Ex CIA Director, Ex CIA Counterterrorism Director, Intelligence Experts Announce Support for McCain Anti-Torture Amendment; Letter Delivered to McCain as Defense Bill Conferees Prepare to Meet

12/9/2005 8:05:00 AM


Contact: Kirsten A. Powers, 212-845-5260 or powersk@humanrightsfirst.org; Sean Crowley, 202-478-6128; 202-550-6524 (cell) or scrowley@mrs.com

WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Former CIA Director Stansfield Turner, former CIA Counterterrorism Center Director Vincent Cannistraro, and 30 retired CIA and other professional intelligence and interrogation experts today wrote Senator John McCain (R-AZ), announcing their support for his anti-torture amendment and rejecting any exceptions to its ban on cruel treatment. Vice President Dick Cheney and CIA Director Porter Goss have heavily lobbied Congress to exempt CIA operatives from the McCain amendment's ban on cruel and inhumane treatment when conducting covert operations abroad.

"In the public debate over your amendment, some have argued that CIA interrogators should be exempt from the standards of decency and law that guide the actions of our military in battle and reflect our national values," the letter said (see full letter text at http://www.humanrightsfirst.info/pdf/05120...n-cia-mcain.pdf ). "They argue that the US must retain 'flexibility' to act outside accepted standards in dealing with hardened enemies, on the presumption that violent and abusive tactics are the best way to successfully interrogate these prisoners. We reject this view.... We support your amendment to restore clarity and honor to US interrogation policy."

The McCain amendment would reinstate the Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogations as the binding rules for interrogation of anyone in Department of Defense custody and would make clear that U.S. personnel (including the CIA and private contractors) are bound by law to refrain from torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees. The Senate passed the McCain amendment overwhelmingly as part of both the defense appropriations and authorization bills, but neither House version of the defense bills contained the McCain language.

The timing of the letter supporting the McCain amendment is crucial; members of the House-Senate conference committees for both the defense appropriations and defense authorization bills are expected to meet any day. Immediately following the appointment of the defense appropriations committee members, the ranking Democrat on the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, U.S. Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), is expected to make a motion to instruct conferees to accept the McCain language.

"Those who press for the 'flexibility' to abuse prisoners have been willing to forsake both effectiveness and our values as a nation on the misguided belief that abusive treatment will produce vital intelligence. But interrogation in the real world rarely resembles what we see on television or in the movies," the letter concluded. "Serious efforts to extract intelligence from captured prisoners are not the stuff of television drama. This task requires research, native language skills, and developing sustained relationships with the targets of interrogation. Abusive tactics make developing these relationships more difficult; instead, they tend to induce a subject to tell an interrogator whatever he or she thinks the interrogator wants to hear. Once these barriers are built up, opportunities for obtaining reliable information from a target usually all but disappear, and vital information is permanently lost." Signatories to the letter include:

VINCENT CANNISTRARO, former director, CIA Counterterrorism Center

KATHLEEN CHRISTISON, former Analyst, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA

WILLIAM CHRISTISON, former National Intelligence Officer and Director, Office of Regional & Political Analysis, CIA

RICHARD CLARKE, former advisor, National Security Council

RAY CLOSE, former Chief of Station Officer, CIA

VICKI DIVOLL, former Assistant General Counsel, CIA

GRAHAM FULLER, former Vice-Chairman of the National Intelligence Council, CIA

MELVIN A. GOODMAN, former Analyst, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA

PHILIP GIRALDI, former Case Officer, Directorate of Operations, CIA

MICHAEL GRIMALDI, former Analyst, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA

RALPH M. HOCKLEY, Col. USA (ret), former intelligence officer

ARTHUR S. HULNICK, former intelligence officer, US Air Force, former CIA

LARRY C. JOHNSON, former Analyst, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA

EDWARD R. M. KANE, former Chief of Station, CIA

CAMERON LA CLAIR, former Executive Officer of Area Division, CIA

W. PATRICK LANG, Col. USA (ret), Chief of DIA Middle East Division, Director Defense Humint (Human Intelligence) Services

LYNNE A. LARKIN, former Case Officer, Directorate of Operations, CIA

DAVID MACMICHAEL, former National Intelligence Council officer, CIA

TOM MAERTENS, former analyst, Intelligence and Research, Department of State

EUGENE A. MANNING, former Analyst, Office of National Estimates, Directorate of Intelligence, and Counterintelligence Center, CIA

