Raw Story, NYT: Bush Attempts to Get Congress to Endorse Permanent War onTerror

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Bush_seeks_to_institutionalize_war_powers_...

Bush quietly seeks to make war powers permanent, by declaring indefinite state of war

John Byrne
Published: Saturday August 30, 2008

As the nation focuses on Sen. John McCain's choice of running mate, President Bush has quietly moved to expand the reach of presidential power by ensuring that America remains in a state of permanent war.

Buried in a recent proposal by the Administration is a sentence that has received scant attention -- and was buried itself in the very newspaper that exposed it Saturday. It is an affirmation that the United States remains at war with al Qaeda, the Taliban and "associated organizations."

Part of a proposal for Guantanamo Bay legal detainees, the provision before Congress seeks to “acknowledge again and explicitly that this nation remains engaged in an armed conflict with Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated organizations, who have already proclaimed themselves at war with us and who are dedicated to the slaughter of Americans.”

The New York Times page 8 placement of the article in its Saturday edition seems to downplay its importance. Such a re-affirmation of war carries broad legal implications that could imperil Americans' civil liberties and the rights of foreign nationals for decades to come.

It was under the guise of war that President Bush claimed a legal mandate for his warrantless wiretapping program, giving the National Security Agency power to intercept calls Americans made abroad. More of this program has emerged in recent years, and it includes the surveillance of Americans' information and exchanges online.

"War powers" have also given President Bush cover to hold Americans without habeas corpus -- detainment without explanation or charge. Jose Padilla, a Chicago resident arrested in 2002, was held without trial for five years before being convicted of conspiring to kill individuals abroad and provide support for terrorism.

But his arrest was made with proclamations that Padilla had plans to build a "dirty bomb." He was never convicted of this charge. Padilla's legal team also claimed that during his time in military custody -- the four years he was held without charge -- he was tortured with sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, forced stress positions and injected with drugs.

Times reporter Eric Lichtblau notes that the measure is the latest step that the Administration has taken to "make permanent" key aspects of its "long war" against terrorism. Congress recently passed a much-maligned bill giving telecommunications companies retroactive immunity for their participation in what constitutional experts see as an illegal or borderline-illegal surveillance program, and is considering efforts to give the FBI more power in their investigative techniques.

"It is uncertain whether Congress will take the administration up on its request," Lichtblau writes. "Some Republicans have already embraced the idea, with Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, introducing a measure almost identical to the administration’s proposal. 'Since 9/11,' Mr. Smith said, 'we have been at war with an unconventional enemy whose primary goal is to kill innocent Americans.'"

If enough Republicans come aboard, Democrats may struggle to defeat the provision. Despite holding majorities in the House and Senate, they have failed to beat back some of President Bush's purported "security" measures, such as the telecom immunity bill.

Bush's open-ended permanent war language worries his critics. They say it could provide indefinite, if hazy, legal justification for any number of activities -- including detention of terrorists suspects at bases like Guantanamo Bay (where for years the Administration would not even release the names of those being held), and the NSA's warantless wiretapping program.

Lichtblau co-wrote the Times article revealing the Administration's eavesdropping program along with fellow reporter James Risen.

He notes that Bush's language "recalls a resolution, known as the Authorization for Use of Military Force, passed by Congress on Sept. 14, 2001... [which] authorized the president to 'use all necessary and appropriate force' against those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks to prevent future strikes. That authorization, still in effect, was initially viewed by many members of Congress who voted for it as the go-ahead for the administration to invade Afghanistan and overthrow the Taliban, which had given sanctuary to Mr. bin Laden."

"But the military authorization became the secret legal basis for some of the administration’s most controversial legal tactics, including the wiretapping program, and that still gnaws at some members of Congress," he adds.

NYC 911 Ballot Initiative Needs Your Help -- 20,000 more signatures Needed

Flyby News Alert - 17 July 2008 - www.FlybyNews.com
Editor - Jonathan Mark

"I wanted to express my strong support for the NYC 9/11 Ballot Initiative.
There has never been a better time to get such an initiative on the ballot,
because the 9/11 Truth Movement's case against the official account of 9/11
..All that is necessary is enough people to commit themselves to work enough
hours to gather those signatures. If you help get this initiative on the ballot,
your name will surely be included in the universe's list of heroes."

-- David Ray Griffin

Final Push for 9/11 Ballot Initiative 2008 - last weekend of July
by Douglass E. Wight

Nearing the 20,000 signed petition mark, the NYC 911 Ballot Initiative Campaign continues to forge ahead towards our anticipated victory on July 26.

