Theocracy and Democracy: The Cleric Spoiling U.S. Plans:
"The most important political figure in Iraq today is Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, an elderly Shiite Muslim cleric. He has not set foot outside his home in six years, yet the white-bearded ayatollah has effectively commandeered the Bush administration's planning for postwar democracy."
His pronouncement on who may write a new constitution (only Iraqis elected by Iraqis) forced Washington to upend its timetable for granting the country its independence. Last week, the ayatollah rejected the American proposal for choosing an interim legislature through caucuses, immobilizing the transition. His backers took to the streets to support him.
The ayatollah's influence recalls that of another once-reclusive Shiite cleric, Ruhollah Khomeini, who 25 years ago took the helm of the Iranian revolution and created an Islamic republic implacably hostile to the United States.
Ayatollah Sistani, though, is no Khomeini. At least that is what his own background and the recent history of Iraq's Shiites would indicate. His teachings have always reflected what is often called the quietist school of thought in modern Shiism, one that says that clerics should not run governments. Iran's system, the diametric opposite, invests clerics with absolute legal and political authority.…
In Iran, reformers have boldly challenged the Khomeini legacy by demanding that clerics accept truly free elections by giving up their power to disqualify candidates for the coming parliamentary vote. At the same time, in Iraq, where the long-oppressed Shiite majority is clamoring for power, Ayatollah Sistani is being drawn deeper and deeper into the fray.
"Sistani is incredibly sensitive to public opinion and what people say about him," said a Shiite member of the Iraqi Governing Council. "He renounces political power and yet, at the same time, he has to respond to the fact that people are hungry for a leader."
Although most of Iran's Shiites are of Persian descent and Iraq's are Arabs, religious teachers and students flowed back and forth between the two countries for centuries. Ayatollah Sistani, for example, was born in Iran but pursued his religious studies in Iraq. Until the Iranian revolution in 1979, Iranian pilgrims came to Iraq in droves to visit the Shiite shrines in Najaf and Karbala.
Ayatollah Khomeini himself spent the 15 years before the revolution in Najaf, and it was there that he refined his theory of "wilayat al-faqih," or the rule of the jurist. The theory, that an eminent Shiite cleric can be the absolute legal authority, is the foundation of Iran's present political system.
Even then, in his adopted city, his was the minority view. Ayatollah Sistani's teacher and the highest-ranking cleric in Iraq at the time, Grand Ayatollah Abu al Qassim al-Khoei, firmly believed that even the most learned of Shia scholars have no right to rule.
Still, many religious Iraqi Shiites, denied political power for more than 500 years by the Sunni minority, recall feeling thrilled at the birth of Iran's Islamic government.
The feeling did not last long. Fearing for his rule, Saddam Hussein intensified his persecution of Iraq's Shiites, imprisoning and executing anyone suspected of sympathizing with Iran. With the Iran-Iraq war in 1980, the image of Iran's mullahs was further poisoned.
As a result, many Iraqis say, the Iranian experience with clerical rule never developed a real following, except as a theory.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/18/weekinreview/18sach.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Sunday, January 18, 2004
Saturday, January 17, 2004
Study: Most Spam Not Compliant With Law:
"Only 10 percent of junk e-mails comply with a new federal anti-spam law, according to two days' worth of messages analyzed by a spam filtering vendor."
The law, which took effect Jan. 1, does not prohibit unsolicited commercial e-mail as long as senders follow a set of rules, including using a correct subject line, a physical mailing address and a way to decline future mailings.
But most senders failed to do even that, Audiotrieve LLC said.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1440234,00.asp?kc=EWNWS011604DTX1K0000599
"Only 10 percent of junk e-mails comply with a new federal anti-spam law, according to two days' worth of messages analyzed by a spam filtering vendor."
The law, which took effect Jan. 1, does not prohibit unsolicited commercial e-mail as long as senders follow a set of rules, including using a correct subject line, a physical mailing address and a way to decline future mailings.
But most senders failed to do even that, Audiotrieve LLC said.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1440234,00.asp?kc=EWNWS011604DTX1K0000599
Schneier.com: Crypto-Gram: January 15, 2004 — Color-Coded Terrorist Threat Levels:
"… the threat levels are largely motivated by politics. There are two possble reasons for the alert.
Reason 1: CYA. Governments are naturally risk averse, and issuing vague threat warnings makes sense from that perspective. Imagine if a terrorist attack actually did occur. If they didn't raise the threat level, they would be criticized for not anticipating the attack. As long as they raised the threat level they could always say 'We told you it was Orange,' even though the warning didn't come with any practical advice for people. "
Reason 2: To gain Republican votes. The Republicans spent decades running on the "Democrats are soft on Communism" platform. They've just discovered the "Democrats are soft on terrorism" platform. Voters who are constantly reminded to be fearful are more likely to vote Republican, or so the theory goes, because the Republicans are viewed as the party that is more likely to protect us.
(These reasons may sound cynical, but I believe that the Administration has not been acting in good faith regarding the terrorist threat, and their pronouncements in the press have to be viewed under that light.)
I can't think of any real security reasons for alerting the entire nation, and any putative terrorist plotters, that the Administration believes there is a credible threat.
http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0401.html#1
"… the threat levels are largely motivated by politics. There are two possble reasons for the alert.
Reason 1: CYA. Governments are naturally risk averse, and issuing vague threat warnings makes sense from that perspective. Imagine if a terrorist attack actually did occur. If they didn't raise the threat level, they would be criticized for not anticipating the attack. As long as they raised the threat level they could always say 'We told you it was Orange,' even though the warning didn't come with any practical advice for people. "
Reason 2: To gain Republican votes. The Republicans spent decades running on the "Democrats are soft on Communism" platform. They've just discovered the "Democrats are soft on terrorism" platform. Voters who are constantly reminded to be fearful are more likely to vote Republican, or so the theory goes, because the Republicans are viewed as the party that is more likely to protect us.
(These reasons may sound cynical, but I believe that the Administration has not been acting in good faith regarding the terrorist threat, and their pronouncements in the press have to be viewed under that light.)
I can't think of any real security reasons for alerting the entire nation, and any putative terrorist plotters, that the Administration believes there is a credible threat.
http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0401.html#1
Friday, January 16, 2004
Op-Ed Columnist: Who Gets It?:
"Wesley Clark had some strong words about the state of the nation. 'I think we're at risk with our democracy,' he said. 'I think we're dealing with the most closed, imperialistic, nastiest administration in living memory. They even put Richard Nixon to shame.'
In other words, the general gets it: he understands that America is facing what Kevin Phillips, in his remarkable new book, 'American Dynasty,' calls a 'Machiavellian moment.' Among other things, this tells us that General Clark and Howard Dean, whatever they may say in the heat of the nomination fight, are on the same side of the great Democratic divide. "
Most political reporting on the Democratic race, it seems to me, has gotten it wrong. Some journalists do, of course, insist on trivializing the whole thing: what I dread most, in the event of an upset in Iowa, is the return of reporting about the political significance of John Kerry's hair.
But even those who refrain from turning political reporting into gossip have used the wrong categories. Again and again, one reads that it's about the left wing of the Democratic party versus the centrists; but Mr. Dean was a very centrist governor, and his policy proposals are not obviously more liberal than those of his rivals.
The real division in the race for the Democratic nomination is between those who are willing to question not just the policies but also the honesty and the motives of the people running our country, and those who aren't.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/16/opinion/16KRUG.html
"Wesley Clark had some strong words about the state of the nation. 'I think we're at risk with our democracy,' he said. 'I think we're dealing with the most closed, imperialistic, nastiest administration in living memory. They even put Richard Nixon to shame.'
In other words, the general gets it: he understands that America is facing what Kevin Phillips, in his remarkable new book, 'American Dynasty,' calls a 'Machiavellian moment.' Among other things, this tells us that General Clark and Howard Dean, whatever they may say in the heat of the nomination fight, are on the same side of the great Democratic divide. "
Most political reporting on the Democratic race, it seems to me, has gotten it wrong. Some journalists do, of course, insist on trivializing the whole thing: what I dread most, in the event of an upset in Iowa, is the return of reporting about the political significance of John Kerry's hair.
But even those who refrain from turning political reporting into gossip have used the wrong categories. Again and again, one reads that it's about the left wing of the Democratic party versus the centrists; but Mr. Dean was a very centrist governor, and his policy proposals are not obviously more liberal than those of his rivals.
The real division in the race for the Democratic nomination is between those who are willing to question not just the policies but also the honesty and the motives of the people running our country, and those who aren't.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/16/opinion/16KRUG.html
Thursday, January 15, 2004
Study Disputes View of Costly Surge in Class-Action Suits:
"A new study has concluded that both the average price of settling class-action lawsuits and the average fee paid to lawyers who bring them have held steady for a decade, even though companies have said the suits are driving up the cost of doing business, hurting the economy and lining lawyers' pockets."
The issue is a fiercely divisive one that has fueled a heated debate over whether to place limits on class-action lawsuits. Legislation to curb class actions is a priority of President Bush and many Republicans in Congress.
The two law school professors who conducted the study, which was not financed by corporations or by trial lawyers, expressed surprise themselves over the results. "We started out writing an article about fees," said Theodore Eisenberg, a law professor at Cornell and one author of the study, "but the shocking thing was that recoveries weren't up."
Senator Orrin G. Hatch, a Utah Republican and the chief sponsor of a bill that died in October in the Senate, has attacked the current system of class-action litigation as "jackpot justice, with attorneys collecting the windfall." Thomas J. Donohue, president and chief executive of the United States Chamber of Commerce, has complained that "companies spend millions of dollars each year to defend against class-action lawsuits - money that should be used to expand, develop new products and create jobs."
But the new study undermines some of those criticisms. It covers the biggest sample to date of class-action cases, ranging from civil rights violations to securities fraud. Its results, published in a new law publication, the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, and already circulating, will certainly be used by lawyers trying to head off such legislation.
"This empirical study comes out and says the system is working correctly," said David S. Casey Jr., president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, who was in Washington last week meeting with officials planning the body's legislative strategy for 2004. "I'm glad there are empirical studies being done," Mr. Casey said. "The whole effort by what I call the tort reform industry is based on myth and fabrication."…
Reliable data on the total number of class-action lawsuits filed or settled in a given year do not exist. Such data could bolster corporate defendants' arguments that even if the size of settlements is not increasing, the number of cases is rising. The number of suits filed in federal court has risen steadily, roughly doubling from 1997 to 2002, according to the Administrative Office of United States Courts. But state courts probably oversee the most class-action suits, and they produce the least data, said Nicholas M. Pace, a researcher at the Rand Institute for Civil Justice, which studies legal issues for the RAND Corporation.
"People will continue to research this thing for years - and fight about it," Mr. Pace said.
In their article, Mr. Eisenberg and his co-author, Geoffrey P. Miller, a New York University law professor, write that if the effects of inflation are taken into account, then from 1993 through 2002, "contrary to popular belief, we find no robust evidence that either recoveries for plaintiffs or fees for their attorneys as a percentage of the class recovery increased."
According to the study, the average settlement over the 10-year period was $100 million in inflation-adjusted 2002 dollars. It rose as high as $274 million in 2000 - a result of four settlements that year for more than $1 billion each - and fell as low as $25 million in 1996. "The mean client recovery has not noticeably increased over the last decade," the professors wrote.
The study also found that "neither the mean nor the median level of fee awards has increased over time." The average fee rose as high as $31 million in 2000, but exceeded $10 million in only two other years. The professors also report that as one might expect, the larger a settlement, the smaller the percentage allocated to legal fees. For the largest 10 percent of settlements, which averaged $929 million, lawyers received an average of 12 percent. For the smallest 10 percent, which averaged $800,000, lawyers received nearly 30 percent. Fees were higher in cases that were more risky and were higher in federal court cases than in state courts.
"No real-dollar increase in the level of fee awards in major cases over the course of a decade is not the sort of fact we are accustomed to hearing," the professors wrote in the report.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/14/business/14law.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"A new study has concluded that both the average price of settling class-action lawsuits and the average fee paid to lawyers who bring them have held steady for a decade, even though companies have said the suits are driving up the cost of doing business, hurting the economy and lining lawyers' pockets."
The issue is a fiercely divisive one that has fueled a heated debate over whether to place limits on class-action lawsuits. Legislation to curb class actions is a priority of President Bush and many Republicans in Congress.
The two law school professors who conducted the study, which was not financed by corporations or by trial lawyers, expressed surprise themselves over the results. "We started out writing an article about fees," said Theodore Eisenberg, a law professor at Cornell and one author of the study, "but the shocking thing was that recoveries weren't up."
Senator Orrin G. Hatch, a Utah Republican and the chief sponsor of a bill that died in October in the Senate, has attacked the current system of class-action litigation as "jackpot justice, with attorneys collecting the windfall." Thomas J. Donohue, president and chief executive of the United States Chamber of Commerce, has complained that "companies spend millions of dollars each year to defend against class-action lawsuits - money that should be used to expand, develop new products and create jobs."
But the new study undermines some of those criticisms. It covers the biggest sample to date of class-action cases, ranging from civil rights violations to securities fraud. Its results, published in a new law publication, the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, and already circulating, will certainly be used by lawyers trying to head off such legislation.
"This empirical study comes out and says the system is working correctly," said David S. Casey Jr., president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, who was in Washington last week meeting with officials planning the body's legislative strategy for 2004. "I'm glad there are empirical studies being done," Mr. Casey said. "The whole effort by what I call the tort reform industry is based on myth and fabrication."…
Reliable data on the total number of class-action lawsuits filed or settled in a given year do not exist. Such data could bolster corporate defendants' arguments that even if the size of settlements is not increasing, the number of cases is rising. The number of suits filed in federal court has risen steadily, roughly doubling from 1997 to 2002, according to the Administrative Office of United States Courts. But state courts probably oversee the most class-action suits, and they produce the least data, said Nicholas M. Pace, a researcher at the Rand Institute for Civil Justice, which studies legal issues for the RAND Corporation.
"People will continue to research this thing for years - and fight about it," Mr. Pace said.
In their article, Mr. Eisenberg and his co-author, Geoffrey P. Miller, a New York University law professor, write that if the effects of inflation are taken into account, then from 1993 through 2002, "contrary to popular belief, we find no robust evidence that either recoveries for plaintiffs or fees for their attorneys as a percentage of the class recovery increased."
According to the study, the average settlement over the 10-year period was $100 million in inflation-adjusted 2002 dollars. It rose as high as $274 million in 2000 - a result of four settlements that year for more than $1 billion each - and fell as low as $25 million in 1996. "The mean client recovery has not noticeably increased over the last decade," the professors wrote.
The study also found that "neither the mean nor the median level of fee awards has increased over time." The average fee rose as high as $31 million in 2000, but exceeded $10 million in only two other years. The professors also report that as one might expect, the larger a settlement, the smaller the percentage allocated to legal fees. For the largest 10 percent of settlements, which averaged $929 million, lawyers received an average of 12 percent. For the smallest 10 percent, which averaged $800,000, lawyers received nearly 30 percent. Fees were higher in cases that were more risky and were higher in federal court cases than in state courts.
"No real-dollar increase in the level of fee awards in major cases over the course of a decade is not the sort of fact we are accustomed to hearing," the professors wrote in the report.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/14/business/14law.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Market Watch: The No-Bang, All-Whimper Recovery:
"Economists had forecast an increase of 150,000 jobs in December. They were off by a mere 149,000."
Other aspects of the employment figures disappointed, too. More than 300,000 people dropped out of the job pool and the index of hours worked fell below the level of 1998. The manufacturing sector shed jobs, as it had for the previous 40 months, but so did the retail and financial service industries. Finally, November's upbeat job report was revised downward.
One economist who was unsurprised by the figures is Stephen S. Roach, chief economist at Morgan Stanley. Arguing for months that a lasting recovery cannot be built on an increasingly indebted consumer, a declining savings rate and widening current-account and trade deficits, Mr. Roach's has been a voice in the wilderness.
