In Memorium: John Lennon * 9 October 1940 ~ 8 December 1980 *
Imagine the ACLU infiltrated and managed by so-called Neoconservatives, who in reality are Advocates for Anarchy in America.
Imagine that New Orleans was allowed to rot in its own destruction so that these same phony Neoconservatives could harvest the thousands of homes and property in that destroyed city.
Imagine that “conspiracy” is not, for a moment, a dirty word applied to crackpots and other IQ-challenged individuals.
Imagine that all rich liberals take a stand against treason and for civil rights.
What, then, do Bush and Company do to continue their rape of American civil liberties, the foundations of The Constitution and The Bill of Rights, and also continue amassing the untold wealth that this current climate of fiscal high crimes perpetuates?
Imagine.
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Press Clips
How Do They Deceive You?
Let me count the lies—the building blocks of Bush's 'democracy'
by Sydney H. SchanbergDecember 6th, 2005 11:37 AM
Every time I try to wrap my mind around President Bush's Iraq war and his associated war against the press, I come back to the lies the president and his courtiers have endlessly told. And to how they conned and cowed much of the press into being their early accomplices.
Those offended by the jolt of the word "lies" can substitute a gentler synonym, such as "fictions" or "frauds" or "breaches of the national trust."
The lies haven't stopped. Vice President Dick Cheney lately accuses the "reprehensible" Democrats in Congress of twisting history when they point to the flagrant disinformation campaign that got us into the war.
He is saying, in effect, that telling the truth about a lie-based presidency comforts the enemy and makes you a bad American. That might be so if anyone were revealing national-security secrets. But these senators and representatives whom the vice president would crush are merely—and very belatedly—calling attention to the untruths sown by his own tribe to concoct a war.
The press too was slow to question and reveal the lies. Most of America was slow. People were still in shock over the 9-11 terrorist attacks and didn't want to believe that their president would mislead them into the wrong war. The press, like many other Americans, was temporarily intimidated.
What was in the minds of the president and his political advisers? Many of them (who had never seen battle) seem to have believed that 9-11 was the opportunity they had been hoping for since the 1991 Gulf War, when Saddam Hussein, though defeated, was left in power by the first President Bush. But how did they imagine they could, by force of arms, create a world empire on a foundation of distortions and lies about a "grave and gathering danger" from Iraq? Maybe someday they'll give us a halfway credible insight into what they were thinking.
It is tempting to go back and recite all the falsehoods—and all the scorned opportunities to exhibit honest, American humility by acknowledging them. A handful will suffice.
"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."—Cheney, August 26, 2002
"[He] has indeed stepped up his capacity to produce and deliver biological weapons. . . . He has reconstituted his nuclear program to develop a nuclear weapon."—Cheney, September 8, 2002
"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons—the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."—Bush, February 6, 2003
"We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."—Cheney, March 16, 2003 (three days before the start of the U.S. invasion)
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."—Bush, March 17, 2003 (two days before the invasion)
"We know where they [the weapons] are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad."—Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003 (11 days after the war began)
It is now two years and eight months later, and none of these weapons or stockpiles or assembly lines or mobile labs have been found. The only explanation the White House has offered up is that it was given faulty intelligence. Many Americans believe that the Bush regime chose faulty, hyped intelligence because it believed it could not otherwise get either the public or Congress to approve the war.
The mainstream press is no longer timid. But it, too, has suffered some major credibility failures, the most scrutinized of them having occurred at two superior papers, The New York Times and The Washington Post. Responsible journalism— responsible to the public—needs to find its footing and spirit again.
The public itself is troubled, nervous, seeking diversion. Confidence in the government and other institutions is very wobbly. The Bush presidency tried—and is still seeking—to make radical changes in the nation's social-support structure but has failed to demonstrate it has the competence to make these changes work for the majority of Americans. Next to the war, reducing the taxes of the wealthy has been the signature act of this White House.
From the start of the Bush presidency in 2001, senior White House officials have been telling reporters, usually anonymously, that because journalists are reality based, they cannot understand or relate to the Bush administration, since it is pursuing a "bold," God-guided doctrine that intends to create its own reality. Iraq was clearly one of those bold ventures, and because the planning behind it was both flawed and unrealistic, the nation is now suffering psychologically and materially.
Many nonpartisan voices across the country have urged Bush to come forward and admit his mistakes, arguing that the public will respond to such honesty. But there is still no sign of any acknowledgment of error, hardly a hint of humility. The president's message, as recently as his we-will-never-cut-and-run speech November 30, remains: We will persevere until we have "complete victory," and we will not moderate our "bold" policies.
This adamantine stance is visible in virtually every corner of the Bush government. Here is a useful example, from a superb November 27 story by Adam Liptak of the Times. The story was about the rigid Bush policies concerning "enemy combatants" taken prisoner in the Iraq war, who have been allowed almost no legal rights, even those granted by the Geneva Conventions. Most of the prisoners are simply being held indefinitely without trial.
Liptak described a hearing last December before a federal judge in Washington, Joyce Hens Green. Using hypothetical questions, Green pressed a Justice Department official, Brian Boyle, for a clearer, more specific explanation of who could be detained as an enemy combatant under the government's definition.
The judge first asked if it would include "a little old lady in Switzerland who writes checks to what she thinks is a charitable organization that helps orphans in Afghanistan but really is a front to finance Al Qaeda activities."
She next asked: What about a resident of Dublin "who teaches English to the son of a person the CIA knows to be a member of Al Qaeda?"
Finally, "What about a Wall Street Journal reporter, working in Afghanistan, who knows the exact location of Osama bin Laden but does not reveal it to the United States government to protect her source?"
Boyle replied that the military could detain all three people as enemy combatants.
