Bush above the law
[See 7/28 update below: there was a major correction by the Times -- ed.]

New York Times' Kate Zernike reports ("Government Defies an Order to Release Iraq Abuse Photos"):

Lawyers for the Defense Department are refusing to cooperate with a federal judge's order to release secret photographs and videotapes related to the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal.

The lawyers said in a letter sent to the federal court in Manhattan late Thursday that they would file a sealed brief explaining their reasons for not turning over the material, which they were to have released by yesterday.

So we're not even entitled to know why they think they can defy a court order, other than an ironic "harm to individuals" claim made in that letter.

This is egregious, illegal, contemptuous, lawless behavior by the people who are supposed to faithfully execute the law of the land. This is a constitutional crisis. I want to know what pretty boy John G. Roberts has to say about this kind of crap at his nomination hearings.

Other bloggers commenting on this: Publius ("Legal Fiction"): Lawless; The Editors ("The Poor Man"): Rule of Law! And Andrew Sullivan writes :

We'll soon see if we still live in a country in which the president is subject to the law.

To the 51%: this is exactly who you voted for, and exactly why you shouldn't have.


=====
UPDATE, 7/23: Billmon ("Whiskey Bar") juxtaposes excerpts from Rumsfeld's July 18 "War of the Words" op-ed in the Wall Street Journal with the developing story of this case. He left out a good one, though: "The old adage that "A lie can be half-way around the world before truth has its boots on" becomes doubly true with today's technology." Who better to know. I hope Bush2SecDef is right about this, though: "As more citizens gain access to new forms of information ... it will be that much more difficult for governments to cement their rule by holding monopolies on news and commentary."

UPDATE, 7/28: The New York Times has added a major correction to Zernike's report: "The government was given until Friday to black out some identifying details in the material, not to release it. Defense Department lawyers met that deadline, but asked the court to block the public release of the materials. They did not refuse to cooperate with an order for the materials' release." (Emphasis added.) So we appear to have legal procedural footdragging instead of illegal defiance.
Via "sifu tweety" at The Poor Man, who adds suitable commentary. The "six week" time frame cited by the ACLU on June 2 for the photo release has thus come and gone, amidst what appears to be incompetent coverage of the story by the nation's pre-eminent newspaper.
posted by Thomas Nephew at 2:12:00 PM -- |    

 
Bush threatens veto of independent torture commission
Our utterly contemptible president has threatened to veto the Defense Authorization Act if the Levin Amendment (see prior post) authorizing an independent detainee torture and abuse commission is passed. Via the Washington Post, AP's Liz Sidoti reports:

In its statement outlining its positions on the bill, the administration also said Bush advisers would recommend a veto if provisions are included regulating the treatment of terror suspects in U.S. custody or establishing a commission to review their handling.

Such amendments would "interfere with the protection of Americans from terrorism by diverting resources from the war to answer unnecessary or duplicative inquiry or by restricting the president's ability to conduct the war effectively," the administration says.

Independent inquiry is unnecessary. Untrammeled ability to treat prisoners as the leader and military deem it necessary. This is more out of a military junta, fascist playbook than it is anything American I'm willing to acknowledge as such.

I say go ahead, don't water anything down, and make something that sorry Republican Congress will have to vote down, or that sorry excuse for a president will have to veto. Let him and his party go on record what scared little girls and boys they really are, with all their scared little girl and boy supporters. Let them go on record how important it is to smear this country's name so they can look tough. Shame on all of them. And shame on all of their supporters.