Bulls on the economy have snickered at his warnings that, contrary to some of the data, the domestic labor market was not rebounding. Now he looks prescient.
"We had a spectacular second half of '03 in G.D.P. because of tax cuts, the last-gasp spending of the refinance cycle and price cuts on motor vehicles," Mr. Roach said. "But we haven't had job growth and income generation. Consumers can't continue to carry the ball with their incomes lagging."
The consumer, of course, has been a stalwart spender for years in spite of significant job losses, a nonexistent savings rate and increasing personal debt. Counting out the consumer has been folly.
"I think the 90's taught people to spend not just out of their paychecks but also out of their assets," Mr. Roach said. First, the stock market, then their homes.
But the unpleasant reality remains that private-sector payrolls are now 7.5 million workers below the level that would be typical 25 months into an economic recovery, he said. This trend may well continue, he said, and for several troubling reasons.
They all have to do with the outsourcing phenomenon that has swept through the manufacturing world and is now threatening service jobs. Thanks to the Internet and the continued push for productivity, more American companies are turning to offshore workers.
And Mr. Roach sees no reason for that to change.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/11/business/yourmoney/11watch.html
"Economists had forecast an increase of 150,000 jobs in December. They were off by a mere 149,000."
Other aspects of the employment figures disappointed, too. More than 300,000 people dropped out of the job pool and the index of hours worked fell below the level of 1998. The manufacturing sector shed jobs, as it had for the previous 40 months, but so did the retail and financial service industries. Finally, November's upbeat job report was revised downward.
One economist who was unsurprised by the figures is Stephen S. Roach, chief economist at Morgan Stanley. Arguing for months that a lasting recovery cannot be built on an increasingly indebted consumer, a declining savings rate and widening current-account and trade deficits, Mr. Roach's has been a voice in the wilderness.
Bulls on the economy have snickered at his warnings that, contrary to some of the data, the domestic labor market was not rebounding. Now he looks prescient.
"We had a spectacular second half of '03 in G.D.P. because of tax cuts, the last-gasp spending of the refinance cycle and price cuts on motor vehicles," Mr. Roach said. "But we haven't had job growth and income generation. Consumers can't continue to carry the ball with their incomes lagging."
The consumer, of course, has been a stalwart spender for years in spite of significant job losses, a nonexistent savings rate and increasing personal debt. Counting out the consumer has been folly.
"I think the 90's taught people to spend not just out of their paychecks but also out of their assets," Mr. Roach said. First, the stock market, then their homes.
But the unpleasant reality remains that private-sector payrolls are now 7.5 million workers below the level that would be typical 25 months into an economic recovery, he said. This trend may well continue, he said, and for several troubling reasons.
They all have to do with the outsourcing phenomenon that has swept through the manufacturing world and is now threatening service jobs. Thanks to the Internet and the continued push for productivity, more American companies are turning to offshore workers.
And Mr. Roach sees no reason for that to change.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/11/business/yourmoney/11watch.html
Op-Ed Columnist: The Awful Truth:
"Ron Suskind's new book 'The Price of Loyalty' is based largely on interviews with and materials supplied by Mr. O'Neill. It portrays an administration in which political considerations — satisfying "the base" — trump policy analysis on every issue, from tax cuts to international trade policy and global warming. The money quote may be Dick Cheney's blithe declaration that "Reagan proved deficits don't matter." But there are many other revelations.
One is that Mr. O'Neill and Alan Greenspan knew that it was a mistake to lock in huge tax cuts based on questionable projections of future surpluses. In May 2001 Mr. Greenspan gloomily told Mr. O'Neill that because the first Bush tax cut didn't include triggers — it went forward regardless of how the budget turned out — it was "irresponsible fiscal policy." This was a time when critics of the tax cut were ridiculed for saying exactly the same thing."
Another is that Mr. Bush, who declared in the 2000 campaign that "the vast majority of my tax cuts go to the bottom end of the spectrum," knew that this wasn't true. He worried that eliminating taxes on dividends would benefit only "top-rate people," asking his advisers, "Didn't we already give them a break at the top?"
Most startling of all, Donald Rumsfeld pushed the idea of regime change in Iraq as a way to transform the Middle East at a National Security Council meeting in February 2001.
There's much more in Mr. Suskind's book. All of it will dismay those who still want to believe that our leaders are wise and good.
The question is whether this book will open the eyes of those who think that anyone who criticizes the tax cuts is a wild-eyed leftist, and that anyone who says the administration hyped the threat from Iraq is a conspiracy theorist.
The point is that the credentials of the critics just keep getting better. How can Howard Dean's assertion that the capture of Saddam hasn't made us safer be dismissed as bizarre, when a report published by the Army War College says that the war in Iraq was a "detour" that undermined the fight against terror? How can charges by Wesley Clark and others that the administration was looking for an excuse to invade Iraq be dismissed as paranoid in the light of Mr. O'Neill's revelations?
So far administration officials have attacked Mr. O'Neill's character but haven't refuted any of his facts. They have, however, already opened an investigation into how a picture of a possibly classified document appeared during Mr. O'Neill's TV interview. This alacrity stands in sharp contrast with their evident lack of concern when a senior administration official, still unknown, blew the cover of a C.I.A. operative because her husband had revealed some politically inconvenient facts.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/13/opinion/13KRUG.html?pagewanted=print&position=
"Ron Suskind's new book 'The Price of Loyalty' is based largely on interviews with and materials supplied by Mr. O'Neill. It portrays an administration in which political considerations — satisfying "the base" — trump policy analysis on every issue, from tax cuts to international trade policy and global warming. The money quote may be Dick Cheney's blithe declaration that "Reagan proved deficits don't matter." But there are many other revelations.
One is that Mr. O'Neill and Alan Greenspan knew that it was a mistake to lock in huge tax cuts based on questionable projections of future surpluses. In May 2001 Mr. Greenspan gloomily told Mr. O'Neill that because the first Bush tax cut didn't include triggers — it went forward regardless of how the budget turned out — it was "irresponsible fiscal policy." This was a time when critics of the tax cut were ridiculed for saying exactly the same thing."
Another is that Mr. Bush, who declared in the 2000 campaign that "the vast majority of my tax cuts go to the bottom end of the spectrum," knew that this wasn't true. He worried that eliminating taxes on dividends would benefit only "top-rate people," asking his advisers, "Didn't we already give them a break at the top?"
Most startling of all, Donald Rumsfeld pushed the idea of regime change in Iraq as a way to transform the Middle East at a National Security Council meeting in February 2001.
There's much more in Mr. Suskind's book. All of it will dismay those who still want to believe that our leaders are wise and good.
The question is whether this book will open the eyes of those who think that anyone who criticizes the tax cuts is a wild-eyed leftist, and that anyone who says the administration hyped the threat from Iraq is a conspiracy theorist.
The point is that the credentials of the critics just keep getting better. How can Howard Dean's assertion that the capture of Saddam hasn't made us safer be dismissed as bizarre, when a report published by the Army War College says that the war in Iraq was a "detour" that undermined the fight against terror? How can charges by Wesley Clark and others that the administration was looking for an excuse to invade Iraq be dismissed as paranoid in the light of Mr. O'Neill's revelations?
So far administration officials have attacked Mr. O'Neill's character but haven't refuted any of his facts. They have, however, already opened an investigation into how a picture of a possibly classified document appeared during Mr. O'Neill's TV interview. This alacrity stands in sharp contrast with their evident lack of concern when a senior administration official, still unknown, blew the cover of a C.I.A. operative because her husband had revealed some politically inconvenient facts.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/13/opinion/13KRUG.html?pagewanted=print&position=
What Price Security? US-VISIT:
"Attention taxpayers: The United States government is about to spend at least $10 billion to build a state-of-the-art nationwide computer system that will use biometrics to track the comings and goings of visitors to this country.
Hang on to your wallets and a copy of the Bill of Rights.…"
This system is supposed to enable the government to effectively check in and check out every non-citizen on arrival and departure. Presumably the government will also be able to use it to check out and check in every U.S. citizen who visits foreign lands. If it works, US-VISIT will link up federal law enforcement and intelligence databases to automatically identify suspected terrorists or common criminals who are wanted for arrest in the United States or overseas.
The designers are going to have to build massive databases to store and process the biometric data and link them to a variety of existing law enforcement agency databases. This alone will be a remarkable achievement considering that inter-agency rivalries helped ensure information wasn't shared in a highly automated fashion.
In short, building US-VISIT will be like building a new space shuttle from scratch. Delays and cost overruns are a virtual certainty.…
The problem is that when it comes to connecting biometrics to a global data processing system, nobody knows what is the state of the art. The government is going to have to pay somebody to invent it.
Late last year DHC asked Accenture LLP, Computer Sciences Corp. and Lockheed Martin Corp. to submit bids based on proposals the companies had submitted earlier. The government plans to choose one of these companies to be the lead contractor for US-VISIT by next May.
When the government tells you that it might cost as much as $10 billion to design, build and deploy such a system, increase that figure two or three times because US-VISIT is as complex and risky a project as some of the biggest weapons procurement programs in the country's history.
Just how risky can be judged from the federal government's atrocious record of trying to deploy modern and efficient data processing systems for fundamental public service agencies, such as the Social Security Administration or the Internal Revenue Service. The record is full of accounts about delays, cost overruns and outright failures in a multitude of government computer procurement programs.
Even with all of the engineering and computer science talent on their payrolls, neither the government nor the contractor candidates can be absolutely certain that they can successfully assemble this system—no matter what they might say publicly.…
It is a sad fact of history that most of the great advances in science and technology have been achieved only because governments are prepared to spend huge sums to build new weapons and defense systems.
The atomic bomb, nuclear submarines and the nascent U.S. antimissile system are just a few examples of the lengths that the government is prepared to go in the name of national security.
An early successful example of the government harnessing computer technology for national defense is a 1960s era museum piece called SAGE (Semi Automatic Ground Environment) developed by IBM based on research by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It used radar and computer power to allow air defense controllers to track intruding aircraft. It was a precursor of the current civil air traffic control systems used worldwide.
It was also nowhere near as complex as the US-VISIT system.
Even so, it is entirely possible with massive investments of money, time and human resources the government will actually deploy a US-VISIT system that reliably performs what it was designed to do. But that doesn't mean we will be one iota safer from attack by determined terrorists.
If we are very lucky, the nation will somewhat be less blind to terrorist threats than we were before 2001. We will have also paid a heavy price beyond the yet uncounted billions to build the system.…
http://www.eweek.com/print_article/0,3048,a=116163,00.asp
"Attention taxpayers: The United States government is about to spend at least $10 billion to build a state-of-the-art nationwide computer system that will use biometrics to track the comings and goings of visitors to this country.
Hang on to your wallets and a copy of the Bill of Rights.…"
This system is supposed to enable the government to effectively check in and check out every non-citizen on arrival and departure. Presumably the government will also be able to use it to check out and check in every U.S. citizen who visits foreign lands. If it works, US-VISIT will link up federal law enforcement and intelligence databases to automatically identify suspected terrorists or common criminals who are wanted for arrest in the United States or overseas.
The designers are going to have to build massive databases to store and process the biometric data and link them to a variety of existing law enforcement agency databases. This alone will be a remarkable achievement considering that inter-agency rivalries helped ensure information wasn't shared in a highly automated fashion.
In short, building US-VISIT will be like building a new space shuttle from scratch. Delays and cost overruns are a virtual certainty.…
The problem is that when it comes to connecting biometrics to a global data processing system, nobody knows what is the state of the art. The government is going to have to pay somebody to invent it.
Late last year DHC asked Accenture LLP, Computer Sciences Corp. and Lockheed Martin Corp. to submit bids based on proposals the companies had submitted earlier. The government plans to choose one of these companies to be the lead contractor for US-VISIT by next May.
When the government tells you that it might cost as much as $10 billion to design, build and deploy such a system, increase that figure two or three times because US-VISIT is as complex and risky a project as some of the biggest weapons procurement programs in the country's history.
Just how risky can be judged from the federal government's atrocious record of trying to deploy modern and efficient data processing systems for fundamental public service agencies, such as the Social Security Administration or the Internal Revenue Service. The record is full of accounts about delays, cost overruns and outright failures in a multitude of government computer procurement programs.
Even with all of the engineering and computer science talent on their payrolls, neither the government nor the contractor candidates can be absolutely certain that they can successfully assemble this system—no matter what they might say publicly.…
It is a sad fact of history that most of the great advances in science and technology have been achieved only because governments are prepared to spend huge sums to build new weapons and defense systems.
The atomic bomb, nuclear submarines and the nascent U.S. antimissile system are just a few examples of the lengths that the government is prepared to go in the name of national security.
An early successful example of the government harnessing computer technology for national defense is a 1960s era museum piece called SAGE (Semi Automatic Ground Environment) developed by IBM based on research by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It used radar and computer power to allow air defense controllers to track intruding aircraft. It was a precursor of the current civil air traffic control systems used worldwide.
It was also nowhere near as complex as the US-VISIT system.
Even so, it is entirely possible with massive investments of money, time and human resources the government will actually deploy a US-VISIT system that reliably performs what it was designed to do. But that doesn't mean we will be one iota safer from attack by determined terrorists.
If we are very lucky, the nation will somewhat be less blind to terrorist threats than we were before 2001. We will have also paid a heavy price beyond the yet uncounted billions to build the system.…
http://www.eweek.com/print_article/0,3048,a=116163,00.asp
Monday, January 12, 2004
Bush Sought to Oust Hussein From Start, Ex-Official Says:
"President Bush was focused on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq from the start of his administration, more than seven months before the terrorist attacks that he later cited as the trigger for a more aggressive foreign policy, Paul H. O'Neill, Mr. Bush's first Treasury secretary, said in an interview broadcast on Sunday.
'From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go,' Mr. O'Neill said in an interview with the CBS program '60 Minutes.'"
Mr. O'Neill, who was dismissed by Mr. Bush more than a year ago over differences on economic policy, said Iraq was discussed at the first National Security Council meeting after Mr. Bush's inauguration. The tone at that meeting and others, Mr. O'Neill said, was "all about finding a way to do it," with no real questioning of why Mr. Hussein had to go or why it had to be done then. "For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the U.S. has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap," Mr. O'Neill said.
Mr. O'Neill gave the interview to "60 Minutes" to promote a new book, "The Price of Loyalty," by Ron Suskind. Mr. O'Neill cooperated extensively on the book, turning over 19,000 documents from his two years as Treasury secretary, including transcripts of National Security Council meetings, Mr. Suskind told "60 Minutes."
Mr. O'Neill also gave an interview to Time magazine, which quoted him as casting doubt on the strength of the evidence Mr. Bush cited in making the case for war with Iraq.
"In the 23 months I was there, I never saw anything that I would characterize as evidence of weapons of mass destruction," Mr. O'Neill told Time, speaking of his tenure in the administration. "There were allegations and assertions by people. But I've been around a hell of a long time, and I know the difference between evidence and assertions and illusions or allusions and conclusions that one could draw from a set of assumptions.
"To me there is a difference between real evidence and everything else," he continued. "And I never saw anything in the intelligence that I would characterize as real evidence."…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/12/politics/12ONEI.html
"President Bush was focused on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq from the start of his administration, more than seven months before the terrorist attacks that he later cited as the trigger for a more aggressive foreign policy, Paul H. O'Neill, Mr. Bush's first Treasury secretary, said in an interview broadcast on Sunday.
'From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go,' Mr. O'Neill said in an interview with the CBS program '60 Minutes.'"
Mr. O'Neill, who was dismissed by Mr. Bush more than a year ago over differences on economic policy, said Iraq was discussed at the first National Security Council meeting after Mr. Bush's inauguration. The tone at that meeting and others, Mr. O'Neill said, was "all about finding a way to do it," with no real questioning of why Mr. Hussein had to go or why it had to be done then. "For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the U.S. has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap," Mr. O'Neill said.
