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ARCHIVES NEWS Law News History Archives LAW ARCHIVES |
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- 
- 
- 
Tom
DeLay
- "GOP
Pushes Rule Change to Protect DeLay's Post." ...
"House Republicans proposed changing their rules last night to allow members
indicted by state grand juries to remain in a leadership post, a move that
would benefit Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) in case he is charged
by a Texas grand jury that has indicted three of his political associates,
according to GOP leaders." ... "House Republicans adopted the indictment
rule in 1993, when they were trying to end four decades of Democratic control
of the House, in part by highlighting Democrats' ethical lapses. They said
at the time that they held themselves to higher standards than prominent
Democrats such as then-Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski (Ill.),
who eventually pleaded guilty to mail fraud and was sentenced to prison."
-By Charles Babington -WashingtonPost
Larry
Franklin - 
Douglas
Feith - 
Criminal
Investigation - 
US
- 
Israel
- 
Italy
- 
Iran
- 
Military
- 
Intelligence
- 
History
- "Iran-Contra
II? Fresh scrutiny on a rogue Pentagon operation."
... "On Friday evening, CBS News reported that the FBI [Federal Bureau
of Investigation ] is investigating a suspected mole in the Department
of Defense who allegedly passed to Israel, via a pro-Israeli lobbying organization
[AIPAC], classified American intelligence about Iran. The focus of the
investigation, according to [United States] U.S. government officials,
is Larry Franklin, a veteran Defense Intelligence Agency Iran analyst now
working in the office of the Pentagon's number three civilian official,
Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith." ... "The investigation
of Franklin is now shining a bright light on a shadowy struggle within
the [Republican President] Bush administration over the direction of U.S.
policy toward Iran. In particular, the FBI is looking with renewed interest
at an unauthorized back-channel between Iranian dissidents and advisers
in Feith's office, which more-senior administration officials first tried
in vain to shut down and then later attempted to cover up." ... "Franklin,
along with another colleague from Feith's office, a polyglot Middle East
expert named Harold Rhode, were the two officials involved in the back-channel,
which involved on-going meetings and contacts with Iranian arms dealer
Manucher Ghorbanifar and other Iranian exiles, dissidents and government
officials. Ghorbanifar is a storied figure who played a key role in embroiling
the Reagan administration in the Iran-Contra affair. The meetings were
both a conduit for intelligence about Iran and Iraq and part of a bitter
administration power-struggle pitting officials at [the Department of Defense]
DoD who have been pushing for a hard-line policy of "regime change" in
Iran, against other officials at the State Department and the CIA [Central
Intelligence Agency] who have been counseling a more cautious approach."
... "Reports of two of these meetings first surfaced a year ago in Newsday,
and have since been the subject of an ongoing investigation by the Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence. Whether or how the meetings are connected
to the alleged espionage remains unknown. But the FBI is now closely scrutinizing
them." ... "While the FBI is looking at the meetings as part of its criminal
investigation, to congressional investigators the Ghorbanifar back-channel
typifies the out-of-control bureaucratic turf wars which have characterized
and often hobbled Bush administration policy-making. And an investigation
by The Washington Monthly -- including a rare interview with Ghorbanifar
-- adds weight to those concerns. The meetings turn out to have been far
more extensive and much less under White House control than originally
reported. One of the meetings, which Pentagon officials have long characterized
as merely a "chance encounter" seems in fact to have been planned long
in advance by Rhode and Ghorbanifar. Another has never been reported in
the American press. The administration's reluctance to disclose these details
seems clear: the DoD-Ghorbanifar meetings suggest the possibility that
a rogue faction at the Pentagon was trying to work outside normal US foreign
policy channels to advance a "regime change" agenda not approved by the
president's foreign policy principals or even the president himself." ...
"The Italian Job" ... "The first meeting occurred in Rome [Italy's
capital] in December, 2001. It included Franklin, Rhode, and another American,
the neoconservative writer and operative Michael Ledeen, who organized
the meeting. (According to UPI, Ledeen was then working for Feith as a
consultant.) Also in attendance was Ghorbanifar and a number of other Iranians.
One of the Iranians, according to two sources familiar with the meeting,
was a former senior member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard who claimed
to have information about dissident ranks within the Iranian security services.
The
Washington Monthly has also learned from U.S. government sources that
Nicolo Pollari, the head of Italy's military intelligence agency, SISMI,
attended the meetings, as did the Italian Minister of Defense Antonio Martino,
who is well-known in neoconservative circles in Washington." ... "Alarm
bells about the December 2001 meeting began going off in U.S. government
channels only days after it occurred." ... "Since the late 1980s Ghorbanifar
has been the subject of two CIA "burn notices." The Agency believes Ghorbanifar
is a serial "fabricator" and forbids its officers from having anything
to do with him." -By Joshua
Micah Marshall, Laura Rozen,
and Paul Glastris with contributions by Claudio Lavanga
-WashingtonMonthly.com
Education
- Law
- 
Politics
- "Nation's
Charter Schools Lagging Behind, U.S. Test Scores Reveal."
... "The first national comparison of test scores among children in charter
schools and regular public schools shows charter school students often
doing worse than comparable students in regular public schools." ... "The
findings, buried in mountains of data the Education Department released
without public announcement, dealt a blow to supporters of the charter
school movement, including the [Republican President] Bush administration."
... "The data shows fourth graders attending charter schools performing
about half a year behind students in other public schools in both reading
and math." ... "Charters are expected to grow exponentially under the new
federal education law, No Child Left Behind, which holds out conversion
to charter schools as one solution for chronically failing traditional
schools." ... ""The scores are low, dismayingly low," said Chester E. Finn
Jr., a supporter of charters and president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation,
who was among those who asked the administration to do the comparison."
