Don't forget our troops in Iraq

Today is the 2009th day since Bush declared "Mission Accomplished"


by Chad Rubel
BUZZFLASH
10/29/2008


If you watch "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," you know one of his signature elements is to showcase the number of days it has been since George W. Bush declared "Mission Accomplished" in the war in Iraq.

Well, last night was the 2008th day since "Mission Accomplished," making today the 2009th day since the banner ceremony.

Guess what? We're still in Iraq.

The economy, the presidential race, and Sarah Palin's hair, makeup, and wardrobe have taken precedent. We even see it here at BuzzFlash.com. We get higher response with stories about John McCain or Palin than we do about stories from Iraq.

When Michelle Obama was on with Jay Leno Monday night, she reiterated her ongoing cause of supporting military families. This is a wonderful cause, hopefully one of many she will have as First Lady, and one that has been undervalued from the party that claims to loves the military -- The Republican Party. Despite the fact that McCain served and Obama didn't, Obama has consistently been the better candidate on issues involving the troops.

Apart from Olbermann, the media spends very little time focused on those brave soldiers, only doing what is asked in a war that should never have been fought. Perhaps we are as guilty as the next media outlet. And even if Olbermann only mentions it for a few seconds each night, at least someone is trying to keep attention on the troops currently in Iraq, and hope that their time will come to a close very soon.

Source:
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/node/6814/print
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US Raids Ignore International Law


by: Matt Renner and Maya Schenwar
October 28, 2008
Truthout


Washington - While US officials continue to avoid discussing the weekend strikes that killed eight people in eastern Syria, Middle East experts have condemned the attacks as a violation of international law that threatens to further destabilize US-Syria relations.

Sunday, special operations forces carried out a cross-border raid from Iraq into Syria. Press reports quote one unnamed US official who claims that the strike was successful in killing Abu Ghadiya, a terrorist leader in the region. Details of the strike have not yet been released by the US government.

However, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said the attack killed eight unarmed civilians in a farming village. Ahmed Salkini, spokesman for the Syrian Embassy in Washington, DC, condemned the strike, calling it a "criminal terrorist attack" that "intentionally targeted innocent civilians."

According to Princeton international law scholar Richard Falk, neither the US nor Syria presented sufficient evidence to back up their claims. Regardless of the intent of the raid, Falk called the US action "a serious violation of international law," which allows for the use of violence only in self-defense.

Yet, Falk does not predict that any enforcement action will be taken, because international laws regulating the use of military force have been so undermined by the US and other countries in recent years. Falk called the raid "the latest display of Washington's disregard for the restraints of international law on the use of force."

"We are witnessing a unilateral expansion of the scope of the right of self-defense [by the Bush administration]," Falk told Truthout. "This is a suspension of the rule of law in the name of counter-insurgency or homeland security. It is an extension of executive authority and the imperial presidency."

Falk pointed to a recent escalation in unauthorized and illegal cross-border attacks, calling the raid in Syria and similar US actions in Pakistan "a type of very dangerous diplomacy," which threatens to spark an international crisis and "further expand the war zone" in the region.

Violations of territorial sovereignty by the US military have stoked anti-American sentiment among civilians in the Middle East, leading to increasingly dire predicaments for political leaders trying to balance domestic circumstances with pressure from the US.

Resistance to US raids in Pakistan has escalated to the point of actual exchanges of fire between Pakistani and US forces, causing the US to roll back plans to expand military operations into the lawless Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.

Sunday's raids mark a significant step backward in the US's relations with Syria, hindering counterterrorism efforts instead of helping them, according to Erik Leaver, policy outreach director for Foreign Policy In Focus.

"This does further damage to US-Syrian relations, which have been very shaky over the past few years," Leaver told Truthout. "This attack will strain relations further, making it more difficult to track terrorist movement, not easier."

The US attacks come at an odd time, because Syrian border control has been improving recently, according to Leaver. Salkini even pointed to recent encouragement from the Bush administration.

"A few weeks ago we had a positive meeting with Secretary Rice and the Syrian foreign minister," Salkini told Truthout. "They talked about positive steps forward; they complimented our efforts in the region."

Salkini called this contradictory approach a "recurrent theme" of the Bush administration.

The strange timing of the attacks may be politically calculated, according to Joshua Landis, co-director of the Center for Middle East Studies.

"Politically, it is safer now because Syria is constrained from retaliation due to its desire to get off to a new and better start with a new US administration," Landis told Truthout. "Damascus may feel that it has to swallow this aggression if it doesn't want deteriorating relations to bleed into the next administration."

The Syrian media have roundly condemned the raids, with the top national newspaper, Tishrin, calling them "cold-blooded murder."

According to another main media outlet, the Syrian Arab News Agency, the Syrian government has sent a letter to the United Nations, requesting that the UN hold the US accountable for its actions and prevent similar attacks in the future.

However, according to Salkini, Syria's anger at the raids won't translate into military aggression.

"We are not interested in a war with the United States," Salkini told Truthout. "Their policies in our region ... have brought enough war and anguish."

The Syrian raids come at a critical time in the US's relationship with Iraq. The two countries are negotiating a status of forces agreement (SOFA) that would establish a long-term US presence in Iraq. According to the most recent draft of the SOFA, supplied to Truthout by American Friends Service Committee Iraq consultant Raed Jarrar, the agreement permits the US to continue "conducting operations against al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups." It does not lay down a firm deadline for withdrawal, nor does it bar cross-border attacks into surrounding nations.

"This attack on Syria is yet another reason to oppose the long-term agreement, because it shows that the US presence is not just destabilizing Iraq - it's destabilizing the entire region," Jarrar told Truthout. "With Iraq as a military base, the US can easily attack any other country in the region."