=====
UPDATE, 7/23: Gary Farber doesn't like it, either.
UPDATE, 7/24: Jim Henley issues a contempt citation as well, concluding "If they really do “hate us because we’re free,” the Bush Administration’s approach to civil liberties constitutes “appeasement” of the first water."
posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:10:00 AM -- |    

 
Independent torture commission vote expected soon
Human Rights First is notifying supporters that they are expecting a vote soon on the Levin Amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act. That amendment -- contents posted online by the Levin office -- would establish a bipartisan, 9/11-style commission to investigate the widespread detainee abuse by American military and intelligence personnel at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere. From Senator Levin's press release yesterday:

The purposes of the Commission would be to:

• examine U.S. policies and practices relating to the treatment of detainees since September 11, 2001, including their detention, interrogation, and rendition;
• examine the causes of and factors that may have contributed to alleged mistreatment of detainees, including U.S. laws and policies, and activities of contractors or intelligence personnel;
• assess the responsibility of military and civilian leaders, within and outside the Department of Defense, for policies, actions, or omissions that may have contributed to detainee mistreatment;
• evaluate the effectiveness and propriety of interrogation techniques, policies, and practices for producing useful and reliable intelligence;
• evaluate plans for the long-term detention and procedures for the prosecution, including by military commissions, of detainees; and
• report to the President and Congress on their findings and recommendations, including any recommended changes to U.S. laws, policies, or regulations, as appropriate.

From the Human Rights First sample letter:

Internal Pentagon investigations into these abuses - and the trial of a few soldiers at the bottom of the chain of command - are not sufficient to deal with this problem. We need a comprehensive and independent examination that will uncover the policies that led to abuse, ensure real accountability of the people who set those policies, and chart a way forward.

I hope you'll contact your Senator and tell him or her you support this commission.


Selected related posts on this blog
Shared responsibility (5/8/04: mine too)
How to make more Iraqis want to kill Americans (7/8/04: children abused at A.G.)
Yet more bad apples (9/24/04: Gardez 7 case)
The Pentagon protects its own (4/26/05)
One year after Abu Ghraib (5/3/05: independent commission goal announced)
Everybody heard him cry out and thought it was funny (5/24/05: cabbie tortured to death in Bagram)
Look pretty similar to me (6/23/05: re Durbin statement). posted by Thomas Nephew at 7:50:00 PM -- |    

 
Iraq War veteran running for Congress
...and he's a Democrat. Paul Hackett is running for an open seat in Ohio's 2d Congressional District against political veteran Jean Schmidt. The seat was vacated in April by Rob Portman (R), who was appointed the new U.S. Trade Representative by Bush.

A former Marine Corps major and veteran of the November 2004 Fallujah campaign, Hackett's views on Iraq seem decent to me:

I was against the war. It was a misuse of our military that damaged our credibility throughout the world and squandered our political capital. Still, I volunteered to serve, and I have no regrets. But now we need to face the reality of the situation there. Our country has gone to war and every American must share in that responsibility. [...]

No matter what your position on the war, if we pull out now the entire region will spiral into chaos and present our nation and military with a far more difficult challenge than we currently face. I don’t relish the prospect of my two sons going over there in twenty years. We need to get it right, and we need to do it now.

He argues the White House is painting too rosy a picture of Iraq and that Iraqi forces needed to defend the Iraqi government are "nowhere near the level of skill to accomplish that mission and are likely years away from that goal."

By contrast, Jean Schmidt couches her views in vague generalities ("sewing [sic] the seeds of Democracy") and basically refers people to Bush's failed June 28 Fort Bragg speech -- long on misplaced "flypaper" sentiment, short on honest, experienced assessments of the situation. Hackett is also pro-choice while Schmidt is "100% pro-life."

I think Hackett deserves the support of Democrats throughout the country, even ones who are pushing for quick withdrawal -- he knows what he's talking about, I'd certainly trust his counsel on the issue more than Schmidt's, and this could be a morale-boosting takeaway for Democrats everywhere. Stygius (where I first read about Hackett) argues:

For the sake of its own vitality, the Democratic party needs military veterans like Hackett. It injects the experience and perspective into a party needing to craft good national security policy. Unfortunately, this race has been way too far off the radar screen up til now, given it will be held on August 2.

