Oh, so now we're "informing" judges rather than getting their approval for illegal searches

This is lovely. Two FISA judges were "informed" that the NSA was going to be collecting all of our phone records, per Orrin Hatch.

Two judges on the secretive court that approves warrants for intelligence surveillance were told of the broad monitoring programs that have raised recent controversy, a Republican senator said Tuesday, connecting a court to knowledge of the collecting of millions of phone records for the first time....

Asked if the judges somehow approved the operations, Hatch said, "That is not their position, but they were informed."

Oh, well, if judges were "informed" that we were going to begin mass illegal spying on American citizens, then that makes it constitutional and legal. Silly me, I thought judges were the ones who decided such things. Read the rest of this post...

After five days of silence, Verizon denies giving data to the NSA, kind of

Uh, if the USA Today story was false, then why did it take Verizon 5 days to say so? I don't buy it, and AP seems to agree that Verizon's explanation isn't quite clear at all.

"One of the most glaring and repeated falsehoods in the media reporting is the assertion that, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Verizon was approached by NSA and entered into an arrangement to provide the NSA with data from its customers' domestic calls," the statement read.

The denials leave open the possibility that the NSA directed its requests to long-distance companies, which collect billing data on long-distance calls placed by local-service customers of BellSouth and Verizon.

I'll add a few other possibilities:

1. Verizon wasn't approached by NSA. Was it approached by anyone else, inside or outside of the government?

2. Verizon didn't "enter into an arrangement." I don't even know what that means, "an arrangement," so denying it doesn't really help clarify things.

3. Verizon didn't "provide" the NSA with domestic customer data. Verizon could have simply "let" the NSA tap into their phone system, their database, etc. and thus would not have "provided" the NSA with data, they simply would have provided the NSA with access to their database, their phone system etc.

Verizon could have given the NSA long distance and international phone call data.

And finally, Verizon could have provided the FBI or the CIA or the DHS or the DOJ with the data and still they'd be telling the truth that they didn't provide it to the NSA.

4. And finally, and most importantly, Verizon's "denial" is a multi-part sentence so that it's not clear what they're denying in that sentence. Let me explain. Here is Verizon's statement:

"One of the most glaring and repeated falsehoods in the media reporting is the assertion that, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Verizon was approached by NSA and entered into an arrangement to provide the NSA with data from its customers' domestic calls."

Now, it's possible that what Verizon says is "false" is simply the claim that Verizon was approached by the NSA after September 11 - perhaps they were approached BEFORE September 11, but the rest of the allegations are totally true (they entered an arrangement, provided customer data, etc.) That would be consistent with Verizon's statement because it's not clear which part of the statement Verizon is saying is false (it's the same problem you have in reverse when you ask someone three questions in one - they answer "yes" and you don't know which part of the question they're answering yes to).

Again, why did it take so long for Verizon to respond, and why hasn't AT&T; said anything other than they don't respond to national security matters (which basically sounds like they're guilty)? Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Watching the final West Wing on TiVo. I have no idea why final TV episodes make me so melancholy. T.S. Eliot wrote about measuring your life in coffee spoons. I think I measure mine in TV shows, and Christmases. Read the rest of this post...

Who does the NSA get to spy on when Hillary becomes president?

Since the Republicans are so gung-ho in favor of domestic spying, I thought it might be interesting to see who's on the short list for being spied on by the government when Hillary becomes president. Keep in mind that by that point Arlen Specter will have already passed a law saying that it's okay for the president to spy on Americans whenever and however he or she likes - in the name of national security, of course.

For starters:

1. Anybody who owns a gun, starting with Wayne LaPierre of the NRA and Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America.

2. All Republican members of Congress.

3. George Bush, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove.

4. Ann Coulter.

5. Gary Bauer, James Dobson, Lou Sheldon, and the men at the Concerned Women for America.

6. The entire staff of the Washington Times and the Wall Street Journal.

7. Anyone and everyone affiliated with FOX News.

8. Evangelical Christians (at least the bad ones).

Others? Read the rest of this post...

Apparent AT&T; mailer that went out last week

I've received this from two people now, and each one had a different AT&T; return address depending on where the person was located in the US (meaning, this wasn't the same image being forwarded around the Net), leading me to believe that this is for real.