A tremendous amount of progress and success has been made since our campaign's inception in February of 2008. Since February, Ralph Nader, Amy Goodman, Wayne Madsen, Jesse Ventura, Christine Ebersole, former Senators Mike Gravel and Lincoln Chafee, and Ed Asner have all come out in favor of our NYC 911 Ballot Initiative.

Fueled by recent campaign donations of $25,000, we are now in the process of hiring 100 new campaign petitioners. Our goal is to have 150 people out on the streets of New York by July 19th and ramp up for a triumphal weekend on July 26th. To insure our success, we need to turn in 35,000 signed, validated petitions to the New York City Council on August 1st and have another 15,000 signed petitions ready and waiting in the wings to over-ride a possible City Council veto.

The weekend of July 26 is being orchestrated as a grand victory of triumph. However, in order to help make it happen, we need the entire East Coast 9/11 Truth Movement to step-up big time and accept the challenge. Our quest is to place 1,000 ethical warrior heroes on the streets of New York City during the weekend of July 26th. Please,--step-up and be a hero for yourself and the 911 Truth Movement. Please hire buses and set up car pools to come to Gotham City on Friday night, July 25th. Housing will be provided for all those 911 Truth Movement heroes who come to the Big Apple. Paul Revere and the Minutemen are saddling up folks and this is the moment of TRUTH for our great movement.

"WE ARE THE ONES WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR"

Respond to Doug Wight, at Wellness15@yahoo.com ;also at (718)492-2192
Assistant Coordinator, NYC 911 Ballot Initiative

For Independent Investigations
NYC 9/11 Ballot
I N I T I A T I V E

Help Dr Sami Al-Arian -- Tampa Bay Coalition for Peace and Justice

Dr. Al-Arian Unjustly Indicted!
Government abuses grand jury system to punish prominent civil rights activist

Alexandria, Virginia, June 30, 2008
Last Thursday, three months after refusing to testify before a third grand jury, Dr. Sami Al-Arian - whose trial has been the single most important test case of the PATRIOT Act - was charged on two counts of contempt of court. Dr. Al-Arian refused to testify not only because the plea agreement he concluded with the government in 2006 clearly exempts him from having to do so, but also because it was a clear perjury trap.
The Assistant US Attorney who sought his testimony and who brought the contempt charges, Gordon Kromberg, has made no attempt to hide his bigotry towards Arabs and Muslims. Furthermore, Kromberg has publicly and in no uncertain terms declared his alleged right to use legal loopholes to punish people he cannot convict for any substantial crimes. (Click here for more information on this rogue prosecutor).
Criminal contempt has no maximum penalty; if convicted, Dr. Al-Arian, a loving father of five, could be sentenced for life.
These charges are an outrageous abuse of the grand jury system and a naked attempt by the government to punish an innocent man for exercising his first amendment rights. For more information on the indictment, click here. To watch the YouTube video which summarizes Dr. Al-Arian's case, click here.


PLEASE ACT!

2 phone calls + 1 fax = BIG difference!

Friends, please stand with us against this act of tyranny by doing these two simple things:

1. Call Senator Patrick Leahy ((202) 224- 4242) and Congressman John Conyers ((202) 225-5126) - the Judicial Committee chairmen of the Senate and House respectively - and ask them to meet with the Attorney General and have him stop Assistant US Attorney Gordon Kromberg from going forward with this unlawful indictment. Even if you are not their constituent, they are obliged to listen to your opinion since their duties extend to all Americans.

2. Fax a letter to the Office of Professional Responsibility at the US Department of Justice: (202) 514-5050. Click here for a letter template.


There are other very important things you can do to help out! To find out more, please visit this page.



Donate to Dr. Al-Arian's Legal Fund!
Dr. Al-Arian's talented team of attorneys urgently need funds to provide a full defence. Click here to donate online through PayPal or here to find the address to send a check.

Join our regular listserv today!

To receive all the latest updates on Dr. Al-Arian's case, simply send an email to tampabaycoalitionforpeaceandjustice-subscribe@yahoogroups.com .

Senator Chris Dodd Stands Up Against Telecom Immunity and Presidential Lawlessness

Thanks to Glenn Greenwald for his indefatigable work on this issue. --RB


http://dodd.senate.gov/index.php?q=node/4476
video available at url above
June 24, 2008
Chris Dodd's Speech on Telecom immunity etc.

Remarks as Prepared - Mr. President: I rise—once again—to voice my strong opposition to the misguided FISA legislation before us today. I have strong reservations about the so-called improvements made to Title I. But more than that, this legislation includes provisions which would grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that apparently have violated the privacy and the trust of millions of Americans by participating in the president’s warrantless wiretapping program. If we pass this legislation, the Senate will ratify a domestic spying regime that has already concentrated far too much unaccountable power in the president’s hands and will place the telecommunications companies above the law.



