Minority Report

Just Because I'm Paranoid...

Doesn't mean that they aren't watching...

According to the standard narrative, the history of American intelligence cleaves neatly into two acts: the free-for-all years that preceded the Church Committee, and the responsible years that have followed.

But even as enshrined in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, the prohibition on domestic spying without a warrant has always been something of a legal fiction: the standard practice is to go ahead and eavesdrop on the conversations of foreigners, even if the party on the other end of the line is an American citizen. Summaries of these conversations are then routinely distributed throughout the relevant government agencies. The privacy of the American citizens involved is putatively preserved by replacing their names with the phrase "U.S. person" in the summary.

During the Bolton hearings, however, it emerged that when he was at the State Department, Mr. Bolton on several occasions received summaries of intercepts between foreigners and "U.S. persons" and requested that the spy agency tell him who those Americans were. Without asking Mr. Bolton to show any cause for his request or going through a review process, the agency complied.

Following this revelation, Newsweek discovered that from January 2004 to May 2005, the National Security Agency had supplied names of some 10,000 American citizens in this informal fashion to policy makers at many departments, other American intelligence services and law enforcement agencies.

US Dropping Out of the Geneva Convention

That's essentially the argument that they're making in the courts:

Foreign citizens who change planes at airports in the United States can legally be seized, detained without charges, deprived of access to a lawyer or the courts, and even denied basic necessities like food, lawyers for the government said in Brooklyn federal court yesterday.

Next, North Korea Can "Talk to the Hand"

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accused Syria on Tuesday of fomenting instability in Lebanon and told them to ``knock it off.''

She was speaking after a bomb killed George Hawi, an anti-Syrian politician and the former leader of the Lebanese Communist Party.

Rice said she did not know who detonated the bomb but said: ``There is a context and an atmosphere of instability. Syria's activities are part of that context and a part of that atmosphere and they need to knock it off.''

Somehow that statement seems to lack the formality that usually comes with international diplomacy. Call me crazy, but I generally like to see my secretary of state speak with more authority than if she were a guest on the Rikki Lake show.

After all, these countries are our "neighbors" only in the figurative sense... Maybe she's spending too much time in Crawford with her husband.

Making Tricky Dick Look Like an Amateur

Given what's in the papers this week, it sure seems rediculous that we impeached a president for lying about blowjobs. This week alone has brought news about how Administration pressure may have been brought to bear to reduce the federal government's Tobacco suit penalties from $130 billion to $10 billion:

The newly disclosed documents make clear that the decision was made after weeks of tumult in the department and accusations from lawyers on the tobacco team that Mr. McCallum and other political appointees had effectively undermined their case. Mr. McCallum, No. 3 at the department, is a close friend of President Bush from their days as Skull & Bones members at Yale, and he was also a partner at an Atlanta law firm, Alston & Bird, that has done legal work for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, part of Reynolds American, a defendant in the case.

"Everyone is asking, 'Why now?' " said a Justice Department employee involved in the case who insisted on anonymity for fear of retaliation. "Why would you throw the case down the toilet at the very last hour, after five years?"

Ultimately, Mr. McCallum overruled the objections from the trial team, and the documents and interviews suggest that his senior aides took the unusual step of writing parts of the closing argument that Ms. Eubanks delivered last week in federal court in seeking the reduction in penalties.

Officials who insisted on anonymity said the change on the penalties provoked such strong objections from the trial team that some lawyers threatened to quit. Department officials have now proposed that a lower-level lawyer who has outlined the reasons for reduced penalties take over crucial parts of the remainder of the trial.

In another memorandum sent on Tuesday that was also reviewed by The Times, a senior official in the criminal division of the department recommended that the lower-level lawyer on the team, Frank Marine, who has supported the $10 billion penalty internally and publicly, "be in charge of preparing" the final briefs and the proposed order on penalties.

That work would normally go to Ms. Eubanks, director of the team.