Mr. O'Neill gave the interview to "60 Minutes" to promote a new book, "The Price of Loyalty," by Ron Suskind. Mr. O'Neill cooperated extensively on the book, turning over 19,000 documents from his two years as Treasury secretary, including transcripts of National Security Council meetings, Mr. Suskind told "60 Minutes."
Mr. O'Neill also gave an interview to Time magazine, which quoted him as casting doubt on the strength of the evidence Mr. Bush cited in making the case for war with Iraq.
"In the 23 months I was there, I never saw anything that I would characterize as evidence of weapons of mass destruction," Mr. O'Neill told Time, speaking of his tenure in the administration. "There were allegations and assertions by people. But I've been around a hell of a long time, and I know the difference between evidence and assertions and illusions or allusions and conclusions that one could draw from a set of assumptions.
"To me there is a difference between real evidence and everything else," he continued. "And I never saw anything in the intelligence that I would characterize as real evidence."…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/12/politics/12ONEI.html
By accepting the government's vague, poorly explained allegations, and by filling in the gaps in the government's case with its own assumptions about facts absent from the record, this court has converted deference into acquiescence.
Justices Refuse to Review Case on Secrecy and 9/11 Detentions:
"The justices let stand a ruling by a federal appeals court, which concluded last June that the Justice Department was within its rights when it refused to release the names of more than 700 people, most of them Arabs or Muslims, arrested for immigration violations in connection with the attacks.
Many of those arrested have been deported. Some were charged with crimes and others were held as witnesses. But so far only one person, Zacarias Moussaoui, is being prosecuted in connection with the attacks, and he was detained before Sept. 11."
The case that the justices declined today to review, Center for National Security Studies v. Justice Department, 03-472, pitted two fundamental values against each other — the right of the public to know details of how its government operates versus the government's need to keep some information secret to protect national security.
With today's refusal by the justices, the last word in the case apparently belongs to Judge David B. Sentelle of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In his opinion for the 2-to-1 majority on June 17, he noted that courts had always shown deference to executive branch officials in the field of national security.
Judge David S. Tatel offered a blistering dissent last June. "By accepting the government's vague, poorly explained allegations, and by filling in the gaps in the government's case with its own assumptions about facts absent from the record, this court has converted deference into acquiescence," he asserted.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/12/politics/12CND-SCOT.html
Sunday, January 11, 2004
Op-Ed Contributor: Call It the Family Risk Factor:
"On the heels of Friday's glum Labor Department report, Americans have a right to be confused. Soaring growth, stocks and consumer confidence have heartened investors. And yet, the country remains mired in a jobless recovery. The reality is that the economy has become more uncertain and anxiety-producing for most of us — not just over the past three years, but over the past 30. But by fixating on the day-to-day ups and downs, analysts have largely missed the more telling trend: an increasing shift of economic risk from government and corporations onto workers and their families.
Signs of this transformation are everywhere: in the laid-off programmer whose stock options are suddenly worthless, in the former welfare mom who can get a job but not health care or day care, in the family forced into bankruptcy by the sickness of a child. But these episodes, while viewed with sympathy, are usually seen in isolation, rather than as parts of a larger problem. This blinkered view stands in the way of both diagnoses of the causes of the new economic insecurity and prescriptions for its cure.…"
Optimists point out that Americans are much richer than they were in the 1970's. But while they are as a whole, incomes have grown little for the middle class and working poor — even as wages have become more unstable, the financial effects of losing a job have worsened, and the cost of things families need, from housing to education, has ballooned. Yet government and the private sector aren't just ignoring these problems, they are making them worse. Many programs for the poor, for example, have been substantially cut. And middle-class programs like Social Security have steadily eroded.
The truly staggering changes, however, are taking place in the private sector. The number of Americans without employment-based health benefits has been rising for decades. Employers are also restructuring workplace benefits to impose more risk on workers. Once, for instance, workers lucky enough to have a pension enjoyed a guaranteed benefit. Now, with so-called defined-contribution plans like 401(k)'s, workers have to put away their own wages and the returns of the plan depend entirely on their own investments.
What might be done to help families cope with the new economic insecurity? The essential first step is to shore up existing policies to ensure broad-based and secure unemployment, pension and health benefits.
Yet simply upgrading present efforts is not enough. I believe we need a new, flexible universal insurance program to protect families against catastrophic expenses and drops in income, before families fall into poverty. Universal insurance would, in turn, be coupled with tax-subsidized savings accounts that would help middle and lower-income families manage these expenses before they reached catastrophic levels.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/11/opinion/11HACK.html
"On the heels of Friday's glum Labor Department report, Americans have a right to be confused. Soaring growth, stocks and consumer confidence have heartened investors. And yet, the country remains mired in a jobless recovery. The reality is that the economy has become more uncertain and anxiety-producing for most of us — not just over the past three years, but over the past 30. But by fixating on the day-to-day ups and downs, analysts have largely missed the more telling trend: an increasing shift of economic risk from government and corporations onto workers and their families.
Signs of this transformation are everywhere: in the laid-off programmer whose stock options are suddenly worthless, in the former welfare mom who can get a job but not health care or day care, in the family forced into bankruptcy by the sickness of a child. But these episodes, while viewed with sympathy, are usually seen in isolation, rather than as parts of a larger problem. This blinkered view stands in the way of both diagnoses of the causes of the new economic insecurity and prescriptions for its cure.…"
Optimists point out that Americans are much richer than they were in the 1970's. But while they are as a whole, incomes have grown little for the middle class and working poor — even as wages have become more unstable, the financial effects of losing a job have worsened, and the cost of things families need, from housing to education, has ballooned. Yet government and the private sector aren't just ignoring these problems, they are making them worse. Many programs for the poor, for example, have been substantially cut. And middle-class programs like Social Security have steadily eroded.
The truly staggering changes, however, are taking place in the private sector. The number of Americans without employment-based health benefits has been rising for decades. Employers are also restructuring workplace benefits to impose more risk on workers. Once, for instance, workers lucky enough to have a pension enjoyed a guaranteed benefit. Now, with so-called defined-contribution plans like 401(k)'s, workers have to put away their own wages and the returns of the plan depend entirely on their own investments.
What might be done to help families cope with the new economic insecurity? The essential first step is to shore up existing policies to ensure broad-based and secure unemployment, pension and health benefits.
Yet simply upgrading present efforts is not enough. I believe we need a new, flexible universal insurance program to protect families against catastrophic expenses and drops in income, before families fall into poverty. Universal insurance would, in turn, be coupled with tax-subsidized savings accounts that would help middle and lower-income families manage these expenses before they reached catastrophic levels.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/11/opinion/11HACK.html
Saturday, January 10, 2004
News Analysis: Bush Seeks Ways to Create Jobs, and Fast:
"With a phalanx of women entrepreneurs at his side and a billboard covered with the word 'Jobs!' behind him, President Bush proclaimed his confidence about the economy here on Friday. But he made only passing reference to the latest news about employment.
The reason was clear: Friday's report on unemployment in December was much weaker than either the administration or most independent economists had predicted. Job creation was virtually nil, and the unemployment rate declined only because the labor force shrank by 309,000 workers. Many of those were people who had simply become too discouraged to keep looking for work."
The problem confronting Mr. Bush is that there is little he can do between now and the elections except wait and hope that the employment picture improves. And the administration is not likely to get much more help from the Federal Reserve, which has already reduced short-term interest rates to just 1 percent.
"In terms of big levers to pull, they don't have anything," said Pierre Ellis, a senior economist at Decision Economics, a forecasting company.…
Both the White House and the Fed are confronted by a recovery unlike any other in modern history. Economic growth has been soaring for months, corporate profits have shot up and the stock market has regained much of its old ebullience.
Yet job creation has been slower than in almost any previous recovery, and wage growth has slowed to a crawl. That appears to reflect another big new element that lies entirely outside the president's control: the enormous increases in productivity, which have made it possible for companies to squeeze more output from each worker.
"The evidence is powerful that we can have 4 or 5 percent growth without hiring much," said John Makin, a senior economist at the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Makin has long been among the more pessimistic economic forecasters, but the employment and wage data on Friday came in far worse than even he had expected. "I was stunned, quite frankly," he said.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/10/business/10jobs.html
"With a phalanx of women entrepreneurs at his side and a billboard covered with the word 'Jobs!' behind him, President Bush proclaimed his confidence about the economy here on Friday. But he made only passing reference to the latest news about employment.
The reason was clear: Friday's report on unemployment in December was much weaker than either the administration or most independent economists had predicted. Job creation was virtually nil, and the unemployment rate declined only because the labor force shrank by 309,000 workers. Many of those were people who had simply become too discouraged to keep looking for work."
The problem confronting Mr. Bush is that there is little he can do between now and the elections except wait and hope that the employment picture improves. And the administration is not likely to get much more help from the Federal Reserve, which has already reduced short-term interest rates to just 1 percent.
"In terms of big levers to pull, they don't have anything," said Pierre Ellis, a senior economist at Decision Economics, a forecasting company.…
Both the White House and the Fed are confronted by a recovery unlike any other in modern history. Economic growth has been soaring for months, corporate profits have shot up and the stock market has regained much of its old ebullience.
Yet job creation has been slower than in almost any previous recovery, and wage growth has slowed to a crawl. That appears to reflect another big new element that lies entirely outside the president's control: the enormous increases in productivity, which have made it possible for companies to squeeze more output from each worker.
"The evidence is powerful that we can have 4 or 5 percent growth without hiring much," said John Makin, a senior economist at the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Makin has long been among the more pessimistic economic forecasters, but the employment and wage data on Friday came in far worse than even he had expected. "I was stunned, quite frankly," he said.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/10/business/10jobs.html
Editorial Observer: Coming to Terms With the Problem of Global Meat:
"Industrial agriculture is indeed industrial. It is designed to move parts along a conveyor belt, no matter where the parts come from. And if one of the parts proves to be fatally defective — a dairy cow with the staggers, for instance — then shutting down the conveyor nearly always comes far too late.
It has been instructive watching American agriculture respond to this minicrisis. The usual players have retreated to their usual corners. Some cattle growers have publicly praised the beef checkoff program, which collects a small percentage of the sales from every producer for advertising, because it creates the illusion of a unified voice in a time of trouble. Supporters of country-of-origin labeling, which would identify the source of every cut of meat, have promoted its potential virtues, while opponents argue that it would make no difference or be too expensive. The real necessity is to provide accurate, detailed tracking of every individual animal, though the United States Department of Agriculture is poorly equipped to make it happen anytime soon. The inherent logic of all these positions is simply to make the status quo safer, so global meat can go about its business uninterrupted."
But what is needed to avert a major crisis is real change, from the bottom up. The global meat system is broken, as a machine and as a philosophy. In America, meatpacking has gone from being a widely distributed, widely owned web of local, independent businesses into a tightly controlled, cruelly concentrated industry whose assumptions are utterly industrial.
Modern meatpacking plants are enormous automated factories, as void of humans as possible. The machinery, like the now-notorious automated meat-recovery system, is very expensive. Profitability requires an uninterrupted flow of carcasses. To packers, that means that they, rather than independent farmers, should own the cattle, hogs and poultry moving through the line. The federal government agrees. Every effort to outlaw packers' ownership of livestock has failed.
The result is a system in which the average drives out the excellent, and the international drives out the local. I know a large-scale rancher in north-central Wyoming who does everything he can to raise beef cattle of the highest quality. That means good genetics, good grass and as few chemical and pharmaceutical inputs as he can possibly manage. But then the cattle are loaded onto trucks, shipped to feedlots and hauled to slaughter, where they merge with the great river of American meat, indistinguishable from all the rest. There is no real alternative to the concentrated meatpacking and distribution system. Any alternative — grass-fed, organic beef, separately slaughtered, separately marketed — is merely a niche so far.
In science fiction movies, there is often a moment when space colonists talk about "terra-forming" a suitable planet. They mean giving it a breathable atmosphere and terrestrial flora and fauna. We are going through a different process on the one planet we have. We are agri-forming it.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/10/opinion/10SAT3.html
"Industrial agriculture is indeed industrial. It is designed to move parts along a conveyor belt, no matter where the parts come from. And if one of the parts proves to be fatally defective — a dairy cow with the staggers, for instance — then shutting down the conveyor nearly always comes far too late.
It has been instructive watching American agriculture respond to this minicrisis. The usual players have retreated to their usual corners. Some cattle growers have publicly praised the beef checkoff program, which collects a small percentage of the sales from every producer for advertising, because it creates the illusion of a unified voice in a time of trouble. Supporters of country-of-origin labeling, which would identify the source of every cut of meat, have promoted its potential virtues, while opponents argue that it would make no difference or be too expensive. The real necessity is to provide accurate, detailed tracking of every individual animal, though the United States Department of Agriculture is poorly equipped to make it happen anytime soon. The inherent logic of all these positions is simply to make the status quo safer, so global meat can go about its business uninterrupted."
But what is needed to avert a major crisis is real change, from the bottom up. The global meat system is broken, as a machine and as a philosophy. In America, meatpacking has gone from being a widely distributed, widely owned web of local, independent businesses into a tightly controlled, cruelly concentrated industry whose assumptions are utterly industrial.
Modern meatpacking plants are enormous automated factories, as void of humans as possible. The machinery, like the now-notorious automated meat-recovery system, is very expensive. Profitability requires an uninterrupted flow of carcasses. To packers, that means that they, rather than independent farmers, should own the cattle, hogs and poultry moving through the line. The federal government agrees. Every effort to outlaw packers' ownership of livestock has failed.
The result is a system in which the average drives out the excellent, and the international drives out the local. I know a large-scale rancher in north-central Wyoming who does everything he can to raise beef cattle of the highest quality. That means good genetics, good grass and as few chemical and pharmaceutical inputs as he can possibly manage. But then the cattle are loaded onto trucks, shipped to feedlots and hauled to slaughter, where they merge with the great river of American meat, indistinguishable from all the rest. There is no real alternative to the concentrated meatpacking and distribution system. Any alternative — grass-fed, organic beef, separately slaughtered, separately marketed — is merely a niche so far.
In science fiction movies, there is often a moment when space colonists talk about "terra-forming" a suitable planet. They mean giving it a breathable atmosphere and terrestrial flora and fauna. We are going through a different process on the one planet we have. We are agri-forming it.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/10/opinion/10SAT3.html
Friday, January 09, 2004
Supreme Court Expands Review of 'Enemy Combatant' Cases:
"The Supreme Court stepped squarely into a momentous debate over national security and personal liberty today by agreeing to consider the case of a man who has been held without charges by the United States military since he was captured in the fighting in Afghanistan."
The justices agreed to hear the appeal of the captive, Yaser Esam Hamdi, who is believed to hold both American and Saudi citizenship and who is in a Navy brig in Charleston, S.C.
The Bush administration had urged the Supreme Court not to hear the Hamdi case, so the announcement today represented a sharp rebuff to the president, Attorney General John Ashcroft and other architects of administration policy.
In agreeing to hear the case, probably in April, the justices have decided in effect to subject the Bush's administration's antiterrorism policies to a close examination that could have consequences for decades to come.
The administration has argued that the threat of terrorism justifies some tough measures in dealing with suspected enemies of the United States — holding such people without specific charges in some cases or denying them access to counsel if such tactics can prevent more attacks like those of Sept. 11, 2001.
But some civil libertarians have expressed fears that in so doing the government, and the American people, may make mistakes that will be regretted many years from now, much as the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II is today.
The justices' decision to take the Hamdi case appeared to increase the likelihood that they would also take another case that pits national security considerations against issues of personal freedom. That case comes from New York City, where the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled on Dec. 18 that President Bush lacks the authority to detain indefinitely a United States citizen arrested on American soil on suspicion of terrorism simply by declaring him "an enemy combatant." The authorities say that suspect, José Padilla, plotted with Al Qaeda to detonate a so-called "dirty bomb" in the United States.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/09/national/09CND-SCOT.html
"The Supreme Court stepped squarely into a momentous debate over national security and personal liberty today by agreeing to consider the case of a man who has been held without charges by the United States military since he was captured in the fighting in Afghanistan."