(For those of you who are a little slow on the irony side of things, read what AT&T; wrote on the front of the envelope. You'll recall that AT&T; is one of three companies alleged to have voluntarily helped the NSA spy on its customers.)



Sure did.

PS Blogger is having issues with images tonight, you can see the mailing here. Read the rest of this post...

Rove is worried

As he should be. Read the rest of this post...

Another new low and in this one he's sinking fast

Americans really don't like Bush. He's hit another new low -- with a five point drop in one month -- in the Washington Post/ABC News poll:

Bush's job approval rating now stands at 33 percent, down five percentage points in barely a month and a new low in Post-ABC polls. His current standing with the public is identical to his father's worst showing in the Post-ABC poll before he lost his reelection bid to Bill Clinton in 1992. Bush's father fell below 30 percent in some other independent polls in 1992.

The president's current decline has been particularly steep among Republicans, who until last month had generally remained loyal while independents and Democrats grew increasingly critical. According to the survey, Bush's disapproval rating among Republicans has nearly doubled, from 16 percent to 30 percent, in the past month while his approval rating dipped below 70 percent for the first time. Nearly nine in 10 Democrats and seven in 10 independents currently do not like the job Bush is doing as president.

Congress isn't any better off in this poll. Their approval is also at 33%. Read the rest of this post...

Define "listen"

Yes, it's come to that.

President Bush insisted Tuesday that the United States does not listen in on domestic telephone conversations among ordinary Americans.... "We do not listen to domestic phone calls without court approval," Bush said.

Is it "listening" if Bush is saving a recording of every single phone call you make in America? No.

Is it "listening" if Bush has a machine automatically transcribing every phone conversation you have into text that is then saved in a big government computer? No.

Is it "listening" if Bush has a computer program sifting through every single phone conversation you have to look for "key words"? No, because machines don't "listen," they don't have ears.

Is it "listening" if Bush is keeping a file on every single American citizen listing every single person they ever speak to by phone? No.

And oh yeah, does it mean Bush isn't "listening" to our calls just because he says he isn't?

No. Read the rest of this post...

Bush confirmed domestic spying...or he didn't

Depends on who you believe...Bush or his FOX News Press Secretary. Hard to decide which one has less credibility.

Bush:

Bush did appear to acknowledge the NSA sweep of phone records indirectly, saying that the program referred to by a reporter in a question ''is one that has been fully briefed to members of the United States Congress in both political parties.''

''They're very aware of what is taking place. The American people expect their government to protect them within the laws of this country and I'm going to continue to do just that,'' he said.

FOX News:

However, Snow, in his first on-camera briefing as press secretary, later denied that Bush was confirming a story about collecting domestic phone records that was first reported last week in USA Today.

''He was talking about foreign-to-domestic calls,'' Snow said. ''The allegations in the USA Today piece were of a different nature.''

''There seems to be a notion that because the president has talked a little bit about one surveillance program, and one matter of intelligence gathering, that somehow we have to tell the entire world -- we have to make intelligence-gathering transparent,'' Snow said. ''Let me remind you, it's a war on terror. ... Al Qaida does not believe in transparency. What al Qaida believes in is mayhem.''

If Bush is so worried about tipping his hand to Al Qaida, maybe he shouldn't have told them that almost 5 years after September 11th, he still hasn't secured our borders:

First, the United States must secure its borders. This is a basic responsibility of a sovereign nation. It is also an urgent requirement of our national security.

So, he's basically telling the world he's failed to keep us secure...again. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Talk. Read the rest of this post...

Bush's Homeland Security secretary opposes sending US National Guard to the Mexican border

Oops. Read the rest of this post...

Wall Street Journal bashes liberal blogs for embracing "Rove indicted" story. Problem is, we didn't.

Salon's War Room does a great analysis of how the liberal blogosphere did NOT embrace the story from a few days ago about how Karl Rove was supposedly secretly indicted. While the Wall Street Journal bashes liberal blogs for running with unconfirmed stories, in fact, the story itself didn't come from a blog at all, and what's more, most of the top liberal blogs, this one included, refused to link to the story because we questioned whether it was true. Liberal blogosphere member Peter Daou even went so far as to openly criticize the "Rove has been indicated" piece just a few days ago. I guess the WSJ must have missed that.

So, in fact, the liberal blogosphere showed that we already police ourselves and already have a pretty well-developed sense of journalistic ethics.