... "Charters are self-governing public schools, often run by private companies,
which operate outside the authority of local school boards, and have greater
flexibility than traditional public schools in areas of policy, hiring
and teaching techniques." (1 of 2)
-By Diana Jean Schemo
-NYTimes
OPINION
- Free-Speech
- 
- "Firms
play tough game to defend a good name." ... ""Overzealous
companies often try to assert trademark ownership in inappropriate ways
to stifle free speech," says Kembrew McLeod, a communications studies professor
at the University of Iowa and author of the forthcoming book "Freedom of
Expression: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity."
"The real harm comes from self-censorship in a world where [companies]
fire off cease-and-desist letters, and where we and our employers back
down from lawsuits, even when they're baseless."" ... "The stakes can run
high. Microsoft, for instance, is vigorously defending its ubiquitous Windows
trademark from what it views as an infringement by a San Diego software
firm called Lindows, which markets an alternative computer-operating system.
Last summer, Fox News made headlines when it attempted to prevent humorist
Al Franken from using its "Fair and Balanced" tag line in the title of
his bestselling book." -By Eric Schellhorn
-CSMonitor
-
- 
-
-
- "US
group admits to criminal probe over Iran." ... "Halliburton,
the oilfield services company formerly headed by US Vice-President Dick
Cheney, has disclosed that a Treasury Department probe into its business
dealings with Iran had been elevated to a criminal investigation. The company
acknowledged that it had been subpoenaed by a grand jury in the southern
district of Texas to present documents related to a Cayman Islands subsidiary
that serves the Iranian National Oil Company." -By
Joshua Chaffin -FT.com
- "The
[diamond] cartel isn't for ever." ... "On July 13th
in an Ohio court De Beers, the world's largest producer of rough stones,
finally pleaded guilty to charges of price-fixing of industrial diamonds
and agreed to pay a $10m fine, thereby ending a 60-year-long impasse. De
Beers executives are at last free to visit and work directly in the largest
diamond market, America." ... "A few days earlier, on July 9th, the first
case of successful industry self-regulation against trade in so-called
conflict diamonds took place when Congo-Brazzaville was punished
for failing to prove the source of its diamond exports. And on June 28th
Lev Leviev, an arch-rival of De Beers, opened Africa's biggest diamond-polishing
factory in Namibia." ... "Behind all these events lies sweeping change
in an industry that sells $60-billion-worth of jewellery alone each year.
For generations it has been run by De Beers as a cartel. The South African
firm dominated the digging and trading of diamonds for most of the 20th
century. Yet the system for distributing stones established decades ago
by De Beers is curious and anomalous—no other such market exists, nor would
anything similar be tolerated in a serious industry."
-Economist
- Enron
- "Lay
surrenders to authorities: Ex-Enron CEO turns himself
in after indictment, pleads not guilty in massive accounting fraud." ...
"In the 11-count indictment, Lay was accused of lying to the public, investors
and Enron employees in charges that include securities and wire fraud and
making false statements." ... "He pleaded not guilty to all charges and
was released on $500,000 bail." ... "In a related move, the Securities
and Exchange Commission accused Lay in a civil complaint that seeks more
than $90 million. It also seeks to bar him from serving as an officer or
director of a public company." -By Krysten Crawford
with contributions by Jen Rogers -CNN
-
- Enron
- "Enron's
Lay indicted: Former Enron CEO [Kenneth Lay] indicted
by grand jury in Houston, says he's "done nothing wrong."" ... "Enron filed
for bankruptcy Dec. 2, 2001 after investigators found it had used partnerships
to conceal more than $1 billion in debt and inflate profits. The company
once ranked as the country's seventh-largest." ... "To date the federal
government has launched 30 separate prosecutions related to Enron's implosion,
including a criminal case that brought down auditor Arthur Andersen two
years ago and criminal probes of about 20 former Enron employees. Of those,
11 have resulted in convictions or guilty pleas." -By
Krysten Crawford and Kelli Arena -CNN
-
-
- Enron
- [PDF]
"United
States of America V. Richard A. Causey, Jeffrey K. Skilling, and Kenneth
Lay, Defendents." [65 pages] ... "Superseding
Indictment." -From the "United States District Court
Southern District of Texas Houston Division." via
-FindLaw /LegalNews/Documents
Stephen
Cambone - Torture
- Prisons
- Classified
- Military
- Intelligence
- US
- 
Iraq
- 
Afghanistan
- Noteworthy
- "Implausible
Denial II." ... "On Saturday, May 15--twenty-four
hours after The Nation published "Implausible
Denial"--The New Yorker posted on its website Seymour Hersh's latest
Abu Ghraib-related investigative report. Its central revelation: The interrogations
at [Iraq prison] Abu Ghraib were part of a highly classified Special Access
Program (SAP) code-named Copper Green, authorized by [Republican President
Bush's] Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and ultimately overseen by Under
Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone. Originally a joint
[Central Intelligence Agency] CIA-Pentagon program in Afghanistan that
utilized highly trained Special Operations personnel, Copper Green eventually
expanded to Iraq, Hersh reports, where Cambone decided it would begin using
non-Special Operations personnel--including military intelligence officers
and other military personnel--to begin questioning prisoners whose status
was outside the program's original brief. The CIA objected and withdrew
from the program, while Cambone apparently tasked [Major General] Maj.