JAMES MARCINKOWSKI, former Case Officer, Directorate of Operations, CIA

JOHN E. MARSH, former Case Officer, Directorate of Operations, CIA

RICHARD MCDERMOTT, former Army Counterintelligence Special Agent

RAY MCGOVERN, former Analyst, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA

DAVID RUPP, former Case Officer, Directorate of Operations, CIA

GARETH A. SHELLMAN, former intelligence analyst, U.S. Army Security Agency

JOHN P. SONTAG, former intelligence analyst, CIA and Department of State

LEWIS R. SORLEY, former Director, National Intelligence Emergency Support Office, CIA

STANSFIELD TURNER, former Director of Central Intelligence

ROBERT DAVID STEELE VIVAS, former clandestine officer, CIA

AMB. (RET) PHILIP C. WILCOX, JR., former Ambassador at Large for Counter Terrorism at Department of State

AUSTIN YAMADA, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Combating Terrorism

http://www.usnewswire.com/

Poll: Katrina Aftershock Equals Preparedness Paralysis

12/9/2005 1:14:00 PM


Contact: Sarah Howe of the Council for Excellence in Government, 202-530-3270, showe@excelgov.org

WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 /U.S. Newswire/ -- In the wake of the worst natural disaster to hit the United States in recent times, the public shows little indication that it is better prepared for an emergency today than it was before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast.

That is the key finding of a new poll released today by the Council for Excellence in Government and the American Red Cross. The survey-conducted by bipartisan pollsters Peter Hart and Bill McInturff -shows that a plurality of Americans (38 percent) were not motivated at all by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to prepare for an emergency. Only 12 percent say they've done a great deal to prepare for a natural disaster, terrorist attack or other major emergency.

The percentage of Americans who said they hadn't prepared because they didn't know what to do actually increased by nine percentage points after Katrina. Despite the televised pleas of family members separated by Katrina, most Americans still have no plan on how to communicate with family members during or after a disaster. Just 36 percent report that they have prepared a communications plan to contact loved ones in an emergency if they get separated. Only one-quarter have established a specific meeting place in the event that they or their family are evacuated or cannot return home. Only one in three have stored extra food or bottled water for emergencies. And only one in ten have stocked up on first aid kits or emergency supplies since Katrina.

More than half of Americans say that one reason they have not done more to prepare is because they do not think another disaster is likely to happen to them.

"It is surprising that people across the country were moved to open their hearts and wallets to help the victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita," said Patricia McGinnis, president and CEO of the Council for Excellence in Government when releasing the report. "But they were not moved to prepare themselves and their families for a natural disaster, terrorist attack or other major emergency. We're worried about our leaders being better prepared next time. What about us?"

The poll, which was originally conducted before and during Hurricane Katrina (Aug. 26-31) and then replicated two months later (Oct. 26-30), provides a unique freeze-frame of public attitudes before and then after the flood waters and headlines receded. Other findings include:

-- More than half of Southerners say that the hurricanes gave them motivation to prepare for a disaster. But just 35 percent of people in the West, 31 percent of people in the East and only 21 percent of Midwesterners have been motivated to prepare.

-- Only 18 percent of Americans are familiar with their city or town's emergency plan. Even fewer (16 percent) are aware of their state's plan. Knowledge of workplace plans (45 percent) and local schools (28 percent) is better, but not where we need to be.

-- The percentage of Americans who have actually prepared a disaster supply kit has not increased since the hurricanes (43 percent in October v. 42 percent in August).

-- When asked about emergency alert systems within their community, the public prefers old-fashioned technologies. Fully three-quarters (76 percent) think that a siren system would be a good investment for their communities. A majority also expresses interest in receiving alerts in case of an emergency through a landline telephone (59 percent), followed by cell phones (43 percent), email (39 percent), and cell phone text messages (33 percent).

"We are our own best first responders, and it is up to each of us to create a family communication plan, put together emergency supplies and practice evacuation plans," McGinnis added. "This report makes clear that we are not as nearly prepared as we should be."