It would be a nice win. To contribute to Hackett's campaign, click here. posted by Thomas Nephew at 6:05:00 PM -- |    

 
Patriot Act
Yesterday, Billmon noted that amid all the justifiable interest in the Rove/Plame affair (and now the Roberts nomination), a very important development was going nearly unremarked: the extension of the Patriot Act. He links to Thom Haslam ("Societas"), who writes:

I have no objections to political junkies getting their fix. But now would be a good time to take brief break from bingeing. Your country really does need you. Chances are, to be brutally honest, nothing you do over the next few days will make a huge difference either way with Rove or Roberts–not unless you have access to information that even Patrick Fitzgerald or the White House does not. But you can make a huge difference–as a citizen and as blogger–with the Patriot Act.

This, as the saying goes, is a limited opportunity. Congress will vote to renew and possibly expand the Patriot Act today, tomorrow or early next week. This will all be over long before Roberts has a hearing, before Fitzgerald finishes his investigation.

Click here to at least send an e-mail petition to your Senators, via the ACLU. Here's their summary of the Patriot Act:

Expands the government’s power to search your home in secret and to delay telling you for months or indefinitely. Section 213 made it easier for government agents to get courts to issue “sneak and peek” search warrants, which let them break into your home, rifle through your belongings, swab for DNA, copy files from your computer, seize property and keep you in the dark about the search for an indefinite amount of time. This provision is permanent, but would be reformed under the SAFE Act. At a minimum, it should be limited to a set amount of time and only allowed in true emergencies. The Justice Department recently admitted that 90% of these sneak and peeks have been used in cases that have nothing to do with terrorism.

Facilitates access to secret court orders that allow agents to seize personal records. Section 215 lets the FBI apply for secret court orders to compel libraries, bookstores, hotels, hospitals and other institutions to turn over personal records without showing any facts connecting your records to a foreign terrorist, let alone probable cause that you did anything wrong. The judge is required to issue such an order if federal agents certify that they want these records for a foreign intelligence or terrorism investigation. The business that receives the order is forever gagged from telling anyone about it. This provision is set to expire. It should not be made permanent. It should be fixed to require a showing of specific facts connecting your records to a foreign terrorist and there should be a meaningful right to challenge, as supported by the SAFE Act.

Lets the FBI access business, credit, Internet and banking records without going through a judge at all. Section 505 broadens the government’s ability to issue “national security letters,” which allow the FBI to demand records about you from financial institutions, Internet service providers, telephone companies, credit agencies, insurance companies, car dealerships, and libraries that provide Internet services to patrons—all without going through a judge or demonstrating any facts connecting your records to a foreign agent or foreign terrorist. If not repealed, this provision should be amended to incorporate the modest SAFE Act fix and should include an expiration date.

For any readers (unjustifiably) allergic to the four letter acronym "ACLU," here's former Republican Representative Bob Barr:

The Patriot Act needs some common sense fixes to keep our liberty safe. Our Founding Fathers would want us to courageously defend our country and the Constitution. This is their legacy of liberty. We should rise to the challenge and preserve it rather than make a false sacrifice for extreme powers that don't make us safer but actually make us less free.

See also this NPR summary of the bill and the issues.

I wrote "Senators" above because it's already too late in the House (Billmon: "Chamber of People's Deputies") which voted early this morning to pass the Patriot Act 257-171. But, as Haslam notes in a comment at Seeing the Forest, it's not too late to blanket the Senate with e-mails, phone calls, and letters urging them to hang tough with their version of the bill in the Senate and when they reconcile that bill with the House version.

Undoing the worst provisions of the Patriot Act -- and sunsetting the rest -- should become a central plank of the Democratic Party going in to 2006 and 2008.

I've mentioned this before, but not enough, and only in passing ("Feingold in Nashville"). I regret not doing more. Spread the word. E-mail your Senators. Blogswarm it. Do something. Better "too little, too late" than nothing at all, ever.