Gen. Geoffrey Miller, former Guantánamo Bay interrogations chief,
with "Gitmo-izing" Iraq's prison system." ... "What may be more surprising
than the revelations in Hersh's piece is the fact that leads to the Abu
Ghraib skullduggery were hidden in plain sight--and that the Pentagon press
corps all but ignored them. Though Cambone has been an exceptionally sub
rosa figure in his position as DoD's intelligence chief, on November 21,
2003, he sat down for a rare on-record meeting over breakfast with the
Defense Writers Group. Again in contrast to his May 11 comments, in which
he cast himself as a benign bureaucrat largely out of the loop, his November
comments offer a glimpse into the mechanics of how Cambone's office was
assertively taking the lead in coordinating intelligence operations in
Iraq." ... "Noting first that his office has "one group of people over
to do an assessment" and that another was getting ready to go, Cambone
said that "the requirement for an increased level of intelligence support
became increasingly evident as we went through a period between early July/late
August.... In that late August time frame, a delegation went over there
from the Department and included people from the CIA to look at how we
were structured, whether we had proper arrangement at the division level,
whether that information, as it was being compiled at the divisional level,
was being moved from that level up to the CJTF-7 [Combined Joint Task Force-7]
level in an expeditious manner."" ... "Cambone further stated that the
group "came back with a list of somewhere close to eighty or ninety recommendations,"
and went on to describe a rapid infusion of personnel and technology for
intelligence-related endeavors. He also noted that the Director of Central
Intelligence, George Tenet, had "made a number of adjustments in his complement
of people in Iraq" as part of a "concerted effort to lash up much more
tightly the work that is done in the context of the CIA activities with
those being done by the Department to ensure there is [a] cross-flow of
information and cooperation."" ... "Cambone's remarks at the breakfast
also bring into potentially clearer focus the role in Abu Ghraib of [Lieutenant
General] Lieut. Gen. William "Jerry" Boykin, his deputy for intelligence
and warfighting support. "It is an office," Cambone says of Boykin's shop,
"that is designed to assure the types of capabilities we have just been
talking about here, whether it is people, or it is resources, or it is
material, or it is information, is moved forward to the people who need
it at various levels of command and operation in order for them to execute
their mission."" -By Jason
West -TheNation.com
US
- Afghanistan
- Military
- 
Terrorism
- Prisoner
- War
Crimes Act - Human
Rights - Death
Penalty - Politics
- "Memos
Reveal War Crimes Warnings: Could Bush administration
officials be prosecuted for 'war crimes' as a result of new measures used
in the war on terror? The White House's top lawyer thought so." ... "The
White House's top lawyer warned more than two years ago that U.S. officials
could be prosecuted for "war crimes" as a result of new and unorthodox
measures used by the Bush administration in the war on terrorism, according
to an internal White House memo and interviews with participants in the
debate over the issue." ... "The concern about possible future prosecution
for war crimes-and that it might even apply to Bush adminstration
officials themselves- is contained in a crucial portion of an internal
January
25, 2002, memo by White House counsel Alberto Gonzales
obtained by NEWSWEEK. It urges President George Bush declare the
war in Afghanistan, including the detention of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters,
exempt from the provisions of the Geneva Convention." ... "In the memo,
the White House lawyer focused on a little known 1996 law passed by Congress,
known as the War Crimes Act, that banned any Americans from committing
war crimes-defined in part as "grave breaches" of the Geneva Conventions.
Noting that the law applies to "U.S. officials" and that punishments
for violators "include the death penalty," Gonzales told Bush that
"it was difficult to predict with confidence" how Justice Department prosecutors
might apply the law in the future. This was especially the case given that
some of the language in the Geneva Conventions-such as that outlawing "outrages
upon personal dignity" and "inhuman treatment" of prisoners-was "undefined.""
...
"One key advantage of declaring that Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters did
not have Geneva Convention protections is that it "substantially reduces
the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act,"
Gonzales wrote." -By Michael Isikoff
-MSNBC/Newsweek
Stephen
Cambone - Torture
- Prison
- Military
- Intelligence
- Police
- Human
Rights - Law
- Politics
- US
- 
Syria
- Iraq
- "Knowledge
of Abusive Tactics May Go Higher." ... "Army intelligence
officers suspected that a Syrian and admitted jihadist who was detained
at [Iraq's] Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad [Iraq's capital] knew about
the illegal flow of money, arms and foreign fighters into Iraq. But he
was smug, the officers said, and refused to talk. So last November, they
devised a special plan for his interrogation, going beyond what Army rules
normally allowed." ... "An Army colonel [Thomas M. Pappas] in charge of
intelligence-gathering at the prison, spelling out the plan in a classified
cable to the top [United States] U.S. military officer in Iraq, said interrogators
would use a method known as "fear up harsh," which military documents said
meant "significantly increasing the fear level in a security detainee."
The aim was to make the 31-year-old Syrian think his only hope in life
was to talk, undermining his confidence in what they termed "the Allah
factor."" ... "According to the plan, interrogators needed the assistance
of military police supervising his detention at the prison, who ordinarily
play no role in interrogations under Army regulations. First, the interrogators
were to throw chairs and tables in the man's presence at the prison and
"invade his personal space."" ... "Then the police were to put a hood on
his head and take him to an isolated cell through a gantlet of barking
guard dogs; there, the police were to strip-search him and interrupt his
sleep for three days with interrogations, barking and loud music, according
to Army documents. The plan was sent to [Lieutenant General] Lt. Gen. Ricardo
Sanchez." ... "Congressional testimony by Defense Department and Army officials
over the past two weeks has highlighted the fact that the abuses in Iraq
-- which mostly occurred in the last quarter of 2003 -- came at a time
of heightened pressures in Washington for more robust intelligence-gathering,
because of proliferating attacks on U.S. forces and the dwindling intelligence
on Saddam Hussein's suspected weapons of mass destruction." ... "Although
no direct links have been found between the documented abuses and orders
from Washington, Pentagon officials who spoke on the condition that they
not be named say that the hunt for data on these two topics was coordinated
during this period by Defense Undersecretary Stephen A. Cambone, the top
U.S. military intelligence official and long one of the closest aides to
[Republican President Bush's] Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld."