There is no compromise—or reality—in the "bold" Bush government. Only secrecy and prevarications.
(Almost forgot. Yes, the reporter in the third hypothetical should be shackled in the stocks for life—but for intentional stupidity, not as an enemy combatant.)
Copyright © 2005 Village Voice Media, Inc
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IT'S BEEN THREE months since hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast, and it's probably safe to guess that most Americans, preoccupied with Iraq or Christmas shopping, didn't mark the anniversary.
Not so for the hundreds of thousands of people whose mortgages are due, following a 90-day extension, on houses that are uninhabitable or nonexistent. This week the Federal Housing Administration announced that it would continue to pay such mortgages for some 20,000 homeowners in Louisiana as well as four other states -- as long as they have FHA insurance and as long as they live in their homes or intend to live in them within 12 months. According to Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson, HUD wants the families to "concentrate on putting their lives in order without having to worry about making mortgage payments."
Now comes a much bigger test: Does the federal government, or anyone else, feel the same compassion for the hundreds of thousands of people who do not have FHA insurance or who are not in a position to move back into their wrecked homes within the year? Best estimates are that some 205,000 homes in Louisiana were destroyed and 35,000 more were badly damaged. An attempt by the AFL-CIO and community groups to negotiate an extension for those homeowners fell apart this week. That means banks may be about to foreclose on hundreds of thousands of properties, some of which have no resale value right now.
The possible consequences of such a mass foreclosure include the collapse of the local banking business (whose presence is also needed to help restart the Louisiana economy), years of legal wrangling, a halt to the reconstruction of properties that have no clear ownership -- and financial ruin for hundreds of thousands of people.
Dumping money on the problem indiscriminately is not the solution, because it doesn't make sense to rebuild all of the houses immediately. It's looking as if the only possible solution is one we've noted before: That Congress pass some version of the bill proposed by Rep. Richard H. Baker (R-La.) to set up a development corporation that could buy property at a price that bears some relation to the amount of equity individuals hold -- if not at pre-Katrina value -- with a plan to redevelop the land, for housing or other purposes, down the road. The cost to taxpayers would be minimal, since the profits from later sales could repay the federal government.
Everyone has bad memories of government development projects, and this one would have to be monitored carefully by architects and city planners as well as by financial watchdogs. No one wants to be forced legally or financially to abandon their property. But whatever the drawbacks, Mr. Baker's bill at least would give thousands of people some of their equity, allowing them the option of returning home, if they wish, even if it's to a different New Orleans neighborhood. Without this bill, or something like it, neither the economy nor the culture of New Orleans or Louisiana will revive. Solving this problem should be Congress's pre-Christmas priority.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
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December 8, 2005
Rift Emerges at A.C.L.U. on 2 Big Issues
By STEPHANIE STROM
Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, departed the war crimes trials at Guantánamo Bay with an e-mail message to members saying he was headed home to New York to defend the First Amendment and the right to protest.
But another matter was more urgent: smoothing out a soured relationship with one of the organization's biggest donors, Peter B. Lewis, the insurance magnate, who was unhappy with Mr. Romero and the board and was threatening to suspend his contributions.
After a red-eye detour to Los Angeles and a breakfast with Mr. Lewis at the Beverly Hills Hotel in August 2004 , Mr. Romero assuaged his concerns and persuaded him to continue his financial support, including an $8.5 million gift largely to buy a new office building in Washington.
Mr. Romero has had less success winning over his critics within the organization itself. Among issues big and small, they have fumed over his commitment to name the new building the Peter B. Lewis Center for Civil Liberties - without consulting the board or its executive committee.
"I don't think it's appropriate for us to name anything after anyone other than a founder or leader of the organization," Marjorie Esman, a lawyer who represents the Louisiana affiliate on the board, wrote afterward in an e-mail message."We are not for sale, and I don't like to convey the impression that we might be."
Mr. Romero's operating style, as shown in the building dispute, has led to a rift in the organization, with some applauding his winning ways and others fretting that fund-raising has become too much of a priority.
Since Mr. Romero stepped into the job just four days before the Sept. 11 attacks, the A.C.L.U. has been transformed. Under his watch, membership and revenues have risen sharply. The use of data to maximize contributions has become more sophisticated. Big donors have been wooed and won. At the group's first membership conference in Washington in 2003, 1,500 members descended on Congressional offices.
But Mr. Romero has also become a lightning rod, with a band of vociferous internal critics saying that civil liberties are not his top concern. They have seized on his failure to inform the board about a settlement with the New York attorney general over privacy breaches on its Web site and his signing of a government fund-raising agreement that the organization later renounced. In both cases, they say, Mr. Romero was not entirely forthcoming even after those controversies came to light.
There have been heated boardroom exchanges and an unusual number of resignations from the board. Dissidents say Mr. Romero is ignoring the A.C.L.U.'s traditions, of encouraging dissent; threatening its core principles, like free speech, and too often acting without the full knowledge and support of the board, which is supposed to guide him.
"I think there is an ideological difference among board members having to do with pure principle versus the pragmatism of money," Ms. Esman said, echoing current and past board members.
The internal friction has roiled the organization, which is unaccustomed to scrutiny of its operations, and prompted members of the executive committee to try to limit access to recordings of board meetings.
Several critics of Mr. Romero's leadership have left the board. Michael Meyers, his fiercest opponent, was voted off the board in September after 24 years of membership.
Citing a need for efficiency, the organization now often insists that board members who want to question Mr. Romero or other senior staff members first get approval from the executive committee.
The restriction is similar to one the A.C.L.U.'s Michigan affiliate is challenging on behalf of a board member at a small university.
Several staff members are complaining about a new requirement that they sign an agreement by Jan. 6 never to disclose information broadly defined by the group as confidential. They contrast it with the A.C.L.U.'s record of defending whistle-blowers, most recently an F.B.I. analyst who complained about faulty translations.
