Federal Government

Nope, No Transparency Here

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The bushies will not release to the 9/11 Commission the complete text of rice’s preempted 9/11 speech. Josh Marshall tries to understand why not:

Unless the argument is that we can’t let our enemies know the depth of the poor judgment displayed by the president’s national security team it is searchingly hard to fathom what possible national security issue could be implicated by handing over the speech since it was — do we have to say it? — a speech! A speech for public consumption.

And just to be clear:

Trent Duffy, a spokesman for the White House, said only: �The White House is working with the commission to ensure that it has access to what it needs to do its job.�

These folks must have a different understanding of the commission’s job then the rest of us.

Privacy, Forget It

This entry was posted in CAPPS II Constitution Domestic Terrorism FCC Federal Government Internet Law Enforcement Libertarianism Patriot Act Privacy War on Terrorism on by

The US National Security Agency apparently played a major role in the arrest of 9 folks in Britain and 1 in Canada on charges of planning a terrorist act and belonging to a terrorist group. The key: an intercepted email message:

“That’s the first admission I’ve actually seen that they actually monitor Internet traffic. I assumed they did, but no one ever admitted it,” Mr. Farber said.
Officials at the NSA could not be reached for comment. But U.S. authorities are uniquely positioned to monitor international Internet and telecommunications traffic because many of the world’s international gateways are located in their country. And once that electronic traffic touches an American computer — an e-mail message, a request for a website or an Internet-based phone call, for instance — it is routinely monitored by NSA spies.
“Foreign traffic that comes through the U.S. is subject to U.S. laws, and the NSA has a perfect right to monitor all Internet traffic,” said Mr. Farber, who has also been a technical adviser to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission.

Uhhh, no they do not have that right and to the extent that there are laws allowing this behavior they need to be severly curtailed if not eliminated. There is too great an opportunity for abuse and, at minimum, these searches should not be allowed without probable cause. This does not appear to be the case at NSA.
Frankly, I would have expected Farber, who sits on the board of the Electronic Frontier Foundation to express a little more concern about this.

Where Does the Buck Stop Now?

This entry was posted in bush Capitalism Constitution Democracy Democrats Economics Federal Government Libertarianism Regulation Republicans US Politics on by

Apparently it still stops in the Lincoln and other White House bedrooms:

Bush’s criticism of the Clinton fund-raising scandal is one of the reasons the White House identifies guests. In a debate with Vice President Al Gore in October 2000, Bush said: “I believe they’ve moved that sign, ‘The buck stops here,’ from the Oval Office desk to ‘The buck stops here’ on the Lincoln Bedroom. And that’s not good for the country.”
Bush’s overnight guest roster is virtually free of the famous � pro golfer Ben Crenshaw is the biggest name � but not of campaign supporters.
At least nine of Bush’s biggest fund-raisers appear on the latest list of White House overnight guests, covering June 2002 through December 2003, and-or on the Camp David list, which covers last year. They include:

Yes this bit of hypocrisy should be pointed out but no one should be surprised that bedsheets are traded for friendship or money.
First, you can pretty much count on the bush team either having done, doing or planning to do something they hammer the opposition about.
Second, and more important, the US government transfers huge amounts of money from the losers to the winners and the latter’s stripes change only modestly from administration to administration. Until we the people put a stop to the massive transfers we can expect politicians to seek favours votes and donations and reward those who give them with both bedsheets and favorable laws and regulations.
Via Calpundit who picked it up from It’s a Crock. The Apostropher also comments.
Update: John Cole and Mark Kleiman both argue that a Bush – Clinton comparison is off the mark and I acknowledge both their points which are different enough that you should go read their posts.
I will, though, stick to what I say in the two paragraphs above the ‘Via’ statement.