hilzoy

Intellectual Integrity Watch: Special NRO Edition

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by hilzoy

In the National Review, James Robbins (h/t cleek) claims, about the NSA surveillance of US citizens, that “the legality of the acts can be demonstrated with a look through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).” His arguments are completely disingenuous, and as a public service, I thought I’d say why. Robbins says:

“For example, check out section 1802, “Electronic Surveillance Authorization Without Court Order.” It is most instructive. There you will learn that “Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year” (emphasis mine).

Naturally, there are conditions. For example, the surveillance must be aimed at “the acquisition of the contents of communications transmitted by means of communications used exclusively between or among foreign powers.” Wait, is a terrorist group considered a foreign power? Yes, as defined in section 1801, subsection (a), “foreign power” can mean “a group engaged in international terrorism or activities in preparation therefore,” though the statue language would explicitly apply to “a faction of a foreign nation or nations.””

The actual text from FISA that Robbins refers to says:

“(A) the electronic surveillance is solely directed at —

(i) the acquisition of the contents of communications transmitted by means of communications used exclusively between or among foreign powers, as defined in section 1801(a)(1), (2), or (3) of this title; or

(ii) the acquisition of technical intelligence, other than the spoken communications of individuals, from property or premises under the open and exclusive control of a foreign power, as defined in section 1801(a)(1), (2), or (3) of this title;

(B) there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party; and …”

Note the references to “a foreign power, as defined in section 1801(a)(1), (2), or (3) of this title”. Here is sec. 1801 on ‘foreign powers’:

“(a) ”Foreign power” means —

(1) a foreign government or any component thereof, whether or not recognized by the United States;
(2) a faction of a foreign nation or nations, not substantially composed of United States persons;
(3) an entity that is openly acknowledged by a foreign government or governments to be directed and controlled by such foreign government or governments;
(4) a group engaged in international terrorism or activities in preparation therefor;
(5) a foreign-based political organization, not substantially composed of United States persons; or
(6) an entity that is directed and controlled by a foreign government or governments.”

So: what Robbins has done is: leave out the part of the text that restricts the use of ‘foreign powers’ by adding ‘as defined in section 1801(a)(1), (2), or (3) of this title’; then saying ‘in sec. 1801, foreign powers includes terrorists’, without noting that that’s in 1801(a)(4), and is thus not relevant to the statute he’s discussing.

Later, he says:

“O.K. fine, but what about the condition that there be “no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party?” Doesn’t that necessarily cut out any and all communication that is domestic in origin or destination? Well, not quite. Return to section 1801, subsection (i): “United States person,” which includes citizens, legal aliens, and businesses, explicitly “does not include a corporation or an association which is a foreign power.””

Here’s the actual definition of US person:

“(i) ”United States person” means a citizen of the United States, an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence (as defined in section 1101(a)(20) of title 8), an unincorporated association a substantial number of members of which are citizens of the United States or aliens lawfully admitted for permanent residence, or a corporation which is incorporated in the United States, but does not include a corporation or an association which is a foreign power, as defined in subsection (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this section.”

Note that 1801 specifically includes any citizen or legal permanent resident, and specifically excludes not ‘agents of foreign powers’, but “a corporation or an association which is a foreign power, as defined in subsection (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this section.” So there are several things wrong with Robbins’ point here:

(a) Your average US citizen or permanent resident is not a corporation or association, but a human being, and this the exemption has nothing to do with him or her.

(b) Robbins has left off “as defined in section 1801(a)(1), (2), or (3) of this section”, which makes it clear that the corporations and associations in question do not include terrorist groups (who are under 1801(a)(4).)

Robbins goes on to say that being an agent of a foreign power makes you stop being a US person:

“Well sure, but does that mean that even if you are a citizen you cash in your abovementioned rights by collaborating with terrorists? Yes you do. You have then become an “Agent of a foreign power” as defined under subsection (b)(2)(C). Such agents include anyone who “knowingly engages in sabotage or international terrorism, or activities that are in preparation therefor, for or on behalf of a foreign power,” and even includes those who aid and abet or knowingly conspire with those engaged in such behavior.”