Some critics wonder whether Mr. Romero would today defend the right of neo-Nazis to march through the heavily Jewish city of Skokie, Ill. - a 1997 action that strained the A.C.L.U.'s financial resources.
When asked, Mr. Romero said he would make the same decision.
"The reason why today we have credibility to argue for the rights of antiwar protesters or choice protesters is the fact that we have argued for those same rights on behalf of Nazis and antichoice protesters," he wrote in an e-mail message.
Mr. Romero and Nadine Strossen, the board president, say none of the A.C.L.U.'s principles have been ignored in the interest of luring money or new members. They point to highly publicized efforts to ensure the rights of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, to keep educators from being required to teach intelligent design and to a suit filed this week by A.C.L.U. lawyers on behalf of Khaled el-Masri, a German who says he was beaten and taken to Afghanistan by American agents.
They dispute the critics, like Ms. Esman, who argue that the organization must be beyond reproach but has come up short. "We do hold ourselves to a different standard," Mr. Romero said. "We always want to understand what the larger community of nonprofits does, but we are different. This is the A.C.L.U. This is an organization that prides itself on a core set of principles across the board."
The current clash is partly driven by the transition from a longtime activist leader to a polished outsider.
Mr. Romero succeeded Ira Glasser, a veteran civil rights activist who oversaw the national organization from 1978 through mid-2001. Mr. Glasser and the other A.C.L.U. stalwarts of his generation were scrappy and combative, jumping to take unpopular stances at the mere hint of a threat to principle.
Mr. Romero, who came from the Ford Foundation, conveys the diplomacy and charm of a veteran foundation executive.
A Hispanic and openly gay man with an up-by-the-bootstraps biography, Mr. Romero bespeaks the power of affirmative action, racial justice, antidiscrimination and other principles championed by the A.C.L.U. His vision of his job is to raise money and add members in support of those principles, not just to mount crusades.
He also injects a certain pragmatism into the idealism that drives the organization to protect civil liberties. He dropped the organization's long reliance on advertisements featuring issues in favor of those featuring celebrities like Tim Robbins and Martin Sheen who are A.C.L.U. members, and he approved news releases pledging to work with the government in the wake of Sept. 11 rather than confront it.
"It's important for an organization like ours that could easily be irrelevant in a very difficult political environment to walk that fine line between being true to its principles and being cognizant of the political and social realities in which we live," Mr. Romero said.
In interviews, Mr. Romero and Ms. Strossen repeatedly dismissed the criticism as the work of two people, Mr. Meyers and Wendy Kaminer, on an 83-member board that is without doubt contentious, fractious and stubborn. Mr. Meyers and Ms. Kaminer have said that Mr. Romero withheld vital information from the board and made ill-advised, unilateral decisions that at the least embarrassed the organization and at the worst heightened regulatory scrutiny.
In interviews, six more board members generally echoed Mr. Meyers's and Ms. Kaminer's concerns, and eight others have posted e-mail messages that agree with much of their criticism, though they did not consent to interviews. (Board members have been asked to refer all news media calls to the A.C.L.U.'s public relations managers.) Three more board members who resigned in the last year said they did so because of concerns about Mr. Romero's leadership, and one member who expressed concerns was voted off the board last fall.
As the critics depart, Mr. Romero is consolidating his support on the board. All but one of the 11 voting members on the board's executive committee are consistently supportive of Mr. Romero, as are at least eight more board members.
"This is a boisterous orchestra that I'm the head of, and sometimes the horns go off off cue and sometimes the drums beat louder than they should, but that's the beauty of an organization that believes in these core values," Mr. Romero said.
The organization is working on such weighty civil liberties issues as Supreme Court nominations, issues arising from the antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act and the release of potentially explosive torture videos, he wrote, adding, "Those are the larger institutional issues that we confront."
He has also criticized the coverage in The New York Times. After one article recounted complaints by the group's former archivist about the use of shredders, he invited the staff to a "shred-in" and suggested they bring copies of that article and others to run through his own shredder. He later apologized to the reporter.
In an interview, Mr. Romero acknowledged that some of his decisions had been flawed and said that he had been working to consult more with board members. "Have I made mistakes along the way?" he said. "You bet. Are there things you would do differently? You bet."
While the previous leaders of the A.C.L.U. looked for battles to jump into, Mr. Romero seeks to chart a sustainable course. About six months after he arrived, he gave the board and major donors a 20-page paper outlining his goals, strengthening the affiliates to make the organization more cohesive and increasing use of the membership as a political constituency.
The organization, he said, had lacked a long-term plan. "I was told that, 'You know, we don't have a strategic plan. This is an American emergency room for civil liberties,' " Mr. Romero recalled. "And I remember thinking to myself that even emergency rooms have plans."
Even Mr. Romero's critics attest to his fund-raising prowess. As of July, A.C.L.U. membership had jumped 81 percent, to 558,000, since Mr. Romero took over. Likewise, annual revenue rose 34 percent, to $59 million, in the year ended March 31.
Until Mr. Romero arrived, affiliates in conservative states had lived hand-to-mouth. State leaders say they now receive more money from the national office, and they enthusiastically support his leadership. The affiliates had long sought a national staff member devoted to them, so when Mr. Romero gave them an entire department, they were ecstatic.
"Anthony Romero was the first A.C.L.U. national executive director to come visit us, and I can't tell you how encouraging that is," said Tim Butz, the executive director of the Nebraska affiliate.
Mr. Butz scoffed at assertions that Mr. Romero's generosity to the states was a form of patronage.
Some board members, though, say they are deliberately being kept in the dark.