The justices agreed to hear the appeal of the captive, Yaser Esam Hamdi, who is believed to hold both American and Saudi citizenship and who is in a Navy brig in Charleston, S.C.
The Bush administration had urged the Supreme Court not to hear the Hamdi case, so the announcement today represented a sharp rebuff to the president, Attorney General John Ashcroft and other architects of administration policy.
In agreeing to hear the case, probably in April, the justices have decided in effect to subject the Bush's administration's antiterrorism policies to a close examination that could have consequences for decades to come.
The administration has argued that the threat of terrorism justifies some tough measures in dealing with suspected enemies of the United States — holding such people without specific charges in some cases or denying them access to counsel if such tactics can prevent more attacks like those of Sept. 11, 2001.
But some civil libertarians have expressed fears that in so doing the government, and the American people, may make mistakes that will be regretted many years from now, much as the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II is today.
The justices' decision to take the Hamdi case appeared to increase the likelihood that they would also take another case that pits national security considerations against issues of personal freedom. That case comes from New York City, where the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled on Dec. 18 that President Bush lacks the authority to detain indefinitely a United States citizen arrested on American soil on suspicion of terrorism simply by declaring him "an enemy combatant." The authorities say that suspect, José Padilla, plotted with Al Qaeda to detonate a so-called "dirty bomb" in the United States.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/09/national/09CND-SCOT.html
APHIS | Hot Issues Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE):
"Current BSE Situation"
01-08-04 BSE Update
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/lpa/issues/bse/bse_update01-08-04.html
Previous Updates
01/07/04 BSE Chronology
http://www.usda.gov/news/releases/2003/12/bsechronology.htm
01/06-04 Transcript of USDA technical briefing and Webcast On BSE with Canadian and U.S. Officials including Dr. Ron DeHaven, Chief Veterinary Officer, USDA and Dr. Brian Evans, Chief Veterinary Officer, Canadian Food Inspection Agency
http://www.usda.gov/news/releases/2004/01/0002.htm
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/lpa/issues/bse/bse.html
"Current BSE Situation"
01-08-04 BSE Update
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/lpa/issues/bse/bse_update01-08-04.html
Previous Updates
01/07/04 BSE Chronology
http://www.usda.gov/news/releases/2003/12/bsechronology.htm
01/06-04 Transcript of USDA technical briefing and Webcast On BSE with Canadian and U.S. Officials including Dr. Ron DeHaven, Chief Veterinary Officer, USDA and Dr. Brian Evans, Chief Veterinary Officer, Canadian Food Inspection Agency
http://www.usda.gov/news/releases/2004/01/0002.htm
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/lpa/issues/bse/bse.html
Phishing: Spam that can’t be ignored:
"If you haven’t already heard about phishing, then get ready. Like a lot spam, phishing is a form of unsolicited commercial email. Whereas all spam is not a scam, all attempts at phishing are scams, and the potential losses to corporations and consumers alike is stunning"
Phishing: Spam that can’t be ignored
By David Berlind, Tech Update
January 7, 2004
If you haven’t already heard about phishing, then get ready. Like a lot spam, phishing is a form of unsolicited commercial email. Whereas all spam is not a scam, all attempts at phishing are scams, and the potential losses to corporations and consumers alike is stunning.
Phishing, as the name implies, is when spam is used as means to “fish” for the credentials that are necessary to access and manipulate financial accounts. Invariably, the e-mail will ask the recipient for an account number and the related password using an explanation that their records need updating or a security procedure is being changed that requires confirming an account. Unsuspecting e-mail recipients that supply the information don’t know it, but within hours or even minutes, unauthorized transactions will begin to appear on whatever account was compromised.
By now, most people know that giving this information away on the Internet is a no-no. With phishing, however, it’s almost impossible to tell that the e-mail is a fraud. Like spam, e-mail from phishers usually contains spoofed FROM or REPLY TO addresses to make the e-mail look as though it came from a legitimate company.
In addition to the spoofed credentials, the e-mail is usually HTML-based. To an undiscerning eye, the e-mail bears the authentic trademarks, logos, graphics, and URLs of the spoofed company. In many cases, the HTML page is coded to retrieve and use the actual graphics of the site being spoofed. Most of the phishing I’ve received pretends to come from PayPal and contains plainly visible URLs that make it look as though clicking on them will take me to PayPal’s domain. Upon quick examination of the HTML tags behind the authentic looking link, the actual URL turns out to be an unrecognizable and cryptic looking IP address rather than an actual page within PayPal’s domain.
PayPal, the payment subsidiary of EBay, is a common target of phishing. If you get one and you’ve never joined PayPal, then you obviously know it’s a fraud. But if you are a PayPal member, as I am, the phisher has at that point broken through the unofficial security-by-obscurity layer that once protected you. It not difficult to see how PayPal members could be victimized by this technique.
According to Antiphishing Working Group Chairman David Jevans, PayPal isn’t the only target of phishers. “In about 35 percent of all reported phishing attacks, Ebay’s PayPal service is the biggest victim. But just about any financial institution, credit card issuer, retailer, or other business can be targeted. UK-based NatWest was phished badly in October 2003 and then even worse in December. The December attack was so bad that NatWest had to take down its site. Visa was another organization that was targeted over the holidays.”
At first blush, phishing appears to be sort of buyer-beware consumer issue since the e-mails themselves are prospecting for potential account holders to the spoofed institutions. Indeed, depending on the spoofed institution’s policies, a consumer could end up eating a loss. “So far,” said Jevans, “most of the transgressions against individuals have been in the hundreds of dollars because smaller transactions will sometimes go unnoticed for a while. But they go higher. The largest one on record so far is for $16,000. If the credentials obtained by a phisher are for a credit card account, then the risk is usually absorbed by either card issuer or a merchant.” This is when the hard dollar cost of phishing, which Jevans considers a form of identity theft, begins to be recognized by corporations and businesses instead of individuals.…
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/Phishing_Spam_that_cant_be_ignored.html
"If you haven’t already heard about phishing, then get ready. Like a lot spam, phishing is a form of unsolicited commercial email. Whereas all spam is not a scam, all attempts at phishing are scams, and the potential losses to corporations and consumers alike is stunning"
Phishing: Spam that can’t be ignored
By David Berlind, Tech Update
January 7, 2004
If you haven’t already heard about phishing, then get ready. Like a lot spam, phishing is a form of unsolicited commercial email. Whereas all spam is not a scam, all attempts at phishing are scams, and the potential losses to corporations and consumers alike is stunning.
Phishing, as the name implies, is when spam is used as means to “fish” for the credentials that are necessary to access and manipulate financial accounts. Invariably, the e-mail will ask the recipient for an account number and the related password using an explanation that their records need updating or a security procedure is being changed that requires confirming an account. Unsuspecting e-mail recipients that supply the information don’t know it, but within hours or even minutes, unauthorized transactions will begin to appear on whatever account was compromised.
By now, most people know that giving this information away on the Internet is a no-no. With phishing, however, it’s almost impossible to tell that the e-mail is a fraud. Like spam, e-mail from phishers usually contains spoofed FROM or REPLY TO addresses to make the e-mail look as though it came from a legitimate company.
In addition to the spoofed credentials, the e-mail is usually HTML-based. To an undiscerning eye, the e-mail bears the authentic trademarks, logos, graphics, and URLs of the spoofed company. In many cases, the HTML page is coded to retrieve and use the actual graphics of the site being spoofed. Most of the phishing I’ve received pretends to come from PayPal and contains plainly visible URLs that make it look as though clicking on them will take me to PayPal’s domain. Upon quick examination of the HTML tags behind the authentic looking link, the actual URL turns out to be an unrecognizable and cryptic looking IP address rather than an actual page within PayPal’s domain.
PayPal, the payment subsidiary of EBay, is a common target of phishing. If you get one and you’ve never joined PayPal, then you obviously know it’s a fraud. But if you are a PayPal member, as I am, the phisher has at that point broken through the unofficial security-by-obscurity layer that once protected you. It not difficult to see how PayPal members could be victimized by this technique.
According to Antiphishing Working Group Chairman David Jevans, PayPal isn’t the only target of phishers. “In about 35 percent of all reported phishing attacks, Ebay’s PayPal service is the biggest victim. But just about any financial institution, credit card issuer, retailer, or other business can be targeted. UK-based NatWest was phished badly in October 2003 and then even worse in December. The December attack was so bad that NatWest had to take down its site. Visa was another organization that was targeted over the holidays.”
At first blush, phishing appears to be sort of buyer-beware consumer issue since the e-mails themselves are prospecting for potential account holders to the spoofed institutions. Indeed, depending on the spoofed institution’s policies, a consumer could end up eating a loss. “So far,” said Jevans, “most of the transgressions against individuals have been in the hundreds of dollars because smaller transactions will sometimes go unnoticed for a while. But they go higher. The largest one on record so far is for $16,000. If the credentials obtained by a phisher are for a credit card account, then the risk is usually absorbed by either card issuer or a merchant.” This is when the hard dollar cost of phishing, which Jevans considers a form of identity theft, begins to be recognized by corporations and businesses instead of individuals.…
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/Phishing_Spam_that_cant_be_ignored.html
Plan May Lure More to Enter U.S. Illegally, Experts Say:
"The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 offered amnesty and legal status to illegal immigrants already in the United States, or most of them. Having cleared the decks with this provision, the law sought to discourage future illegal entry by imposing penalties on employers who knowingly hired illegal immigrants.
But foreigners saw in the 1986 act an invitation, not a deterrent, said Stephen Trejo, a labor economist and immigration expert at the University of Texas. 'The biggest long-term impact of the 1986 law was the idea that maybe there will be periodic amnesties, and even if I come to the United States illegally, there is a good chance I'll be able to legalize my status while I am there,' Mr. Trejo said."
The 1986 law offered green cards to illegal immigrants who had entered the country before 1982. Over the next four years, 2.7 million green cards went to illegal immigrants already in the country and in some cases to spouses and children still abroad, according to data from the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
But the chief deterrents, employer penalties and stepped-up border patrol, failed to stem illegal immigration, and today illegal immigrants number 7 million or more, according to most estimates. By 1990, the proportion of foreign-born adults in the work force, legal and illegal, had risen to 9.3 percent from 7 percent in 1980 and by 2000, this group represented 12.3 percent of the nation's workers, the Labor Department reports.
The employer penalties were hard to enforce. Employers could be fined up to $10,000 for multiple offenses, and even imprisoned. But to avoid punishment, an employer needed only to check a job candidate's documents, not the authenticity of the documents. Soon, on the streets of Chicago, for example, a forged Social Security card could be purchased for less than $100.
"The employer sanctions, introduced for the first time in that bill, were a joke," said George Borjas, an economist and immigration expert at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
What helped to doom the Reagan approach in 1986 was the failure to create a legal avenue for unskilled immigrants to enter the United States and take low-wage jobs. Various visa programs brought in skilled workers, but not the unskilled, despite strong demand to fill openings at hotels and restaurants, in nursing homes and home health care, and in landscaping, child care, housekeeping and light manufacturing.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/09/national/09ECON.html
"The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 offered amnesty and legal status to illegal immigrants already in the United States, or most of them. Having cleared the decks with this provision, the law sought to discourage future illegal entry by imposing penalties on employers who knowingly hired illegal immigrants.
But foreigners saw in the 1986 act an invitation, not a deterrent, said Stephen Trejo, a labor economist and immigration expert at the University of Texas. 'The biggest long-term impact of the 1986 law was the idea that maybe there will be periodic amnesties, and even if I come to the United States illegally, there is a good chance I'll be able to legalize my status while I am there,' Mr. Trejo said."
The 1986 law offered green cards to illegal immigrants who had entered the country before 1982. Over the next four years, 2.7 million green cards went to illegal immigrants already in the country and in some cases to spouses and children still abroad, according to data from the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
But the chief deterrents, employer penalties and stepped-up border patrol, failed to stem illegal immigration, and today illegal immigrants number 7 million or more, according to most estimates. By 1990, the proportion of foreign-born adults in the work force, legal and illegal, had risen to 9.3 percent from 7 percent in 1980 and by 2000, this group represented 12.3 percent of the nation's workers, the Labor Department reports.
The employer penalties were hard to enforce. Employers could be fined up to $10,000 for multiple offenses, and even imprisoned. But to avoid punishment, an employer needed only to check a job candidate's documents, not the authenticity of the documents. Soon, on the streets of Chicago, for example, a forged Social Security card could be purchased for less than $100.
"The employer sanctions, introduced for the first time in that bill, were a joke," said George Borjas, an economist and immigration expert at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
What helped to doom the Reagan approach in 1986 was the failure to create a legal avenue for unskilled immigrants to enter the United States and take low-wage jobs. Various visa programs brought in skilled workers, but not the unskilled, despite strong demand to fill openings at hotels and restaurants, in nursing homes and home health care, and in landscaping, child care, housekeeping and light manufacturing.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/09/national/09ECON.html
Rotation: U.S. in Huge Troop Movement With New Unit to Find Bombs:
"'It has started,' the officer said of the redeployment. 'This is the biggest move that we've done, I think, since World War II. We are moving 240,000-plus soldiers and their equipment.'"
Equipment of the First Cavalry Division, based at Fort Hood, Tex., and of the 25th Infantry Division, based in Hawaii, is at sea en route to Iraq. Troops of the 82nd Airborne Division, from Fort Bragg, N.C., left Wednesday and Thursday, the officer said.
No new deployment orders or call-ups were announced Thursday as the officer gave a status report on what he called "a major muscle movement" — bringing home about 123,000 personnel in Iraq and Kuwait, to be replaced by about 110,000. Most of the fresh troops are Army, with the Marine Corps sending 25,000, and smaller numbers from the Air Force and Navy.…
In addition to the Iraq redeployments, the military is rotating about 11,000 troops to Afghanistan to replace those there now, officials said.
Officers acknowledge that the Iraq rotation, to be completed by May, presents a risk for troops traveling across unfamiliar territory before reaching more secure bases, and in numbers presenting a target for insurgents. But commanders are planning to capitalize on the overlap, which offers a natural, if temporary, increase in troop strength.
The new force flowing into Iraq will be more heavily weighted toward reserve forces; 38 percent of those heading home from Iraq are reservists, while 46 percent of the fresh force is drawn from the reserves. Units sent to Iraq are also designed to be more mobile than those that captured Baghdad.
To counter the threat of home-made bombs, known as "improvised explosive devices," or I.E.D.'s, the Army devised a new unit called Task Force I.E.D. to find and destroy the weapons, and to train conventional units in specialized techniques. The task force, already on the ground in Iraq, will grow to about 300 soldiers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/09/politics/09MILI.html
"'It has started,' the officer said of the redeployment. 'This is the biggest move that we've done, I think, since World War II. We are moving 240,000-plus soldiers and their equipment.'"
Equipment of the First Cavalry Division, based at Fort Hood, Tex., and of the 25th Infantry Division, based in Hawaii, is at sea en route to Iraq. Troops of the 82nd Airborne Division, from Fort Bragg, N.C., left Wednesday and Thursday, the officer said.
No new deployment orders or call-ups were announced Thursday as the officer gave a status report on what he called "a major muscle movement" — bringing home about 123,000 personnel in Iraq and Kuwait, to be replaced by about 110,000. Most of the fresh troops are Army, with the Marine Corps sending 25,000, and smaller numbers from the Air Force and Navy.…
In addition to the Iraq redeployments, the military is rotating about 11,000 troops to Afghanistan to replace those there now, officials said.
Officers acknowledge that the Iraq rotation, to be completed by May, presents a risk for troops traveling across unfamiliar territory before reaching more secure bases, and in numbers presenting a target for insurgents. But commanders are planning to capitalize on the overlap, which offers a natural, if temporary, increase in troop strength.
The new force flowing into Iraq will be more heavily weighted toward reserve forces; 38 percent of those heading home from Iraq are reservists, while 46 percent of the fresh force is drawn from the reserves. Units sent to Iraq are also designed to be more mobile than those that captured Baghdad.