Again, this is false: the definition of ‘United States person’ noted above does not say that no agent of a foreign power can be a United States person. It says that no corporation or association that is a foreign power as defined under subsection (b)(2)(C) can be a United States person. That means that US citizens and permanent residents who are agents of foreign powers can be US persons. And therefore the authorization to conduct warrantless wiretaps when “there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party” is not affected by the fact that the US person in question might also be an agent of a foreign power.

Sloppy reporting or deliberate misinformation? We report; you decide.

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Dangerous Quakers On The Loose!

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by hilzoy A few days ago, William Arkin, who is usually very good, wrote: “Come on. The government is not just repeating the targeting of political opponents a la J. Edgar Hoover or Richard Nixon. It is not picking out a Seymour Hersh or a Cindy Sheehan to find their links to foreign influences nor … Read more

The Good News: At Least Alberto Gonzales Is Not On The Supreme Court

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by hilzoy

Today the Attorney General went into more detail about what he takes to be the legal authorization for the administration’s program of secret surveillance. And his explanation is really quite extraordinary. Yesterday I said that, as far as I could tell, the administration’s reasoning would allow the President to do literally anything in time of war:

“Does he want to imprison a United States citizen indefinitely, without a warrant, and habeas corpus be damned? Fine! Does he want to tap our phones and read our email, also without a warrant, in defiance of the FISA statute and the Fourth Amendment? Also fine! As far as I can see, on this reading of the Constitution, there’s no reason he couldn’t decide that his war powers extended to levying taxes without Congressional approval (wars cost money, you know), or throwing Congressman Murtha in jail to prevent him from sapping our troops’ morale, or suspending the publication of all newspapers, magazines, and blogs on the same grounds, or making himself President For Life on the grounds that we need the continued benefit (cough) of his awesome leadership skillz to successfully prosecute the war on terror.”

I was hoping (though not expecting) that I’d be wrong, and they would turn out not to be making the world’s most ludicrous legal argument. But no: they are.

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Requiem: Update

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by hilzoy

Next week Congress should vote on the Defense Authorization Bill, which contains Lindsay Graham’s amendment stripping Guantanamo detainees of their right to file habeas corpus petitions. The point of habeas petitions is to allow prisoners to ask the government why they are in prison, and to allow a judge to decide whether the government’s answer holds up.

Graham’s amendment, in its last published version, would grant Guantanamo detainees the right to appeal the verdicts reached by their military tribunals. But that’s not a substitute for the right to file habeas petitions. To see why not, consider the latest development in a case I’ve written about before: the case of Abu Bakker Qassim and A’del Abdu al-Hakim. Here’s an article about the case, and here’s an op-ed by al-Hakim’s lawyer.)

This is a case that illustrates why habeas corpus matters. It could not have been brought if Graham’s amendment had been enacted, since the people who brought it have no reason to appeal the decision of their military tribunal. The military tribunal found that they were not enemy combatants; why would they want to appeal that? What they want to know is: since they were cleared months ago, why are they still locked up in Guantanamo?

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It’s A Puzzlement

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by hilzoy In his radio address yesterday, the President also said this: “The House of Representatives passed reauthorization of the Patriot Act. Yet a minority of senators filibustered to block the renewal of the Patriot Act when it came up for a vote yesterday. That decision is irresponsible, and it endangers the lives of our … Read more

We’re Back!

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by hilzoy Typepad came back, in theory, about an hour and a half ago, but they had not yet republished all the weblogs that were displaying backup copies. So I decided to take matters into my own hands (actually, I had to magically transform myself into Moe first, so they were probably his hands) and … Read more

Shameless Self-Promotion

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by hilzoy Nominations for the Koufax Awards are now open. So if you have a favorite group blog, or a favorite series (cough, Graham Amendment, cough), or a favorite commenter (cough, too many to mention, cough), don’t let our winsome modesty stand in your way.

They Do Comedy Too!

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by hilzoy Some recent comedic gems from the Bush administration: (1) Asked about the idea that our soldiers would be ‘welcomed as liberators’ in Iraq, President Bush said: “I think we are welcomed. But it was not a peaceful welcome.” Ah, yes: just another one of those non-peaceful welcomes, like the Russian welcome of Napoleon, … Read more

Take That, McCain Amendment!