"I had the feeling that Anthony was doing a great job financially, but I also had a feeling he was endangering the organization's integrity," said Sheldon Schaffer, an economist who resigned from the board because he was unhappy with the direction of the organization. "There was an insufficient openness between those on the executive committee and in the top leadership with the full board."
Mr. Schaffer and others pointed to the handling of the 2002 inquiry by the New York attorney general. Mr. Romero negotiated a resolution without the advice of an outside lawyer and without consulting the executive committee or the board. The agreement required him to disclose the terms to the entire board within 30 days.
He waited five months.
He proposed naming the Washington building for Mr. Lewis without the board's counsel. And the board was unaware that another major donor, Woody Kaplan, a Boston real estate developer and longtime A.C.L.U. contributor, had wanted to make a gift to buy the building in hopes of naming the building for Mr. Romero's predecessor.
Mr. Lewis said he balked at giving the money for the building primarily because of Mr. Romero's decision to sign a federal charity drive agreement that legal experts advised obliged the A.C.L.U. to check its employees' names against terrorist watch lists, which the organization has criticized as black lists.
"I told him I'm not going to pay any of my commitments until I get an explanation, and Anthony therefore came out to California in a great hurry and at great physical cost to him," Mr. Lewis said in a phone interview arranged by Mr. Romero. "He explained his view of what happened, acknowledged his shortcomings in the situation and described what he was doing to fix that. To me, that's what I'd call a big man."
The A.C.L.U. ultimately withdrew from the fund-raising agreement and decided to challenge the terms. The government recently amended the requirement.
Ms. Kaminer, a writer who represents the Massachusetts affiliate on the national board and is married to Mr. Kaplan, criticized Mr. Romero's handling of that matter and the attorney general's pact, among other things.
"I believe Anthony has routinely withheld information and misled the board, as well as donors and members, about matters large and small," she said. "I also believe that many board members are aware they have been misled and denied information, but they choose not to acknowledge that they have an executive director and executive committee who are often less than candid."
Ms. Strossen said the issues raised by Ms. Kaminer and other critics were picayune and confused strategy with principles.
"Do we do more harm than good for civil liberties post-9/11 by turning down that money that can help us continue the aggressive advocacy when we have John Ashcroft and others accusing us of aiding terrorists?" Ms. Strossen asked.
Copyright 2005The New York Times Company
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Secret ID Law to Get Hearing
By Ryan Singel
Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,69774,00.html
02:00 AM Dec. 07, 2005 PT
Although John Gilmore lives just five blocks from San Francisco's Department of Motor Vehicles, his driver's license is expired. On purpose.
The outspoken, techno-hippie, wealthy civil libertarian doesn't want to give his Social Security number to the DMV.
Neither will he show his driver's license at airports, or submit to routine security searches.
This refusal to obey the rules led him to file suit against the Bush administration (Gilmore v. Gonzales) after being rebuffed at two different airports on July 4, 2002, when he tried to fly without showing identification. One airline offered to let Gilmore fly without showing ID, but only if he underwent more intensive security screening, which he declined.
On Thursday, Gilmore and his lawyers will get 20 minutes in front of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to make their argument against identification requirements and government secrecy, in a case that time and shifting public opinion has transformed from a quirky millionaire's indignant protest into a closely watched test of the limitations of executive branch power.
"The nexus of the case has always been the right to travel," Gilmore said. "Can the government prevent Americans from moving around in their own country by slapping any silly rules on them -- you have to show ID, you have to submit to searches, you have to wear a yarmulke?"
Gilmore has sunk thousands of dollars into fighting identification requirements, but he also personally committed to not traveling in the United States if he has to show identification.
So Gilmore has not taken a train, an intercity bus or a domestic flight since July 4, 2002. He still flies internationally.
Gilmore describes himself as being under "regional arrest," and said he would love to drive and fly again.
"I'm a millionaire," Gilmore said. "I can do whatever the fuck I want, right? Why should I run around without an ID? Because no one else was paying attention to that and letting our liberties slip down the drain. I figured it was worth some amount of money and some amount of personal sacrifice to keep a free society."
Gilmore has long been a prominent figure in the privacy and civil liberties communities -- he co-founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation. But many civil liberties advocates begged Gilmore not to file suit in 2002 because they were certain he would lose and set bad case law, according to Gilmore's lawyer, Jim Harrison.
Things might be different in late 2005.
"The same people that were telling John that you really should not do this while the country is inflamed are the same ones that filed friend-of-the-court briefs to the 9th Circuit," Harrison said.
Gilmore also thinks the mood of the country has changed. "It is now considered patriotic to criticize the president," Gilmore said.
While civil liberties groups now publicly back Gilmore's challenge to government secrecy, many privacy advocates still privately grumble that Gilmore's case is not the best vehicle for challenging identification requirements.
On Thursday, Gilmore will argue that the government's secret identification rules -- no federal law compels travelers to show ID -- and no-fly list infringe on his First Amendment rights, but don't make the country safer.
In addition, government lawyers long denied the existence of the rule -- which predates the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks -- even though there are signs in airports cautioning passengers that they are required to show identification.
The government recently switched tactics, acknowledging the rule exists but arguing that the identification requirement is a law-enforcement technique.
So far, the government has refused to show Gilmore the order compelling airlines to ask for identification, saying that the rule is "sensitive security information," a security designation that was greatly expanded by Congress in 2002, allowing the Transportation Security Administration wide latitude to withhold information from the public.
Gilmore argues that secrecy and the power of the "sensitive security information," or SSI, designation is to blame for the repeated privacy scandals at the TSA.
"TSA and DHS in general have set themselves up to be insulated from criticism, to have their inner workings be invisible, because they can pull this magic SSI shield over anything they do," Gilmore said. "And what you see are the natural consequences of that kind of secrecy, which is that incompetence is never detected and corrected."