... ""We've got no proof that a person in authority told them to do this
activity," [Lieutenant General] Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, the Army's deputy
chief of staff, said on May 11." ... "But three directives in particular
have already begun to attract congressional scrutiny: The first is a classified
report by Army [Major General] Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller on [September]
Sept. 9, 2003, demanding that the military police at Abu Ghraib be dedicated
and trained to set "the conditions for the successful interrogation and
exploitation of internees/detainees." The report, which Cambone has testified
was presented to his deputy William Boykin, contained five recommendations
spelling out how this was to occur and reported it had already begun."
... "The second is an [October] Oct. 12 classified memo signed by Sanchez
that demanded a "harmonization" of military policing and intelligence work
at Abu Ghraib for the purpose of ensuring "consistency with the interrogation
policies . . . and maximiz[ing] the efficiency of the interrogation.""
... "The memo, obtained by The Washington Post, also states "it is imperative
that interrogators be provided reasonable latitude to vary their approach,"
depending on a detainee's background, strengths, resistance and other factors.
It also explicitly demands humane treatment and requires that any dogs
present during the interrogations be muzzled." ... "The third is a [November]
Nov. 19 memo from Sanchez's office that formally placed the two key Abu
Ghraib cellblocks where the abuses occurred under the control of Pappas
and his 205th Military Intelligence Brigade. It was 11 days later, after
this memo placed the military police responsible for "security of detainees
and base protection" in Pappas's hands, that he sought, in his memo to
Sanchez, to draw military police explicitly into applying pressure on the
Syrian." ... "The fact that prison interrogations were so directly controlled
by these military directives, as well as the apparent cultural sophistication
of some of the abuses, has already led some lawmakers to conclude that
much more experienced and senior officers were involved than the seven
military police now charged by the Army with wrongdoing. " (1, 2,
3)
-By R. Jeffrey Smith with contributions by Rajiv Chandrasekaran
and Sewell Chan -WashingtonPost
Stephen
Cambone - Torture
- Prisons
- Military
- Intelligence
- Police
- Human
Rights - Law
- Politics
- Feith
- 
Rhode
Island - 
Virginia
- US
- Iraq
- Guantánamo
Bay - 
Cuba
- Noteworthy
- "Implausible
Denial." ... "Writing in the December 16, 2002, edition
of The Nation, I broke the news--and explored the concerns many
in the [United States] US intelligence community had--about [Republican
President Bush's] Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's quiet success in
prevailing upon Congress to authorize the creation of a new senior position
at the Pentagon,the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence. Several
months later, in the pages of the Columbia Journalism Review, I
followed up with a piece devoted to the media's utter lack of interest--perhaps
best demonstrated by the absence of any reporter from a farcical confirmation
hearing--in the new Under Secretary himself, Stephen Cambone." ... "Despite
his status as the Pentagon's über-intelligence authority, in the initial
days of the breaking [Iraq prison] Abu Ghraib scandal Cambone was virtually
invisible. When Rumsfeld was called to the Hill to testify before the Armed
Services Committee on May 7, however, Cambone was unexpectedly summoned
to the witness table from his chair behind Rumsfeld. That cameo appearance
resulted in a more expansive return appearance on May 11, in which Cambone
less than deftly tried to undermine Abu Ghraib investigator [Major General]
Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba. (Cambone disputed the general's conclusion that
military intelligence units effectively controlled the prison's military
police detachment.) Cambone also reacted adversely to [Rhode Island Democratic]
Senator Jack Reed's assertion (confirmed by Taguba) that recommendations
made in a report on improving intelligence collection at Abu Ghraib by
then-chief Guantánamo Bay [Cuba] interrogator [Major General] Maj.