The Iraqi constitution prohibits the use of its land as a military base for launching cross-border strikes, according to a statement by Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh on Tuesday. The statement condemned the attack on Syria.

Syria has consistently opposed the US-Iraq SOFA throughout negotiations. Now, according to Landis, the raids present an imminent motivation to prevent its passage.

"You can be sure that Syria will do everything possible to pressure Iraq not to pass the SOFA," Landis said.

Meanwhile, Congress is out of session for the campaign season and has not yet stepped into the debate about the legality of the raids in Syria. Attempts to contact all twenty-one members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the majority of the House Foreign Relations Committee went unanswered by press time.

Even while in session, Congress has been hesitant to take on the issue of national-sovereignty violations in the so-called war on terror, because politicians fear voters may react negatively if they oppose military action against potential terrorist targets.

"Congress has been very passive in relation to its own authority with regard to warmaking, including Democrats, even with the mandate of the 2006 elections," Professor Falk said.

"Congress hasn't been willing to insist that the government adhere to international law and the US Constitution."

Source:
http://www.truthout.org/102808R
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Top International Military Officials Secret meeting in Adirondacks


By Peter Crowley
Andirondak Enterprise
October 18, 2008



Men in military uniforms work around a Boeing 757 airplane with “United States of America” printed on its fuselage, parked at the Adirondack Regional Airport in Lake Clear Friday.(Enterprise photo — Lou Reuter)

SARANAC LAKE - Powerful generals and admirals from some of the most powerful nations on Earth are reportedly meeting somewhere in the local area this weekend after flying into the Adirondack Regional Airport in Lake Clear on Friday.


Among the passengers of a large Boeing 757 airplane with "United States of America" printed on its fuselage were top members of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and their counterparts from France, Germany and another country, possibly Great Britain, according to Barry DeFuria, a town of Harrietstown councilman and Airport Committee member who was there when the plane landed. A top military delegation from Italy flew in on a separate Falcon airplane, DeFuria said.

Town Supervisor Larry Miller, also on the Airport Committee, was also there and confirmed which nations' officials were on which planes, but he said he did not know what kind of officials they were or where they were going from the airport. He said he and DeFuria had to get security clearances to be present and that soldiers were guarding the 757 around the clock at the airport.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff is the leadership council of the U.S. military, comprised of the top general or admiral of each branch of the armed services. Its current chairman is Admiral Michael Mullen.

Related:
Barack Obama's team is briefed by Bush staff after warnings about a terrorist attack
http://news2u.blogspot.com/

Source:
http://adirondackdailyenterprise.com/page/content.detail/id/503035.html?nav=5008&showlayout=0
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Interpol proposes world face-recognition database

Old skool mugshot files too slow, say globocops


By Lewis Page
The Republic UK
Oct. 20, 2008


Interpol chiefs will propose the use of automated facial-recognition technology at borders to flag up internationally wanted suspects, according to reports.

The UK already has airport gates equipped with such technology, intended to remove the need for a human border guard to check that a passenger's face matches the one recorded in his or her passport. According to the Guardian, Interpol database chief Mark Branchflower believes that his organisation should set up a database of facial-recognition records to operate alongside its existing photo, fingerprint and DNA files.

Interpol member nations would have the option of uploading face records of wanted suspects in the same way they already do other biometrics data, and would be able to check an individual's headshot against the Interpol files as with the other metrics.

The attraction of facial-recognition records, as opposed to conventional mugshots, is that automated searching is possible. A specially-equipped airport gate - or even, in some circumstances, a security camera - would be able to sound an alert every time a person on the Interpol watch list went past. Such detections are often made by border guards and ordinary policemen, recognising suspects from routine circulars and lists, but facial-recognition is seen as potentially more reliable.

"Facial recognition is a step we could go to quite quickly," Branchflower told the Guardian ahead of his speech at the Biometrics 2008 conference tomorrow. The Graun is National Media Partner for the man-tracker expo.

"It's increasingly of use to [all] countries," said Branchflower.

"There's so much data we have but they are in records we can't search."

According to Branchflower, automated document checks would also be handy in preventing people from travelling on passports or ID cards which don't belong to them. Interpol also runs a database of lost or stolen papers, but many countries' passports can't be checked atuomatically by machine.

Thus such a passport can be used with little fear of detection, as it will normally only be checked against the Interpol database if a cop or border agent becomes suspicious of the bearer and runs a manual check. Branchflower says that 800 million people travel internationally every year without any check being made that their papers are in fact legit. He'd prefer it to become a rarity for a journey to occur without the passport being checked against his central database of lost and stolen ones.
Libertarian campaign group NO2ID said that plans of this sort were a step too far.

"Law enforcement agencies want the most efficient systems but there has to be a balance between security and privacy," NO2ID spokesman Michael
Parker told (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/20/interpol-facial-recognition) the Graun. ®

Source:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/20/interpol_face_scan_plan/
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New Mexico Incident Highlights Republican Suppression Scheme


ACORN
October 18, 2008


After the New Mexico Republican Party claimed Thursday that fraudulent voters—including some registered to vote by ACORN—participated in the June, 2008 Democratic primary, ACORN contacted some of the voters Republicans said were bogus.

ACORN presented its findings Saturday morning during press conference at ACORN’s New Mexico headquarters.

The voters that the Republicans named in their press conference on Thursday were quickly reached by ACORN Thursday night. They include three 18 and 19-year-olds and a new citizen, all first-time voters.

Their legitimacy was confirmed by the Bernalillo County Clerk. All confirmed that they voted in the June primary and expressed outrage that the Republican Party is targeting them.

“This is un-American,” said Celestina Balderas, an ACORN leader. “What we have learned today is that a new citizen who votes in America now risks getting attacked by the Republican Party. ACORN will not allow this scare off new, legitimate voters.”