To counter the threat of home-made bombs, known as "improvised explosive devices," or I.E.D.'s, the Army devised a new unit called Task Force I.E.D. to find and destroy the weapons, and to train conventional units in specialized techniques. The task force, already on the ground in Iraq, will grow to about 300 soldiers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/09/politics/09MILI.html
U.S. Moves to Get Anan's Backing for Iraq Transition Plan:
"The United States is eager for the international imprimatur a United Nations presence in Iraq would give the coalition forces there but has resisted Mr. Annan's repeated demands for 'clarity' over exactly what its workers would be asked to do and how safe they would be from the attacks that drove the organization out of Iraq this fall.
In actions that have alarmed Washington, individual Iraqi leaders have been seeking United Nations intervention in the current transition plan, an agreement reached on Nov. 15 that called for regional caucuses leading to the naming of a provisional Iraqi government by June 30."
His rejection of these freelance pleas came in a response to a Dec. 28 letter from Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, a leading Shiite Muslim who served as last month's rotating president of the Iraqi Governing Council.
The United States was pleased with Mr. Annan's action because of its worry over complaints in Iraq from the powerful Shiite leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, that Washington's plans for the transitional government did not insure the broad representation of Iraqis that direct elections would.…
The council has agreed to send three members — Mr. Hakim, the December president, Adnan Pachachi, the current one, and Massoud Barzani, next month's designee — but there has been no response yet from the Coalition Provisional Authority.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/09/international/middleeast/09CND-NATI.html
"The United States is eager for the international imprimatur a United Nations presence in Iraq would give the coalition forces there but has resisted Mr. Annan's repeated demands for 'clarity' over exactly what its workers would be asked to do and how safe they would be from the attacks that drove the organization out of Iraq this fall.
In actions that have alarmed Washington, individual Iraqi leaders have been seeking United Nations intervention in the current transition plan, an agreement reached on Nov. 15 that called for regional caucuses leading to the naming of a provisional Iraqi government by June 30."
His rejection of these freelance pleas came in a response to a Dec. 28 letter from Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, a leading Shiite Muslim who served as last month's rotating president of the Iraqi Governing Council.
The United States was pleased with Mr. Annan's action because of its worry over complaints in Iraq from the powerful Shiite leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, that Washington's plans for the transitional government did not insure the broad representation of Iraqis that direct elections would.…
The council has agreed to send three members — Mr. Hakim, the December president, Adnan Pachachi, the current one, and Massoud Barzani, next month's designee — but there has been no response yet from the Coalition Provisional Authority.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/09/international/middleeast/09CND-NATI.html
Insurgents: 9 Soldiers Dead in Crash in Iraq:
"An American Black Hawk helicopter crashed Thursday in this tiny village near the restive town of Falluja, killing all nine soldiers aboard. Less than a week ago, another American helicopter was shot down in the area.
The United States military said the cause of the crash was still under investigation, but witnesses near the mangled wreckage said the helicopter had been downed by a missile."
The crash was the most deadly incident in a 24-hour span that clearly illustrated the continuing risk to American soldiers and other foreigners in occupied Iraq. One soldier died Thursday of wounds sustained in a mortar attack on Wednesday evening that wounded 30 other soldiers and a civilian at Logistical Base Seitz, west of Baghdad.
A spokesman for the Air Mobility Command, which oversees military transport, said a C-5 transport plane with 63 people on board was struck Thursday by ground fire but returned safely to Baghdad airport.
Six months from now, the American-led occupation authority plans to hand political power to a transitional Iraqi government, but the shape of that administration remains unclear and its ability to guarantee the safety of more than 100,000 American and other troops highly uncertain.
Since the capture of Saddam Hussein on Dec. 13, attacks on Iraqis and occupation soldiers have continued with deadly efficacy.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/09/international/middleeast/09IRAQ.html
"An American Black Hawk helicopter crashed Thursday in this tiny village near the restive town of Falluja, killing all nine soldiers aboard. Less than a week ago, another American helicopter was shot down in the area.
The United States military said the cause of the crash was still under investigation, but witnesses near the mangled wreckage said the helicopter had been downed by a missile."
The crash was the most deadly incident in a 24-hour span that clearly illustrated the continuing risk to American soldiers and other foreigners in occupied Iraq. One soldier died Thursday of wounds sustained in a mortar attack on Wednesday evening that wounded 30 other soldiers and a civilian at Logistical Base Seitz, west of Baghdad.
A spokesman for the Air Mobility Command, which oversees military transport, said a C-5 transport plane with 63 people on board was struck Thursday by ground fire but returned safely to Baghdad airport.
Six months from now, the American-led occupation authority plans to hand political power to a transitional Iraqi government, but the shape of that administration remains unclear and its ability to guarantee the safety of more than 100,000 American and other troops highly uncertain.
Since the capture of Saddam Hussein on Dec. 13, attacks on Iraqis and occupation soldiers have continued with deadly efficacy.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/09/international/middleeast/09IRAQ.html
Thursday, January 08, 2004
New Clues Are Detected About Planets of Other Stars:
"For the first time, astronomers have detected a magnetic field around a planet around a distant star, offering one of the first clues to the properties of any planet outside the solar system.…"
Over the past decade, astronomers have found 119 planets around other stars. But because the planets are detected indirectly — by their gravitational tug on the stars — almost nothing is known about any of them beyond a lower limit of their masses.
Using the Canada France Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, Evgenya Shkolnik, a graduate student at the University of British Columbia, looked at the star HD179949, 88 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. Its planet, nearly the size of Jupiter, falls in the class of "roasters," a large planet that orbits very close to its star, in this case 4 million miles. (The Earth, by contrast, is 93 million miles from the Sun.)
Ms. Shkolnik detected a spot on HD179949 that was 700 degrees warmer than the surrounding areas and circled the star at the same pace as the planet's orbit, once every three days. First seen in 2001, it also appeared in two sets of observations in 2002. It is probably not an intrinsic feature of the star, which takes nine days to rotate.
Instead, the planet appears to possess a magnetic field that interacts with the star's magnetic field.
"The hot spot is slightly ahead of the planet and appears to be moving across the surface of the star," Ms. Shkolnik said. "The best explanation for this is that it's an interaction between the planet of the star.…"
The presence of a magnetic field implies metal at the core of the planet. Jupiter, which possesses a strong magnetic field, is believed to contain a core of metallic hydrogen. HD179949's planet may be inducing a hot spot on the star similar to how the magnetic fields of Io and Europa, two moons of Jupiter, induce hot spots on Jupiter.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/08/science/08PLAN.html
"For the first time, astronomers have detected a magnetic field around a planet around a distant star, offering one of the first clues to the properties of any planet outside the solar system.…"
Over the past decade, astronomers have found 119 planets around other stars. But because the planets are detected indirectly — by their gravitational tug on the stars — almost nothing is known about any of them beyond a lower limit of their masses.
Using the Canada France Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, Evgenya Shkolnik, a graduate student at the University of British Columbia, looked at the star HD179949, 88 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. Its planet, nearly the size of Jupiter, falls in the class of "roasters," a large planet that orbits very close to its star, in this case 4 million miles. (The Earth, by contrast, is 93 million miles from the Sun.)
Ms. Shkolnik detected a spot on HD179949 that was 700 degrees warmer than the surrounding areas and circled the star at the same pace as the planet's orbit, once every three days. First seen in 2001, it also appeared in two sets of observations in 2002. It is probably not an intrinsic feature of the star, which takes nine days to rotate.
Instead, the planet appears to possess a magnetic field that interacts with the star's magnetic field.
"The hot spot is slightly ahead of the planet and appears to be moving across the surface of the star," Ms. Shkolnik said. "The best explanation for this is that it's an interaction between the planet of the star.…"
The presence of a magnetic field implies metal at the core of the planet. Jupiter, which possesses a strong magnetic field, is believed to contain a core of metallic hydrogen. HD179949's planet may be inducing a hot spot on the star similar to how the magnetic fields of Io and Europa, two moons of Jupiter, induce hot spots on Jupiter.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/08/science/08PLAN.html
U.S. Reasserts Right to Declare Citizens to Be Enemy Combatants:
"The Bush administration on Wednesday reasserted its broad authority to declare American citizens to be enemy combatants, and it suggested that the Supreme Court consider two prominent cases at the same time.
The Justice Department, in a brief filed with the court, said it would seek an expedited appeal of a federal appeals court decision last month in the case of Jose Padilla, jailed as an enemy combatant in 2002.… "
The divided Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, ruled on Dec. 18 that President Bush lacked the authority to indefinitely detain an American citizen like Mr. Padilla who was arrested on American soil simply by declaring him an enemy combatant. Mr. Padilla has been held incommunicado at a military brig in South Carolina. American authorities say he plotted with operatives of Al Qaeda overseas to detonate a "dirty" radiological bomb in the United States.
But the Justice Department said in its brief that the ruling was "fundamentally at odds" with court precedent on presidential powers.
The decision "undermines the president's constitutional authority to protect the nation," Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson wrote.
The Justice Department said it hoped the Supreme Court would consider an appeal in April.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/08/politics/08COMB.html
"The Bush administration on Wednesday reasserted its broad authority to declare American citizens to be enemy combatants, and it suggested that the Supreme Court consider two prominent cases at the same time.
The Justice Department, in a brief filed with the court, said it would seek an expedited appeal of a federal appeals court decision last month in the case of Jose Padilla, jailed as an enemy combatant in 2002.… "
The divided Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, ruled on Dec. 18 that President Bush lacked the authority to indefinitely detain an American citizen like Mr. Padilla who was arrested on American soil simply by declaring him an enemy combatant. Mr. Padilla has been held incommunicado at a military brig in South Carolina. American authorities say he plotted with operatives of Al Qaeda overseas to detonate a "dirty" radiological bomb in the United States.
But the Justice Department said in its brief that the ruling was "fundamentally at odds" with court precedent on presidential powers.
The decision "undermines the president's constitutional authority to protect the nation," Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson wrote.
The Justice Department said it hoped the Supreme Court would consider an appeal in April.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/08/politics/08COMB.html
Arms Search: U.S. Withdraws a Team of Weapons Hunters From Iraq:
"The Bush administration has quietly withdrawn from Iraq a 400-member military team whose job was to scour the country for military equipment, according to senior government officials.
The step was described by some military officials as a sign that the administration might have lowered its sights and no longer expected to uncover the caches of chemical and biological weapons that the White House cited as a principal reason for going to war last March.… "
A report published Wednesday in The Washington Post cited a previously undisclosed document that suggested that Iraq might have destroyed its biological weapons as early as 1991. The report said investigators had otherwise found no evidence to support American beliefs that Iraq had maintained illicit weapons dating from the Persian Gulf war of 1991 or that it had advanced programs to build new ones.
The report also documented a pattern of deceit that was found in every field of special weaponry. It said that according to Iraqi designers and foreign investigators, program managers exaggerated the results they could achieve, or even promised results they knew they could not accomplish — all in an effort to appease Saddam Hussein. In some cases, though, they simply did it to advance their careers, the report said, or preserve jobs or even conduct intrigues against their rivals.
Senior intelligence officials acknowledged in recent days that the weapons hunters still had not found weapons or active programs, but in interviews, they said the search must continue to ensure that no hidden Iraqi weapons surfaced in a future attack.…
David Kay, the head of the survey group, made it known last month that he might leave his post. Government officials said Wednesday that he had not reached a decision but that both he and his top deputy, Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton of the Defense Intelligence Agency, were in Washington, in part to discuss what direction the hunt should take.
"I am sure that if they had found important evidence, we would know about it," said Representative Jane Harman of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who has said the administration exaggerated the Iraqi threat.
Bill Harlow, the top spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency, said Wednesday that "the team needs to compete its work, and no one should jump to any conclusions before it has an opportunity to examine all of the circumstances."
American intelligence officials who described the seized documents said they hoped the documents might eventually help to unravel the mystery of whether Iraqi weapons remained hidden or whether they were destroyed long before what the Bush administration initially portrayed as a mission "to disarm Iraq."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/08/international/middleeast/08WEAP.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"The Bush administration has quietly withdrawn from Iraq a 400-member military team whose job was to scour the country for military equipment, according to senior government officials.
The step was described by some military officials as a sign that the administration might have lowered its sights and no longer expected to uncover the caches of chemical and biological weapons that the White House cited as a principal reason for going to war last March.… "
A report published Wednesday in The Washington Post cited a previously undisclosed document that suggested that Iraq might have destroyed its biological weapons as early as 1991. The report said investigators had otherwise found no evidence to support American beliefs that Iraq had maintained illicit weapons dating from the Persian Gulf war of 1991 or that it had advanced programs to build new ones.
The report also documented a pattern of deceit that was found in every field of special weaponry. It said that according to Iraqi designers and foreign investigators, program managers exaggerated the results they could achieve, or even promised results they knew they could not accomplish — all in an effort to appease Saddam Hussein. In some cases, though, they simply did it to advance their careers, the report said, or preserve jobs or even conduct intrigues against their rivals.
Senior intelligence officials acknowledged in recent days that the weapons hunters still had not found weapons or active programs, but in interviews, they said the search must continue to ensure that no hidden Iraqi weapons surfaced in a future attack.…
David Kay, the head of the survey group, made it known last month that he might leave his post. Government officials said Wednesday that he had not reached a decision but that both he and his top deputy, Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton of the Defense Intelligence Agency, were in Washington, in part to discuss what direction the hunt should take.
"I am sure that if they had found important evidence, we would know about it," said Representative Jane Harman of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who has said the administration exaggerated the Iraqi threat.
Bill Harlow, the top spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency, said Wednesday that "the team needs to compete its work, and no one should jump to any conclusions before it has an opportunity to examine all of the circumstances."
American intelligence officials who described the seized documents said they hoped the documents might eventually help to unravel the mystery of whether Iraqi weapons remained hidden or whether they were destroyed long before what the Bush administration initially portrayed as a mission "to disarm Iraq."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/08/international/middleeast/08WEAP.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Tuesday, January 06, 2004
Mars Exploration Rover Mission: Multimedia:
"All Raw Images"
View the Mars Exploration Rover images. This image gallery will expand as the mission progresses.
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/images.html
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/spirit.html
"All Raw Images"
View the Mars Exploration Rover images. This image gallery will expand as the mission progresses.
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/images.html
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/spirit.html
Monday, January 05, 2004
Chicago Tribune | Man Sues Firm Over Unsolicited E-Mails:
"A man from Washington state has accused a western Pennsylvania telemarketer of sending him hundreds of unsolicited e-mails and has sued the company under his state's anti-spam law.
In a complaint filed in his home state court last month, Jim Gordon of Richland, Wash., said he wants Commonwealth Marketing Group Inc. of Hopwood, Fayette County, to pay him $500 for each piece of spam the company allegedly sent him. According to Gordon, that adds up to more than $600,000 for more than 1,200 messages. "
"My motivation is to get this spam stopped," Gordon told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for a story in Sunday editions. "I sent them a letter saying stop. And they didn't."
Gordon's lawsuit focuses on a Washington law that prohibits the sending of deceptive or misleading e-mails. Gordon's suit also was filed under two other Washington laws governing unfair business practices and harassment.
CMG's e-mails were "designed to entice" him to believe he was applying for a major credit card, such as a VISA or MasterCard, Gordon said. But CMG was really offering its own products and credit.
In his lawsuit, Gordon also accused CMG of using invalid addresses in violation of state law. He received messages from 551 different senders, which he eventually traced to the company, Gordon said.…
Gordon said he sent a letter to CMG in August, saying he had received 27 unsolicited e-mails from the company and demanding a check for $10,800, or $400 for each message. The letter threatened that Gordon would bump up the fee up to $500 per e-mail and would contact the Washington attorney general if he didn't hear from CMG officials in a few weeks.
"If payment has not been received by 5 p.m. on Sept. 12, 2003, I will conclude that an out-of-court settlement is not possible," the letter said.