Gen. Geoffrey Miller clearly called for the use of [Military Police] MPs
in interrogations, which helped create an environment that begot the subsequent
abuse and torture in the tiers. As a May 12 Washington Post editorial
points out, Cambone's office approved interrogation practices that are
in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions." ... "At the May 11 hearings,
Cambone and another senior Defense Department official, Army intelligence
chief [Lieutenant General] Lieut. Gen Keith Alexander, essentially cast
themselves as mere Pentagon representatives fielding questions about Abu
Ghraib--and not as men who might bear any responsibility for what they
desperately tried to cast as an aberrant and isolated incident. Yet many
of their assertions on May 11 are in fact contradicted by statements they
made before the same committee a month before, as well as a year-old memo
outlining the responsibilities of Cambone's office." ... "The Under Secretary
of Defense for Intelligence, or OUSD(I) in Pentagonese, was originally
conceived by Rumsfeld as a centralizing measure, a way to give him "one
dog to kick" rather than a "whole kennel" of individual civilian and uniformed
defense intelligence agencies. In choosing the person responsible for ostensibly
bringing unprecedented order and control to the Pentagon's spy shops, the
Secretary chose Cambone, a man with no intelligence experience but a favored
protégé and loyal partisan who had served on Rumsfeld's ballistic
missile threat commission and worked with the neoconservative Project for
the New American Century. Previously principal deputy to Under Secretary
for Policy Doug Feith (and, in that capacity, liaison between Feith and
the ideological intelligence analysis unit that would later morph into
the notorious Office of Special Plans), Cambone went out of his way in
his confirmation hearings to say that he would closely "consult and coordinate"
with Feith to "insure [that Department of Defense] DoD-related intelligence
activity supports the goals" of the Pentagon's policy shop." ... "Two months
after Cambone's confirmation, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz described
his new portfolio in a detailed internal Pentagon memo. Reflecting the
seriousness and specificity of Cambone's mission, an organizational chart
appended to the memo shows a generic under secretary with six deputies,
including one for warfighting and operations, whose duties include specific
liaison with the intelligence elements of each of the armed services, each
individual combatant command, and the under secretary for policy. The document
itself explicitly states that Cambone's office will, among other things:"
... "provide oversight and policy guidance for all DoD intelligence activities;
provide policy oversight of all the intelligence organizations within the
DoD, to include ensuring these organizations are manned, trained, equipped
and structured to support the missions of the Department; provide
assessments of and advice [to] the Secretary and CJCS [Chairman, Joint
Chiefs of Staff] on the adequacy of military intelligence performance;
exercise management and oversight of all DoD counterintelligence and security
activities; coordinate DoD intelligence and intelligence-related policy,
plans, programs, requirements and resource allocations; oversee provision
of intelligence support and involvement in information operations, focused
on assessments in support of operations." ... "None of this should leave
much to the imagination, especially when it comes to policies and practices
pertaining to the dimensions of human intelligence collection that involve
interrogations conducted by military intelligence. Yet when asked by [Virginia
Republican] Senator John Warner if his office has "overall responsibility
for policy concerning the handling of detainees," Cambone dodged with a
"not precisely, sir," effectively denying any responsibility as set forth
in his charge by Wolfowitz. Rather, Cambone said, he only reactively "became
involved in this issue from the perspective of assuring there was a flow
of intelligence back to the commands and done in an efficient and effective
way."" -By Jason
West -TheNation.com
James
Inhofe - Torture
- Politician
- US
- Military
- Prisoners
- Photographs
- Iraqi
- Human
Rights - Lawmakers
- 
Oklahoma
- "GOP
[Republican] senator labels abused prisoners 'terrorists':
Other lawmakers disavow comment." ... "A Republican member of the Senate
Armed Services Committee dismissed Tuesday the outrage over the abuse of
Iraqi prisoners by [United States] U.S. troops, saying Iraqis depicted
in widely broadcast photographs probably had "blood on their hands."" ...
""I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged
by the outrage than we are by the treatment," [Oklahoma Republican Senator]
Sen. James Inhofe said during a hearing on the [Iraqi] Abu Ghraib prison
scandal. (Full
story)" ... "[Republican] President Bush and other top U.S. officials
and leading Republicans have condemned the abuse of Iraqis held at the
Baghdad[Iraq's capital]-area prison, once a notorious torture chamber under
ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein." ... "Though he [Inhofe] called the
soldiers charged with abusing Iraqi prisoners "seven bad people," he added,
"I am also outraged that we have so many humanitarian do-gooders right
now crawling all over these prisons looking for human rights violations
while our troops, our heroes, are fighting and dying."" -With
contributions by Ed Henry -CNN
Richard
Pombo
- Government
- Animal
- 
Land
- Law
- Politics
- 
California
- "Profile:
Rep. Richard Pombo." ... "Congressman [Richard Pombo,
California Republican] finds fault with federal environmental rules." ...
"He chairs the House Resources Committee, which drafts many of the nation's
most important environmental laws and oversees 700 million acres of public
land. The budgets of the Forest Service, the National Park Service and
other land management agencies must be vetted by his panel. In Washington,
he's as powerful a player on environmental issues as the Interior Secretary
or the Environmental Protection Agency administrator." ... "Last week,
his committee began the first of several hearings on proposed changes to
the Endangered Species Act. For the last 12 years, Pombo has been on a
mission to rewrite the law, which he argues saves few species and tramples
on the rights of farmers, ranchers and other landowners." ... "Pombo's
selection as Resources Committee chairman last year frightened the nation's
largest environmental groups, which have long clashed with the congressman.
Now those groups are gearing up to challenge Pombo and block his effort
to rewrite the Endangered Species Act." ... ""He doesn't believe in the
Endangered Species Act," said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra
Club. "He doesn't believe we should protect our wildlife heritage."" -By
Zachary Coile -SFGate.com
-
- 2004
ELECTION - "Unleashing
the Cheney factor: Joint 9/11 appearance with Bush
highlights debate about V.P.'s role." ... "When President Bush and Vice
President Cheney sit down together on Thursday for their long-anticipated
meeting with the 9/11 commission, it will cap a week that has, like no
other in Mr. Bush's presidency, been dominated by the White House's No.
2 man." ... "It was Mr. Cheney who used such red-meat language against
Democratic presidential contender John Kerry in a speech Monday that the
president of the host college publicly objected to "the content and tone"
of the vice president's remarks and offered Senator Kerry a similar speaking
engagement." ... "It is Cheney who is at the center of a long-anticipated
Supreme Court case, argued Tuesday, over his energy task force - and the
breadth of the zone of privacy in which the executive branch of government
may operate. Cheney has long advocated restoration of the White House's
powers to pre-Watergate levels." -By Linda Feldmann
-CSMonitor
-
- "House
OKs Speedy Elections if Attacked." ... "Under the
legislation, the House speaker could declare "exceptional circumstances"
when 100 or more seats in the 435-seat body are left vacant by a catastrophic
event, triggering special elections in affected districts that must be
held within 45 days." ... "While the final vote was decisive, many Democrats
warned that speeding up elections was not enough and, at a time of terrible
crisis, could expose Congress to weeks of lacking the manpower or the authority
to act. Many sought a constitutional amendment that would allow temporary
appointments of lawmakers before elections could be held." ... "Some warned
of the executive branch, possibly headed by a Cabinet secretary if the
president is killed, assuming dictatorial powers."
