is religion — it’s to be expected.

Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Aug 19 2007 5:45 utc | 51

@Debs is Dead:
As long as I’m de-lurking again for a moment: Just out of curiosity, why do you consider the Mac to be “paying Mr. Gates directly” but not Windows? I own a Mac, and except for the copy of Windows I run in a virtual machine, there isn’t anything about it that actually sent money directly to Microsoft. The copy of Windows, on the other hand, gave them just over $100, and that’s for an OEM copy (which is equivalent to what PC manufacturers get when they build a machine). Just curious.
(Oh, and you can download the Flash videos from Youtube on a Mac using Safari; open the “Activity” window to see a list of all the files which have been or are being downloaded to render the currently visible pages. Find the Youtube page, then look through its listing for the “get-video” item, which should be large, hold down the option key, double-click on that line; Safari will download the file to wherever it puts your downloads by default (which is usually the Desktop). You’ll have to add the “.flv” extension to the name, though. VLC for Mac is currently the best free player I’ve found when the files are local.

Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Aug 19 2007 6:01 utc | 53

Debs’ post bit my curious too, TGGVWYCI. I guess it’s the difference between paying them (MS) and him who shall not be named. I know he bailed out Apple way back, maybe he owns a bunch of shares?
Just think, Excel and Word, the programs that made the Mac useable for mundane office work and accounting, were written by Microsoft. Excel still stands as a mighty tool for arithmetic and record-keeping, the true standard being Lotus 1-2-3. But Excel is graphical.
If I had a bit more money I might invest in Apple too.
For the original post, great to know that streamed videos can be recorded so easily, especially if you have a Mac mini. And a small team of experts who will set it up for you and show you how to use it.

Posted by: jonku | Aug 19 2007 7:36 utc | 55

Sorry for the third post in a row but it is the punch line:
Who the heck pushed through the legislation?
These folks must vote for whatever they are told to vote for … so I honestly ask who runs the Democratic Party — who tells them where and when to vote?

Posted by: jonku | Aug 19 2007 8:15 utc | 57

The Guardian on Afghanistan: ‘It’s bleak and ferocious, but is it still winnable?’

Statistics tell their own story. Briefings in London last summer placed the number of Taliban as low as 1,000. Since April the Royal Anglians alone have killed more than 600, the nature of certifying ‘kills’ suggesting that their tally is certainly greater. By any calculation, the enemy should all be dead. Instead they are more deadly.
Advanced surface-to-air missiles and armour-piercing machine guns accurate over a one-kilometre firing range have started targeting the British. One missile recently locked on to a British Harrier jet, forcing the pilot to take evasive action. This is hi-tech stuff.
But British commanders also voice concerns about another profound threat, this time unfolding in their ranks. The unforeseen ferocity of operations in Helmand is set to precipitate an exodus of soldiers.

Posted by: b | Aug 19 2007 9:47 utc | 59

to easily DL videos from utube (or anywhere else) use firefox and install the DownloadHelper add-on

Posted by: jcairo | Aug 19 2007 10:18 utc | 61

Fair enough I will hold my tongue on the Gates Apple ownership issue until I can find one of the articles on the subject I have read. These were out of mainstream media not blogs. That or identify the holding company Bill and Melinda are using. When they created their Gates foundation to cure the world of all known diseases and build box girder bridges or whatever, the foundation made a huge investment in Apple. According to reports at the time it was a controlling position.
If that is still the case one would have to assume that Fidelity Management FMR may be the agents for managing the shareholding but without the articles from the time or any other way to draw a straight line, there is no way to prove it. Fidelity have a range of positions in Apple through both outright ownership, share management and mutual funds as do other major institutions.
One of the joys of capitalism is the circuitous ownership of shares, something a share register doesn’t really help explain.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Aug 19 2007 11:07 utc | 63

did, ttgvwyci and jcairo
thank you all for your suggestions. i have a mac and will try the safari method – not sure i ever bothered to download firefox as i use its cousin netscape and am very happy with it.if this works and it helps the clip of eliz holtzman i am working on helps to convince jerry nadler to lead impeachment in the house you will have contributed. if any of you would have the time to actually do this for me and email it, it would help me tremendously as i am fighting the clock, but chances are it isn’t half as complicated as my pre-morning coffee brain thinks. whatever ever the case, i do appreciate your assistance.

Posted by: conchita | Aug 19 2007 16:13 utc | 65

I’ve had some serious problem from downloading the DownloadHelper add-on that’s linked @ 61. There seems to be a bug that comes with it. Every time I open the browser I’m transferred to the the add-on page and can’t get out of it. This happens whether I’m on my homepage or try to quickly switch to another site on my blogroll. I had to use a second system on my computer to send this message.