Gordon has also demanded money from three other companies that he said spammed him.…
http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/sns-ap-spam-suit.story
"A man from Washington state has accused a western Pennsylvania telemarketer of sending him hundreds of unsolicited e-mails and has sued the company under his state's anti-spam law.
In a complaint filed in his home state court last month, Jim Gordon of Richland, Wash., said he wants Commonwealth Marketing Group Inc. of Hopwood, Fayette County, to pay him $500 for each piece of spam the company allegedly sent him. According to Gordon, that adds up to more than $600,000 for more than 1,200 messages. "
"My motivation is to get this spam stopped," Gordon told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for a story in Sunday editions. "I sent them a letter saying stop. And they didn't."
Gordon's lawsuit focuses on a Washington law that prohibits the sending of deceptive or misleading e-mails. Gordon's suit also was filed under two other Washington laws governing unfair business practices and harassment.
CMG's e-mails were "designed to entice" him to believe he was applying for a major credit card, such as a VISA or MasterCard, Gordon said. But CMG was really offering its own products and credit.
In his lawsuit, Gordon also accused CMG of using invalid addresses in violation of state law. He received messages from 551 different senders, which he eventually traced to the company, Gordon said.…
Gordon said he sent a letter to CMG in August, saying he had received 27 unsolicited e-mails from the company and demanding a check for $10,800, or $400 for each message. The letter threatened that Gordon would bump up the fee up to $500 per e-mail and would contact the Washington attorney general if he didn't hear from CMG officials in a few weeks.
"If payment has not been received by 5 p.m. on Sept. 12, 2003, I will conclude that an out-of-court settlement is not possible," the letter said.
Gordon has also demanded money from three other companies that he said spammed him.…
http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/sns-ap-spam-suit.story
Sunday, January 04, 2004
The Things They Carry:
"In October, the Center for American Progress, a new liberal policy institute, held a two-day conference in Washington designed to lay out the foundations of an alternative, and politically viable, national security policy. The panels at the symposium (which was also sponsored by the Century Foundation and The American Prospect magazine) featured, in the main, nonideological figures offering sober and pragmatic counsel: reserve the right to act pre-emptively but don't make a doctrine of it; do peacekeeping right; focus on ''failed'' states like Afghanistan and Sudan; devise carrots as well as sticks to deal with state sponsors of terrorism; forge a global strategy to deal with the proliferation of nuclear weapons. "
For the keynote speaker, the sponsors invited not a conventional liberal but Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's hawkish national security adviser, a fervently anti-Soviet Polish emigre reviled during the cold war by the Democratic Party's left wing. I expected Brzezinski to be at least mildly sympathetic to the Bush administration. I was wrong. ''American power worldwide is at its historic zenith,'' he told his audience, which consisted largely of technocrats and midlevel Clinton administration officials. And yet, he noted: ''American global political standing is at its nadir. Why?'' First, Brzezinski said, because of the ''paranoiac view of the world'' summed up in the expression -- a paraphrase of President Bush -- ''He who is not with us is against us.'' Second, because of ''a fear'' -- of terrorism -- ''that periodically verges on panic'' and is stoked by ''extremist demagogy.'' To Brzezinski, the Bush administration's unilateralism, and its militarism, constituted a radical break with a consensus that stretched across several generations and presumably included not only cold warriors like himself but also the liberals he once opposed, like Cyrus Vance, Carter's secretary of state.…
Brzezinski's question -- Why is so much of the world against us? -- is, in fact, the starting point for the Democratic critique of the Bush administration. The sheer velocity of the change from worldwide sympathy to worldwide antipathy is almost incredible, and while much of the new anger comes from the very nature of our superpower status, the conduct of the Bush administration has plainly had a lot to do with it as well. In an article in Newsweek on the eve of the war in Iraq, Fareed Zakaria, that magazine's foreign-policy analyst, pointed out that some nations offered America only quiet support on Iraq ''not because they fear Saddam Hussein but because they fear their own people.'' The Bush administration had asked a very great deal and offered less than nothing. Zakaria noted that ''with the exception of Britain and Israel, every country the administration has dealt with feels humiliated by it.'' And of course the United States is now paying a price for that in Iraq, where it cannot find either enough foreign troops or funds to supplement its own.
Conservatives have a longstanding answer to the argument for multilateralism. As Condoleezza Rice, now Bush's national security adviser, wrote in a much discussed essay in Foreign Affairs during the 2000 campaign, ''The belief that the support of many states -- or even better, of institutions like the United Nations -- is essential to the legitimate exercise of power'' proceeds from a deep discomfort with the fact of America's power. This discomfort is, in turn, the residuum of Vietnam. There's some truth to that claim. One Democratic policy figure I spoke to said, ''If you listen to the Democrats in Iowa, you sometimes get the impression that the U.N. is going to save us from the situation.'' And yet, at least when they're not preaching to the Iowan choir, Democrats generally use hardheaded, looking-out-for-No.-1 language that Rice herself would have trouble taking exception to. They forswear ''mushy multilateralism,'' in John Kerry's phrase, for what Senator Joe Lieberman calls ''muscular multilateralism'' -- multilateralism not as a source of legitimacy but as an instrument to advance our own interests.
The consequences of unilateralism in Iraq dominate the debate. Yet if you talk to Democratic policy experts, Iraq rarely appears as the country's top national security priority. In ''An American Security Policy,'' a study ordered by Tom Daschle, the Senate minority leader, and written by a group that included top former Clinton aides like William Perry, the former defense secretary; Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of state; and Sandy Berger, the former national security adviser, Iraq appears as only the fourth of six major areas of concern. The first is ''The Loose Nukes Crisis in North Korea,'' and the second is the overall problem of weapons of mass destruction in Russia, Pakistan, Iran and elsewhere.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/magazine/04DEMOCRATS.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"In October, the Center for American Progress, a new liberal policy institute, held a two-day conference in Washington designed to lay out the foundations of an alternative, and politically viable, national security policy. The panels at the symposium (which was also sponsored by the Century Foundation and The American Prospect magazine) featured, in the main, nonideological figures offering sober and pragmatic counsel: reserve the right to act pre-emptively but don't make a doctrine of it; do peacekeeping right; focus on ''failed'' states like Afghanistan and Sudan; devise carrots as well as sticks to deal with state sponsors of terrorism; forge a global strategy to deal with the proliferation of nuclear weapons. "
For the keynote speaker, the sponsors invited not a conventional liberal but Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's hawkish national security adviser, a fervently anti-Soviet Polish emigre reviled during the cold war by the Democratic Party's left wing. I expected Brzezinski to be at least mildly sympathetic to the Bush administration. I was wrong. ''American power worldwide is at its historic zenith,'' he told his audience, which consisted largely of technocrats and midlevel Clinton administration officials. And yet, he noted: ''American global political standing is at its nadir. Why?'' First, Brzezinski said, because of the ''paranoiac view of the world'' summed up in the expression -- a paraphrase of President Bush -- ''He who is not with us is against us.'' Second, because of ''a fear'' -- of terrorism -- ''that periodically verges on panic'' and is stoked by ''extremist demagogy.'' To Brzezinski, the Bush administration's unilateralism, and its militarism, constituted a radical break with a consensus that stretched across several generations and presumably included not only cold warriors like himself but also the liberals he once opposed, like Cyrus Vance, Carter's secretary of state.…
Brzezinski's question -- Why is so much of the world against us? -- is, in fact, the starting point for the Democratic critique of the Bush administration. The sheer velocity of the change from worldwide sympathy to worldwide antipathy is almost incredible, and while much of the new anger comes from the very nature of our superpower status, the conduct of the Bush administration has plainly had a lot to do with it as well. In an article in Newsweek on the eve of the war in Iraq, Fareed Zakaria, that magazine's foreign-policy analyst, pointed out that some nations offered America only quiet support on Iraq ''not because they fear Saddam Hussein but because they fear their own people.'' The Bush administration had asked a very great deal and offered less than nothing. Zakaria noted that ''with the exception of Britain and Israel, every country the administration has dealt with feels humiliated by it.'' And of course the United States is now paying a price for that in Iraq, where it cannot find either enough foreign troops or funds to supplement its own.
Conservatives have a longstanding answer to the argument for multilateralism. As Condoleezza Rice, now Bush's national security adviser, wrote in a much discussed essay in Foreign Affairs during the 2000 campaign, ''The belief that the support of many states -- or even better, of institutions like the United Nations -- is essential to the legitimate exercise of power'' proceeds from a deep discomfort with the fact of America's power. This discomfort is, in turn, the residuum of Vietnam. There's some truth to that claim. One Democratic policy figure I spoke to said, ''If you listen to the Democrats in Iowa, you sometimes get the impression that the U.N. is going to save us from the situation.'' And yet, at least when they're not preaching to the Iowan choir, Democrats generally use hardheaded, looking-out-for-No.-1 language that Rice herself would have trouble taking exception to. They forswear ''mushy multilateralism,'' in John Kerry's phrase, for what Senator Joe Lieberman calls ''muscular multilateralism'' -- multilateralism not as a source of legitimacy but as an instrument to advance our own interests.
The consequences of unilateralism in Iraq dominate the debate. Yet if you talk to Democratic policy experts, Iraq rarely appears as the country's top national security priority. In ''An American Security Policy,'' a study ordered by Tom Daschle, the Senate minority leader, and written by a group that included top former Clinton aides like William Perry, the former defense secretary; Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of state; and Sandy Berger, the former national security adviser, Iraq appears as only the fourth of six major areas of concern. The first is ''The Loose Nukes Crisis in North Korea,'' and the second is the overall problem of weapons of mass destruction in Russia, Pakistan, Iran and elsewhere.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/magazine/04DEMOCRATS.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Lessons of the Pentagon's Favorite Training Film:
"THERE are no bad reasons for watching 'The Battle of Algiers'— the legendary epic about terrorism and counterterrorism in colonial Algeria by the Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo and the screenwriter Franco Solinas — but some may be worse than others."
Among the most obvious of good reasons: a fresh print is going into theaters on Friday, opening at Film Forum in New York and at art houses in Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington. Some viewers might seek out the film just for Marcello Gatti's cinematography, which has been restored to the newsreel-like immediacy that first startled viewers in 1966. But when a rerelease combines great artistic power with lasting political interest, celluloid junkies are not the only ones who ought to be excited. Architects could spend a happy two hours concentrating on "The Battle of Algiers" just for the winding staircases, inner courtyards and rooftop lookouts of the Casbah, the city's old Muslim section, where the events that Mr. Pontecorvo dramatized had actually taken place. Musicians could be content to take in the insistent, percussive score by Ennio Morricone and Mr. Pontecorvo, which is legendary in its own right.
Military strategists and revolutionaries, on the other hand, may have flimsier reasons for watching the film. The Black Panthers studied it in the late 60's as a textbook of urban warfare, even though it's more of a how-not-to manual. The movie does conclude with the Algerians' successful uprising against French rule in 1962, shown through one of the grandest crowd scenes ever devised, but "The Battle of Algiers" is mostly concerned with revolutionary defeat.
It recreates the events of 1954-7, when the French military systematically crushed a terror campaign and general strike organized by the F.L.N., the National Liberation Front. The Panthers were mistaken in their enthusiasm; and I think that Pentagon planners may have been misguided in their own way this summer when they organized a special screening to encourage fresh thinking about Iraq.
"How to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas," read the flier for the event. "Children shoot soldiers at point-blank range. Women plant bombs in cafes. Soon the entire Arab population builds to a mad fervor. Sound familiar?"
Apart from noting the inaccuracies that can bedevil any synopsis — in the film, children shoot policemen point-blank, not soldiers, and the Arab population builds to a state of sullen withdrawal
— I think the flier was too coy in implying that "The Battle of Algiers" could illuminate today's Baghdad. In fact, I'm not even sure the film works as a guide to contemporary Algiers. Its lessons ought to be applied to other situations cautiously, precisely because of the film's principal strength: its deep roots in a specific time and place.…
Not that any of this would interest moviegoers at the Pentagon. Their sudden fascination with "The Battle of Algiers" has to do with Mr. Pontecorvo's acute analysis of terrorism and counterterrorism, which he presented almost like a demonstration of Newtonian physics. Action: the F.L.N. (a small and ragtag organization, working without popular support) carries out terror attacks against fellow Arabs and the French police. Reaction: the police blow up a house. Counter-reaction: people from the Casbah support the F.L.N. in increasing numbers and carry out even more horrifying attacks.
The French, in turn, escalate hostilities; they send in paratroopers, whose leader, Colonel Mathieu, destroys the entire F.L.N. network by means of torture and extra-judicial killings. That apparently is the end of the chain reaction — except that the French have now outraged the whole Arab population. In the movie's coda, set after a long period of apparent quiescence, the Casbah suddenly rises up again as one.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/movies/04KLAW.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"THERE are no bad reasons for watching 'The Battle of Algiers'— the legendary epic about terrorism and counterterrorism in colonial Algeria by the Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo and the screenwriter Franco Solinas — but some may be worse than others."
Among the most obvious of good reasons: a fresh print is going into theaters on Friday, opening at Film Forum in New York and at art houses in Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington. Some viewers might seek out the film just for Marcello Gatti's cinematography, which has been restored to the newsreel-like immediacy that first startled viewers in 1966. But when a rerelease combines great artistic power with lasting political interest, celluloid junkies are not the only ones who ought to be excited. Architects could spend a happy two hours concentrating on "The Battle of Algiers" just for the winding staircases, inner courtyards and rooftop lookouts of the Casbah, the city's old Muslim section, where the events that Mr. Pontecorvo dramatized had actually taken place. Musicians could be content to take in the insistent, percussive score by Ennio Morricone and Mr. Pontecorvo, which is legendary in its own right.
Military strategists and revolutionaries, on the other hand, may have flimsier reasons for watching the film. The Black Panthers studied it in the late 60's as a textbook of urban warfare, even though it's more of a how-not-to manual. The movie does conclude with the Algerians' successful uprising against French rule in 1962, shown through one of the grandest crowd scenes ever devised, but "The Battle of Algiers" is mostly concerned with revolutionary defeat.
It recreates the events of 1954-7, when the French military systematically crushed a terror campaign and general strike organized by the F.L.N., the National Liberation Front. The Panthers were mistaken in their enthusiasm; and I think that Pentagon planners may have been misguided in their own way this summer when they organized a special screening to encourage fresh thinking about Iraq.
"How to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas," read the flier for the event. "Children shoot soldiers at point-blank range. Women plant bombs in cafes. Soon the entire Arab population builds to a mad fervor. Sound familiar?"
Apart from noting the inaccuracies that can bedevil any synopsis — in the film, children shoot policemen point-blank, not soldiers, and the Arab population builds to a state of sullen withdrawal
— I think the flier was too coy in implying that "The Battle of Algiers" could illuminate today's Baghdad. In fact, I'm not even sure the film works as a guide to contemporary Algiers. Its lessons ought to be applied to other situations cautiously, precisely because of the film's principal strength: its deep roots in a specific time and place.…
Not that any of this would interest moviegoers at the Pentagon. Their sudden fascination with "The Battle of Algiers" has to do with Mr. Pontecorvo's acute analysis of terrorism and counterterrorism, which he presented almost like a demonstration of Newtonian physics. Action: the F.L.N. (a small and ragtag organization, working without popular support) carries out terror attacks against fellow Arabs and the French police. Reaction: the police blow up a house. Counter-reaction: people from the Casbah support the F.L.N. in increasing numbers and carry out even more horrifying attacks.
The French, in turn, escalate hostilities; they send in paratroopers, whose leader, Colonel Mathieu, destroys the entire F.L.N. network by means of torture and extra-judicial killings. That apparently is the end of the chain reaction — except that the French have now outraged the whole Arab population. In the movie's coda, set after a long period of apparent quiescence, the Casbah suddenly rises up again as one.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/movies/04KLAW.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Missteps Seen in Muslim Chaplain's Spy Case:
"As the Muslim chaplain at the military base at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, Capt. James J. Yee often invited some of the Islamic members of the garrison to his quarters for dinner on Friday after he conducted weekly services.