© Copyright 2005, Lycos, Inc
Imagine that New Orleans was allowed to rot in its own destruction so that these same phony Neoconservatives could harvest the thousands of homes and property in that destroyed city.
Imagine that “conspiracy” is not, for a moment, a dirty word applied to crackpots and other IQ-challenged individuals.
Imagine that all rich liberals take a stand against treason and for civil rights.
What, then, do Bush and Company do to continue their rape of American civil liberties, the foundations of The Constitution and The Bill of Rights, and also continue amassing the untold wealth that this current climate of fiscal high crimes perpetuates?
Imagine.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Press Clips
How Do They Deceive You?
Let me count the lies—the building blocks of Bush's 'democracy'
by Sydney H. SchanbergDecember 6th, 2005 11:37 AM
Every time I try to wrap my mind around President Bush's Iraq war and his associated war against the press, I come back to the lies the president and his courtiers have endlessly told. And to how they conned and cowed much of the press into being their early accomplices.
Those offended by the jolt of the word "lies" can substitute a gentler synonym, such as "fictions" or "frauds" or "breaches of the national trust."
The lies haven't stopped. Vice President Dick Cheney lately accuses the "reprehensible" Democrats in Congress of twisting history when they point to the flagrant disinformation campaign that got us into the war.
He is saying, in effect, that telling the truth about a lie-based presidency comforts the enemy and makes you a bad American. That might be so if anyone were revealing national-security secrets. But these senators and representatives whom the vice president would crush are merely—and very belatedly—calling attention to the untruths sown by his own tribe to concoct a war.
The press too was slow to question and reveal the lies. Most of America was slow. People were still in shock over the 9-11 terrorist attacks and didn't want to believe that their president would mislead them into the wrong war. The press, like many other Americans, was temporarily intimidated.
What was in the minds of the president and his political advisers? Many of them (who had never seen battle) seem to have believed that 9-11 was the opportunity they had been hoping for since the 1991 Gulf War, when Saddam Hussein, though defeated, was left in power by the first President Bush. But how did they imagine they could, by force of arms, create a world empire on a foundation of distortions and lies about a "grave and gathering danger" from Iraq? Maybe someday they'll give us a halfway credible insight into what they were thinking.
It is tempting to go back and recite all the falsehoods—and all the scorned opportunities to exhibit honest, American humility by acknowledging them. A handful will suffice.
"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."—Cheney, August 26, 2002
"[He] has indeed stepped up his capacity to produce and deliver biological weapons. . . . He has reconstituted his nuclear program to develop a nuclear weapon."—Cheney, September 8, 2002
"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons—the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."—Bush, February 6, 2003
"We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."—Cheney, March 16, 2003 (three days before the start of the U.S. invasion)
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."—Bush, March 17, 2003 (two days before the invasion)
"We know where they [the weapons] are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad."—Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003 (11 days after the war began)
It is now two years and eight months later, and none of these weapons or stockpiles or assembly lines or mobile labs have been found. The only explanation the White House has offered up is that it was given faulty intelligence. Many Americans believe that the Bush regime chose faulty, hyped intelligence because it believed it could not otherwise get either the public or Congress to approve the war.
The mainstream press is no longer timid. But it, too, has suffered some major credibility failures, the most scrutinized of them having occurred at two superior papers, The New York Times and The Washington Post. Responsible journalism— responsible to the public—needs to find its footing and spirit again.
The public itself is troubled, nervous, seeking diversion. Confidence in the government and other institutions is very wobbly. The Bush presidency tried—and is still seeking—to make radical changes in the nation's social-support structure but has failed to demonstrate it has the competence to make these changes work for the majority of Americans. Next to the war, reducing the taxes of the wealthy has been the signature act of this White House.
From the start of the Bush presidency in 2001, senior White House officials have been telling reporters, usually anonymously, that because journalists are reality based, they cannot understand or relate to the Bush administration, since it is pursuing a "bold," God-guided doctrine that intends to create its own reality. Iraq was clearly one of those bold ventures, and because the planning behind it was both flawed and unrealistic, the nation is now suffering psychologically and materially.
Many nonpartisan voices across the country have urged Bush to come forward and admit his mistakes, arguing that the public will respond to such honesty. But there is still no sign of any acknowledgment of error, hardly a hint of humility. The president's message, as recently as his we-will-never-cut-and-run speech November 30, remains: We will persevere until we have "complete victory," and we will not moderate our "bold" policies.
This adamantine stance is visible in virtually every corner of the Bush government. Here is a useful example, from a superb November 27 story by Adam Liptak of the Times. The story was about the rigid Bush policies concerning "enemy combatants" taken prisoner in the Iraq war, who have been allowed almost no legal rights, even those granted by the Geneva Conventions. Most of the prisoners are simply being held indefinitely without trial.
Liptak described a hearing last December before a federal judge in Washington, Joyce Hens Green. Using hypothetical questions, Green pressed a Justice Department official, Brian Boyle, for a clearer, more specific explanation of who could be detained as an enemy combatant under the government's definition.
The judge first asked if it would include "a little old lady in Switzerland who writes checks to what she thinks is a charitable organization that helps orphans in Afghanistan but really is a front to finance Al Qaeda activities."
She next asked: What about a resident of Dublin "who teaches English to the son of a person the CIA knows to be a member of Al Qaeda?"
Finally, "What about a Wall Street Journal reporter, working in Afghanistan, who knows the exact location of Osama bin Laden but does not reveal it to the United States government to protect her source?"
Boyle replied that the military could detain all three people as enemy combatants.
There is no compromise—or reality—in the "bold" Bush government. Only secrecy and prevarications.
(Almost forgot. Yes, the reporter in the third hypothetical should be shackled in the stocks for life—but for intentional stupidity, not as an enemy combatant.)