“What these Republican operatives did is criminal,” said ACORN member Dana Gallegos. “They violated these voters' privacy, and they want to deprive them of their right to vote. These kinds of dirty tricks tear at the fabric of our democracy. We demand an apology from the Republican Party, and we demand that Senator McCain denounce these partisan scare tactics.”

ACORN confirmed with the Bernalillo County Clerk that the voters in question were all legitimate.

They include:
Dora Pargas Escobedo, a 67-year-old immigrant who became a naturalized, United States citizen this year,

Brittany Nicole Rivera, an 18-year-old Albuquerque resident,

Francine Gonzales, a 19-year-old Albuquerque resident,

Francisco Martinez, also a recently-turned 19-year-old Albuquerque resident.

ACORN registered 80,000 voters in New Mexico this year.

Source:
http://www.acorn.org/index.php?id=12439&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=22396&tx_ttnews[backPid]=12387&cHash=a406c06c61
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Justices Block Effort to Challenge Ohio Voters


By Adam Liptak, Ian Urbina
The New York Times
October 18, 2008


The United States Supreme Court on Friday overturned a lower court’s order requiring state officials in Ohio to supply information that would have made it easier to challenge prospective voters. The decision was a setback for Ohio Republicans, who had sued to force the Ohio secretary of state, a Democrat, to provide information about database mismatches to county officials.

But Republicans vowed to fight on and quickly filed a similar lawsuit in the State Supreme Court.

The legal battle concerns as many as 200,000 of the 660,000 new voters who have registered in Ohio since Jan. 1, according to Social Security Administration and state election officials.

The United States Supreme Court, in a brief, unsigned decision, said lower federal courts in Ohio should not have ordered the secretary of state, Jennifer Brunner, to turn over the information. The court acted just before a deadline set by a federal judge in Columbus requiring Ms. Brunner to act.

A 2002 federal law, the Help America Vote Act, or HAVA, requires states to check voter registration applications against government databases like those for driver’s license records. Names that do not match are flagged. Ohio Republicans sought to require Ms. Brunner to provide information about mismatches to local officials.

Those officials could use information to require voters to cast provisional ballots rather than regular ones. They could also allow partisan poll workers to challenge people on the lists. Given the success by Democrats in registering new voters this year, those actions would probably affect that party’s supporters disproportionately.

The court said it expressed “no opinion on the question whether HAVA is being properly implemented.” But it said that Congress had probably not intended to allow private litigants like political parties to sue to enforce the part of the law concerning databases.

The decision also means that the Ohio Republican Party will not be able to make public-information requests to get the data so that poll workers can raise voter challenges.

Edward B. Foley, a law professor at Ohio State, said the Supreme Court’s action in letting state authorities handle matters in the face of a late challenge was consistent with a general premise of election law. “Federal court intervention is a last resort, even if it’s not at the last minute,” Professor Foley said.

Ms. Brunner welcomed Friday’s ruling.

“Our nation’s highest court has protected the voting rights of all Ohioans, allowing our bipartisan elections officials to continue preparing for a successful November election,” she said. “We filed this appeal to protect all Ohio voters from illegal challenges and barriers that unfairly silence the votes of some to the advantage of others.”

But the victory for Ms. Brunner might be short-lived.

Having lost before the United States Supreme Court, Republicans turned Friday to the Ohio Supreme Court.

David Myhal, a Republican from New Albany, filed a lawsuit asking the court to issue an order so that local election officials separate any ballots from voters whose registration information does not match records in state or federal databases.

The lawsuit seeks to require Ms. Brunner to order county elections boards not to count any absentee ballot from voters registered after Jan. 1 without first checking the statewide voter registration database to ensure there is no mismatch.

If there is a mismatch, the boards would be required to determine whether the person is an eligible voter.

The Ohio court gave Ms. Brunner until Monday to file her response, and said both parties must file briefs by next Friday.

Voting experts and state election officials have raised concerns about treating flagged voters differently because the databases used to check registrations are prone to errors. Most non-matches are the result of typographical errors by government officials, computer errors and use of nicknames or middle initials, not voter ineligibility, they said.

In one audit of match failures in 2004 by New York City election officials, more than 80 percent of the failures were found to have resulted from errors by government officials; most of the remaining failures were because of immaterial discrepancies between the two records.

Ms. Brunner has also argued that requiring so many voters to cast provisional ballots would raise tensions at the polls and worsen lines and confusion on an Election Day when she is expecting unprecedented turnout.

Republicans rejected those arguments.

“It remains our belief that American citizens should be guaranteed that their legitimate votes are not wiped away by illegally cast ballots,” said Rick Davis, the McCain-Palin campaign manager. “What is no longer in question is the partisan nature of Jennifer Brunner’s efforts to minimize the level of fairness and transparency in this election.”

Officials in the Ohio Republican Party had said they wanted the list so that local election officials could clear up any discrepancies before Election Day and in cases where that was not possible, those voters should use a provision ballot. Provisional ballots in Ohio are held for 10 days before being counted while workers check eligibility, and they are often subject to partisan wrangling and legal fights.

In 2004, President Bush won Ohio by about 118,000 votes. During that race, litigation over Republican plans to challenge about 35,000 voters went to Justice John Paul Stevens on the eve of the election. Justice Stevens said it was too close to the election to intervene, but he added that he expected both sides to act in good faith. The Republicans dropped plans for their challenges.

Polling in the state shows Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, with a slight lead on his Republican challenger, Senator John McCain.

Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/18/washington/18scotus.html?_r=1&hp&oref=login
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World Bank denies report of massive data breaches

Intruders compromised servers, installed key loggers, FOX News reports


By Tim Greene
Network World
10/12/2008


Count the World Bank Group among the high profile organizations suffering major data breaches - maybe.