=====
UPDATE, 7/23: One compilation of reactions to the Patriot Act is in progress at The Heretik: "Red, White, and Very Blue." See also John Cole ("Balloon Juice").
UPDATE, 7/25: Thom Haslan has a new post at Shakespeare's Sister and his own blog urging people not to give up on either the Senate or the House (your representative may have some influence on the conference committee reconciling the two versions of the bill). He also has a Patriot Act Fact Sheet, prepared by the "Red, White, and Blue Alliance in PA" detailing the House bill's effects on health, financial, gun, religious, and library privacy. The alliance includes Pennsylvania chapters of the ACLU, League of Women Voters, Council on American Islamic Relations, and others.
posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:30:00 PM -- |    

 
Must Sterilize. Imperfection. Sterilize.
Now someone will read me:

The free service, BloginSpace.com, will beam web feeds of blogs -- weblogs, or personal Internet diaries -- into deep space via a powerful satellite broadcast.

'I've always believed that other intelligent life forms are out there, and now, for the first time, they will be able to peer into the life of average Homo sapiens,' [MindComet CEO] Murphy said.
(via Michael Silence)

And what a sorry sight it'll be, too. But -- never give up! Never surrender! My immortal words are their way to Rigel IV. Pretty clever way to collect RSS feeds, I'll give them that. And who knows -- maybe I'll get a link from that Galaxyquest octo-girl, she was kinda cute with her disguise field on. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:15:00 PM -- |    

 
OK, then: Southknoxbubba quits
I'm very sorry to find out Southknoxbubba (aka SKB) has taken down his blog. If you click through to the old address, you get a "Game Over!" image and a "So long!" title bar, so it's pretty unequivocal.

SayUncle, another Tennessee blogger, got an e-mail from SKB confirming the news. While it doesn't go into reasons other than "time with family" -- which is a pretty good reason, of course -- I'm guessing it's a delayed effect of a recent online scuffle with the owner of "Metropulse," a worthless Knoxville area newspaper, that resulted in SKB revealing his real name online.

SKB was (is!) an outspoken, liberal voice of reason in a noisy world. I'll miss his takes on the news, his Friday bird-blogging and wonderful photography, and his sense of humor. His "Rocky Top Brigade" (RTB) has been a wonderful way to stay in touch with my home state and home region. There's a nice appreciation of his blog by Michael Silence of the Knoxville News Sentinel, and I intend to collect links to others as they start to happen. If there's a Tennessee Hall of Fame, I think SKB belongs in it -- under his pseudonym, the way I got to know him.

So long online, friend. I hope you'll drop by our various blogs now and then, and I hope someday I get to meet you in person, shake your hand, and thank you for all you've done. I mainly hope you remain politically active; like Howard Dean said in Nashville, we need more like you running for office. Think about it! Maybe you already are...

OK, then.


=====
OTHER VOICES: Smijer, Tennessee Liberal, Democratic Veteran, Great Smoky, Glenn Reynolds, Domestic Psychology, Why Now? (that's the name of the blog), Brian Arner, 10000 Monkeys and a Camera, Sharon Cobb, Sugarfused, No Direction Home, Lean Left, Doug McDaniel, Les Jones, Meanderthal, Andy Axel, LeftWingCracker, Mike Hollihan, Tennessee Guerrilla Women, Thoughts of an Average Woman, We're Screwed (that's the name of the blog), Mountain Girl, Bob Stepno, Swap Blog, Bill Hobbs,WhitesCreek Journal, Six Meat Buffet, Len Cleavelin, Shots Across The Bow, What it is today, Wandering Hillbilly, Nonattainment Zone, Open Your Mind, Mr. Rocky Top, Library Monk, Deliverance, Domestic Psychology, a moveable beast, Chattanooga-Hamilton Civic Forum, Mel's Diner, Katie Allison Granju, Appalachistan, poop happens, The Bully Pulpit, Ruminate This, Backassward, Tales of Tadeusz, Daily Pepper, The Pop Culturephile, Betty Bean, The Pulse Blog ... Sisyphus Shrugged, Chewie World Order, Blue Page Special, Daily Pepper, Alternate Brain, Facing South, PSoTD...