Copyright © 2005 Village Voice Media, Inc
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The Great Default
Thursday, December 8, 2005; A32IT'S BEEN THREE months since hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast, and it's probably safe to guess that most Americans, preoccupied with Iraq or Christmas shopping, didn't mark the anniversary.
Not so for the hundreds of thousands of people whose mortgages are due, following a 90-day extension, on houses that are uninhabitable or nonexistent. This week the Federal Housing Administration announced that it would continue to pay such mortgages for some 20,000 homeowners in Louisiana as well as four other states -- as long as they have FHA insurance and as long as they live in their homes or intend to live in them within 12 months. According to Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson, HUD wants the families to "concentrate on putting their lives in order without having to worry about making mortgage payments."
Now comes a much bigger test: Does the federal government, or anyone else, feel the same compassion for the hundreds of thousands of people who do not have FHA insurance or who are not in a position to move back into their wrecked homes within the year? Best estimates are that some 205,000 homes in Louisiana were destroyed and 35,000 more were badly damaged. An attempt by the AFL-CIO and community groups to negotiate an extension for those homeowners fell apart this week. That means banks may be about to foreclose on hundreds of thousands of properties, some of which have no resale value right now.
The possible consequences of such a mass foreclosure include the collapse of the local banking business (whose presence is also needed to help restart the Louisiana economy), years of legal wrangling, a halt to the reconstruction of properties that have no clear ownership -- and financial ruin for hundreds of thousands of people.
Dumping money on the problem indiscriminately is not the solution, because it doesn't make sense to rebuild all of the houses immediately. It's looking as if the only possible solution is one we've noted before: That Congress pass some version of the bill proposed by Rep. Richard H. Baker (R-La.) to set up a development corporation that could buy property at a price that bears some relation to the amount of equity individuals hold -- if not at pre-Katrina value -- with a plan to redevelop the land, for housing or other purposes, down the road. The cost to taxpayers would be minimal, since the profits from later sales could repay the federal government.
Everyone has bad memories of government development projects, and this one would have to be monitored carefully by architects and city planners as well as by financial watchdogs. No one wants to be forced legally or financially to abandon their property. But whatever the drawbacks, Mr. Baker's bill at least would give thousands of people some of their equity, allowing them the option of returning home, if they wish, even if it's to a different New Orleans neighborhood. Without this bill, or something like it, neither the economy nor the culture of New Orleans or Louisiana will revive. Solving this problem should be Congress's pre-Christmas priority.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
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December 8, 2005
Rift Emerges at A.C.L.U. on 2 Big Issues
By STEPHANIE STROM
Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, departed the war crimes trials at Guantánamo Bay with an e-mail message to members saying he was headed home to New York to defend the First Amendment and the right to protest.
But another matter was more urgent: smoothing out a soured relationship with one of the organization's biggest donors, Peter B. Lewis, the insurance magnate, who was unhappy with Mr. Romero and the board and was threatening to suspend his contributions.
After a red-eye detour to Los Angeles and a breakfast with Mr. Lewis at the Beverly Hills Hotel in August 2004 , Mr. Romero assuaged his concerns and persuaded him to continue his financial support, including an $8.5 million gift largely to buy a new office building in Washington.
Mr. Romero has had less success winning over his critics within the organization itself. Among issues big and small, they have fumed over his commitment to name the new building the Peter B. Lewis Center for Civil Liberties - without consulting the board or its executive committee.
"I don't think it's appropriate for us to name anything after anyone other than a founder or leader of the organization," Marjorie Esman, a lawyer who represents the Louisiana affiliate on the board, wrote afterward in an e-mail message."We are not for sale, and I don't like to convey the impression that we might be."
Mr. Romero's operating style, as shown in the building dispute, has led to a rift in the organization, with some applauding his winning ways and others fretting that fund-raising has become too much of a priority.
Since Mr. Romero stepped into the job just four days before the Sept. 11 attacks, the A.C.L.U. has been transformed. Under his watch, membership and revenues have risen sharply. The use of data to maximize contributions has become more sophisticated. Big donors have been wooed and won. At the group's first membership conference in Washington in 2003, 1,500 members descended on Congressional offices.
But Mr. Romero has also become a lightning rod, with a band of vociferous internal critics saying that civil liberties are not his top concern. They have seized on his failure to inform the board about a settlement with the New York attorney general over privacy breaches on its Web site and his signing of a government fund-raising agreement that the organization later renounced. In both cases, they say, Mr. Romero was not entirely forthcoming even after those controversies came to light.
There have been heated boardroom exchanges and an unusual number of resignations from the board. Dissidents say Mr. Romero is ignoring the A.C.L.U.'s traditions, of encouraging dissent; threatening its core principles, like free speech, and too often acting without the full knowledge and support of the board, which is supposed to guide him.
"I think there is an ideological difference among board members having to do with pure principle versus the pragmatism of money," Ms. Esman said, echoing current and past board members.
The internal friction has roiled the organization, which is unaccustomed to scrutiny of its operations, and prompted members of the executive committee to try to limit access to recordings of board meetings.
Several critics of Mr. Romero's leadership have left the board. Michael Meyers, his fiercest opponent, was voted off the board in September after 24 years of membership.
Citing a need for efficiency, the organization now often insists that board members who want to question Mr. Romero or other senior staff members first get approval from the executive committee.
The restriction is similar to one the A.C.L.U.'s Michigan affiliate is challenging on behalf of a board member at a small university.
Several staff members are complaining about a new requirement that they sign an agreement by Jan. 6 never to disclose information broadly defined by the group as confidential. They contrast it with the A.C.L.U.'s record of defending whistle-blowers, most recently an F.B.I. analyst who complained about faulty translations.