Word of the possible breaches just adds to a weeks-long series of bad news related to the economy and financial industry, turmoil that appears to be starting to take its toll on the tech industry as well.

WBG servers were breached repeatedly starting during the summer of 2007 through as recently as last month, Fox News reports. Breaches included full access to the network of WBG's private-lending arm, the reports say.

The break-ins included the installing keystroke loggers on workstations at WBG headquarters' treasury network in Washington, D.C., possibly by a network security contractor.

Related Content

But the bank says it's not so. "The Fox News story is wrong and is riddled with falsehoods and errors. The story cites misinformation from unattributed sources and leaked e-mails that are taken out of context," according to a statement from WSG.

"Like other public and private institutions, the World Bank has repeatedly experienced hacking attacks on its computer systems and is constantly updating its security to defeat these. But at no point has a hacking attack accessed sensitive information in the World Bank's Treasury, procurement, anti-corruption or human resources departments."

One memo from the senior enterprise risk management officer at WBG written in July details 17 servers that were compromised and highlights five that contained sensitive data: "…care must be taken to determine the amount of information that may have been transmitted outside of the World Bank Group," Jack Conde wrote in the memo, which is posted on the Fox News Web site.

The servers included an HR image system, a domain controller and a Secure ID server, the memo says. It recommends that the affected machines be wiped clean and reimaged from backup tapes dating from before the breach.

After that breach in early July, administrators were required to use two-factor authentication to get into sensitive servers, the July 10 memo says.

Conde said in the memo that the bank believed no treasury-related systems were compromised, although Fox News reports that other intrusions did breach servers in the treasury unit in April.

According to an Aug. 19 memo from the WBG Information Solutions Group, it appears that compromised passwords may have been the means used to hack the network. The Aug. 19 memo posted on Fox News recommends using two-factor authentication for all staff who access Web mail. It also recommends a security-awareness course so employees understand how passwords may be stolen.

WBG tightened controls on external Web sites as well after the breach, the memo says.

WBG provides financial and technical assistance to developing countries and is not a traditional bank, with two divisions, one focusing on credit-worthy countries and the other on the poorest countries.

All contents copyright 1995-2008 Network World, Inc.

Source:
http://www.networkworld.com
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GOP attacks on American voters turn Desperate, Ugly and Dangerous


by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
October 10, 2008


The GOP assault on American voters has hit full stride as the economy and John McCain tank in synch.

With just over three weeks until election day, the Republicans have mounted an all-out attack against newly registered voters and the organizations working to sign them up. As many as 75% of these new voters are expected to vote Democratic, but the attacks have also spread to long-established voters as well. Recent calculations show more than a million more newly registered Democrats in Ohio than Republicans.

The usual drumbeat claiming massive voter fraud has become ceaseless at Fox "News" and other right wing media mouthpieces.

As expected, the assault centers in Ohio, which once again could decide the presidency, but has manifested throughout the nation:

1) A Republican sheriff in Greene County, Ohio, has demanded social security and other records from 302 local voters whose ballots he apparently wants to negate. Sheriff Gene Fischer has requested registration cards and address forms for all Greene County residents who voted in a special session established in Ohio allowing new voters to register and vote on the same day. The process was challenged in court by the GOP. The Ohio Supreme Court turned down that challenge, and allowed the same-day voting to proceed. But now Fischer claims telephone calls complaining about the potential for voter fraud have prompted him to go after the information.

In Franklin County, home of Ohio State University, Columbus State Community College, Capital University, Ohio Dominican University, and Otterbein College, election protection observers are reporting continuing surveillance by Republicans at Veterans Memorial, the site for early voting.

The observers have documented Republican operatives taking photographs and writing down license plate numbers of voters. Election activists expect similar criminal charges as in Greene County to be filed in the state's capital.

Greene County is home to Wright State, Central State, Wilberforce and Cedarville Universities, along with Antioch College, which was recently put out of business by a right-wing putsch on its board of directors.

Llyn McCoy, Greene County's deputy elections director, says names, telephone and Social Security numbers will be blacked out of any records handed over to the Sheriff. According to McCoy, the Sheriff says he has no evidence of voter fraud other than phone calls stating fraud was a possibility. It is widely assumed that the same-day registration/voting option was exercised primarily by students who lean heavily Democratic. In 2004, African-American students from Wright State, Central State and Wilberforce were regularly challenged on their registration credentials and forced to endure waiting in lines to vote for hours. Students at Cedarville, a Christian school, made no such reports. Sheriff Fischer's targeting of historically black college students, the core of Obama-mania, is intended to send a chilling effect through the ranks of these Democratic voters.

2) U.S. District Court Judge George C. Smith, a Reagan appointee, has approved a GOP lawsuit demanding that the state give county boards of elections great leeway in attacking new voter registration forms. The decision, framed under the Help America Vote Act, would allow Republican challengers access to data from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles and the Social Security agency to challenge new voters. The Judge noted that Ohio law permits challenges to absentee ballots, thousands of which have been pouring in to elections boards. If allowed to stand, it could give the GOP the right to shred ballots already cast in the Buckeye State, with the precedent possibly being used to further enable a GOP nationwide disenfranchisement campaign. Smith gave Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner a week to respond. Brunner has stated she will appeal.

3) Before the ruling, Brunner announced at the close of registration that the number of registered voters in Ohio had jumped by 665,949, from 7,518,189 active voters on January 1, 2008, to 8,184,138 active voters now. About 5.4 million votes were officially counted in Ohio's 2004 presidential election. Then-Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell certified a Bush victory of less than 119,000 votes. A massive GOP disenfranchisement campaign could easily exceed that margin.