-AP via -ABCNEWS.com
- 
-
- "UK
court to review EU flight delay rule: Airline trade
association IATA asked Britain's High Court to review pending EU rules
that would force carriers to reimburse passengers for delays, even if caused
by security measures or snowstorms." ... "The rules set a baseline of between
two and four hours for permissible delays, depending on the length of journey,
with anything above that forcing carriers to reimburse passengers."-Reuters
via -CNN
- 
- 
- 
-
- "High
court mulls Mexican truck access." ... "A Bush administration
lawyer told the Supreme Court yesterday that the president must be able
to open America's roads to Mexico's trucks without delays for an environmental
study." ... "But a lawyer for labor and environmental organizations cautioned
justices that ''we're talking about tens of thousands of trucks" packing
US roads after a two-decade moratorium ends." ... "Some of those trucks
are older and may be pollution-causing safety hazards, said the organizations'
lawyer, Jonathan Weissglass." -By Gina Holland
-AP via -Boston/Globe
- 
- "Santa
Cruz group wins court OK to grow pot: Ruling allows
medical marijuana distribution." ... "A Santa Cruz medical marijuana collective
shut down by federal agents two years ago can grow and distribute marijuana
for its patients while its civil lawsuit against the federal government
is decided by the courts, a federal judge ruled Wednesday." ... "The ruling
by U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose marks the first time a
court has granted a medical marijuana organization the right to grow the
federally outlawed herb without interference from federal drug agents."
... "The ruling clears the way for the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana
in Santa Cruz to challenge the federal government's authority to raid medical
marijuana gardens operating within the boundaries of California law." -By
Maria Alicia Gaura -SFGate.com
-
- "Judges
chosen for Saddam trial." ... "Iraq's US-appointed
governing council today announced that it has chosen judges and prosecutors
to try Saddam Hussein." ... "Their identities are being kept secret for
fear that supporters of the toppled dictator will hunt them down." ...
"Salem Chalabi, the US-educated lawyer who is director-general of administration
for the special tribunal set up to prosecute Saddam, said that seven investigative
judges and five prosecutors would take charge of the case."
-Guardian.co.uk
- -
- "Cubans
Sentenced in Miami for Plane Hijacking."... "A U.S.
judge sentenced six Cuban men to prison terms of 20 years or more on Wednesday
for hijacking a Cuban airliner in the Communist Caribbean nation last year."...
"The Cubans were convicted in December of air piracy for commandeering
a 1940s-era Aerotaxi DC-3 after it took off from Cuba's Isle of Youth and
forcing it to Key West on Florida's southern tip on March 19, 2003. The
incident was the first in a series of hijackings in Cuba last year." -By
Jim Loney -Reuters
- Enron
News - "Ex-Enron
CEO Broke Terms of Release -Prosecutors." ... "Prosecutors
charged on Wednesday that former Enron chief executive Jeff Skilling broke
the terms of his $5 million bond during a bizarre alcohol-fueled fracas
in New York earlier this month." ... "The court filing says Skilling's
blood alcohol level was 0.19 -- more than twice the legal limit in most
U.S. states -- when police sent him to the hospital at 4 a.m. on April
9." ... "Officers described Skilling as "uncooperative and intoxicated"
and deemed him "an emotionally disturbed person" because he was accusing
bar patrons of being undercover agents for the Federal Bureau of Investigation."
(1,
2)
-By C. Bryson Hull -Reuters
-
-
-
-
- "High
Court Hears Detention Cases: Policy on Terror Suspects
Challenged." ... "Facing the court in oral arguments over the detention
of al Qaeda and Taliban suspects held at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba, Solicitor
General Theodore B. Olson dramatically reminded the court that "the United
States is at war," that more than 10,000 troops are in Afghanistan, and
that the country faces an "extraordinary threat."" ... "But several justices
asked questions that implied they doubted Olson's assertion that Bush,
as commander in chief, may hold the suspects for interrogation at the base
in Cuba as long as he deems necessary, without judicial oversight." ...
""It seems rather contrary to an idea of a Constitution with three branches
that the executive would be free to do whatever they want -- whatever they
want without a check," Justice Stephen G. Breyer said." ... "The question
is whether the Guantanamo detainees have a right to ask a federal court
to order the president to give them a hearing --not whether the courts
must do so." (1, 2)
-By Charles Lane-WashingtonPost
-
- 
-
- "Israeli
Nuclear Whistleblower Vanunu to Go Free." ... "Israeli
nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu goes free on Wednesday after 18
years in jail for spilling secrets that publicly placed the Jewish state
among the world's top atomic powers." ... "But the former nuclear technician
-- whose revelations to a British newspaper led analysts to conclude Israel
had an arsenal of more than 100 nuclear warheads -- will still be subject
to a list of stringent security measures to keep him silent." ... "Vanunu
was jailed in 1986 for treason after disclosing information to Britain's
Sunday Times." (1, 2)
-By Megan Goldin -Reuters
-
-
-
- "Japan
court rules against shrine visits, PM unbowed." ...