UPDATE, 7/20: Now there's a message to go with the "Game Over!" image: "...lately it has become too much like work and not so much fun."
UPDATE, 7/20: Rocky Top Brigade web page temporarily(?) mirrored by Bob Stepno. Thanks!
UPDATE, 7/21: SayUncle posts "RTB Administrative Notes," essentially saying that the show will go on, and noting that Johnny Dobbins ("Just Johnny") will be helping. Johnny has established a rockytopbrigade.org site, pending a go-ahead from SKB.
UPDATE, 7/22: OK, I'm done for a while with this post. If you'd like your or someone else's "so long, SKB" post added, let me know in the comments or by e-mail, and it'll get up there eventually.

PS: I join a lot of the above bloggers in the hope, however fanciful, that SKB will change his mind sometime and resume his blog. posted by Thomas Nephew at 2:00:00 PM -- |    

 
Seven year old laughs at presidential statement
Even Maddie (7) thought this was funny when she heard about it on the car radio this morning:

I would like this to end as quickly as possible so we know the facts and if someone committed a crime they will no longer work in my administration.
-- George W. Bush, July 18, 2005

I'm glad he cleared that up. That honor and integrity stuff is hard work.


=====
UPDATE, 7/22: "Asterisk" posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:10:00 PM -- |    

 
German EU-extradition law invalidated, terror suspect walks
Suspected Al Qaeda kingpin Mamoun Darkazanli, a Syrian-German residing in the Hamburg area, has avoided extradition to Spain to stand trial for involvement in the 3/11/2004 Madrid attacks. He was immediately released from jail yesterday. The development followed a German Supreme Court (Verfassungsgericht, lit.constitutional court) decision invalidating a recently enacted German law authorizing his incarceration.

The law was designed to implement a European Union agreement requiring member countries to honor eachother's arrest warrants via extradition. The "EU arrest warrant" [EU-Haftbefehl] was intended to make it easier to combat international terrorism and the drug trade across the many borders within the European Union -- borders which are open to trade and tourism, but still define widely differing legal systems.

The German court could have potentially seen the German cooperation with (or acquiescence to) to the EU law as unconstitutional in and of itself, but pointedly did not do so, opting instead to require clearer guidelines about when extradition would and would not occur. Writing for the German newsweekly SPIEGEL, Mathias Gebauer reports:

The judges demand that legislators protect all Germans' rights with an improved law supporting the EU-arrest warrant agreement. They did not call the idea of the EU law into question. They also did not consider national sovereignty damaged by it. The EU framework decision was only to be sparingly and proportionately implemented. In short: the idea is OK, its implementation was poor.

The judges provided the most important features of a revised law. Extraditions may not occur if there is a strong domestic connection to the alleged crimes. Conversely, someone who who is mainly punishable abroad may be subject to foreign criminal and trial law. The judges emphasized, that the foreign connection [Auslandbezug] was "also and especially assumed" "if the deed had a typically cross-border dimension from the outset," such as in cases of drug trade or participation in international terrorism.

Looking on from the outside, it's doubly annoying that the Darkazanli case seems to have fit all of these restrictions, even if the flawed law did not. Gebauer:

Darkazanli's freedom is bitter for the government. The Hamburg businessman would presumably already be behind bars under new security laws passed by the Red [SPD]-Green coalition. But old deeds or proofs don't suffice for the still freshly drafted Paragraph 129b, which makes membership in a terror network like Al Qaeda punishable since August 2002. And new proof has not turned up, despite long and intensive surveillance of the suspect by officials.

But the high court judges' briefs were more about the general constitutionality of the law than about the particular case. Their verdict had the potential to put even more strain on EU integration, already under pressure following recent rejections of the proposed EU constitution in France and the Netherlands. While they largely ducked a head-on challenge, the judges did set some limits. Also writing for SPIEGEL, Dietmar Hipp reports:

Germany has "not surrendered nonnegotiable principles" in European cooperation until now, [chief justice] Hassemer said in delivering the verdict: even the "restriction of the formerly absolute proscription against extraditing Germans" does not lead to a "desovereignization [Entstaatlichung]" of the national legal system. So far, so good for Europe.