4) The New York Times has reported that boards of elections in at least nine crucial states, including Ohio, have violated federal law in conducting purges and have been illegally using Social Security data bases as part of those purges. The Times' Ian Urbina quotes Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman as asking the Colorado Attorney-General to review how some 2,500 citizens were removed from the registration lists there. The Times has cited purges in Colorado, Louisiana and Michigan that have apparently been conducted within 90 days of the upcoming November 4 election, violating federal law that allows states to expunge only those who have been convicted of a felony, moved out of state or died.

5) The Times has also reported that boards of elections in Nevada, North Carolina, Michigan, Indiana and Ohio have illegally used federal Social Security databases to flag and possibly eliminate voters whose registration applications were suspected of irregularities. The Times reported some 37,000 Colorado voters removed in the three weeks after July 21; Secretary Coffman said the number was 14,000.

6) Michigan elections director Christopher Thomas said his state had removed about 11,000 voters in August, while the Times estimated the real number to be closer to 33,000. Thomas refused to make the purged files public. Michigan Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land is a long-standing Republican partisan whose political activism traces back to the mid-70s when she worked for Gerald Ford's campaign in high school. Critics charge that she functions in the traditional of Florida's Katherine Harris and Ohio's J. Kenneth Blackwell.

7) North Carolina's BOE director Gary Bartlett dismissed concerns raised by the Social Security Administration about possible mis-used of SS files to purge registrations there in conjunction with drivers licenses. The SSI contends Social Security numbers can only be accessed when there is no drivers license or other form of state ID available.

8) A CBS News report has revealed organized caging attempts by the GOP to eliminate registered voters from the rolls in 19 states. The report marks one of the first initiated by a corporate news organization isolating Republican anti-vote campaigning.

9) An electronic voting machine in New Mexico was found to be operating on faulty software which could have eliminated hundreds of votes. The glitch was apparently corrected, but was of a type that could result in thousands of votes being lost on Election Day 2008, as they were in 2000 and 2004.

10) The grassroots organizing group ACORN has come under serious attack in Nevada, Missouri, Ohio and elsewhere from Republicans attempting to negate the thousands of generally low-income citizens ACORN has registered to vote. As a matter of law, ACORN is required to report irregular registrations that come through its process. But GOP operatives have equated these with "fraudulent" filings, and a have ramped up a smear and fear campaign aimed at negating thousands of legitimate ACORN registrants throughout the US.

11) The GOP continues to resist attempts to subpoena Michael Connell, a shady Republican computer operative who programmed the 2000 Bush-Cheney web site. Connell was also hired by former Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell in 2004 to tabulate the Ohio vote count. Under Connell, Ohio's vote totals were shunted to a computer bank in the same basement in Chattanooga, Tennessee, that housed the servers of the Republican National Committee. In the early hours of the morning after election day, vote totals mysteriously began shifting from Kerry to Bush, swinging the 2004 election. Connell's cyber-security industry colleague Stephen Spoonamore, a Republican and former McCain supporter, has said that Connell may be able to shed light on vote count rigging in the 2008 vote count as well. Attorneys in the King-Lincoln-Bronzeville civil rights lawsuit have thus far been unable to secure Connell's sworn testimony.

12) CNN has reported that Obama's surging poll numbers may leave him "in position to steal Virginia from the GOP." Virginia hasn't backed a Democratic presidential candidate since Lyndon Johnson in 1964, but CNN's use of the word "steal" has raised hackles among election protection activists who argue the flow of theft is in the other direction.

As the moment of truth arrives, McCain-Palin attacks based on race, alleged "terrorist" ties and more are sure to increasingly dominate the GOP campaign. But far more insidious will be an all-out assault on voter registration in the name of "voter fraud," and on finding new ways to undermine the national vote, most importantly on electronic voting machines of the kind programmed by Michael Connell.

If those supporting the democratic process are not exceedingly vigilant, the GOP could use these tactics to once again take the White House.

Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman are co-authors of four books on election protection including HOW THE GOP STOLE AMERICA'S 2004 ELECTION & IS RIGGING 2008, and AS GOES OHIO, just published by www.freepress.org, where this article originally appeared. They are attorney and plaintiff in the King-Lincoln-Bronzeville lawsuit.

Source:
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2008/3229
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Justice Department Scandal almost buried by Financial Crisis


By Marilou Johanek
Toledo Blade
October 10, 2008


At any other time, what happened in the U.S. Justice Department last week would have been big news. At any other time, when internal reports by Justice Department call for more investigation into a case of unethical, if not criminal, conduct on the part of lawmakers and the White House, the administration would have a lot of explaining to do.

But the Bush Administration got lucky.

As its Treasury and Federal Reserve chiefs warned that the sky was falling and the economic crash and continuing tumult on Wall Street made them seem prophetic, the Justice Department released a nearly 400-page scalding indictment of the administration over the controversial firings of several U.S. attorneys in 2006.

It was an overlooked bombshell in breaking news cycles preoccupied with financial crisis, rescue plans, presidential politics, and a vice presidential debate.

But what the Justice Department’s exhaustive investigation and blistering report concluded about the enormous damage done to the department through improper politicization is far more troubling than even Sarah Palin in disjointed attack mode.

Investigators from both the department’s Office of Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility found that political pressure did indeed drive the dismissal action against at least three of the nine federal prosecutors abruptly fired. At the time, then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales insisted the individuals were all dismissed for inadequate performance, or failure to implement the President’s law enforcement agenda.

But it appears the longtime pal and adviser to President Bush was lying through his teeth.

Turns out the real reason some of the top federal lawyers were removed from the job, according to the Justice Department report, was that either the U.S. attorneys had the audacity to prosecute Republicans or because they failed to aggressively prosecute Democrats.

Either way, their behavior ticked off well-connected GOP politicians who had come to expect a politically loyal Justice Department. A couple of calls from powerful New Mexico Republican officeholders helped push former U.S. attorney David Iglesias out of a job. Evidently, the top New Mexico prosecutor was remiss in his duty to produce criminal charges against Democrats in the run-up to the 2006 election.