Posted by: Copeland | Aug 19 2007 18:21 utc | 67

@Debs is Dead:
I’ve been looking on Google for any mention of such a thing (it would be tech news and financial news, and by 2004 both were on the Internet), and the only articles I’ve seen which make that claim either steal directly from this page or reference it as a source. Notice the statement at the bottom saying “Unconfirmed Sources political satire and news story parodies as represented above are written as satire or parody. They are, of course, fictitious.”
Now that I’ve had some sleep, I found the numbers I was referencing earlier: Microsoft directly bought $150000000 worth of non-voting Apple stock in 1997. These were eventually converted to voting stock after the three-year mandatory waiting period and then sold. The deal was basically Microsoft’s way of settling Apple’s various then-current infringement suits against them. In any event, (a) that was Microsoft, not Bill Gates personally, and (b) they don’t own that stock now.
(Of course, there’s also “Pirates of Silicon Valley”, which was a fictitious retelling of the Microsoft-Apple rivalry, which implied that Microsoft owned a much larger chunk of stock which was also voting stock, and did not sell it. Like I said: fictitious.)
As for a holding company: I suppose it’s possible that a single holding company could, in turn, own other companies, and thus split up ownership of a large chunk of Apple into a large number of fake companies. But look at that listing of major holders in the SEC filing for a moment:
1) Institutions and mutual funds hold a total of 68% of the stock.
2) The listed institutions on the list of major holders, none of which would appear to be Gates in a mask (Fidelity, by the way, is a financial institution which one of my relatives has used for decades, not a recently-erected front for Gates), account for over 28% of the stock.
3) The listed mutual funds, which are likewise apparently not Gates, take up a bit more than another 7%. That’s more than 35% of all the stock accounted for right there.
4) In order to not be listed on the “major direct shareholders” list, an individual would have to own less than a fifth of one percent (0.0172%) of the stock.
Let’s put those together: if Bill Gates and family own as much stock personally as possible, they collectively own (rounding up — Bill and Melinda Gates have three children, so that’s 5 people) 1%. Since 68% of the stock is owned by institutions and mutual funds and 35% is already accounted for, even if every single institution and mutual fund which is not listed on the SEC filing were a front for Bill Gates (which is most certainly not the case) they could own a maximum of 33% of the stock. Combine this with the 1% which the family might hold, and you get 34%. That’s not a majority.
Therefore: you are just plain wrong.
Sorry if I appear to be defensive about this stuff, but it’s a topic I know about and I’m really annoyed that you’re trying to convince people that things are the opposite of the way they actually are. Leave that to Fox News, okay?

Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Aug 19 2007 20:27 utc | 69

@catlady:
Just a note: Google Video and Youtube are not streaming video. They’re just download sites specializing in video. (“Streaming” means that you see the video immediately as it arrives from the server — Flash video is just another file.) A couple of questions:
1. Do you mean that the download of the video stops, regardless of whether or not it was playing, or that the player ceased to function regardless of whether or not it was playing?
2. How much of the video was downloaded when things stopped working? (You can tell approximately by looking carefully at the little progress bar at the bottom; its starts off white and turns light gray as the video downloads.)

Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Aug 19 2007 21:43 utc | 71

Dancewater (Susan) has a very good, very comprehensive post on Medical Care in Iraq. I cannot recommend it strongly enough.

Posted by: Alamet | Aug 19 2007 23:57 utc | 73

@truth I’m not trying to convince people of anything, other than how I remember some newspaper articles I read. I can’t understand why anyone would even care who owns Apple. Has either corporation forsworn supplying products to be used on the rape and murder of innocents by the amerikan military?
I really don’t understand what difference it makes which rich prick owns what greedy monopolistic corporation. It is really a non issue since I can perceive no difference at all in the moral stance of any of corporation, hence the initial throwaway line of giving yer money to Gates one way or another.
The whole mob of assholes who, aided by Clinton’s oppresive DMCA sought to create an amerikan monopoly on computer patents while using knowledge which dates back to the Greeks or before and which has previously been available to all comers is immoral. It is a protection racket which would never have got up without all the threatening and dick swinging of the amerikan military machine. The techniques of blackmail, bribery and extortion have been used to make other nations enforce the corrupt practices. None of em will ever get a brass razoo out of me.
I use PC’s because they can be put together with an absolute minimum of my cash going into the pockets of any amerikan corporation. The taiwanese churn out inexpensive PC hardware which suits my needs and which over the years has proven just as reliable as any of the ‘legacy’ amerikan hardware products.
As far as software goes, the game of undoing the DRM protection is a relatively interesting diversion and one that will ensure I don’t have to worry about much of my cash being used to subsidize the empire for some time yet.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Aug 20 2007 0:12 utc | 75

thanks, truth. will try the .flv route

Posted by: catlady | Aug 20 2007 1:21 utc | 77

i’m personally very thankfull to the truth gets…… because s/he’s offered very considered counsel & i am a mac user & even after all this time i am possibly the dumbest fucker ever to tap a keyboard – the administrator of my work is a dab hand with the computers & when he opens one up – i enter a trance not unlike those papa doc duvalier used on his enemies – i want despite all the evidence to the contrary – to think of what is inside the computer as a purely metaphysical question & my reason for typing on it – an existential one (tho the us admin has given that particular expression a bad name)