Some critics wonder whether Mr. Romero would today defend the right of neo-Nazis to march through the heavily Jewish city of Skokie, Ill. - a 1997 action that strained the A.C.L.U.'s financial resources.
When asked, Mr. Romero said he would make the same decision.
"The reason why today we have credibility to argue for the rights of antiwar protesters or choice protesters is the fact that we have argued for those same rights on behalf of Nazis and antichoice protesters," he wrote in an e-mail message.
Mr. Romero and Nadine Strossen, the board president, say none of the A.C.L.U.'s principles have been ignored in the interest of luring money or new members. They point to highly publicized efforts to ensure the rights of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, to keep educators from being required to teach intelligent design and to a suit filed this week by A.C.L.U. lawyers on behalf of Khaled el-Masri, a German who says he was beaten and taken to Afghanistan by American agents.
They dispute the critics, like Ms. Esman, who argue that the organization must be beyond reproach but has come up short. "We do hold ourselves to a different standard," Mr. Romero said. "We always want to understand what the larger community of nonprofits does, but we are different. This is the A.C.L.U. This is an organization that prides itself on a core set of principles across the board."
The current clash is partly driven by the transition from a longtime activist leader to a polished outsider.
Mr. Romero succeeded Ira Glasser, a veteran civil rights activist who oversaw the national organization from 1978 through mid-2001. Mr. Glasser and the other A.C.L.U. stalwarts of his generation were scrappy and combative, jumping to take unpopular stances at the mere hint of a threat to principle.
Mr. Romero, who came from the Ford Foundation, conveys the diplomacy and charm of a veteran foundation executive.
A Hispanic and openly gay man with an up-by-the-bootstraps biography, Mr. Romero bespeaks the power of affirmative action, racial justice, antidiscrimination and other principles championed by the A.C.L.U. His vision of his job is to raise money and add members in support of those principles, not just to mount crusades.
He also injects a certain pragmatism into the idealism that drives the organization to protect civil liberties. He dropped the organization's long reliance on advertisements featuring issues in favor of those featuring celebrities like Tim Robbins and Martin Sheen who are A.C.L.U. members, and he approved news releases pledging to work with the government in the wake of Sept. 11 rather than confront it.
"It's important for an organization like ours that could easily be irrelevant in a very difficult political environment to walk that fine line between being true to its principles and being cognizant of the political and social realities in which we live," Mr. Romero said.
In interviews, Mr. Romero and Ms. Strossen repeatedly dismissed the criticism as the work of two people, Mr. Meyers and Wendy Kaminer, on an 83-member board that is without doubt contentious, fractious and stubborn. Mr. Meyers and Ms. Kaminer have said that Mr. Romero withheld vital information from the board and made ill-advised, unilateral decisions that at the least embarrassed the organization and at the worst heightened regulatory scrutiny.
In interviews, six more board members generally echoed Mr. Meyers's and Ms. Kaminer's concerns, and eight others have posted e-mail messages that agree with much of their criticism, though they did not consent to interviews. (Board members have been asked to refer all news media calls to the A.C.L.U.'s public relations managers.) Three more board members who resigned in the last year said they did so because of concerns about Mr. Romero's leadership, and one member who expressed concerns was voted off the board last fall.
As the critics depart, Mr. Romero is consolidating his support on the board. All but one of the 11 voting members on the board's executive committee are consistently supportive of Mr. Romero, as are at least eight more board members.
"This is a boisterous orchestra that I'm the head of, and sometimes the horns go off off cue and sometimes the drums beat louder than they should, but that's the beauty of an organization that believes in these core values," Mr. Romero said.
The organization is working on such weighty civil liberties issues as Supreme Court nominations, issues arising from the antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act and the release of potentially explosive torture videos, he wrote, adding, "Those are the larger institutional issues that we confront."
He has also criticized the coverage in The New York Times. After one article recounted complaints by the group's former archivist about the use of shredders, he invited the staff to a "shred-in" and suggested they bring copies of that article and others to run through his own shredder. He later apologized to the reporter.
In an interview, Mr. Romero acknowledged that some of his decisions had been flawed and said that he had been working to consult more with board members. "Have I made mistakes along the way?" he said. "You bet. Are there things you would do differently? You bet."
While the previous leaders of the A.C.L.U. looked for battles to jump into, Mr. Romero seeks to chart a sustainable course. About six months after he arrived, he gave the board and major donors a 20-page paper outlining his goals, strengthening the affiliates to make the organization more cohesive and increasing use of the membership as a political constituency.
The organization, he said, had lacked a long-term plan. "I was told that, 'You know, we don't have a strategic plan. This is an American emergency room for civil liberties,' " Mr. Romero recalled. "And I remember thinking to myself that even emergency rooms have plans."
Even Mr. Romero's critics attest to his fund-raising prowess. As of July, A.C.L.U. membership had jumped 81 percent, to 558,000, since Mr. Romero took over. Likewise, annual revenue rose 34 percent, to $59 million, in the year ended March 31.
Until Mr. Romero arrived, affiliates in conservative states had lived hand-to-mouth. State leaders say they now receive more money from the national office, and they enthusiastically support his leadership. The affiliates had long sought a national staff member devoted to them, so when Mr. Romero gave them an entire department, they were ecstatic.
"Anthony Romero was the first A.C.L.U. national executive director to come visit us, and I can't tell you how encouraging that is," said Tim Butz, the executive director of the Nebraska affiliate.
Mr. Butz scoffed at assertions that Mr. Romero's generosity to the states was a form of patronage.
Some board members, though, say they are deliberately being kept in the dark.
"I had the feeling that Anthony was doing a great job financially, but I also had a feeling he was endangering the organization's integrity," said Sheldon Schaffer, an economist who resigned from the board because he was unhappy with the direction of the organization. "There was an insufficient openness between those on the executive committee and in the top leadership with the full board."