I am here today to implore my colleagues to vote against cloture in the morning.



And let me make clear, at the outset of this debate, that this is not about domestic surveillance itself. We all recognize the importance of domestic surveillance – in an age of unprecedented threats. This is about illegal, unwarranted, unchecked domestic surveillance.



And that difference—the difference between surveillance that is lawful, warranted and that which is not—is everything.



Mr. President, I had hoped I would not have to return to this floor again under these circumstances – hoped that in these negotiations we would have been able to turn aside retroactive immunity on the grounds that it is bad policy and sets a terrible precedent.



As all of my colleagues know, I have long fought against retroactive immunity, because I believe, quite simply, it is an abandonment of the rule of law. I’ve fought this with everything I had in me—and I haven’t waged this fight alone.



In December, I opposed retroactive immunity on the Senate floor. I spent ten hours on this floor then. In January and February, I came to the floor time and time again to discuss the dangers of granting retroactive immunity. Along with my colleague and friend Russ Feingold, who has shown remarkable leadership on this issue, I offered an amendment that would have stripped retroactive immunity from the Senate bill. Unfortunately, our amendment failed and to my extreme disappointment, the Senate adopted the underlying bill.



Since passage of the Senate bill, there has been extensive negotiations on how to move forward. Today, we are being asked to pass the so-called compromise that was reached by some of our colleagues and approved by the House of Representatives.



I am here today to say that I will not and cannot support this legislation. It goes against everything I have stood for – everything this body ought to stand for.



There is no question some improvements have been made over the previous versions of this bill. Title I, which regulates the ability of the government to conduct electronic surveillance, has indeed been improved. Albeit modestly. In fact, it is my hope that a new Congress and a new President will work together to fix the problems with Title I should the Senate adopt this new legislation.



But in no way is this compromise acceptable, Mr. President. This legislation before us purports to give the courts more of a role in determining the legality of the telecommunications companies actions. But in my view the Title II provisions do little more than ensure without a doubt that the telecommunications companies will be granted retroactive immunity.



Allow me to quote the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the matter. It reads:


Beginning soon after September 11, 2001, the Executive branch provided written requests or directives to U.S. electronic communication service providers to obtain their assistance with communications intelligence activities that had been authorized by the President.

… The letters were provided to electronic communication service providers at regular intervals. All of the letters stated that the activities had been authorized by the President. All of the letters also stated that the activities had been determined to be lawful by the Attorney General, except for one letter that covered a period of less than sixty days. That letter, which like all the others stated that the activities had been authorized by the President, stated that the activities had been determined to be lawful by the Counsel to the President.

Under the legislation before us, the district court would simply decide whether or not the telecommunication companies received documentation stating that the President authorized the program and that there had been some sort of determination that it was legal.

Read more:
http://dodd.senate.gov/index.php?q=node/4476

Wall St. Journal: Bernanke's turnaround on interest rates: What about credibility? What about Inflation

Is it kinda sad that the only one with their eye on the ball is the WSJ? --RB
Bernanke's Market Week
June 21, 2008;

The Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee meets again next week, and one of its jobs will be to clean up the mess the Fed made this week.

Earlier this month, Chairman Ben Bernanke signaled a turn in Fed policy to include a focus on maintaining a "stable" dollar. Sure enough, the dollar strengthened, the price of oil fell and stocks crept up. Then earlier this week, someone in the upper reaches of the Fed began leaking to the press in advance of next week's FOMC meeting that Mr. Bernanke saw no reason to raise interest rates this month, or indeed until the autumn.

Sure enough, oil shot up and gold rose back above $900 an ounce, with equities tanking in turn on stagflation fears. Throw in renewed worries over credit problems in the banking system, and the markets had a very ugly week.

What we can't figure out is what in the world Fed officials are thinking, assuming that's even the right word. The most precious commodity a Fed Chairman has is credibility. When he makes a widely advertised public commitment to maintain dollar stability, and then he or his minions leak that he has no plans to back that up with any action, he is squandering his own currency. Central banking isn't an academic seminar where ideas don't have consequences.

With inflation climbing around the globe, most of it inspired by dollar weakness, the Fed has a growing credibility problem. Mr. Bernanke needs to understand that investors are beginning to suspect that the most important financial official in the world doesn't seem to appreciate the Fed's primary role in undermining the greenback. If that conclusion becomes fixed, this week's market meltdown will look pretty by comparison.