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by hilzoy The Bush administration’s negotiations with John McCain over his amendment banning torture are going nowhere. Newsweek claims that he’s being advised not to veto it: “Bush was getting pushed to compromise by his secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, who privately argued that Bush did not want his legacy to be a policy of … Read more

Hammond’s Flycatcher!

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by hilzoy Having just gotten back from Boston, I am not feeling particularly political, so I decided to tromp back into the woods to see whether I could see the Hammond’s Flycatcher that has inexplicably turned up in Maryland. After about 45 minutes or so of staring at the tree where it is said to … Read more

Mark Kleiman Is Annoyed, And I Am Perplexed

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by hilzoy

I have a lot of respect for Mark Kleiman, and one of the reasons is that he generally stops, thinks, and considers the evidence before forming an opinion. Not in this post, though. He posts an article by a woman who is looking for a kidney donor over the internet. The article itself is thoughtful and moving. Above it, Kleiman writes:

“I missed the essay below when it first appeared in the New York Times, even though the author, Sally Satel, is an old friend. It’s a story about the power of the Internet to facilitate good deeds.

Naturally, the “bioethicists” are against it. This reinforces my basic belief that “bioethics” should be punishable by prison time.

Note that the current organ donation system, of which the bioethics crowd is inordinately proud because it’s so impersonally “fair,” eliminates any incentive for families or communities to mobilize themselves to get their members registered as organ donors, because there’s no relationship between who donates organs and who receives them. It would be wonderful, of course, if everyone in the world regarded everyone else in the world as infinitely valuable. But since that’s not the case, I don’t see either the moral or the practical case against trying to mobilize particularist emotions in the service of altruistic actions. To focus on the relatively trivial question of who gets the inadequate number of cadaveric organs donated, rather than the vital question of how many people sign up as donors, strikes me as reflecting an astonishing degree of moral blindness.

But of course I shouldn’t be astonished. This is the sort of reasoning that dominates the pseudo-field of bioethics, and has, by infiltrating the Institutional Review Board process, put a serious crimp in both medical and social-scientific research.”

Some problems with this:

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Mark Kleiman Has A Puzzle

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by hilzoy He asks: “What is the best-known literary work in English not currently in print? I have a nominee: Sir Walter Raleigh’s History of the World. Temple University Press seems to have put out a one-volume addition (doubtless abridged) in 1972, but that seems to be it. Five-volume sets sell for between $1500 and … Read more

Fiscal Irresponsibility

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by hilzoy From the Washington Post: “The House today passed a $56 billion tax-cut bill that extends for two years a reduction in tax rates for capital gains and dividend income. After spirited debate, the House voted 234 to 197 to approve the bill, the fourth tax cut passed by the body in two days. … Read more

Please, Let This Be True…

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by hilzoy

[Update: The ‘this’ that I want to be true is: the story immediately following, about Fitial flipping. Not, of course, the facts I describe later, which I very much wish were false.]

Via TPM again, from Pacific Magazine:

“The Marianas Variety Online reports that Governor-elect Benigno R. Fitial says he will cooperate with federal authorities in the ongoing investigation of Rep. Tom Delay and former Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, whom he once described as his “close friends.” House leadership spokesman Charles P. Reyes Jr. said Speaker Fitial “will comply with all the legal requirements asked of him.””

If Fitial cooperates, he will have quite a tale to tell, and I hope he tells every word of it, and can document the whole thing. Start with how he became Speaker:

“Two former top aides of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s brokered a political deal here five years ago that helped land island government contracts worth $1.6 million for a Washington lobbyist now the target of a federal corruption probe.

Using promises of U.S. tax dollars as bartering chips, Edwin A. Buckham and Michael Scanlon traveled to these remote Pacific islands in late 1999 to convince two local legislators to switch their votes for speaker of the territory’s 18-member House of Representatives. They succeeded.

Once in office, the new speaker pressed the governor of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands to reinstate an expired lobbying pact with Jack Abramoff, now under grand jury and congressional investigation.

Within months of the visit, Abramoff’s law firm had a contract paying $100,000 a month from the Marianas government. Also, the island districts of the legislators who switched sides soon won federal budget benefits from Congress, apparently supported by DeLay.”