Another U.S. attorney in Missouri lost his post over a petty complaint from Republican Sen. Christopher Bond, and still another was bumped to make room for a protégé of White House political adviser Karl Rove. There was a pervading culture of partisanship/loyalty-above-all-else in the department, recalled one of the fired attorneys.

“Not only were my colleagues and I not insulated from politics — as we should have been in our jobs as prosecutors — but we were fired for the most partisan reasons,” Mr. Iglesias said.

But it mattered not to the Machiavellian Bush Administration that justice was compromised with appalling political interference. It operates under the premise that the ends always justify the means.

Look at the pattern

The administration used fear about nonexistent WMDs as a means to justify the ends of invading Iraq. It outed a CIA operative to punish critics, eliminated civil rights under the misnamed Patriot Act to expand executive authority, crafted energy policy with energy companies to benefit the energy industry, and allowed the subprime mortgage mess to perpetuate to generate obscene wealth for a few. And now there are official findings of fact about the politically charged dismissals of U.S. attorneys conducted to satisfy a White House agenda.

Scandal-weary Americans may be inclined to dismiss yet another administration disgrace, but what happened at the Justice Department is too big a deal to ignore.

We’re supposed to be a country that requires “equal justice under the law,” not tainted justice under political consideration. But that’s what we had under shameless administration zealots like Mr. Rove and Mr. Gonzalez.

The former administration officials allowed the most invaluable assets of the Justice Department — its integrity and independence — to be jeopardized for political ends. They permitted wholesale politicization of the department, as one commentary put it, “by subjecting new hires and sitting U.S. attorneys to rigid ideological litmus tests.”

Even though new Attorney General Michael Mukasey has appointed a federal prosecutor to investigate whether criminal laws were violated all the way to the Oval Office, the administration may luck out again. As time runs out on its lamentable tenure, the injustice it perpetrated on a once-venerated institution may go unpunished.

But before the next administration takes over, Americans need firm assurance that the rule of law will be applied fairly by the Justice Department. Never again can there be partisan allegiance required of incoming professionals, or political criteria that outweigh the legal and ethical.

The impartial administration of justice in this nation, its very credibility, was nearly destroyed by the tyrannical ambitions of a few.

How’s that for big news almost buried?

Source:
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081010/COLUMNIST13/810109970/-1/NEWS08
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Is Posse Comitatus Dead?


By Amy Goodman
Democracy Now!
Oct. 8, 2008


Amy Goodman: In a barely noticed development last week, the Army stationed an active unit inside the United States. The Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Team is back from Iraq, now training for domestic operations under the control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command. The unit will serve as an on-call federal response for large-scale emergencies and disasters. It's being called the Consequence Management Response Force, CCMRF, or "sea-smurf" for short.

It's the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to USNORTHCOM, which was itself formed in October 2002 to "provide command and control of Department of Defense homeland defense efforts."

An initial news report in the Army Times newspaper last month noted, in addition to emergency response, the force "may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control."

The Army Times has since appended a clarification, and a September 30th press release from the Northern Command states: "This response force will not be called upon to help with law enforcement, civil disturbance or crowd control."

When Democracy Now! spoke to Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Jamie Goodpaster, a public affairs officer for NORTHCOM, she said the force would have weapons stored in containers on site, as well as access to tanks, but the decision to use weapons would be made at a far higher level, perhaps by Secretary of Defense, SECDEF.

I'm joined now by two guests. Army Colonel Michael Boatner is future operations division chief of USNORTHCOM. He joins me on the phone from Colorado Springs. We're also joined from Madison, Wisconsin by journalist and editor of The Progressive magazine, Matthew Rothschild.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Why don't we begin with Colonel Michael Boatner?

Can you explain the significance, the first time, October 1st, deployment of the troops just back from Iraq?

Col. Michael Boatner: Yes, Amy. I'd be happy to. And again, there has been some concern and some misimpressions that I would like to correct. The primary purpose of this force is to provide help to people in need in the aftermath of a WMD-like event in the homeland. It's something that figures very prominently in the national planning scenarios under the National Response Framework, and that's how DoD provides support in the homeland to civil authority.

This capability is tailored technical life-saving support and then further logistic support for that very specific scenario. So, we designed it for that purpose.

And really, the new development is that it's been assigned to NORTHCOM, because there's an increasingly important requirement to ensure that they have done that technical training, that they can work together as a joint service team. These capabilities come from all of our services and from a variety of installations, and that's not an ideal command and control environment.

So we've been given control of these forces so that we can train them, ensure they're responsive and direct them to participate in our exercises, so that were they called to support civil authority, those governors or local state jurisdictions that might need our help, that they would be responsive and capable in the event and also would be able to survive based on the skills that they have learned, trained and focused on.

They ultimately have weapons, heavy weapons and combat vehicles and another service capability at their home station at Fort Stewart, Georgia, but they wouldn't bring that stuff with them. In fact, they're prohibited from bringing it. They would bring their individual weapons, which is the standard policy for deployments in the homeland. Those would be centralized and containerized, and they could only be issued to the soldiers with the Secretary of Defense permission.

So I think, you know, that kind of wraps up our position on this. We're proud to be able to provide this capability. It's all about saving lives, relieving suffering, mitigating great property damage to infrastructure and things like that, and frankly, restoring public confidence in the aftermath of an event like this.

AG: So the use of the weapons would only be decided by SECDEF, the Secretary of Defense. But what about the governors? The SECDEF would have -- Secretary of Defense would have -- would be able to preempt the governors in a decision whether these soldiers would use their weapons on U.S. soil?

