Monthly Archives: February 2004

Army Intelligence Doing Domestic Surveillance/Infogathering?

Posted on February 13, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

This reminds me of the Bad Old Days™.

Army intelligence agents inquire about UT Islam conference: The U.S. Army sent intelligence agents to investigate a conference about women and Islam at the UT School of Law.

…

“It was not a terrorism related conference. It was very benign … The reason why we put it together is there had been a lot of debate on campus about these issues due to the burka [face-covering mask worn by Muslim women] in Afghanistan and Iraq,” [an organizer] said.

A few days later, two U.S. Army intelligence agents showed up and wanted a list of all the people who attended the conference.

They approached Jessica Biddle, who helped Aziz get funding for the event.

“[I said] that he was intimidating me and is there a problem? His response was 'no, no problem, we're investigating a couple of people who attended the conference and we need to see the list,'” Biddle said.

…

The U.S. Army has confirmed that the investigating agents are assigned to the Intelligence and Security Command based in Virginia.

(Spotted via Pandagon.net.) I believe that law enforcement personnel have a right to attend any public meeting, just like the rest of us. If your meeting is public they can come and take notes. Asking around about membership lists for meetings and organizations is a technique that really ought to be used sparingly, though, even when it is proper (which it can be) as it often will have a chilling effect.

The second most disturbing aspect of this story — and the one that folks at UT seemed worked up about — is that the list request seems to be part of a vacuum cleaner operation, rather than one based on any particular suspicion. Although of course we can't know that.

To me the most disturbing part of this story is that Army Intelligence officers are being used for domestic intelligence work. Doesn't anyone remember Christopher Pyle?

Continue reading →

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Modified Limited Hangout Continues

Posted on February 13, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

At first glance it is very difficult to accept that two very minor traffic accidents and two speeding tickets (as a teenage driver) is all that the Bush folks could have been hiding. Even if it demonstrates that he was illegally or improperly admitted to the guard. (We knew that.) They gotta be smarter than that?

Bush's driving records disclosed: The White House disclosed information in documents Thursday showing that President Bush had been arrested once for a college prank and was cited for two automobile accidents and two speeding tickets before he enlisted in the National Guard.

The accidents and tickets were disclosed for the first time in response to questions about a portion of Bush's military record that had been blacked out when the file was made public during the 2000 presidential campaign.

The traffic violations are significant in the context of Bush's military career. At the time Bush enlisted in the Texas National Guard, the Air Force typically would have had to issue a waiver for an applicant who had multiple arrests or driving violations.

An officer who served at the same time as the president, former Texas Air National Guard pilot Dean Roome, was required by the Air Force to get a waiver for a $25 speeding ticket when he enlisted in the Air National Guard in 1967.

There is no record of an enlistment waiver in Bush's military file.

Critics have charged that Bush received favorable treatment to get into the National Guard and avoid serving overseas at the height of the Vietnam War. His father was in Congress at the time.

…

White House press secretary Scott McClellan showed a small group of reporters a copy of Bush's application to be an officer, with nothing blacked out, after USA TODAY published a picture of the blacked-out document Thursday. The accompanying report said that Guard officials in Texas had been concerned about embarrassing information in Bush's military records before the files were released to the public beginning in 1999, according to two former Guard officials. Bush aides denied there was any effort to suppress any potentially embarrassing information.

One of the Guard officials told the newspaper that senior officers in Texas were especially concerned about a question on the form asking about arrests.

The White House denied there was any effort to cleanse Bush's record. “I'm just amazed by the kinds of conspiracy theories that some have chosen to pursue,” McClellan said Thursday. “The facts are very clear. But there are some that are simply not interested in the facts.”

The White House described the four traffic incidents as two “negligent collisions” in July and August 1962 and two speeding tickets in July and August 1964. Bush was a teenager at the time.

McClellan did not indicate any cause of the accidents. He said Bush paid a $10 fine for the speeding tickets and a $25 fine for the collisions. It was not immediately clear whether the amounts were for each incident or combined.

Maybe it's the medical records? Either that or they are even more arrogant that smart over in the White House PR office… Update: And, let's not forget we have not yet seen Bush's separation codes.

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‘Senior Defense Official’ Plans to Hold Guantanamo Detainees Pretty Much Forever

Posted on February 13, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

This is what has become of the American Way of Justice. This is what has become of the land that wanted to be the City on the Hill, the beacon to freedom, the model of the Rule of Law. Fellow citizens, be proud of what your government does in your name—or throw the rascals out.

Cuba Detentions May Last Years: Senior Defense Department officials said Thursday that they were planning to keep a large portion of the detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, there for many years, perhaps indefinitely.

…

“But whether a person is to be charged before a military commission is not the reason we're holding them,” said the senior defense official. The official said it was possible that an individual could be convicted by a tribunal and serve a five-year sentence and then not be released if he were judged to remain a danger.

You want trials? OK we'll have kangaroo courts, without judicial supervision and no appeals to any Article III judges, not even the Supreme Court. And after we convict, they serve their time, and then we hold them some more.

There's actually a weird logic here: if you consider the detainees to be a species of POW in the 'War Against an Ism' and you understand that by its nature an Ism can't be defeated, it follows the war will last a very very long time. And we don't release enemy soldiers during the war, do we?

Only problem, of course, was that if the detainees were ordinary enemy soldiers the Geneva Convention would apply to them. And if we had doubts about their status our treaty obligations require us to resolve those doubts. But we're not going to do that. At least not until after the next election.

Posted in Guantanamo | 2 Comments

Healthcare for Poor Children in Florida (Not)

Posted on February 13, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Here are the key facts:

After weeks of weathering political assaults from the left, state Republicans announced a plan Tuesday to eliminate a waiting list for tens of thousands of poor children seeking subsidized healthcare.

First, Republican senators said, they would spend $25 million to provide healthcare to about 90,000 children on the list until the end of the fiscal year on June 30.

Second, they proposed freezing enrollment in the KidCare program. That eliminates future lists, which grow by about 2,000 children a week, and the bad press that goes with it.

Also tucked in a proposed bill: measures that no longer guarantee dental coverage and that deny benefits to any child whose working-poor family is “eligible” for insurance, regardless of the expense.

But what's the headline in the Miami Herald? GOP: End wait for poor kids' care!

The portion of the KidCare program in question serves 315,000. It is largely restricted to those children whose families make too much to qualify for Medicaid, but earn no more than double the federal poverty level of $18,400 for a family of four.

Right. End the wait by having fewer people eligible! Kinda gives a new ring to 'No Child Left Behind' doesn't it? But you'd never guess it from scanning the headline (and the article was buried inside the Metro section too).

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GAO Issues CAPPS II Report

Posted on February 12, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Read the full GAO Report on CAPPS II, Aviation Security: Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System Faces Significant Implementation Challenges (GAO-04-385, 12 February 2004), or just graze on the highlights.

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Calpundit Interviews Bill Burkett on “Cleansed” Bush Files

Posted on February 12, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

In today's must-read, Calpundit: An Interview With Bill Burkett elevates the “cleansed” Bush service files story from the tinfoil hat level to the ohmyg*dthiscantbetruecanit level. I still hope it's not true, for all our sakes, and because I'd like Bush to lose the election on principle, not lack of character. Also, I worry about smear accusations; if the press decides they are false, they rebound badly (actually, the rule doesn't seem to apply to wingnuts, but it sure applies to Democrats).

But true or false, it's in play now.

Posted in Politics: US: GW Bush Scandals | 6 Comments