"A Japanese court ruled on Wednesday that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi
had violated the constitution by visiting a shrine honouring Japan's military
war dead, a landmark ruling on his annual pilgrimages that have angered
China and other Asian neighbours." ... "But Koizumi vowed to keep visiting
Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, where war criminals are among those honoured and
which critics at home and abroad regard as a symbol of Japan's past militarism."
-By Masayuki Kitano -Reuters
-
-
- "Attack
on expectant mom a crime against 2: Relatives of
Peterson, other victims attend bill signing." ... "President Bush signed
legislation Thursday making it a separate crime to harm a fetus during
the commission of a violent federal crime against a pregnant woman, and
he declared that, with the new law, the United States was "building a culture
of life."" ... "The Unborn Victims of Violence Act protects a fetus at
any stage of its development. The measure does not deal with abortion but
at its foundation it deals with the central question in the abortion debate:
At what point does an embryo or a fetus deserve full protection of the
law as a living person?" ... "Advocates of abortion rights fear it will
be used to establish precedent that could undercut those rights, established
in 1973 by the Supreme Court in Roe vs. Wade." -By
James Gerstenzang-LAtimes
via -SFGate.com
Rove
- 
Abramoff
- 
Ralston
- 
DeLay
- 
Norquist
- 
Reed
- Scanlon
- Money
- Religion
- Government- Law
- Politics
- Texas
- 2004
Election - History
- "K
Street Stumble." ... "As [Republican] presidential
adviser Karl Rove set up shop in the West Wing in 2001, he was looking
for an assistant to serve as the trusted gatekeeper of his new fiefdom.
Superlobbyist and Republican fundraiser Jack Abramoff was happy to lend
a hand. Abramoff knew just the right person for the job: his own assistant,
Susan Ralston. She interviewed with Rove and got the position." ... "For
a staunch conservative and smooth GOP operative like Abramoff, losing a
valuable aide was well worth the opportunity to ingratiate himself with
the president's senior political adviser." ... "An active fundraiser for
George W. Bush's 2000 election race, Abramoff has done even better in the
2004 campaign, raising more than $100,000 and becoming an elite "Pioneer"
in the president's re-election drive. For years, Abramoff has been a generous
donor and key fundraiser for powerful GOP members of Congress, notably
House Majority Leader [Republican]
Tom DeLay, R-Texas. In the 2004
election cycle, Abramoff and his wife, Pam, have contributed $83,000 to
Republicans, landing themselves at No. 93 on the nationwide list of individuals
who have donated to either political party, according to the nonpartisan
Center for Responsive Politics. Nine other Washington lobbyists are higher
on that list." ... "For almost a quarter-century, Abramoff has counted
among his friends and allies anti-tax activist Grover Norquist and grassroots
strategist and former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed. An Orthodox
Jew, Abramoff has moved easily in conservative circles since the early
1980s, when he was chairman of the College Republican National Committee."
... "On March 2, Abramoff abruptly resigned from [lobbying law firm] Greenberg
Traurig, and now he's embroiled in what's shaping up as a legal and political
fight to salvage his reputation." ... "When asked about Abramoff's troubles,
DeLay distanced himself, telling reporters, "If anybody is trading on my
name to get clients or to make money, that is wrong and they should stop
it immediately."" ... "One reason for the touchiness is that the controversy
has also ensnared Michael Scanlon, a former aide to DeLay who worked with
Abramoff at Greenberg Traurig before setting up his own grassroots firm,
Capital Campaign Strategies." -By Peter H. Stone
-NationalJournal
-
- 
-
- Microsoft
News - "EU
orders Microsoft to pay $613 million fine: Software
giant found guilty of abusing "near monopoly"." ... "The European Union
declared Microsoft Corp. guilty Wednesday of abusing its "near monopoly"
with Windows to squeeze competitors in other markets and levied a record
fine of $613 million (497.2 million euros)." ... "The EU's antitrust authority
said that "because the illegal behavior is still ongoing," it was also
demanding changes in the way the U.S. software company operates."
-AP via -MSNBC
- "Ohio
Sniper Suspect Appears in Nevada Court." ... "A 28-year-old
man charged in connection with sniper-style shootings in Ohio that killed
one person told a Nevada court on Friday he would not fight extradition
and agreed to return home to face prosecution." ... "Charles McCoy Jr.,
wearing dark blue prison clothes with his hands cuffed to a chain around
his waist, said little beyond responding "yes" to questions put to him
by Justice of the Peace Douglas Smith." ... "Ohio officials said he would
be returned to the state as soon as possible, perhaps later in the day
or over the weekend." -Reuters
- Free-Speech
- "China
Changes Constitution to Address Rights Issues." ...
"China's Parliament formally approved today constitutional amendments that
address private property and human rights, while the country's new prime
minister promised to rein in the overheated economy." ... "Chinese legal
experts and even lawmakers said the constitutional changes, which were
decided in closed-door sessions of the ruling Communist Party last fall
and formally approved today, would not lead to lifting restrictions on
speech and political protest. China's constitution is subordinate to the
party and is amended often to reflect changes in official ideology." -By
Chris Buckley -NYTimes
-
-
-
-
- "Md.
Woman Accused of Acting as Iraqi Agent." ... "Federal
agents today arrested a Maryland woman at her home on charges of acting
as an agent for the Iraqi government of former president Saddam Hussein
and plotting to aid resistance groups in Iraq after Hussein was ousted
by U.S. forces." ... "Susan Lindauer, 40, a former journalist and congressional
aide in Washington, was taken into custody by the FBI at her home in Takoma
Park after federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment against her and two
Iraqis, the sons of a former diplomat, who were charged with similar offenses."
-By William Branigin -WashingtonPost
- 
- "Calif.