The poll -- conducted by Peter Hart Research and Public Opinion Strategies -- comprised two samples: the first among 1008 randomly selected adults in the United States, conducted from August 28 to 31, 2005, the days immediately before and after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast but before the full devastation in New Orleans was widely known; the second among 1000 randomly selected adults in the United States conducted from Oct. 26 to 30, 2005. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.2 percent.

http://www.usnewswire.com/

Yahoo gobbles up Del.icio.us CNET News.com, United States
Yahoo, the world's largest Internet media site, has acquired Del.icio.us, a popular Web site that helps users share links to their favorite sites. Joshua Schachter, the founder of Del.icio.us, confirmed a posting on the New York-based start-up's site that the company had been acquired by Yahoo. A Yahoo representative confirmed that the agreement to buy Del.icio.us had closed on Friday. Neither party disclosed financial terms. "We are joining forces to build my vision of creating a way for people to remember things together," Schachter told Reuters in a phone interview. "It is a shared-memory site." Del.icio.us provides a simple way for hundreds of thousands of Web users to share and categorize their favorite Web page bookmarks as Web pages. It is considered one of the leading examples of the "Web 2.0" phenomenon, which refers to a new generation of collaborative sites that have grown up on the Web in recent years that depend on user-contributed information. The buyout of Del.icio.us marks the second major acquisition by Yahoo of a leading "social networking" site. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo acquired popular photo-sharing site Flickr earlier in 2005. Del.icio.us has only nine employees. Venture backers include Union Square Capital, Amazon.com and BV Capital, among others. Some 300,000 users have shared more than 10 million of their favorite links to Web sites, Schachter said. As a sideline to his day job at New York investment bank Morgan Stanley, the Web developer has been responsible for creating two cult crazes on the Internet. Schachter was co-developer of Memepool, a kind of daily diary of links to interesting Web sites that has been running since 1998. He graduated from Carnegie Mellon with an electrical engineering degree in 1996, according to his personal site. Schachter plans to move to Sunnyvale to join Yahoo's search products group, the same division where Flickr is based.
Yahoo acquires shared bookmark site Del.icio.us Reuters
Tag It: Acqusition, Yahoo Acquires del.icio.us Search Engine Watch
Yahoo gobbles up del.icio.us Sydney Morning Herald (subscription)
Reuters - ZDNet - all 23 related »

Midway Accident Spotlights Short Runways ABC News
A worker surveys the scene of a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 as it rest at the intersection of Central Ave. and 55th St. Friday, Dec. 9, 2005 in Chicago. The jetliner made a hard landing in heavy snow and slid off the runway at Midway Airport Thursday, crashing through a boundary fence and out into the street hitting one car and pinning another beneath it. A child in one of the vehicles was killed.
Crashed Jet Surrounded by Homes, Questions Los Angeles Times
Midway Accident Spotlights Short Runways Guardian Unlimited
MSNBC - Monterey County Herald - Independent - Middle East North Africa Financial Network - all 1,614 related »

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c...MNG75G4IM51.DTL

Ex-neocon hawk Paul Wolfowitz now touts peace
World Bank chief tries to distance himself from Bush
Dana Milbank, Washington Post

Thursday, December 8, 2005


Washington -- On another day when the Iraq war was tearing Washington apart, a leading architect of that war, Paul Wolfowitz, was donning sheep's clothing over at the National Press Club.

The former deputy defense secretary, now president of the World Bank, gave a 30-minute speech Wednesday about the virtues of peace, the ills of poverty and the benefits of multilateralism -- without a mention of Iraq.

"One of the things that's fun about this job is (that) development is a unifying mission and you can get a lot of people together across a table to put their political differences aside," said the man President Bush calls "Wolfie."

Only when questioners pressed him about Iraq would Wolfowitz address the subject. "How do you account for the intelligence failures regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?" he was asked.

"Well," he said after a long pause, "I don't have to."

Being Wolfie means not having to say you're sorry. Nearly three years ago, he offered some of the most memorable forecasts about Iraq: that it was "wildly off the mark" to think hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed to pacify a postwar Iraq; that the Iraqis "are going to welcome us as liberators"; and that "it is just wrong" to assume that the United States would have to fund the Iraq war.