On at least two occasions, his guest was Senior Airman Ahmad I. al- Halabi, an Air Force translator at the camp, where hundreds of captives from the Afghan war have been held and interrogated for the last two years.
Airman al-Halabi was later arrested on several charges, including suspicion of trying to pass secrets to Syria or some other foreign government, a charge that has since been dropped."
First held on suspicion of being part of an espionage ring, Captain Yee, 35, was in the end charged with the far less serious crime of mishandling classified information. He was also eventually charged with adultery and keeping pornography on his government computer, both violations of military law.
As arguments over the merits of those charges play out at a preliminary hearing in Fort Benning, Ga., some military officials continue to defend the prosecution, saying that even technical violations of regulations that fall short of espionage should not be ignored. Senior commanders in charge of the case have declined to discuss it, saying that doing so might jeopardize the prosecution.
But others have come to shake their heads over the case.…
General Fugh said the case ought to be brought to a speedy end when a preliminary hearing resumes on Jan. 19. At the hearing's conclusion, Col. Dan Trimble, the presiding officer, is supposed to make a recommendation to Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, the commander of the Joint Task Force that runs the Guantánamo camp, on whether to convene a court-martial, dismiss the case or impose some administrative penalty like a reprimand or discharge.
"It certainly seems like they couldn't get him on what they first thought they had," General Fugh said, "so they said, `Let's get the son of a gun on something.' "
General Fugh, who has played no role in the prosecution or the defense of Captain Yee, said, "Adding these Mickey Mouse charges just makes them look dumb, in my mind."
According to a senior Justice Department official, even the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which was involved in reviewing the documents that were seized from Captain Yee, never thought much of the evidence against him.
A series of interviews over the last few weeks suggests a number of factors that led the military ever deeper into its prosecution:
¶Reservists serving as counterintelligence officers at the camp were apprehensive that they might miss some sign of infiltration of the base but were relatively inexperienced in how to handle such matters.
¶There was confusion over which documents might be classified and which were not. For example, defense lawyers have questioned whether documents in the chaplain's baggage were truly classified, and that is now being formally reviewed.
¶Some senior officers at Guantánamo were skeptical about the wisdom of having Muslims and Arab-Americans involved in the interrogations of prisoners and other camp operations, and there was smoldering suspicion over what they were doing when they met with one another, according to military officials.
¶An investigation intended to strengthen the initial charges led instead into unrelated areas, and to the new charges of adultery and of keeping pornography on government computers.…
It became evident that his arrest was part of a broader crackdown at Guantánamo when the military announced that it had previously arrested Airman al-Halabi, also on suspicion of espionage. Airman al- Halabi had not only dined with Captain Yee, once alone, but was a volunteer aide in the chapel, a spare wooden building outside the prison facility. The airman is from Syria.
On Sept. 29, the military arrested another translator, Ahmed F. Mehalba, on similar charges of possessing classified information about Guantánamo. Mr. Mehalba, a civilian who had also dined at Captain Yee's quarters at least once, was indicted in November on charges of improperly gathering military information and lying to the F.B.I.
Unnamed officials were quoted in news accounts suggesting that they might have broken up an espionage ring trying to infiltrate the base on behalf of hostile foreign powers.
But that theory has not borne out so far, most notably in the Yee case. The military also recently dropped the most serious charges against Airman al-Halabi, including aiding the enemy, which carried a possible death sentence. Of the original 30 charges, he still faces 17, including some of attempted espionage. But his lawyer, Donald G. Rehkopf, said the "guts of the case" were gone — the charges of aiding the enemy and of using computers to transmit information abroad.…
An officer who served at Guantánamo at the same time as Captain Yee said in an interview that one likely cause of his troubles was the relative inexperience of the officers in charge of security at the base.
"They were all reservists and were completely afraid of missing something and were quite jumpy," said this officer, who is still in the service.
Indeed, one of these reservists ended up himself being charged with the same offenses that were initially lodged against Captain Yee, specifically "wrongfully transporting classified material without the proper security container." But the officer, Col. Jack Farr, a reservist in Army intelligence, was not arrested or detained like Captain Yee.
Colonel Farr was also charged with making a false statement about his handling of classified documents when the matter was being investigated.
A military spokesman would say only that each case is different.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/national/04YEE.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"As the Muslim chaplain at the military base at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, Capt. James J. Yee often invited some of the Islamic members of the garrison to his quarters for dinner on Friday after he conducted weekly services.
On at least two occasions, his guest was Senior Airman Ahmad I. al- Halabi, an Air Force translator at the camp, where hundreds of captives from the Afghan war have been held and interrogated for the last two years.
Airman al-Halabi was later arrested on several charges, including suspicion of trying to pass secrets to Syria or some other foreign government, a charge that has since been dropped."
First held on suspicion of being part of an espionage ring, Captain Yee, 35, was in the end charged with the far less serious crime of mishandling classified information. He was also eventually charged with adultery and keeping pornography on his government computer, both violations of military law.
As arguments over the merits of those charges play out at a preliminary hearing in Fort Benning, Ga., some military officials continue to defend the prosecution, saying that even technical violations of regulations that fall short of espionage should not be ignored. Senior commanders in charge of the case have declined to discuss it, saying that doing so might jeopardize the prosecution.
But others have come to shake their heads over the case.…
General Fugh said the case ought to be brought to a speedy end when a preliminary hearing resumes on Jan. 19. At the hearing's conclusion, Col. Dan Trimble, the presiding officer, is supposed to make a recommendation to Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, the commander of the Joint Task Force that runs the Guantánamo camp, on whether to convene a court-martial, dismiss the case or impose some administrative penalty like a reprimand or discharge.
"It certainly seems like they couldn't get him on what they first thought they had," General Fugh said, "so they said, `Let's get the son of a gun on something.' "
General Fugh, who has played no role in the prosecution or the defense of Captain Yee, said, "Adding these Mickey Mouse charges just makes them look dumb, in my mind."
According to a senior Justice Department official, even the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which was involved in reviewing the documents that were seized from Captain Yee, never thought much of the evidence against him.
A series of interviews over the last few weeks suggests a number of factors that led the military ever deeper into its prosecution:
¶Reservists serving as counterintelligence officers at the camp were apprehensive that they might miss some sign of infiltration of the base but were relatively inexperienced in how to handle such matters.
¶There was confusion over which documents might be classified and which were not. For example, defense lawyers have questioned whether documents in the chaplain's baggage were truly classified, and that is now being formally reviewed.
¶Some senior officers at Guantánamo were skeptical about the wisdom of having Muslims and Arab-Americans involved in the interrogations of prisoners and other camp operations, and there was smoldering suspicion over what they were doing when they met with one another, according to military officials.
¶An investigation intended to strengthen the initial charges led instead into unrelated areas, and to the new charges of adultery and of keeping pornography on government computers.…
It became evident that his arrest was part of a broader crackdown at Guantánamo when the military announced that it had previously arrested Airman al-Halabi, also on suspicion of espionage. Airman al- Halabi had not only dined with Captain Yee, once alone, but was a volunteer aide in the chapel, a spare wooden building outside the prison facility. The airman is from Syria.
On Sept. 29, the military arrested another translator, Ahmed F. Mehalba, on similar charges of possessing classified information about Guantánamo. Mr. Mehalba, a civilian who had also dined at Captain Yee's quarters at least once, was indicted in November on charges of improperly gathering military information and lying to the F.B.I.
Unnamed officials were quoted in news accounts suggesting that they might have broken up an espionage ring trying to infiltrate the base on behalf of hostile foreign powers.
But that theory has not borne out so far, most notably in the Yee case. The military also recently dropped the most serious charges against Airman al-Halabi, including aiding the enemy, which carried a possible death sentence. Of the original 30 charges, he still faces 17, including some of attempted espionage. But his lawyer, Donald G. Rehkopf, said the "guts of the case" were gone — the charges of aiding the enemy and of using computers to transmit information abroad.…
An officer who served at Guantánamo at the same time as Captain Yee said in an interview that one likely cause of his troubles was the relative inexperience of the officers in charge of security at the base.
"They were all reservists and were completely afraid of missing something and were quite jumpy," said this officer, who is still in the service.
Indeed, one of these reservists ended up himself being charged with the same offenses that were initially lodged against Captain Yee, specifically "wrongfully transporting classified material without the proper security container." But the officer, Col. Jack Farr, a reservist in Army intelligence, was not arrested or detained like Captain Yee.
Colonel Farr was also charged with making a false statement about his handling of classified documents when the matter was being investigated.
A military spokesman would say only that each case is different.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/national/04YEE.html?pagewanted=all&position=
New Wars in Iraq: Making Compromises to Keep a Country Whole:
"As the countdown to the handover of power in Iraq enters its final six months, American officials are focusing on how to create a working democracy. They are trying to walk a fine line between giving ethnic and religious groups the territory, resources and autonomy they demand, and ensuring that such power does not give rise to dangerous nationalisms."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/weekinreview/04wong.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"As the countdown to the handover of power in Iraq enters its final six months, American officials are focusing on how to create a working democracy. They are trying to walk a fine line between giving ethnic and religious groups the territory, resources and autonomy they demand, and ensuring that such power does not give rise to dangerous nationalisms."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/weekinreview/04wong.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Keeping the Faith: In Government We Trust (as Far as We Can Throw It):
"TO listen to pollsters, politicians and pundits, you might think 'the public trust' in government has been urgently threatened at every juncture since the Enron scandal broke in 2001 - or, in the view of the Democratic presidential candidates, since the inauguration of George W. Bush.
The year just ended provided its own fodder for distrust. If the herbal supplement ephedra is so bad for you, why wasn't it banned years ago rather than just last week? What about mad cow disease? They said it couldn't happen here. Remember the budget surplus? Where did it go? Don't forget those weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. ('Nothing could be a more serious violation of public trust than to consciously make a case for war based on false claims,' Gen. Wesley K. Clark said last fall.) "
In the fall it was revealed that some mutual fund hotshots, apparently immune to regulation, were favoring fat cats and not ordinary investors. And yes, Parmalat is a foreign company, but its name is on American milk cartons. Nobody knew that a $5 billion - $5 billion - account was just a figment of the company's imagination?
Finally, wasn't the nation just put on Orange Alert? Tell that to the pilot of a private plane who went joy riding around the Statue of Liberty last week, or to the guy who managed to hijack a bus from the Port Authority terminal in Manhattan and drive it to Kennedy Airport. No alarm was raised for seven hours that the bus was even missing.
For all of this, it might not be surprising that public faith in government, in big business and in institutions in general appears to be dwindling.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/weekinreview/04robe.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"TO listen to pollsters, politicians and pundits, you might think 'the public trust' in government has been urgently threatened at every juncture since the Enron scandal broke in 2001 - or, in the view of the Democratic presidential candidates, since the inauguration of George W. Bush.
The year just ended provided its own fodder for distrust. If the herbal supplement ephedra is so bad for you, why wasn't it banned years ago rather than just last week? What about mad cow disease? They said it couldn't happen here. Remember the budget surplus? Where did it go? Don't forget those weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. ('Nothing could be a more serious violation of public trust than to consciously make a case for war based on false claims,' Gen. Wesley K. Clark said last fall.) "
In the fall it was revealed that some mutual fund hotshots, apparently immune to regulation, were favoring fat cats and not ordinary investors. And yes, Parmalat is a foreign company, but its name is on American milk cartons. Nobody knew that a $5 billion - $5 billion - account was just a figment of the company's imagination?
Finally, wasn't the nation just put on Orange Alert? Tell that to the pilot of a private plane who went joy riding around the Statue of Liberty last week, or to the guy who managed to hijack a bus from the Port Authority terminal in Manhattan and drive it to Kennedy Airport. No alarm was raised for seven hours that the bus was even missing.
For all of this, it might not be surprising that public faith in government, in big business and in institutions in general appears to be dwindling.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/weekinreview/04robe.html?pagewanted=all&position=
If the Bomb Is So Easy to Make, Why Don't More Nations Have It?:
"LIBYA has pledged to dismantle its atomic weapons program. That is obviously good news, in addition to being a victory for George W. Bush's aggressive foreign policy. But what, exactly, is Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi giving up? Not much.
'Libya was in no position to obtain access to nuclear weapons in the foreseeable future,' says a statement by the Federation of American Scientists, an independent group that tracks arms control issues. After visiting Libya last week, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, declared the country's program at 'very much at an early stage.' Libya may be closing down its nuclear program because it wasn't working anyway."
This points to an important reality about nuclear weapons: they are extremely difficult to make. Claims that bomb plans can be downloaded from the Internet, or that fissile material is easily obtained on the black market and slapped together into an ultimate weapon, seem little more than talk-radio jabber. Nations like Libya that have made determined attempts to obtain atomic munitions have not even come close.
Saddam Hussein, while leader of Iraq, spent billions of dollars and many years pursuing atomic weapons, without success. It now appears his nuclear program was put into limbo sometime during the 1990's, perhaps for the pragmatic reason that it wasn't working. Pakistan, which may have played a role in various other bomb efforts in the developing world, had hundreds of engineers working for decades to devise its atomic device. North Korea devoted a high percentage of national resources to decades' worth of research before, probably, it acquired an atomic bomb. Iran's nuclear program, which dates to the last shah, has been working on a weapon for a quarter century so far.
In Libya's case, beginning in the 1970's the government sought assistance of various kinds from Pakistan, China and the former Soviet Union. Soviet technicians helped Libya build a small research reactor at a place called Tajura. The Qaddafi regime later tried, unsuccessfully, to buy a large power-generation reactor from a Belgian company, possibly hoping it could be refitted for production of weapons material.
Last week The Wall Street Journal reported that American forces recently seized a shipload of centrifuge equipment bound for Libya. The seizure might have been a factor in Colonel Qaddafi's decision to abandon his pursuit of nuclear weapons - though Washington officials said that before the ship was seized, American intelligence agents had already quietly visited Libya, at Colonel Qaddafi's invitation, to inspect the sites that the country proposed to shutter.
Atomic bombs have proved difficult for countries like Libya to make for several reasons. The "enrichment" of uranium or plutonium to weapons-grade concentrations is a fantastically complex undertaking, involving reactors that cost billions of dollars or centrifuge facilities that are also costly and complicated. Atomic bomb engineering and fabrication involve extremely precise calculations, exotic materials and unusual specialized components that even enormous cost-is-no-object government programs in the United States and the old Soviet Union found hard to manufacture.
Attempts by developing nations to make an ultimate weapon have gone slowly even though they have concentrated on atomic bombs - the kind dropped on Japan in 1945 - rather than the far more powerful thermonuclear or hydrogen bomb, which have never been used, except in tests.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/weekinreview/04east.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"LIBYA has pledged to dismantle its atomic weapons program. That is obviously good news, in addition to being a victory for George W. Bush's aggressive foreign policy. But what, exactly, is Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi giving up? Not much.
'Libya was in no position to obtain access to nuclear weapons in the foreseeable future,' says a statement by the Federation of American Scientists, an independent group that tracks arms control issues. After visiting Libya last week, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, declared the country's program at 'very much at an early stage.' Libya may be closing down its nuclear program because it wasn't working anyway."
This points to an important reality about nuclear weapons: they are extremely difficult to make. Claims that bomb plans can be downloaded from the Internet, or that fissile material is easily obtained on the black market and slapped together into an ultimate weapon, seem little more than talk-radio jabber. Nations like Libya that have made determined attempts to obtain atomic munitions have not even come close.
Saddam Hussein, while leader of Iraq, spent billions of dollars and many years pursuing atomic weapons, without success. It now appears his nuclear program was put into limbo sometime during the 1990's, perhaps for the pragmatic reason that it wasn't working. Pakistan, which may have played a role in various other bomb efforts in the developing world, had hundreds of engineers working for decades to devise its atomic device. North Korea devoted a high percentage of national resources to decades' worth of research before, probably, it acquired an atomic bomb. Iran's nuclear program, which dates to the last shah, has been working on a weapon for a quarter century so far.