Abramoff had had a contract with the Northern Marianas, but it had been suspended because the islands were having fiscal problems. DeLay’s aides (one of whom had moved on to lobbying, and one of whom was still on the federal payroll) travelled to the islands, met with the house members, both of whom claimed afterwards that the aides had promised them federal support for projects in their districts. Others deny this, but in any case, Fitial became speaker, Abramoff’s contract was reinstated, and, by a curious coincidence, money for the projects was suddenly given priority and appropriated by committees DeLay served on.

That would be our tax dollars DeLay’s aides felt so free to toss around.

So: why did the Northern Marianas have to hire a lobbyist? Well:

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Media Bias Strikes Again

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by hilzoy Via TPM: About ten days ago, Chris Cillizza, who blogs on politics at the Washington Post, wrote up a ‘scorecard’ on corruption scandals in politics. He said at the outset that he was going to limit himself to currently serving politicians, but stuck in Rep. Frank Ballance, who resigned in 2004, and whose … Read more

Liar, Liar: Take 3: In Which George W. Bush Reveals That He Lives In An Alternate Universe

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by hilzoy Today President Bush said this: “We do not render to countries that torture. That has been our policy, and that policy will remain the same.” Sometimes, it’s possible to find some peculiar way of interpreting this administration’s claims about torture and detention that makes them technically true. Do they say that it is … Read more

Liar, Liar, Pants On Fire: Take 2

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by hilzoy I said in my post on Condoleeza Rice’s speech that I was not going to track down all the false statements she made. One that I decided not to bother with was this: “For decades, the United States and other countries have used “renditions” to transport terrorist suspects from the country where they … Read more

Liar, Liar, Pants On Fire

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by hilzoy

Once upon a time, our senior government officials used to pretend to tell the truth. Sometimes it was only a pretense. But, in general, they did not say things that were obviously, flatly false.

I guess that’s just one more thing that changed on 9/11.

Today, Condoleeza Rice made a speech that was remarkable for its sheer bald-faced dishonesty. I have not tried to pick out all the false statements she made. But here are a few of the more obvious howlers:

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New Orleans: You’re On Your Own

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by hilzoy

Peter Gosselin had a very good story on reconstruction in New Orleans in yesterday’s LATimes. In it, he makes two different points, both of which are very important.

The first is that despite President Bush’s promises, the federal government has really failed to deliver a lot of badly needed assistance:

“But in recent weeks, a new reality has settled in as the agencies that were stepping up to help guide the city’s comeback have stepped back down again.

FEMA said it would stop covering the hotel costs of more than 50,000 households at the beginning of December — later extended until Jan. 7 — even while acknowledging that many, especially in New Orleans, would have trouble finding alternative accommodations.

Despite repeated pleas, the corps and the White House refused to promise any strengthening of the levees beyond what was underway. Investigators, meanwhile, concluded that several of the protective walls that failed did not meet corps-approved standards, a discovery that raised doubts about the safety of the entire levee system.

Emergency spending slowed sharply. The national flood insurance program temporarily suspended claims payments for Katrina, and program officials hinted broadly that they would tighten eligibility requirements to get coverage for the next storm.

Even the tiny agency charged with gauging the elevation of America’s ground added an unexpected hurdle. It quietly announced that New Orleans and environs had sunk more than anticipated, forcing it to replace all of its measuring sticks. The result is that New Orleanians will have to build higher to escape future floods.

With so many new strikes against it, the city’s recovery, already grindingly slow, has ground still slower. Three months after the storm, Entergy New Orleans, the bankrupt utility that serves the city, said that 55,000 of its 190,000 customers had resumed electrical service. Municipal officials estimate that less than one-third of the population has returned to live.

To an extent almost inconceivable a few months ago, the only real actors in the rebuilding drama at the moment are the city’s homeowners and business owners. To be sure, Washington is offering many relief payments, tax breaks and FEMA trailers. The city is speeding the approval of building permits. But for the rest, individual New Orleanians are struggling to come back largely under their own power, using mostly their own resources and negotiating their return substantially on their own terms.”

This is unconscionable all by itself. But it’s a lot worse given the second point: that rebuilding New Orleans is, in large part, the sort of collective action problem in which the government can play an absolutely crucial role. And its failure to step up to the plate means that it is not doing what only it can do to help solve that problem.