Mr. Schaffer and others pointed to the handling of the 2002 inquiry by the New York attorney general. Mr. Romero negotiated a resolution without the advice of an outside lawyer and without consulting the executive committee or the board. The agreement required him to disclose the terms to the entire board within 30 days.
He waited five months.
He proposed naming the Washington building for Mr. Lewis without the board's counsel. And the board was unaware that another major donor, Woody Kaplan, a Boston real estate developer and longtime A.C.L.U. contributor, had wanted to make a gift to buy the building in hopes of naming the building for Mr. Romero's predecessor.
Mr. Lewis said he balked at giving the money for the building primarily because of Mr. Romero's decision to sign a federal charity drive agreement that legal experts advised obliged the A.C.L.U. to check its employees' names against terrorist watch lists, which the organization has criticized as black lists.
"I told him I'm not going to pay any of my commitments until I get an explanation, and Anthony therefore came out to California in a great hurry and at great physical cost to him," Mr. Lewis said in a phone interview arranged by Mr. Romero. "He explained his view of what happened, acknowledged his shortcomings in the situation and described what he was doing to fix that. To me, that's what I'd call a big man."
The A.C.L.U. ultimately withdrew from the fund-raising agreement and decided to challenge the terms. The government recently amended the requirement.
Ms. Kaminer, a writer who represents the Massachusetts affiliate on the national board and is married to Mr. Kaplan, criticized Mr. Romero's handling of that matter and the attorney general's pact, among other things.
"I believe Anthony has routinely withheld information and misled the board, as well as donors and members, about matters large and small," she said. "I also believe that many board members are aware they have been misled and denied information, but they choose not to acknowledge that they have an executive director and executive committee who are often less than candid."
Ms. Strossen said the issues raised by Ms. Kaminer and other critics were picayune and confused strategy with principles.
"Do we do more harm than good for civil liberties post-9/11 by turning down that money that can help us continue the aggressive advocacy when we have John Ashcroft and others accusing us of aiding terrorists?" Ms. Strossen asked.
Copyright 2005The New York Times Company
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Secret ID Law to Get Hearing
By Ryan Singel
Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,69774,00.html
02:00 AM Dec. 07, 2005 PT
Although John Gilmore lives just five blocks from San Francisco's Department of Motor Vehicles, his driver's license is expired. On purpose.
The outspoken, techno-hippie, wealthy civil libertarian doesn't want to give his Social Security number to the DMV.
Neither will he show his driver's license at airports, or submit to routine security searches.
This refusal to obey the rules led him to file suit against the Bush administration (Gilmore v. Gonzales) after being rebuffed at two different airports on July 4, 2002, when he tried to fly without showing identification. One airline offered to let Gilmore fly without showing ID, but only if he underwent more intensive security screening, which he declined.
On Thursday, Gilmore and his lawyers will get 20 minutes in front of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to make their argument against identification requirements and government secrecy, in a case that time and shifting public opinion has transformed from a quirky millionaire's indignant protest into a closely watched test of the limitations of executive branch power.
"The nexus of the case has always been the right to travel," Gilmore said. "Can the government prevent Americans from moving around in their own country by slapping any silly rules on them -- you have to show ID, you have to submit to searches, you have to wear a yarmulke?"
Gilmore has sunk thousands of dollars into fighting identification requirements, but he also personally committed to not traveling in the United States if he has to show identification.
So Gilmore has not taken a train, an intercity bus or a domestic flight since July 4, 2002. He still flies internationally.
Gilmore describes himself as being under "regional arrest," and said he would love to drive and fly again.
"I'm a millionaire," Gilmore said. "I can do whatever the fuck I want, right? Why should I run around without an ID? Because no one else was paying attention to that and letting our liberties slip down the drain. I figured it was worth some amount of money and some amount of personal sacrifice to keep a free society."
Gilmore has long been a prominent figure in the privacy and civil liberties communities -- he co-founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation. But many civil liberties advocates begged Gilmore not to file suit in 2002 because they were certain he would lose and set bad case law, according to Gilmore's lawyer, Jim Harrison.
Things might be different in late 2005.
"The same people that were telling John that you really should not do this while the country is inflamed are the same ones that filed friend-of-the-court briefs to the 9th Circuit," Harrison said.
Gilmore also thinks the mood of the country has changed. "It is now considered patriotic to criticize the president," Gilmore said.
While civil liberties groups now publicly back Gilmore's challenge to government secrecy, many privacy advocates still privately grumble that Gilmore's case is not the best vehicle for challenging identification requirements.
On Thursday, Gilmore will argue that the government's secret identification rules -- no federal law compels travelers to show ID -- and no-fly list infringe on his First Amendment rights, but don't make the country safer.
In addition, government lawyers long denied the existence of the rule -- which predates the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks -- even though there are signs in airports cautioning passengers that they are required to show identification.
The government recently switched tactics, acknowledging the rule exists but arguing that the identification requirement is a law-enforcement technique.
So far, the government has refused to show Gilmore the order compelling airlines to ask for identification, saying that the rule is "sensitive security information," a security designation that was greatly expanded by Congress in 2002, allowing the Transportation Security Administration wide latitude to withhold information from the public.
Gilmore argues that secrecy and the power of the "sensitive security information," or SSI, designation is to blame for the repeated privacy scandals at the TSA.
"TSA and DHS in general have set themselves up to be insulated from criticism, to have their inner workings be invisible, because they can pull this magic SSI shield over anything they do," Gilmore said. "And what you see are the natural consequences of that kind of secrecy, which is that incompetence is never detected and corrected."
© Copyright 2005, Lycos, Inc
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