I hate when facts gets in the way of a perfectly good story.

More from Salon's Tim Grieve:

I don't know whether Karl Rove will be indicted today, tomorrow, later this week or never. But we do understand that there's a distinction between Truthout's Jason Leopold and the bloggers who've been writing about him, and that gives us at least one leg up on the folks at the Wall Street Journal.

The Journal's Anne Marie Squeo checks in today on Leopold's report that Rove has already been indicted in the Valerie Plame case, and she uses her story as an occasion for a little blog-bashing. Squeo says that bloggers have "blurred the lines with traditional media and changed both the dynamics of the reporting process and how political rumors swirl," and she quotes Jay Rosen for the proposition that the blogosphere has a "let's see if this holds up" philosophy when it comes to news.

Just two problems here: Leopold isn't reporting on Plamegate as a blogger, and the blogosphere -- or at least the part of it we respect -- hasn't taken anything like a "let's see if this holds up" approach to his latest report. While some liberal bloggers jumped immediately on Leopold's Rove "scoop" Saturday, many others looked at the story through more cautious eyes.

Read the rest of this post...

Oh, now the rule of law matters

It's just adorable how when the issue is illegally spying on every American citizen the Republicans don't care so much about obeying the law. But when the issue changes to brown people bending the law simply because they want a better life for themselves and their families, suddenly the law becomes paramount.

First there's this gem from Bush last night:

We're a nation of laws, and we must enforce our laws.

Oh that's such a pre September 11 mentality.

Then this from a House Republican upset at Bush's amnesty proposal for Latino immigrants:

"Thinly veiled attempts to promote amnesty cannot be tolerated,' said Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga. "While America is a nation of immigrants, we are also a nation of laws, and rewarding those who break our laws not only dishonors the hard work of those who came here legally but does nothing to fix our current situation."

A nation of laws. Wow. Wonder how Congressman Price feels about Bush breaking the law in order to spy on American citizens? Let's just Google him and find out:

Congressman Tom Price said the eavesdropping covered only non-citizens talking to suspected terrorists overseas. He said that’s different from monitoring innocent Americans talking to each other.

“Had he not done this, and something had happened, you and the rest of the world would be clamoring,” Price said.

Oops. Read the rest of this post...

US military recruiters promising jobs as "Hollywood Liaisons"

Oh, this is precious. There's a military recruiting Web site (that I'm told is being promoted on United Airlines flights, not clear why) that is promising kids, right there on its home page, that if they join the US military they can become "journalists, musicians, [and] Hollywood liaisons." (The video on the United flights apparently makes the same "Hollywood Liaision" promise.)

Yes, Hollywood liaisons.

The site mentions "Hollywood liaisons" as a possible military career thirteen times.

Iraq, on the other hand, is only mentioned four times.

Osama, death and dismemberment don't merit a mention at all. Read the rest of this post...

Karl can't tell the truth about anything

For years, the Washington press corps salivated over every utterance from Karl Rove. Whatever he said was gospel. Yesterday, Rove gave a speech at the American Enterprise Institute -- which was attended by a large contingent of the media. Rove was up to his usual tricks of just spouting off without any regard for the facts. Now that the "political genius" has a boss with approval ratings below 30%, his schtick might not work anymore. EJ Dionne does a nice job dissecting some of Rove's most egregious claims:

Most astonishingly, Rove tried to make the case that Bush's tax cuts actually left the rich paying more. Everyone knows the Bush cuts in levies on dividends, capital gains and inheritances overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy. But here was Rove playing class politics by arguing that the wealthy now pay a larger share of total income taxes than they did before Bush.

This is statistical flimflam, of course. It leaves out payroll taxes, which hit most Americans the hardest. And the wealthy are paying more of the total share of income taxes, even though their rates are much lower, because their share of national income has gone up. Rove's numbers actually prove the rich are getting richer. But the fact that Rove tried to sound like William Jennings Bryan is the surest indicator that the administration is worried about its image as protector of the privileged.

Karl Rove just makes stuff up. He thinks the press are patsies and will believe anything he says. For the most part, he's been right.

What Karl has learned, though, is that strategy may have worked on the press corps, but it doesn't work on prosecutors. They call that perjury, not spin. Read the rest of this post...

Why does the GOP want to block free enterprise?