“”There is no market solution to New Orleans,” said Thomas C. Schelling of the University of Maryland, who won this year’s Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his analysis of the complicated bargaining behavior that underpins everything from simple sales to nuclear confrontations.

“It essentially is a problem of coordinating expectations,” Schelling said of the task that Vignaud and her neighbors must grapple with. “If we all expect each other to come back, we will. If we don’t, we won’t.

“But achieving this coordination in the circumstances of New Orleans,” he said, “seems impossible.””

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Not So Extraordinary After All

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by Katherine

It was almost two years ago that I asked the question, "How Extraordinary is Extraordinary Rendition?"; whether what was unusual about the U.S. sending Maher Arar to be tortured in Syria without any real evidence that he was a terrorist was that it happened, or that we knew about it. The answer seems to be "that we knew about it." As Hilzoy noted below, the Washington Post reported Sunday that the CIA is investigating up to 36 "erroneous renditions".

So. Who are these men? We know of at least two: Maher Arar and Khaled el-Masri (whose case is decribed in the Post article). Who else?

I don’t know what standard they use to declare a rendition erroneous—whether the suspect needs to affirmatively show innocence, or merely that he does not produce "actionable intelligence" and there is no evidence against him other than his own or someone else’s confessions under torture. There are also many cases where I have no real idea about the suspect’s guilt or innocence. So the CIA could be including some of the other renditions that have been publicly reported in that total.

But I have followed this subject very closely, and I definitely do not know about three dozen renditions that a CIA officer would be likely to describe as "erroneous." Nowhere even close to that.

And where are these men? It is possible that some of them were released, but neither they nor their family has ever spoken to the press or a human rights organization. In the cases that we do know of, there is often a fairly long delay between the suspect’s release & his speaking to the press or the public, so it is possible that some may choose never to do this at all. Perhaps that is even a condition of their release from custody. But does that describe 25 or 30 of them? I doubt it. I really doubt it.

Of the 20-odd renditions that I do know of, a very small number of people have been freed: Maher Arar, Mamdouh Habib and Khaled el-Masri. That’s it. Muhammad al-Zery was reportedly released from an Egyptian prison but remains under surveillance and cannot leave the country or speak freely about what happened to him. The rest remain in prison—whether it’s Guantanamo, some CIA detention site, or foreign custody. We know from reading Priest’s description of el-Masri’s case that the discovery of a suspect’s innocence does not necessarily immediately lead to his release. And Khaled el-Masri is a German citizen. Mamdouh Habib is Australian. Maher Arar is Canadian. It is not a coincidence that the men released are citizens of wealthy, Western democracies that are U.S. allies.

Based on all of this, I would guess that most of the thirty-odd prisoners who were “erroneously rendered” are still in prison somewhere. I would also guess that some of them are still being subjected to torture right now.

But this won’t end when they stop being tortured, or when they are released from prison. Not for them.

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Will To Win Watch

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by hilzoy When I realized that all we really need in order to win in Iraq is will and resolve, I thought my life would get a lot better. No more reading about American and Iraqi soldiers being blown to bits, the ominous rise in sectarian violence, the emergence of death squads, and the like. … Read more

Teh Funny!

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by hilzoy The entire point of the rest of this post is to get you to click this link. (Via Pharyngula.) Trust me: do it now, and skip the summary. *** OK, mistrustful people: it’s a description of a fight about linguistics, which is, in the world of the piece, “widely and justifiably seen as … Read more

The War On Christmas, Swedish Style

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by hilzoy Who could resist a headline like: “Vandals Burn Swedish Christmas Goat, Again“? “Vandals set light to a giant straw goat Saturday night in a central Swedish town, police said — an event that has happened so frequently it has almost become a Christmas tradition. It was the 22nd time that the goat had … Read more

Oops; Our Bad.

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by hilzoy

There’s a new story about rendition in the Washington Post. Specifically, it’s about cases in which we kidnapped people, held them incommunicado, and in some cases transferred them to the intelligence services to be tortured, because we thought they were terrorists — but oops! we were wrong:

“The CIA inspector general is investigating a growing number of what it calls “erroneous renditions,” according to several former and current intelligence officials. One official said about three dozen names fall in that category; others believe it is fewer. The list includes several people whose identities were offered by al Qaeda figures during CIA interrogations, officials said. One turned out to be an innocent college professor who had given the al Qaeda member a bad grade, one official said.