Glenn Greenwald: NYT Plays Up Bogus Fears on FISA and Telecom Amnesty

One interesting tidbit is that Glenn Greenwald isn't even publicly aware that the war on terror is totally bogus since the US, Israel and other states like the UK plan and execute virtually all the significant terror, especially the high profile events like 9/11. Has anyone else besides Greenwald exposed the NYT for their complicity? --Ronald

Glenn Greewald
NYT circulates fear-mongering claims on FISA debate
Tuesday June 10, 2008

The New York Times' Eric Lichtblau has a long, prominent article today on the pending debate over FISA and telecom amnesty -- headlined: "Return to Old Spy Rules Is Seen as Deadline Nears" -- that features (and endorses) virtually every blatant falsehood that has distorted these spying issues from the beginning, and which is built on every shoddy journalistic practice that has made clear debate over these issues almost impossible. The article strongly suggests that a so-called "compromise" is imminent, a "compromise" which will deliver to the President virtually everything he seeks in the way of new warrantless eavesdropping powers and telecom amnesty.

One paragraph after the next in Lichtblau's article features shrill warnings, mostly from unnamed "officials," about all the scary things that will happen if Congressional Democrats do not quickly pass a new FISA bill that is similar to the Rockefeller/Cheney Senate bill and that is agreeable to the President. If a "compromise" isn't reached, reports the article, then we'll all have to live under the so-called "old" FISA law -- meaning the law used by the U.S. to defend itself from 1978 until August, 2007 and then again from February, 2008 until the present. Moreover, the one-year surveillance orders obtained last August under the now-expired Protect America Act are set to expire in August, 2008. We learn from Lichtblau's article that this would be so very dangerous because:

* expiration of the one-year PAA orders in August would create "a situation that some officials predict could leave worrisome gaps in intelligence";

* if no deal is reached, then "'We'll start losing intelligence capabilities,' Senator Christopher S. Bond of Missouri said";

* "government and Congressional officials said in interviews that they saw [reversion to FISA] as a dangerous step backward" because "government lawyers, analysts and linguists would once again have to prepare individual warrants, potentially thousands of them, for surveillance of terrorism targets overseas."

* Scarier still: "Telecommunications companies would also have to spend considerable time shutting down existing wiretaps, and then start them up again if ordered under new warrants, officials said."

* Without any explanation as to why, Lichtblau grants anonymity to an administration official to oh-so-bravely-and-valuably spout the administration line: "A senior intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the administration was concerned that reverting to the older standards and requiring individual warrants for each wiretap would create a severe gap in overseas intelligence by raising the bar for foreign surveillance collection."

* "Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey has described the idea of reverting to the older standards of foreign surveillance as 'unthinkable.'"

* As always, pitifully frightened Congressional Democrats feed these claims: "'Until August, were O.K.,' said one senior Democratic Congressional aide involved in the negotiations. "After August, we're not O.K."

Read more:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/

Fiction?!: Cassandra, Chanting: An Election Insider's Nightmare by Anonymous

Editorial Reviews from Amazon dot com.

Product Description
At the center of Cassandra, Chanting is a plot to steal the next American presidential election. Written by an election world insider who must remain anonymous, the novel exposes in authentic and chilling detail just how vulnerable our electoral system is today. It also reveals how warnings by experts are going unheeded and leaving Americans dangerously exposed, just as warnings by the mythological Cassandra went unheeded, resulting in the destruction of ancient Troy. As the novel opens, plotters travel to America and seduce and recruit government officials in order to gain access and then manipulate in undetectable ways the computer programs that control voting systems. The subversive group targets weak leaders and government bureaucrats whose thirst for power or other gain makes them susceptible. They find many eager takers. Meanwhile, the National Institute of Standards and Technology in D.C. has assembled a team led by former Navy SEAL Carl Martello to work on federal election oversight. He is joined by Angela Elanthos, brilliant at computers and decoding, and soon they become suspicious of one of the largest voting companies controlling millions of voting machines, certain they have rigged their programs. Despite government inertia and very different backgrounds, Carl and Angela race against the clock to uncover the high-tech complexities of a plot to fix the outcome of the election. As the novel so alarmingly reveals, the means by which the democratic institutions can be sabotaged within the voting process are all too real, as is the public's continuing indifference to what could happen. Cassandra, Chanting is a gripping tale telling us why we must be ever diligent in protecting our institutions against those who exercise no restraint attempting to destroy those institutions and us. "Embedded in this spell-binder of a novel is a startling and convincing message -- the vulnerability of the very voting system the US is now adopting. The author clearly understands the new system and what makes it tick and shows how it could be 'fixed' to produce a winner different from the popular vote. In the process, the very legitimacy of our political system would be subverted. November 2008 is not so far away. We must heed this warning." Marvin Zonis is a Professor in the Graduate School of Business, The University of Chicago. He also heads Marvin Zonis + Associates, Inc., political risk consultants. www.cassandrachanting.com