Court Halts San Francisco Gay Weddings." ... "California's
Supreme Court on Thursday ordered San Francisco to halt the same-sex marriages
that have sparked a passionate nationwide debate on whether gay couples
can wed legally." ... "The decision, which will be reviewed again in May
or June, comes exactly one month after San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom
gave the green light to gay marriages, resulting in more than 4,000 homosexual
pairings since then." ... "In its order, the state's top court referred
to the California family code that defines marriage as a union of man and
woman and told San Francisco "to refrain from issuing marriage licenses
or certificates not authorized by such provisions."" (1, 2)
-By Adam Tanner -Reuters
-
- 
- "War
crimes court opens in Freetown." ... "The UN-backed
war crimes court in Sierra Leone opened its new courthouse yesterday, but
was left guessing about whether its president will step down because of
alleged bias against some defendants." ... "UN and government officials
joined Geoffrey Robertson QC at the ceremony in the capital, Freetown,
but he gave no public indication about the ultimatum he has been given
to resign by tomorrow morning or stay and fight an attempt to disqualify
him." ... "Defence lawyers have demanded that he withdraw because of a
book he wrote which depicted the Revolutionary United Front, Sierra Leone's
rebel movement, as a bloodthirsty criminal enterprise which committed crimes
against humanity during a decade-long civil war." -By
Rory Carroll -Guardian.co.uk
Sniper
- "Teenage
Sniper Malvo Gets Life Sentence." ... "Teenage sniper
Lee Boyd Malvo was sentenced to life in prison without parole Wednesday
for an October 2002 killing spree in the Washington, D.C., area that left
10 people dead." ... "Malvo, 19, was sentenced a day after sniper mastermind
John Allen Muhammad was given the death penalty. Malvo did not speak at
the brief hearing." ... "Malvo was convicted in December of the slaying
of FBI analyst Linda Franklin, 47, outside a Falls Church, Va., Home Depot
store. His defense team had argued that Malvo had been molded into a killer
by the charismatic Muhammad." -By Matthew Barakat
-AP via -Guardian.co.uk
-
-
- "Libya
blamed for W Africa wars: The chief prosecutor at
the UN's new court for Sierra Leone has repeated claims that the Libyan
leader is behind the past decade of war in West Africa." ... "The accusation
against Muammar Gaddafi was made by David Crane in an interview with the
BBC." -BBC/News
- Virginia
News - Sniper-
"Virginia
Judge Formally Sentences Sniper John Muhammad to Death."
... "John Allen Muhammad, of two men accused in the sniper-shooting deaths
of 10 people in the Washington, D.C., area in 2002, was sentenced to death
by a Virginia judge today for murdering a man at a gas station." ... "A
jury in Virginia Beach, Virginia, convicted Muhammad of capital murder,
terrorism, conspiracy and firearms violations in November for the death
of Dean Harold Meyers, 53, who was gunned down in Manassas, Virginia, in
October 2002. Meyers was the seventh sniper victim." -By
Chris Dolmetsch -Bloomberg
-
-
-
-
-
-
- "Five
Guantanamo Britons Fly Home, Fate Unsure." ... "Five
British men jailed for more than two years at the U.S. Guantanamo base
in Cuba headed home Tuesday -- posing anti-terror police a dilemma over
whether to release them to their families or keep them behind bars." ...
"The five, held since late 2001 or early 2002 with more than 600 others
suspected of fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan or supporting al
Qaeda, were expected to reach the Northolt military air base near London
around 7 p.m." ... "Police will take immediate custody of them, but if
they decide there is no case against them under Britain's tough anti-terror
laws, they may be freed in days, legal sources said." (1, 2)
-By Andrew Cawthorne -Reuters
- -
- "UCLA
Denies Role in Cadaver Case: Probe Targets Director
of Willed-Body Program, Suspected Middleman." ... "The University of California
at Los Angeles denied involvement Monday in the sale of cadaver body parts
for profit after the arrest of the head of its medical school's cadaver
program and a second man over the weekend. Authorities are investigating
whether about 800 bodies donated to the program over the past six years
were illegally sawed into pieces and sold to medical research companies."
... "Henry Reid, 54, director of the university's program that makes donated
bodies available for medical education, was arrested Saturday for investigation
of grand theft for allegedly selling corpses and body parts. Ernest Nelson,
the suspected middleman, was arrested at his home in Alta Loma, Calif.,
on Sunday night on suspicion of receiving stolen property." -By
Kimberly Edds -WashingtonPost
-
- "Signing
of Iraqi Charter Is Delayed by Shiite Objections."
... "The scheduled signing of a previously approved interim constitution
for Iraq was delayed indefinitely today after five Shiite members of the
Iraqi Governing Council rejected wording that dealt with the Kurds and
the proposed setup of the presidency." ... "The council unanimously agreed
to the accord on Monday. But an official on the council said today that
the changes being called for were necessary if they were to gain the acceptance
of Iraq's leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani." -By
Dexter Filkins and Terence Neilan -NYTimes
via -Google-News
- WorldCom
News - "Ebbers
indicted, ex-CFO pleads guilty: Sullivan is expected
to cooperate with authorities as they prosecute ex-WorldCom CEO." ... "Ex-WorldCom
CEO Bernard Ebbers was charged with securities fraud Tuesday for his role
in the nation's biggest accounting scandal, while his former chief financial
officer pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors." ... "The
indictment says Ebbers and ex-WorldCom CFO Scott Sullivan "knowingly and
consistently" manipulated WorldCom's financial results to present the company
in a better light to Wall Street, investors and regulators." -By
Terry Frieden -CNN
-
-