I am so completely sick and tired of hearing about how pro-business the GOP is because when I hear about this latest story, I only see the GOP blocking business except for the chosen few at the absolute top of the heap. Why is it that Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska wants to slap taxes on Skype when they offer a promotion for FREE phone calls? Looking at Stevens campaign donors one might think that he is more focused on campaign contributions from Big Telco instead of giving a damn about consumers. Heaven forbid someone dares challenge the overwhelming dominance of the telecom industry and actually make them competitive. We certainly would not want that to happen.

As I have mentioned before I find it hard to believe that in France, a country not known for a pro-consumer environment, I can pick and choose between at least five or six phone/internet providers that bundle my high speed internet access plus unlimited calls across Europe, to the US, to China and elsewhere all for about 30 euro per month. Oh yeh, we can get dozens of TV channels as well included in that price. What ever happened to allowing small businesses to grow in the US? Why does the GOP want one-size-fits-all and no competition? Read the rest of this post...

But Bush likes immigrants, he really, really does

If you read Elisabeth Bumiller's paean to Bush in today's New York Times be prepared to hurl. Because what she knows that the rest of us don't know is that Bush doesn't really buy in to the GOP's immigrant bashing agenda. He likes them. He really does. Poor George has to get tough to appease the right wingers in his immigrant bashing party:

But the real theme of his speech was that the nation can be, as he phrased it, "a lawful society and a welcoming society at the same time" and that Congress could find a middle ground between deporting illegal immigrants and granting them immediate citizenship.

What was remarkable to people who knew Mr. Bush in Texas was how much he still believes in the power of immigration to invigorate the nation.

No, Ms. Bumiller. What is remarkable is that Bush caved to the right wing pressure. He's tanking in the polls because he's not a leader. And immigration is just another example. Read the rest of this post...

Tuesday Morning Open Thread

Let's get it started. There's a lot to discuss. Read the rest of this post...

EU wants US to cut farm subsidies

Hello Mr Pot, it's Mr Kettle. Both the US and EU shower their farmers with subsidies, which makes it almost impossible for developing countries to enter rich markets. The always slick Blairite who has gone off to Brussels in the finest tradition of home country losers who are sent off to Brussels, must of somehow overlooked the EUs subsidies and the lack of interest in change. Neither Brussels or Washington is very eager to deliver real reform but both are ready and willing to criticize each other forever.

The EU and US love to pontificate to the developing world, letting them know that they're going to have to pick themselves up with their own bootstraps, but over and over and over, they're never given an honest chance to succeed. As part of the special Africa edition of The Independent today, the subject of farm subsidies is addressed.

British households pay an extra £832 a year in grocery bills due to the huge EU subsidy system that is also depriving tens of thousands of African farmers of their livelihoods, a charity warns.

The £30bn-a-year EU agricultural subsidy regime is one of the biggest iniquities facing farmers in Africa and other developing counties. They cannot export their products because they compete with the lower prices made possible by payments.

In addition, European countries dump thousands of tons of subsidised exports in Africa every year so that local producers cannot even compete on a level playing field in their own land.

Read the rest of this post...

The Independent: "No news to report*"

Just 6,500 Africans died today as a result of a preventable, treatable disease. Today's edition is an excellent, if not disturbing, read. The top story, Aids and a lost generation: Children raising children really registered with me. As a Western foreigner traveling in southern Africa, it's impossible not to be shocked with the constant images of death from AIDS.

When passing through villages, you see fresh graves everywhere and you hear stories every day about the suffering. The most difficult day I experienced was in Zimbabwe where a group of kids, all AIDS orphans, performed the most incredible traditional dance performance I ever witnessed. With the state structure in Zim in ruin thanks to Mugabe, these kids relied on the good will of others to help guide them and provide for them. To think that there are millions of children in Africa (and elsewhere) in similar situations... Read the rest of this post...

Both sides ticked at Bush over immigration speech

Well, I can't think of a better result. Bush tried to cut the baby in half, and now both sides are ticked at him.

If Jose F. and Ms. Whiteford were any indication, Mr. Bush managed to disappoint people on both sides of the immigration debate on Monday night. Each side said it had hoped to hear more encouraging words over an issue that has become a showdown in Congress and on the streets of cities like Los Angeles and Chicago. Each side saw hints of an extended fight ahead.

Call me the indecider. Read the rest of this post...