But the verdict specifically mentions two points, that could be a step too far on the path to Europe: the one would be if national citizenship is "surrendered," "substantially devalued," or "replaced with European citizenship,"; the other would be if the EU were to envision a "general harmonization of the legal systems of the member states."

One may wish German legislators had gotten their extradition law right the first time. But then one may also wish the U.S. Congress or the U.S. courts were half as zealous as this German high court in preventing "extraordinary renditions" to other countries.

Darkazanli's release is a galling setback. Gebauer reports that Darkazanli knew two of the 9/11 hijackers, and was the representative of convicted Al Qaeda treasurer Mamduh Mahmud Salim for a Deutsche Bank account, from which he was empowered to draw funds. He is also said to have purchased the freighter "Jennifer" for Osama Bin Laden in 1993. Evidence like this could now put someone behind bars in Germany under "Paragraph 129b," enacted in 2002, but no new evidence or developments in Germany could be held against Darkazanli since then. It will apparently take another German "act of Congress" -- i.e., revising that extradition law -- before Darkazanli will finally face justice. posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:40:00 AM -- |    

 
Dick Cheney Is Innocent
I just want to get in on the ground floor with this one. It might be popular soon, so I want to say it with a smile before the pundits on FOX take up the cry. Remember: you saw it here first!*

Matt Cooper stated in his Sunday "Meet the Press" appearance that Scooter Libby, the Vice President's chief of staff, was his second source confirming "Wilson's wife" was involved in sending Wilson on the Niger fact-finding mission. Confirming speculation here earlier this month, Cooper describes the grand jury testimony he gave after receiving a specific waiver of confidentiality by Mr. Libby:

In that testimony, I recorded an on-the-record conversation with Libby that moved to background. On the record, he denied that Cheney knew of or played any role the Wilson trip to Niger. On background, I asked Libby if he had heard anything about Wilson's wife sending her husband to Niger. Libby replied, `Yeah, I've heard that, too,' or words to that effect."

Cooper also states that Libby confirmed Cooper's suggestion that Ms. Wilson worked for the CIA.

From what I've read of his conversations with Rove and Libby, Cooper could not have written the "Valerie Plame=operative" sentence Novak did based solely on those conversations (as opposed to reading it in Novak's column). Cooper's story merely confirms that Libby shared Rove's willingness to confirm Wilson's wife's supposedly discreditable/discrediting role in getting Wilson to Niger.

On the other hand, the story may not square with other testimony Fitzgerald has collected, or, of course, these statements may by themselves be actionable -- judging by a U.S. vs. Morison case Mark Kleiman is writing about today, it's generally best to zip your mouth pretty tightly indeed if you have the sudden desire to discuss classified information, whether you think it's a harmless favor to the press or not. (And as Kleiman points out, "If someone is an undercover CIA officer, and you announce that the person works for the CIA, you don't have to say "in an undercover capacity" to have blown the officer's cover.")

I'm curious about Libby's waiver to Cooper last year; obviously, it suggests he may not have felt in much danger despite Kleiman's point. On the other hand, he may have calculated that his (or Rove's, or someone else's) real problem was perjury -- which I'm reading requires two witnesses (or one witness plus corroboration) to prove. He may simply not have believed journalists who contacted Rove would be compelled to reveal their source, and somehow potentially expose him or someone else he valued to perjury charges. If so, allowing Cooper to testify about his conversation with Libby might have seemed like a good gamble, with the payoff of avoiding a reporters-in-jail uproar last year -- wasn't there some election going on? I seem to remember there was.

And then there's the point that none of these guys are Einsteins of the legal world. They may have just screwed up as they went about their smear campaign.

At any rate, we have the top advisor to the Vice President and the top advisor to the President both up to their necks in what looks a lot like a criminal smear campaign. Hmmm. I'm sure Rove and Libby were saying "oh, nothing" when their bosses would drop by and say "hey, whatcha up to?"