Also reported today is the fact that investigators at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are looking into payments to GOP lobbyists, by the corporation's Republican chairman" and "his Republican predecessor."

The investigators, in the corporation's inspector general's office, are also examining $14,170 in payments made under contracts - which Mr. Tomlinson took the unusual step of signing personally, also without the knowledge of board members - with a man in Indiana who provided him with reports about the political leanings of guests on the "Now" program when its host was Bill Moyers.

...It comes as Republicans in Congress are threatening to cut support for public broadcasting sharply, and as a number of crucial staff members at the corporation have quit and privately cited concerns on Mr. Tomlinson's leadership.

And that the military tried to coerce guilty pleas from their Guantanamo detainees:

military defense lawyer told a Senate hearing on Wednesday that when military authorities first asked him to represent a detainee at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, he was instructed that he could negotiate only a guilty plea.

The lawyer, Lt. Cmdr. Charles D. Swift of the Navy, who represents a Yemeni, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, said that he regarded the effort, in December 2003, "as a clear attempt to coerce to Mr. Hamdan into pleading guilty."

Commander Swift testified that when he visited Mr. Hamdan, he discovered that the prisoner did not want to plead guilty, as the authorities had apparently believed from their earlier interrogation of him, conducted without a lawyer.

...After the prison opened, senior military officers said that they planned that the first detainees to go before a military commission would be those who would plead guilty. They said at the time that starting with a few guilty pleas would lend legitimacy to the process and to the evidence used as a basis for imprisoning and charging the prisoners.

While we remain mired in news stories about Brad, Jennifer, and Angelina and of course, Michael Jackson, the world press is all over the cascading leaks of British government documents clearly indicating that both the British and American governments purposely mislead their countries into war:

The document, a British government briefing paper from July 21, 2002, informed Prime Minister Tony Blair's cabinet ministers eight months before the invasion of Iraq that Blair had already committed Britain to supporting an American-led attack and that "they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal."

The eight-page document labeled "PERSONAL SECRET UK EYES ONLY," whose authenticity has been confirmed by British government sources, also served as the basis of a Page 1 story in the Sunday Washington Post. Staff writer Walter Pincus emphasized a different passage in the document, which said "the U.S. military was not preparing adequately for what the British memo predicted would be a " protracted and costly" postwar occupation of Iraq.

I'll take a president who lies about blowjobs any day over a president who lies about intelligence leading to war. Less people die with blowjobs...

Our Torture is Not As Bad as Anyone Else's

That's the shorter Dick Cheney, trying to justify the Guantanamo prison camps for Muslim detainees.

To bolster their claims that they're holding actual terrorists and not innocent civilians, they're claiming that they've caught some people attacking Americans after they've been released:

Mr. Cheney mentioned the name of Maulvi Abdul Ghaffar, a released Guantánamo prisoner who returned to Afghanistan and became a Taliban commander and was killed last year by Afghan forces. He also cited Mullah Shehzada, who he said returned from the prison to organize a jail break in Afghanistan, and who was killed last year by American forces.

Gee, I wonder what motive an innocent person who's been abducted, detained, tortured and abused against their will for several years would have for attacking Americans upon their release? As usual, the Administrations policy of indiscriminately detaining and torturing Muslims and treating them as if they were terrorists works against Americans interests.

Arguing that we're not as inhumane as other countries is an empty and stupid argument. First, it's not true - there are plenty of countries in the world that don't employ torture as a policy. Second, there are very few countries in the world that proclaim themselves as the epicenters of liberty, democracy, and freedom. When we torture and abuse people, we make those statements a lie and reveal what is already widely suspected. That America is an abusive, lying power that is undeserving of the global deference given to it.

An Apology Bereft of Meaning

Yesterday, the Senate apologized for failing to make lynching a federal crime.

The formal apology, adopted by voice vote, was issued decades after senators blocked antilynching bills by filibuster. The resolution is the first time that members of Congress, who have apologized to Japanese-Americans for their internment in World War II and to Hawaiians for the overthrow of their kingdom, have apologized to African-Americans for any reason, proponents of the measure said.