MB: No, this basically only boils down to self-defense. Any military force has the inherent right to self-defense. And if the situation was inherently dangerous, then potentially the Secretary of Defense would allow them to carry their weapons, but it would only be for self- and unit-defense.

This force has got no role in a civil disturbance or civil unrest, any of those kinds of things.

AG: Matt Rothschild, you've been writing about this in The Progressive magazine. What is your concern?

Matthew Rothschild: Well, I'm very concerned on a number of fronts about this, Amy. One, that NORTHCOM, the Northern Command, that came into being in October of 2002, when that came in, people like me were concerned that the Pentagon was going to use its forces here in the United States, and now it looks like, in fact, it is, even though on its website it says it doesn't have units of its own. Now it's getting a unit of its own.

And Colonel Boatner talked about this unit, what it's trained for. Well, let's look at what it's trained for. This is the 3rd Infantry, 1st Brigade Combat unit that has spent three of the last five years in Iraq in counterinsurgency. It's a war-fighting unit, was one of the first units to Baghdad.

It was involved in the battle of Fallujah. And, you know, that's what they've been trained to do. And now they're bringing that training here?

On top of that, one of the commanders of this unit was boasting in the Army Times about this new package of non-lethal weapons that has been designed, and this unit itself is going be able to use, according to that original article. And in fact, the commander was saying he had even tasered himself and was boasting about tasering himself. So, why is a Pentagon unit that's going to be possibly patrolling the streets of the United States involved in using tasers?

AG: Colonel Boatner?

MB: Well, I'd like to address that. That involved a service mission and a service set of equipment that was issued for overseas deployment. Those soldiers do not have that on their equipment list for deploying in the homeland. And again, they have been involved in situations overseas. And having talked to commanders who have returned, those situations are largely nonviolent, non-kinetic. And when they do escalate, the soldiers have a lot of experience with seeing the indicators and understanding it. So, I would say that our soldiers are trustworthy.

They can deploy in the homeland, and American citizens can be confident that there will be no abuses.

AG: Matt Rothschild?

MR: Well, you know, that doesn't really satisfy me, and I don't think it should satisfy your listeners and your audience, Amy, because, you know, our people in the field in Iraq, some of them have not behaved up to the highest standards, and a lot of police forces in the United States who have been using these tasers have used them inappropriately.

The whole question here about what the Pentagon is doing patrolling in the United States gets to the real heart of the matter, which is, do we have a democracy here? I mean, there is a law on the books called the Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act that says that the president of the United States, as commander-in-chief, cannot put the military on our streets. And this is a violation of that, it seems to me.

President Bush tried to get around this act a couple years ago in the Defense Authorization Act that he signed that got rid of some of those restrictions, and then last year, in the new Defense Authorization Act, thanks to the work of Senator Patrick Leahy and Kit Bond of Missouri, that was stripped away. And so, the President isn't supposed to be using the military in this fashion, and though the President, true to form, appended a signing statement to that saying he's not going to be governed by that. So, here we have a situation where the President of United States has been aggrandizing his power, and this gives him a whole brigade unit to use against U.S. citizens here at home.

AG: Colonel Michael Boatner, what about the Posse Comitatus Act, and where does that fit in when U.S. troops are deployed on U.S. soil?

MR: It absolutely governs in every instance. We are not allowed to help enforce the law. We don't do that. Every time we get a request -- and again, this kind of a deployment is defense support to civil authority under the National Response Framework and the Stafford Act.

And we do it all the time, in response to hurricanes, floods, fires and things like that. But again, you know, if we review the requirement that comes to us from civil authority and it has any complexion of law enforcement whatsoever, it gets rejected and pushed back, because it's not lawful.

AG: Matthew Rothschild, does this satisfy you?

MR: No, it doesn't. One of the reasons it doesn't is not by what Boatner was saying right there, but what President Bush has been doing. And if we looked at National Security Presidential Directive 51, that he signed on May 9th of 2007, Amy, this gives the President enormous powers to declare a catastrophic emergency and to bypass our regular system of laws, essentially, to impose a form of martial law.

And if you look at that National Security Presidential Directive, what it says, that in any incident where there is extraordinary disruption of a whole range of things, including our economy, the President can declare a catastrophic emergency. Well, we're having these huge disturbances in our economy. President Bush could today pick up that National Security Directive 51 and say, "We're in a catastrophic emergency. I'm going to declare martial law, and I'm going to use this combat brigade to enforce it."

AG: Colonel Michael Boatner?

MB: The only exception that I know of is the Insurrection Act. It's something that is very unlikely to be invoked. In my 30-year career, it's only been used once, in the LA riots, and it was a widespread situation of lawlessness and violence. And the governor of the state requested that the President provide support. And that's a completely different situation. The forces available to do that are in every service in every part of the country, and it's completely unrelated to the -- this consequence management force that we're talking about.

AG: You mentioned governors, and I was just looking at a piece by Jeff Stein -- he is the national security editor of Congressional Quarterly -- talking about homeland security. And he said, "Safely tucked into the $526 billion defense bill, it easily crossed the goal line on the last day of September." "The language doesn't just brush aside a liberal Democrat slated to take over the Judiciary Committee" -- this was a piece written last year -- it "runs over the backs of the governors, 22 of whom are Republicans.

"The governors had waved red flags about the measure on Aug. 1, 2007, sending letters of protest from their Washington office to the Republican chairs and ranking Democrats on the House and Senate Armed Services committees. "No response. So they petitioned the party heads on the Hill."

The letter, signed by every member of the National Governors Association, said, "This provision was drafted without consultation or input from governors and represents an unprecedented shift in authority from governors … to the federal government."

Colonel Michael Boatner?

MB: That's in the political arena. That has nothing to do with my responsibilities or what I'm -- was asked to talk about here with regard to supporting civil authority in the homeland.