Just remember: Dick Cheney is innocent. I've already said too much.


=====
* Unless you saw it here first: BillionairesForBush.com posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:45:00 PM -- |    

 
"It was about a mentality"
It made me wish I was hearing a little more often from him and a little less often from his famous partner. On the big "Meet the Press" today, Carl Bernstein cut through the fog about Watergate then and the Plame scandal now:

MR. BERNSTEIN: ...And the reason is that context is all. It's not just the individual facts. Just as context is all in the Karl Rove case. It's not just about Karl Rove. It's about WMD. It's about the truthfulness of the White House. And in Watergate, we were able to get this context very early because not originally Deep Throat but rather the bookkeeper for the committee for the re-election of the president, some other sources that Bob and I had, and Mark Felt all described to us this incredible 'switchblade atmosphere' in the White House...

MR. WOODWARD: Yeah.

MR. BERNSTEIN: ...and that context told us Watergate wasn't just about a break-in. It was about a mentality.

It was, and it is. posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:26:00 PM -- |    

 
Viet Nam era Presidential Daily Briefs to remain secret
Back in May, I mentioned an effort by the Bush administration to apply presidential privilege to a number of Viet Nam-era Presidential Daily Briefs (PDBs) -- daily summaries of intelligence, military, and political information presented to the President by top intelligence officials. The effort is proving successful; on Friday, the National Security Archives reported (PDB: Judge Grants Immortality to Presidential Privilege):

U.S. District Judge David Levi this week contradicted the U.S. Supreme Court, which held that presidential privilege erodes over time, by accepting CIA and Bush administration claims that presidential privilege still applies to two intelligence briefs given to President Johnson in 1965 and 1968, according to a memorandum of opinion and order dated 11 July in the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by University of California Davis professor Larry Berman against the CIA.

Levi also accepted CIA claims that the two documents are actually an intelligence "method" that the Director of Central Intelligence has authority to keep secret, despite the evidence in the case that the actual methods used by the CIA in the 1960s have been largely declassified.

Incredibly, the judge never examined the documents himself, relying instead on an affidavit by CIA officer Terry Buroker, and erroneously claimed that the PDBs in question constituted communications from President to the intelligence community, despite clear evidence to the contrary.

Both the plaintiff and the National Security Archives (NSA) -- a repository of information released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) -- decry the ruling. Professor Larry Berman:

Judge Levi has redefined the meaning of Freedom of Information and presidential privilege. In doing so, he becomes another foot soldier in the administration's war on restricting public access to government documents, in this case for decisions made over thirty years ago.

NSA:

The Sacramento-based judge rejects the statutory language of the Freedom of Information Act requiring that "any reasonably segregable portion of a record shall be provided to any person requesting such record after deletion of the portions which are exempt.

The NSA press release makes another good point: by preventing legitimate FOIA releases on "farcical" grounds, the Bush administration is actually encouraging unofficial leaks. That may be the Bush administration's view as well, of course; we'll see how well they fare on that score.


=====
UPDATE, 7/21: Matt Welch picked up the story for a wider audience at Reason Magazine's "Hit and Run" blog; thanks! posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:55:00 PM -- |    

 
"To the the political operatives responsible for this"
Brent Cavan, Jim Marcinkowski, Larry Johnson, and Jane Doe:

We trained and worked at the CIA with Valerie Plame. We presented the following statement at a hearing on Capitol Hill in October 2003. In light of the latest White House sanctioned assault on Valerie Plame and her character, our testimony remains relevant and accurate.

Excerpts from that October 2003 statement:

...Beyond supporting Mrs. Wilson with our moral support and prayers we want to send a clear message to the political operatives responsible for this. You are a traitor and you are our enemy. You should lose your job and probably should go to jail for blowing the cover of a clandestine intelligence officer.