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Aug 20 2007 1:22 utc | 79

a pdf copy of the draft oil law cited in #71 is linked in this article from garowe online. the draft is controversial, since it was written by KEC (kuwait energy company) & medco energy (indonesia), who are both said to have 49% ownership in the proposed somali petroleum corporation, at the behest of prime minister gedi, who has a personal relationship w/ the CEO of KEC, while president yusuf has been making his own arrangements w/ the chinese in puntland. since the parliament hasn’t even debated the proposed laws, the deals being made are a bit premature & yet more blatant evidence that the warlord TFG govt has only self-interest at heart, quickly securing oil rent money while they still have a tenuous hold on authority, strictly for their own benefit w/ not even a token gesture of getting the best deal for the somali people. but then, of course, they are warlords in an illegitimate govt… perhaps this greed among the top officials will cause increased infighting that will further weaken & lead to the demise of the TFG. haven’t seen any noise from the former concessionaires indicating interest in returning anytime soon. chevron last week said don’t look at us. let the minnows waste their time & money.

Posted by: b real | Aug 20 2007 4:51 utc | 81

@Debs is Dead:
While I can understand some of your logic, I think you are wrong on several levels. A few comments:
1) Microsoft has a history of business practices which are particularly vile, no matter how you look at it. There’s quite a long list of ideas ruined by Microsoft, people and small businesses ruined by Microsoft for getting in the way, and bad ideas sold to a public which didn’t know any better. Bill Gates may or may not be directly responsible for all, or even most, of these actions, but he certainly failed to stop them, and definitely encouraged some of them. (Gates can’t even be socially responsible now, when he’s left Microsoft and running a charity. The Gates Foundation bought a big chunk of McDonalds a while ago, stictly for funds. Speaks volumes.) Other companies may not be perfect; they may even be evil; but Bill Gates and Microsoft play roughly the same role in the computer industry as George Bush and the Republican Party in the world. You may feel that, say, Al Gore is a bad politician, a right-of-center corporatist masquerading as a centrist, or even a leftist, who deserves no votes. But is he as bad as Bush? No. Comparing Apple to Microsoft is a similar unfair piece of rhetoric. (The metaphor works quite well, in fact. Both Microsoft and the Republican Party make a big fuss about security without actually undertaking any measures which actually improve it, for example.)
2) I question whether your argument is valid. “Why pay the people who came up with these ideas when we can just get the implementation cheaper from a ripoff artist” is pretty close, ethically speaking, to “why pay people for access to their resources when we can just kick the people off the land and take the resources ourselves”.
3) What knowledge which dates back to the Greeks? I have a bachelor’s degree in mathematics with a minor in Classics, and although I admit that the Greeks were the first western culture which wouldn’t have found computers incomprehensible, the ideas behind computers do not stretch back that far. The formal logic which runs a computer was only ironed out in the victorian era, for example. (And if you do some reading of primary sources, you’ll be amazed at how difficult it was for boolean logic to take hold, given how intuitive it seems to us now.)
4) Examine the DMCA (not to put too fine a point on it, but I also have a master’s degree in library and information science, and we had to spend a lot of time on the DMCA) and you will see that the really draconian parts are mainly there to bring U.S. copyright law in line with the intellectual property rights treaties signed with Europe. (And yes, I have looked up the treaties, and yes, the draconian measures started there, not in the U.S. Why do you think a.s.k.o.d. started his Pirate Party, anyway?) Quite frankly, the U.S. already owned all those patents, because we had a technological boom as part of the burst of prosperity post-World War II. The patents will expire eventually, and thanks to the Republican party there won’t be many more big new ideas registered in the U.S., so why complain so bitterly? The DMCA leveraged a short-term advantage by creating a terrible long-term problem for the U.S.; if anything, you should be happy about it.
5) Does it matter whether people know about this stuff? First and foremost: it matters whether you know it, because you’re willing to open your mouth and make statements without the knowledge, which is dangerous and bad. But in the more general case as well, yes. If you could somehow travel back in time and make the population at large more knowledgeable about technology, and about the shady side of Microsoft, then we would be in a dramatically better situation today. Apple might or might not even exist in such a situation, but Microsoft would not have been allowed to deliberately introduce so many complications, with all that that entails in terms of additional complexity elsewhere. Consider: every minute that you spend troubleshooting a computer is a minute you don’t have for everything else in your life. Every minute you spend deleting spam — most of the spam you get these days is relayed to you through compromised Windows boxes, you know — is a minute gone, never to come again. Microsoft is responsible for an astonishing amount of this, and it does matter.

Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Aug 20 2007 5:23 utc | 83

Somalia: Rwanda Trains Forces

Rwanda is currently offering professional military training to Somali government forces in a bid to enable them deal appropriately with the raging conflict in the troubled Horn of Africa country.
“Following requests from the African Union and the Somali Transitional Federal Government to contribute to the peace process in Somalia, Rwanda pledged to provide professional training to the TFG’s forces, and that has started,” Military Spokesman Major Jill Rutaremara said yesterday.
He said that the training of the Somalis started on May 21 at RDF military schools. He however declined to disclose the duration of the training, and the exact venues where it is being administered from.
“The training is being funded by Rwanda and it is in line with the Rwanda Defense Forces’ constitutional obligation of Regional and International peace maintenance,” said Rutaremara. Rwanda has thousands of military and police peacekeepers in various parts of the world including Sudan’s Darfur, where a hybrid AU-UN force is expected to take over from an exclusive AU mission later this year.

on that new u.n. force for the sudan,
Rwanda: UN Appointee for Darfur Force is War Criminal – Opposition

Last week, the UN and the African Union endorsed the nomination of Rwandan Maj. Gen. Karenzi Karake to deputise the head of the Darfur hybrid force. Opposition groups say the General does not have clean hands to manage a peace keeping mission, RNA reports.
According to United Democratic Forces – UDF Inkingi, Gen. Karake supervised several extra judiciary executions targeting politicians and civilians in Rwanda. The group points to the period before the Genocide and after the Rwanda Patriotic front RPF rebels took over Rwanda.
“His nomination as Deputy Commander of the UN-AU force to be sent to Darfur is an insult to Africa, to Sudan as a State and to the suffering Sudanese as well as to the memory of Rwandan victims of his crimes”, Inkingi said in a statement.
On the list of accusations that have been rejected by officials in Kigali includes assassinations and mass killings.
“Karenzi Karake directed the military assault conducted against Kibeho IDP (internally displaced people) camps that killed 8.000 displaced persons on April 22, 1995”, Inkingi claims.
Kibeho camp was located in Gikongoro province – southern Rwanda – where several civilians gathered as the country was just recovering from the Genocide. Aid groups on the ground claimed hundreds of civilians were attacked by soldiers but have not identified which group exactly.
Gen. Karake is also accused of masterminding the assassination of numerous politicians at a time when he was RPF liaison officer on an Organisation of African Unity (OAU) military observatory in Rwanda (GOMU) during 1992-94.
The team had been put in place by OAU, to monitor the implementation of the Cease-fire between the Rwandan governmental army and the then RPF rebel force.
…
The Netherlands-based Ikingi opposition group accuses Gen. Karake of alleged mass killings of civilian refugees in D R Congo describing him as a “notorious Rwandan war criminal”.
“Karenzi Karake supervised the mass killing of hundreds of thousands Rwandan refugees in former Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) in 1996-1997 as Chief of Operations during the military campaign that aimed at destroying refugee camps”, Ikingi boss Dr Jean-Baptiste MBERABAHIZI said yesterday.
“He was directly responsible of the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in the name of combating the insurgents allegedly operating in that area from 1998 to 2000”.
Rwanda has about 3.000 soldiers and police in Sudan and all are planned to be incorporated into the newly agreed hybrid force of 22.000. But the police officers are in Khartoum. Rwanda also recently promised AU chief Omar Konare that it would increase its force numbers in the troubled Darfur region.

Posted by: b real | Aug 20 2007 14:45 utc | 85

again australia’s shame

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Aug 20 2007 18:05 utc | 87

Two minutes in Iraq video

Posted by: b | Aug 21 2007 6:53 utc | 89

Youtube: Congresswoman Betty Sutton ask FBI Director Robert Mueller about Sibel Edmonds

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 21 2007 8:53 utc | 91

b@89 – did you read any of the comments? sad

Posted by: jcairo | Aug 21 2007 12:24 utc | 93

two minutes hate. and the comments there show it works.

Posted by: b real | Aug 21 2007 14:07 utc | 95

Nahr al-Baraid – possibly the beginning of the endgame:
Lebanon’s military allows militants’ families to leave camp

The Lebanese army has accepted a request by Islamic militants holed up in the Nahr el-Bared Palestinian refugee camp to allow their families to leave the heavily destroyed area, a military official said Tuesday.

Posted by: Alamet | Aug 21 2007 23:47 utc | 97

b real — what a fascinating chapter! Think we’ll be getting more sneek peeks from this book?

Posted by: jane | Aug 22 2007 20:13 utc | 99