“They picked up the wrong people, who had no information. In many, many cases there was only some vague association” with terrorism, one CIA officer said.”

I had always thought that the possible consequences of giving someone a bad grade didn’t go beyond minor unpleasantness*. Apparently, I need to think again.

Here’s how it happened:

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Priorities

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by hilzoy Via War and Piece, a story from Knight-Ridder: ” The State Department has been using political litmus tests to screen private American citizens before they can be sent overseas to represent the United States, weeding out critics of the Bush administration’s Iraq policy, according to department officials and internal e-mails. In one recent … Read more

Bush’s Plan

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by hilzoy

Now that I have slept a bit, I have decided to post a longer version of my quick take on the President’s new Strategy For Victory.

I completely agree with the President’s take on the consequences of losing in Iraq. (see pp. 5-6. Short version: it would be a disaster.) I only wish the gravity of these consequences had occurred to President Bush before he decided to invade on the cheap, without a plan for the occupation.

However, I think that the President has misidentified the main problem facing Iraq. The main problem, according to the President, is the insurgency:

“The enemy in Iraq is a combination of rejectionists, Saddamists, and terrorists affiliated with or inspired by Al Qaida. “

According to me, the insurgents are the main threat to our troops. The main threat to Iraq, however, is the presence of armed militias generally*. The insurgents are the group(s) who attack our troops. But the existence of any armed militia that the government cannot control threatens the Iraqi state and its people. The existence of armed militias means that the Iraqi government cannot enforce its will over those parts of the country controlled by the militias; ultimately, the armed militias threaten Iraq with an all-out civil war.

This entire complex of problems is glossed over in the President’s plan. For instance, on p. 21, “Building representative Iraqi security forces and institutions while guarding against infiltration by elements whose first loyalties are to persons or institutions other than the Iraqi government” is listed as one of the remaining ‘security challenges’, but no solution to this problem is given. Moreover, the plan’s security track relies heavily on training the Iraqi army, and many of the accomplishments it cites concern progress in training that army.

If you think that the main problem is the insurgency, then one solution to this problem is to train Iraqi troops, who will eventually be able to fight the insurgents on their own. The infiltration of the Iraqi security forces by members of militias is, on this view, a secondary problem, since members of other militias might do a perfectly good job of hunting down insurgents. But if you think that the main problem is the existence of armed militias more generally, then it’s not at all clear that training Iraqi troops is the solution, for two reasons.

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Yikes!

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by hilzoy I once (at another school) had a colleague who used our department’s research budget to hire half the football and rugby teams as his research assistants. As a result, not only have I come in to find a (clothed) student I didn’t know in my office using my computer; I have also encountered … Read more

Books And Blogging

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by hilzoy

Naomi Baron has a rather silly op-ed in the LATimes. (Short version: now that students have Google, they don’t have to read books. This threatens their ability to understand sustained arguments. Short answer: Baron is a professor. She can assign papers that require students to construct sustained arguments, and she can require drafts, which would let her tell the students exactly where they’re falling short before the paper is due.)

What makes this interesting is that Kevin Drum and Jeanne d’Arc have similar responses to this piece. Kevin Drum:

“It’s not just that I spend less time reading books, it’s that I find my mind wandering when I do read. After a few paragraphs, or maybe a page or two, I’ll run into a sentence that suddenly reminds me of something — and then spend the next minute staring into space thinking of something entirely unrelated to the book at hand. Eventually I snap back, but obviously this behavior reduces both my reading rate and my reading comprehension.

Is this really because of blogging? I don’t know for sure, but it feels like it’s related to blogging, and it’s a real problem. As wonderful as blogs, magazines, and newspapers are, there’s simply no way to really learn about a subject except by reading a book — and the less I do that, the less I understand about the broader, deeper issues that go beyond merely the outrage of the day.”