You have set a sickening precedent. You have warned all U.S. intelligence officers that you may be compromised if you are providing information the White House does not like. A precedent, as one colleague pointed out during our brief appearances, allows you to build out a case based on previous legal actions and court decisions. It's a slippery slope if it lowers the bar.

Ambassador Wilson's political affiliations are irrelevant. Political differences serve as the basis for the give and take of representative government. What is relevant is the damage caused by the exposure that Ambassador Wilson's wife as a political act intended to undermine Wilson's view. [...]

Not only have the Bush Administration leakers damaged the career of our friend but they have put many other people potentially in harm's way. If left unpunished this outing has lowered the bar for official behavior. Further, who in their right mind would ever agree to become a spy for the United States? If we won't protect our own officers how can we reassure foreigners that we will safeguard them? Better human intelligence could prevent any number of terror incidents in the future, but we are unlikely to get foreign recruits to supply it if their safety cannot be somewhat assured. If more cases like Mrs. Wilson's occur, assurances of CIA protection will mean nothing to potential spies. [...]

As loyal Americans and registered Republicans we implore President Bush to move quickly and decisively against those who, if not apprehended, will leave his Administration with the legacy of being the first to allow political operatives to out clandestine officers.

(posted at TPM Cafe, July 15, 2005, by Larry Johnson under the title "The Intelligence Challenge: Can We Trust Our President?"). Or can we take him seriously. posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:00:00 AM -- |    

 
WalMartWorkersRights.org
WalMartWorkersRights.org is a new anti-Wal-Mart effort that promises to focus on what I think is the principal reason to fight Wal-Mart -- the company's unionbusting, antilabor policies. The campaign is a project of the labor advocacy group American Rights at Work. As their press release puts it:

Wal-Mart’s efforts to squash unionization in its stores are swift and overwhelming:
• The company taps into calls and emails from stores around the country to monitor whether anyone is talking about forming a union.
• Store officials receive a toolkit to "Remaining Union Free" and are encouraged to call a hotline at the first sign of any interest in a union.
• Wal-Mart dispatches a rapid-response anti-union squad at any indication of its employees considering union formation.

A Wal-Mart & Workers' Rights resource page links to a number of stories and sites documenting Wal-Mart's anti-union tactics. Some of the most persuasive evidence comes from internal Wal-Mart documents (via ReclaimDemocracy.org). From "A Manager's Toolbox to Remaining Union-Free":

In the event you find a union authorization card in your facility or hear associates are attending union meetings and signing authorization cards, it is imperative you contact the Union Hotline at 501-273-8300 immediately. Wal-Mart must respond to this type of union activity immediately in an effort to stop card signing before the required 30% signatures have been obtained.

The most notorious case of Wal-Mart union-busting occurred earlier this year in the Canadian town of Jonquiere, Quebec Province:

The Jonquiere store workers organized their union through a commonly-used process known as majority verification, in which a majority signed cards authorizing the union to bargain with Wal-Mart. When workers asked the Canadian government to act as an arbitrator in contract negotiations in early February, Wal-Mart responded by announcing it would close the store.

There are a number of anti-WalMart campaigns going on right now, run by the UFCW, the SEIU, the AFL-CIO, and various coalitions, and all are worth supporting. One thing the American Rights at Work campaign adds to the mix is policy-oriented research and advocacy on the nitty-gritty issues of organizing under current labor law. See, for example, Free and Fair? How Labor Law fails U.S. Democratic Election Standards (Acrobat file), by the University of Oregon's Dr. Gordon Lafer, or the organization's recent support for the Employee Free Choice Act.

The Wal-Mart petition you can sign is succinct:

We, the undersigned, demand that Wal-Mart
- Stop encouraging Wal-Mart personnel to spy on suspected pro-union coworkers and get rid of your anti-union hotline.
- Stop spending money on anti-union activities, including your "People Division," an on-call unionbusting army which responds to the 'threat' of unions in your stores
- Stop closing stores or departments where your employees have decided to form a union

I've signed it. I hope you will, too.

posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:05:00 AM -- |