"The Senate failed you and your ancestors and our nation," Senator Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, chief Democratic sponsor of the resolution, said at a luncheon attended by 200 family members and descendants of victims. They included 100 relatives of Anthony Crawford, as well as a 91-year-old man believed to be the only known survivor of an attempted lynching.

I suppose one could argue that a late apology is better than none at all but when you add context, this grandiose moment is revealed to be more of an empty gesture. Politics as usual.

For example, how can anyone forget how no Senator came forward to support the Congressional Black Caucus as they sought a Senate sponsor in order to conduct hearings into voting irregularities in the 2000 Florida election?

Even the manner in which the Senate addressed the apology leaves their motives suspect:

Of the 100 senators, 80 were co-sponsors of the resolution, and because it passed by voice vote, senators escaped putting themselves on record.

"It's a statement in itself that there aren't 100 co-sponsors," Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, said. "It's a statement in itself that there's not an up-or-down vote."

Maybe 100 years from now, the Senate will once again apologize to African Americans for failing to look into efforts to disenfranchise their voting rights in the last few elections. I wouldn't hold my breath, though. And I'm not the only one who thinks so:

Mrs. Merriwether's aunt Magdalene Latimer, 84, was not so certain about the senators. "I have to let God be the judge," Ms. Latimer said, "because I don't know if they meant it out of their heart or they're just saying it out of their mouth."

Because They Have a Black CEO

That's the New York Times answer to why Wall Street doesn't care that Time Warner has made a significant turnaround in a company that was written off as dead three years ago. Richard Parsons, one of very few black CEOs in America, is the man responsible, but apparently, convention on Wall Street is that he's just a diversity hire.

Expectations were low when Mr. Parsons was handed the flaming baton in 2002, in part because, as a black man, he had been viewed as a hood ornament of executive diversity. Sure, he was plenty smart, earning the highest score on the New York State Bar exam in 1971. And, yes, he knew politics, having been schooled as an aide to the Rockefellers. He has a significant business résumé. He pulled Dime Savings Bank from the brink in 1990 - and managed to be the last man standing at the merged company.

"I didn't really know Dick all that well," said Mr. Logan, chairman of the company's media and communication group. "I always thought of him as the guy who ran staff functions and I always liked him, but I had no idea how good he was. I got to know him, came to admire him, and he is a fun guy to be around. And when it comes down to it, he always decides to do the right thing, which given where we have been, is saying a lot."

Company party? Credit that to the black guy. Major corporate turnaround? Ignore it. Yeah, I really believe America is a meritocracy.

Get Out, Brown Trespassers!

Watch out for this to become the new way to enforce immigration law:

NEW IPSWICH, N.H. -- The police chief of this tiny whitewashed New England town has crafted his own border-control policy -- he has charged illegal immigrants from Mexico with trespassing in New Hampshire.

The novel legal strategy has made a minor celebrity of W. Garrett Chamberlain. The 36-year-old police chief hops to his feet and deposits a pile of letters on his desk, from Alaskans and Californians, Border Patrol agents and soldiers in Iraq, all applauding his initiative. Fox News commentators have called, too, seeking his views on national immigration policy.

..."I'm just saying: 'Wait a minute. We're on heightened alert and it's post-9/11, and I'm going to let an illegal immigrant who I don't know from Adam just walk away?' " Chamberlain said. "That's ridiculous. If I find you are in my country illegally, I'm not going to worry about political correctness. I will detain you."

Only there's nothing novel about it. They're taking a law that was developed for private property and now they're applying it to public spaces. It's ludicrous that in what's supposed to be considered the epicenter of freedom and democracy on the planet, that you need to be licensed to be out in public. Of course, Fox News will promote the hell out of this.

Pick Up a Newspaper, Guys

Because the Census doesn't tell you everything...

New Census Bureau figures released on Thursday show that the immigrant population in the United States is becoming younger, a shift likely to foster more tolerance for diversity and perhaps accelerate assimilation, demographers and immigration experts say.