AG: Matthew Rothschild?

MR: Well, this gets to what Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont was so concerned about, that with NORTHCOM and with perhaps this unit -- and I want to call Senator Leahy's office today and ask him about this -- you have the usurpation of the governor's role, of the National Guard's role, and it's given straight to the Pentagon in some of these instances. And that's very alarming.

And that was alarming to almost every governor, if not every governor, in the country, when Bush tried to do that and around about the Posse Comitatus Act. So, I think these are real concerns.

AG: Matt Rothschild, the Democratic and Republican conventions were quite amazing displays of force at every level, from the local police on to the state troopers to, well, in the Republican convention, right onto troops just back from Iraq in their Army fatigues. Did this surprise you?

MR: It did. It surprised me also that NORTHCOM itself was involved in intelligence sharing with local police officers in St. Paul. I mean, what in the world is NORTHCOM doing looking at what some of the protesters are involved in?

And you had infiltration up there, too. But what we have going on in this country is we have infiltration and spying that goes on, not only at the -- well, all the way from the campus police, practically, Amy, up to the Pentagon and the National Security Agency. We're becoming a police state here.

AG: Colonel Michael Boatner, a tall order here, could you respond?

MB: Well, that's incorrect. We did not participate in any intelligence collection. We were up there in support of the U.S. Secret Service. We provided some explosive ordnance disposal support of the event. But I'd like to go back and say that, again, in terms of --

AG: Could you explain what their -- explain again what was their role there?

MB: They were just doing routine screens and scans of the area in advance of this kind of a vulnerable event. It's pretty standard support to a national special security event.

AG: And are you saying there was absolutely no intelligence sharing?

MB: That's correct. That is correct. … We're very constrained--

MR: But even that, Amy, now the Pentagon is doing sweeps of areas before, you know, a political convention? That used to be law enforcement's job. That used to be domestic civil law enforcement job. It's now being taken over by the Pentagon. That should concern us.

AG: Why is that, Colonel Michael Boatner? Why is the Pentagon doing it, not local law enforcement?

MB: That's because of the scale and the availability of support. DoD is the only force that has the kind of capability. I mean, we're talking about dozens and dozens of dog detection teams. And so, for anything on this large a scale, the Secret Service comes to DoD with a standard Economy Act request for assistance.

AG: Boatner, in the Republican Convention, these troops, just back from Fallujah -- what about issues of, for example, PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder?

MB: Well, my sense is that that's something that the services handled very well. There's a long track record of great support in the homeland. If those soldiers were National Guard soldiers, I have no visibility of that. But for the active-duty forces, citizens can be confident that if they're employed in the homeland, that they'll be reliable, accountable, and take care of their families and fellow citizens in good form.

AG: Last word, Matthew Rothschild?

MR: Well, this granting of the Pentagon a special unit to be involved in U.S. patrol is something that should alarm all of us. And it's very important to the Army.

Amy Goodman is the host of the nationally syndicated radio news program, Democracy Now!
© 2008 Democracy Now! All rights reserved.

View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/102220/
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Palin Ethics Probes Beset by Secrecy and Lawsuit

Seven Palin Aides to Testify in Abuse-of-Power Probe


By Adam Goldman
AP
Oct. 6, 2008


ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin says she's an open book regarding an abuse-of-power investigation. Apparently her staff doesn't feel the same way.

While the Alaska governor has waived her privacy rights so details about her firing of a state commissioner can be made public, she has not called on others in her administration to do the same. Unless they do, the results of a state personnel board investigation may never be revealed.

The personnel board and the state Legislature are running separate investigations into whether Palin abused her power by firing Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan, who says he resisted pressure to fire a state trooper involved in a messy divorce with the governor's sister.

The controversy, known in Alaska as Troopergate, could hurt John McCain's presidential bid.

Legislative investigators are due to submit a report Friday that could reveal embarrassing details about Palin's leadership and provide campaign fodder in the final weeks before the election.

Palin refuses to cooperate with that inquiry, which she says has become too political, citing comments by the Democratic senator overseeing the case. She is only cooperating with the personnel board inquiry, which is much more secretive, is run by people she can fire and could take years to resolve.

Her husband, Todd Palin, however, has agreed to answer written questions from legislative investigators, McCain campaign officials said Monday. Todd Palin previously had refused to testify in the legislative inquiry.

Todd Palin and several high-level staffers had contacted Monegan about state trooper Mike Wooten, Gov. Palin's former brother-in-law. While Monegan says he was never told directly to fire Wooten, he says the repeated contacts made it clear they wanted Wooten gone.

With the stakes so high, both sides were planning a week of court fighting ahead of Friday's deadline.

To head off the report, five Republican state lawmakers asked the Alaska Supreme Court on Monday to shut down the legislative investigation. Oral arguments are scheduled for Wednesday.

A legal fight is also brewing over the secrecy of the personnel board investigation. Anchorage white collar attorney Meg Simonian wants the board's independent council Tim Petumenos to conduct his probe in public and says she's planning a lawsuit to force him to do so.

''Gov. Palin has said repeatedly, through her 'Truth Squad,' that she has nothing to hide and wants the personnel board's investigation to be open,'' Simonian wrote in a letter to Petumenos.

''That does not appear to be true of her politically appointed employees.''

Asked whether the governor would call for her aides to open the investigation, her attorney, Thomas Van Flein, deferred to Petumenos.

''The governor waived her confidentiality and wanted this matter decided openly,'' Van Flein said. ''Mr. Petumenos is in charge of his investigation and until and unless he says otherwise, we will respect his decision.''

Petumenos did not respond to a message seeking comment Monday but told Simonian in a letter that he said he was required by law to keep the matter confidential because those under scrutiny have not waived their privacy rights.

Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/washington/AP-Palin-Troopergate.html
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