In Libya's case, beginning in the 1970's the government sought assistance of various kinds from Pakistan, China and the former Soviet Union. Soviet technicians helped Libya build a small research reactor at a place called Tajura. The Qaddafi regime later tried, unsuccessfully, to buy a large power-generation reactor from a Belgian company, possibly hoping it could be refitted for production of weapons material.
Last week The Wall Street Journal reported that American forces recently seized a shipload of centrifuge equipment bound for Libya. The seizure might have been a factor in Colonel Qaddafi's decision to abandon his pursuit of nuclear weapons - though Washington officials said that before the ship was seized, American intelligence agents had already quietly visited Libya, at Colonel Qaddafi's invitation, to inspect the sites that the country proposed to shutter.
Atomic bombs have proved difficult for countries like Libya to make for several reasons. The "enrichment" of uranium or plutonium to weapons-grade concentrations is a fantastically complex undertaking, involving reactors that cost billions of dollars or centrifuge facilities that are also costly and complicated. Atomic bomb engineering and fabrication involve extremely precise calculations, exotic materials and unusual specialized components that even enormous cost-is-no-object government programs in the United States and the old Soviet Union found hard to manufacture.
Attempts by developing nations to make an ultimate weapon have gone slowly even though they have concentrated on atomic bombs - the kind dropped on Japan in 1945 - rather than the far more powerful thermonuclear or hydrogen bomb, which have never been used, except in tests.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/weekinreview/04east.html?pagewanted=all&position=
From Rogue Nuclear Programs, Web of Trails Leads to Pakistan:
"As investigators unravel the mysteries of the North Korean, Iranian and now the Libyan nuclear projects, Pakistan — and those it empowered with knowledge and technology they are now selling on their own — has emerged as the intellectual and trading hub of a loose network of hidden nuclear proliferators.
That network is global, stretching from Germany to Dubai and from China to South Asia, and involves many middlemen and suppliers. But what is striking about a string of recent disclosures, experts say, is how many roads appear ultimately to lead back to the Khan Research Laboratories in Kahuta, where Pakistan's own bomb was developed."
In 2002 the United States was surprised to discover how North Korea had turned to the Khan laboratory for an alternative way to manufacture nuclear fuel, after the reactors and reprocessing facilities it had relied on for years were "frozen" under a now shattered agreement with the Clinton administration. Last year, international inspectors and Western intelligence agencies were surprised again, this time by the central role Pakistan played in the initial technology that enabled Iran to pursue a secret uranium enrichment program for 18 years.
The sources of Libya's enrichment program are still under investigation, but those who have had an early glance say they see "interconnections" with both Pakistan and Iran's programs — and Libyan financial support for the Pakistani program that stretches back three decades.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/international/04NUKE.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"As investigators unravel the mysteries of the North Korean, Iranian and now the Libyan nuclear projects, Pakistan — and those it empowered with knowledge and technology they are now selling on their own — has emerged as the intellectual and trading hub of a loose network of hidden nuclear proliferators.
That network is global, stretching from Germany to Dubai and from China to South Asia, and involves many middlemen and suppliers. But what is striking about a string of recent disclosures, experts say, is how many roads appear ultimately to lead back to the Khan Research Laboratories in Kahuta, where Pakistan's own bomb was developed."
In 2002 the United States was surprised to discover how North Korea had turned to the Khan laboratory for an alternative way to manufacture nuclear fuel, after the reactors and reprocessing facilities it had relied on for years were "frozen" under a now shattered agreement with the Clinton administration. Last year, international inspectors and Western intelligence agencies were surprised again, this time by the central role Pakistan played in the initial technology that enabled Iran to pursue a secret uranium enrichment program for 18 years.
The sources of Libya's enrichment program are still under investigation, but those who have had an early glance say they see "interconnections" with both Pakistan and Iran's programs — and Libyan financial support for the Pakistani program that stretches back three decades.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/international/04NUKE.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Saturday, January 03, 2004
Probability, Luck and One Mad Cow:
"IN recent years, the Department of Agriculture has been warned numerous times that its testing system was not going to be able to stop mad cow disease from getting into American beef.
And if the disease was already in the United States - which it was, since a cow that was probably infected shortly after birth four and a half years ago has now been found with it - the chances of spotting it quickly were low."
In fact, the lone case was caught largely by luck. It involved a "downer" cow - that is one unable to walk. Though the inability to walk can be a symptom of mad cow disease, in this case it was attributed to her having ruptured while giving birth. In the end, it was not clear why the animal's brain was sent to the department's lab in Ames, Iowa.
But it was clear, several experts say, that the United States was vulnerable to mad cow disease. Dr. Stanley Prusiner, who won the 1997 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work on prions, the misfolded proteins that cause the disease, said that six weeks ago he met with Ann M. Veneman, the secretary of agriculture, and warned her that the country was vulnerable to an outbreak.
The 1997 book "Mad Cow U.S.A.," by Sheldon Rampton and John C. Stauber, made the case that the disease could enter the United States from Europe in contaminated feed.
Since 1997, Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports, has sent numerous letters to Agriculture Department officials warning that the American testing was "flawed in both design and execution," and that native brain disease, not necessarily caused by feed imported from Britain in the 1980's, "may be hiding among the 'downer cow' population."
It also warned that studies suggested that some pigs suffered from encephalopathy, particularly dangerous because it is still legal to feed rendered pigs - pig parts boiled, ground and dried into a powder - to cows.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/28/weekinreview/28madd.html
"IN recent years, the Department of Agriculture has been warned numerous times that its testing system was not going to be able to stop mad cow disease from getting into American beef.
And if the disease was already in the United States - which it was, since a cow that was probably infected shortly after birth four and a half years ago has now been found with it - the chances of spotting it quickly were low."
In fact, the lone case was caught largely by luck. It involved a "downer" cow - that is one unable to walk. Though the inability to walk can be a symptom of mad cow disease, in this case it was attributed to her having ruptured while giving birth. In the end, it was not clear why the animal's brain was sent to the department's lab in Ames, Iowa.
But it was clear, several experts say, that the United States was vulnerable to mad cow disease. Dr. Stanley Prusiner, who won the 1997 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work on prions, the misfolded proteins that cause the disease, said that six weeks ago he met with Ann M. Veneman, the secretary of agriculture, and warned her that the country was vulnerable to an outbreak.
The 1997 book "Mad Cow U.S.A.," by Sheldon Rampton and John C. Stauber, made the case that the disease could enter the United States from Europe in contaminated feed.
Since 1997, Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports, has sent numerous letters to Agriculture Department officials warning that the American testing was "flawed in both design and execution," and that native brain disease, not necessarily caused by feed imported from Britain in the 1980's, "may be hiding among the 'downer cow' population."
It also warned that studies suggested that some pigs suffered from encephalopathy, particularly dangerous because it is still legal to feed rendered pigs - pig parts boiled, ground and dried into a powder - to cows.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/28/weekinreview/28madd.html
Flight Groundings Lead Allies to Query Washington:
"British Airways canceled another flight to the United States on Friday as the Bush administration faced questions from American allies about the reliability of the intelligence information that has led to the recent rash of flight cancellations."
The British airline grounded a flight from London to Washington — the third cancellation over all in 24 hours — and canceled a flight scheduled for Saturday from London to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Seven international flights have now been canceled since last Saturday after the Bush administration began an aggressive approach to defending American airspace when the nation was put on orange or "high" alert on Dec. 21. Administration officials said no arrests had been made in connection with any of the more than a dozen international flights subjected to rigorous scrutiny. And officials have acknowledged that even now, they are uncertain whether they have succeeded in foiling a terrorist plot.
"I don't think we know yet, and we may never know," a senior administration official said.
The latest concern over the tighter security — perhaps unparalleled in commercial aviation history — was raised by Mexico on Friday. A spokesman for President Vicente Fox questioned decisions by the United States on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day to cancel Aeromexico's Flight 490 from Mexico City to Los Angeles. The spokesman, Agustin Gutiérrez Canet, said that armed Mexican agents had been scheduled to fly aboard the flights and that the authorities made special efforts to interrogate passengers closely and inspect luggage.
"Those revisions have found nothing suspicious," Mr. Gutiérrez said. "Where was the risk?"
In another indication of the turmoil resulting from the increased security measures, an American official said that the cancellation of the British Airways flights was not in response to United States safety concerns, but rather was prompted by the refusal of British pilots to fly with armed marshals on board. The United States put other nations on notice earlier this week that it would not allow certain suspicious flights into its airspace without armed marshals on board.
In addition to the flight cancellations, foreign airliners have been escorted into American airspace by F-16 military fighters, and a Mexican flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles was turned around in mid-air.
The events have left both domestic security officials and international travelers on edge over the prospect of another attack by Al Qaeda. American officials said they were determined to avoid the kind of missed warning signs that preceded the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, even if it meant inconveniencing travelers.
Government officials refuse to talk about key details of their decisions to ground the flights because they are classified, but they say that the anxieties are driven by a confluence of factors indicating that another attack on the scale of the Sept. 11 hijackings might be in the works. And the White House's approach, the result of both cold analytical intelligence and gut-level emotion, helped set in motion the extraordinary security measures seen over the last 10 days.
Two days before an Air France flight to Los Angeles was to depart from Paris on Christmas Eve, President Bush's top national security advisers briefed him at the White House on their growing worries about the route, administration officials said.
American officials were picking up intelligence indicating terrorists might be on board that flight or others from Paris to Los Angeles. They had persuaded the French, despite initial resistance, to post armed marshals on board. But the Americans remained nervous and were considering urging the French to cancel the flight.
President Bush had one threshold question for Tom Ridge, his secretary for homeland security, as they met at the White House situation room on Dec. 22. "Would you let your son or daughter fly on that plane?" he asked Mr. Ridge, according to a senior administration official privy to the conversation.
"Absolutely not," the secretary responded. "Well," Mr. Bush said, "neither would I."
The two men and Mr. Bush's other advisers then agreed that if the threat remained, the French should be urged to cancel the Paris-to-Los Angeles flights over the Christmas holiday. Two days later, the French did just that.
But with that aggressive approach have come questions about the quality of the intelligence information. In the case of the Air France cancellations, for instance, the discovery of a name on the passenger manifest similar to that of a Tunisian pilot with possible extremist links ratcheted up concern. But officials said it turned out to be a case of mistaken identity; the name of the passenger was that of a child, a senior official said in an interview. Other apparent "hits" from American terror watch lists turned out to be an elderly Chinese woman who owned a restaurant and a Welsh insurance agent, an F.B.I. official said.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/03/national/03TERR.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"British Airways canceled another flight to the United States on Friday as the Bush administration faced questions from American allies about the reliability of the intelligence information that has led to the recent rash of flight cancellations."
The British airline grounded a flight from London to Washington — the third cancellation over all in 24 hours — and canceled a flight scheduled for Saturday from London to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Seven international flights have now been canceled since last Saturday after the Bush administration began an aggressive approach to defending American airspace when the nation was put on orange or "high" alert on Dec. 21. Administration officials said no arrests had been made in connection with any of the more than a dozen international flights subjected to rigorous scrutiny. And officials have acknowledged that even now, they are uncertain whether they have succeeded in foiling a terrorist plot.
"I don't think we know yet, and we may never know," a senior administration official said.
The latest concern over the tighter security — perhaps unparalleled in commercial aviation history — was raised by Mexico on Friday. A spokesman for President Vicente Fox questioned decisions by the United States on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day to cancel Aeromexico's Flight 490 from Mexico City to Los Angeles. The spokesman, Agustin Gutiérrez Canet, said that armed Mexican agents had been scheduled to fly aboard the flights and that the authorities made special efforts to interrogate passengers closely and inspect luggage.
"Those revisions have found nothing suspicious," Mr. Gutiérrez said. "Where was the risk?"
In another indication of the turmoil resulting from the increased security measures, an American official said that the cancellation of the British Airways flights was not in response to United States safety concerns, but rather was prompted by the refusal of British pilots to fly with armed marshals on board. The United States put other nations on notice earlier this week that it would not allow certain suspicious flights into its airspace without armed marshals on board.
In addition to the flight cancellations, foreign airliners have been escorted into American airspace by F-16 military fighters, and a Mexican flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles was turned around in mid-air.
The events have left both domestic security officials and international travelers on edge over the prospect of another attack by Al Qaeda. American officials said they were determined to avoid the kind of missed warning signs that preceded the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, even if it meant inconveniencing travelers.
Government officials refuse to talk about key details of their decisions to ground the flights because they are classified, but they say that the anxieties are driven by a confluence of factors indicating that another attack on the scale of the Sept. 11 hijackings might be in the works. And the White House's approach, the result of both cold analytical intelligence and gut-level emotion, helped set in motion the extraordinary security measures seen over the last 10 days.
Two days before an Air France flight to Los Angeles was to depart from Paris on Christmas Eve, President Bush's top national security advisers briefed him at the White House on their growing worries about the route, administration officials said.
American officials were picking up intelligence indicating terrorists might be on board that flight or others from Paris to Los Angeles. They had persuaded the French, despite initial resistance, to post armed marshals on board. But the Americans remained nervous and were considering urging the French to cancel the flight.
President Bush had one threshold question for Tom Ridge, his secretary for homeland security, as they met at the White House situation room on Dec. 22. "Would you let your son or daughter fly on that plane?" he asked Mr. Ridge, according to a senior administration official privy to the conversation.
"Absolutely not," the secretary responded. "Well," Mr. Bush said, "neither would I."
The two men and Mr. Bush's other advisers then agreed that if the threat remained, the French should be urged to cancel the Paris-to-Los Angeles flights over the Christmas holiday. Two days later, the French did just that.
But with that aggressive approach have come questions about the quality of the intelligence information. In the case of the Air France cancellations, for instance, the discovery of a name on the passenger manifest similar to that of a Tunisian pilot with possible extremist links ratcheted up concern. But officials said it turned out to be a case of mistaken identity; the name of the passenger was that of a child, a senior official said in an interview. Other apparent "hits" from American terror watch lists turned out to be an elderly Chinese woman who owned a restaurant and a Welsh insurance agent, an F.B.I. official said.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/03/national/03TERR.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Friday, January 02, 2004
Israel Plans 25% Expansion of Its Settlements on Golan:
"Israel plans a major expansion of Jewish settlements in the Golan Heights, the government confirmed Wednesday. The announcement angered Syria, from which Israel seized the territory in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
The plan, approved two weeks ago, comes just two months after the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, called for renewed peace talks between his country and Israel."
Government officials said the expansion plan had been in the works for months and denied that its approval was intended as a response to Mr. Assad's vague proposal, made during an interview with The New York Times. Mr. Assad said in the interview that he wished to resume talks, broken off nearly three years ago, on returning the Golan Heights to Syria in exchange for security guarantees to Israel.
But the Israeli agriculture minister, Yisrael Katz, who heads the government's settlement committee, told Israeli radio and television on Wednesday that the plan was meant to send Mr. Assad the message that "the Golan is an inseparable part of the State of Israel, and we have no intention to give up our hold."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/01/international/middleeast/01MIDE.html
Isn't it interesting, how, whenever peace seems about to break out, the Sharon government finds a way to torpedo it.
"Israel plans a major expansion of Jewish settlements in the Golan Heights, the government confirmed Wednesday. The announcement angered Syria, from which Israel seized the territory in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
The plan, approved two weeks ago, comes just two months after the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, called for renewed peace talks between his country and Israel."
Government officials said the expansion plan had been in the works for months and denied that its approval was intended as a response to Mr. Assad's vague proposal, made during an interview with The New York Times. Mr. Assad said in the interview that he wished to resume talks, broken off nearly three years ago, on returning the Golan Heights to Syria in exchange for security guarantees to Israel.
But the Israeli agriculture minister, Yisrael Katz, who heads the government's settlement committee, told Israeli radio and television on Wednesday that the plan was meant to send Mr. Assad the message that "the Golan is an inseparable part of the State of Israel, and we have no intention to give up our hold."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/01/international/middleeast/01MIDE.html
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