The figures show that immigration trends are forming a unique generational divide: those immigrants over 40 are largely white, while those under 40 are increasingly Hispanic, Asian and from other minority groups.

...Mr. Frey [a demographer for the Brookings Institution] added: "We will become a more tolerant society as these young people move toward adulthood and a blurring occurs of the sharp racial distinctions of the previous decades."

...Mr. de la Garza, [a political scientist at Columbia University] who is 60, said that when he was young the idea of a Mexican-American riding the waves was ridiculous. "Now there are Chicano surfers," he said. "It is indicative of cultural incorporation. "

I don't want to be a naysayer, but I doubt Chicano surfers are much of a cultural indicator. Black baseball players, tennis players, golfers, television and music stars haven't made Americans significantly more tolerant of the African American community.

If anything the reverse might be true - as society becomes more heterogenuous and whites who find themselves disenfranchised by circumstance are likely to blame incoming immigrants for their woes, much as they did at the turn of the century when Chinese, Japanese, and Indian laborers came to work in the lumber mills and railroads. Those guys were pretty young back then, too.

Greeetings from Inside the Establishment

It has been far too long since I've posted anything real here for which I profoundly apologize. I'm touched by those of you who emailed, expressing concern that the government has finally hauled my ass away, but thankfully that's not the case. As I mentioned in earlier posts, I've been going through some life transitions, namely graduating, moving from Pittsburgh to New York, buying a house, moving it (and my wife) into the new place, and starting a new job, so rest assured I am quite safe and well.

In that time, however, I've done something far scarier - according to the New York Times, I've gone and joined the establishment. Just two years ago, according to the Times, I was ranked in the 50th percentile of Americans in terms of my class. I now rank in the 77th percentile.

Most of that mobility is the result of my master's degree, which places me in the 97th percentile, and my new job which also boosted me up considerably from my old line of work. Also, by getting married, I can now count my wife's assets as my own.

Of course, while I agree with the Times' analysis that these factors contribute considerably to one's class, I'm not sure whether the numbers really mean anything. It's not like I'm hobnobbing with Donald Trump and I'm sure the Establishment really doesn't want to have anything to do with me. It's only a matter of time before someone complains to the FBI that I'm some kind of terrorist for no good reason.

Moreover, in terms of upwards economic mobility, I still rank below my parents so they've only been able to take me so far. The entire Times series on this has been excellent - especially since it's unusual to see a mainstream media organization take on an issue that deals so strongly with social inequity. Too bad it doesn't seem to be trickling down to other media.

The greater lesson appears to be the value of education - most of my mobility is a direct result of my education, which opened greater doors for me economically.

That said, I should also be clear that I've taken a job within corporate America - not a small company, but a household name. I know I'll get a lot of flack for it from my detractors, so I should be upfront and clear. I am not against corporations as I do not think that they are inherently evil or corrupt. Just as there are corrupt and evil nonprofits, corporations themselves are neutral entities whose nature is determined by how they are led. Unfortunately, the structure of capitalism rewards short-term orientation and anti-social behavior on the part of corporations. For an excellent analysis of this, pick up William Greider's The Soul of Capitalism.

I am by nature a reformer and I think capitalism and corporations themselves can be reformed by making structural changes to the reward/incentive system and also through strong moral leadership.

That said, I want to make clear that the transitions in my life have demanded that I also change how I run this blog. It doesn't appear that I will have regular access to the Web, which was my primary access to my blog. Fortunately, it looks like Typepad allows mobile blogging, so I'll be blogging more using email in the future. (This post is being written through email as a test.)

Second, I think that my schedule will no longer allow the multiple-day postings that I had been accustomed to. I'm still transitioning - it's only my first week at work and I still don't have a concrete idea of what my schedule is like. I'm hoping to return to at least one daily post. We'll see how things go...

Again, thanks for your concern and support. I really appreciate it.