Jeanne d’Arc:

“I find that the more I read online, the less I read off. I don’t think it’s even a matter of using up my reading time. It actually destroys brain cells or something, because if I’ve been doing too much online reading, I lose the patience for following a sustained or subtle argument, or reading a complex novel. One of my reasons for frequent blogging disappearances is recovery: I need to get away from the fast and facile and let my brain heal. It actually feels like recovering a bit of humanity that I forgot I had.”

My experience is exactly the opposite of theirs.

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Cunningham Resigns. Good Riddance.

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by hilzoy Today, Duke Cunningham pled guilty to accepting bribes, among other things, and resigned from Congress. From the WaPo: “Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, an eight-term congressman and hotshot Vietnam War fighter jock, pleaded guilty to graft and tearfully resigned Monday, admitting he took $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors to steer business their … Read more

Intellectual Integrity Watch

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by hilzoy Joe Biden wrote an editorial calling for a timetable for Iraq yesterday, and today the White House not only endorsed Biden’s plan, but claimed that it was actually Bush’s: “The White House for the first time has claimed possession of an Iraq withdrawal plan, arguing that a troop pullout blueprint unveiled this past … Read more

Alito And CAP

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by hilzoy

The fact that Samuel Alito was a member of the Concerned Alumni of Princeton, and cited that fact on his 1985 job application, has been in the news recently; and it occurred to me that since I was a Princeton undergraduate (class of ’81) while CAP was active, I might be able to provide some useful background on this one.

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Someone Is Watching You…

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by hilzoy

From the WaPo:

“The Defense Department has expanded its programs aimed at gathering and analyzing intelligence within the United States, creating new agencies, adding personnel and seeking additional legal authority for domestic security activities in the post-9/11 world. The moves have taken place on several fronts. The White House is considering expanding the power of a little-known Pentagon agency called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, which was created three years ago. The proposal, made by a presidential commission, would transform CIFA from an office that coordinates Pentagon security efforts — including protecting military facilities from attack — to one that also has authority to investigate crimes within the United States such as treason, foreign or terrorist sabotage or even economic espionage.

The Pentagon has pushed legislation on Capitol Hill that would create an intelligence exception to the Privacy Act, allowing the FBI and others to share information gathered about U.S. citizens with the Pentagon, CIA and other intelligence agencies, as long as the data is deemed to be related to foreign intelligence. Backers say the measure is needed to strengthen investigations into terrorism or weapons of mass destruction. The proposals, and other Pentagon steps aimed at improving its ability to analyze counterterrorism intelligence collected inside the United States, have drawn complaints from civil liberties advocates and a few members of Congress, who say the Defense Department’s push into domestic collection is proceeding with little scrutiny by the Congress or the public.

“We are deputizing the military to spy on law-abiding Americans in America. This is a huge leap without even a [congressional] hearing,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a recent interview. (…)

Perhaps the prime illustration of the Pentagon’s intelligence growth is CIFA, which remains one of its least publicized intelligence agencies. Neither the size of its staff, said to be more than 1,000, nor its budget is public, said Conway, the Pentagon spokesman. The CIFA brochure says the agency’s mission is to “transform” the way counterintelligence is done “fully utilizing 21st century tools and resources.”

One CIFA activity, threat assessments, involves using “leading edge information technologies and data harvesting,” according to a February 2004 Pentagon budget document. This involves “exploiting commercial data” with the help of outside contractors including White Oak Technologies Inc. of Silver Spring, and MZM Inc., a Washington-based research organization, according to the Pentagon document. For CIFA, counterintelligence involves not just collecting data but also “conducting activities to protect DoD and the nation against espionage, other intelligence activities, sabotage, assassinations, and terrorist activities,” its brochure states.

CIFA’s abilities would increase considerably under the proposal being reviewed by the White House, which was made by a presidential commission on intelligence chaired by retired appellate court judge Laurence H. Silberman and former senator Charles S. Robb (D-Va.). The commission urged that CIFA be given authority to carry out domestic criminal investigations and clandestine operations against potential threats inside the United States.”

This is serious.

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Iraq And Al Qaeda

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by hilzoy A few days ago, Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber made a good point: “Cheney asks “Would the United States and other free nations be better off or worse off with (Abu Musab al-) Zarqawi, (Osama) bin Laden and (Ayman al-) Zawahiri in control of Iraq?” he asked. “Would be we safer or less … Read more