Wolfowitz was 0-for-3 on those, but since taking the World Bank job six months ago he has found a second act. He has toured sub-Saharan Africa, danced with the natives in a poor Indian village, badgered the United States to make firmer foreign aid commitments and cuddled up to the likes of Bono and George Clooney.

But Iraq haunts him still. Outside the National Press Building Wednesday, a half-dozen demonstrators greeted Wolfowitz with a sign saying, "Wolfowitz Is a Weapon of Mass Destruction." Upstairs, Wolfowitz entered the ballroom to scattered applause from a respectable, but not capacity, crowd. Wolfowitz lunched on filet mignon -- and Press Club president Richard Dunham of Business Week tried to goad him into a red-meat speech.

"His admirers have called him the intellectual high priest of the neoconservatives," Dunham said in his introduction. "I can't repeat some of the things his critics have called him."

Wolfowitz pursed his lips and sipped his coffee as Dunham recalled how Wolfowitz "drew fire from Democrats for predicting that U.S. forces would be welcomed as liberators." By the time Dunham got to Wolfowitz's student deferment during Vietnam, Wolfowitz was shaking his head.

Wolfowitz, hoarse with a case of laryngitis, said he had received some lavish introductions before, and "this isn't that kind of introduction." He then read a prepared text that sounded more Mother Teresa than Vice President Dick Cheney.

He noted that there are "as many orphans from AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa as there are children east of the Mississippi." He recalled his visit to "a poor village just outside of Ouagadougou." He lamented the "1.2 billion people worldwide living on less than a dollar a day." And he urged people to remember the World Bank's lofty mission, "helping free the world of poverty."

The crowd was silent through this talk, except for the occasional clink of teaspoon in coffee cup. Dunham, reading questions submitted by the audience, softened up Wolfowitz with some queries allowing him to establish his independence.

"I work for 184 countries; I don't work for the Bush administration," Wolfowitz said. He even asserted that Bush's foreign aid spending is not "adequate."

With 10 minutes to go, Dunham started the Iraq questions. Wolfowitz insisted that, "believe it or not," his Iraq role has not interfered with his work at the World Bank.

Asked about the weapons in Iraq, Wolfowitz explained that this wasn't his problem. "And it's not just because I don't work for the U.S. government any more," he said. "In my old job I didn't have to. I was like everyone else outside the intelligence community. ... We relied on the intelligence community for those judgments, so the question is, in a way, how do they account for it."

It was an unexpected response from a man who, as the Pentagon's No. 2, sat atop 80 percent of the nation's intelligence budget and an intelligence agency that made particularly aggressive claims about Iraq's weapons. But Wolfowitz said the military shared his fear that weapons of mass destruction could be used against U.S. troops.

Wolfowitz was asked about the common criticism that more troops should have been used to pacify Iraq. "Um," he said after a long pause, then paused again before concluding, "I personally don't think more troops would have answered the problem."

Dunham took the precaution of presenting Wolfowitz with the customary Press Club mug and certificate "before we ask the final question," and for good reason: It tied the Nuremburg war trials to Wolfowitz and the Iraq war.

Wolfowitz was unbowed. "I still think that what has been done for the United States and the world is something important," he said. Praising the sacrifices of U.S. and allied troops, he added that Iraq will become a place of "tolerance and freedom" in the Muslim world. "I think the whole world, frankly, should be enormously grateful."

Page A - 9

Cato Daily Dispatch for December 9, 2005

Dividends and Capital Gains Tax Cuts Passed
Republicans Push for Renewing the PATRIOT Act
Government Spending after Hurricane Katrina


Dividends and Capital Gains Tax Cuts Passed

"The House approved [Thursday] $56 billion in tax cuts that would keep alive the deep reductions in the tax rates on dividends and capital gains passed in 2003, but the measure is certain to be challenged by senators who have so far balked at the tax cuts for investors," reports The Washington Post. "The bill passed largely along party lines, 234 to 197, after a rancorous partisan debate. The tax measure's cost would more than offset the savings in a tough budget approved by the House last month."

In "Dividend Taxation: U.S. Has the Second Highest Rate," Chris Edwards, Cato's director of tax policy studies, writes: "Dividend tax cuts would boost the stock market, lessen the tax code bias against savings, and reduce incentives for firms to take on too much debt and to excessively retain earnings. Nearly all major nations allow full or partial relief of dividend double taxation, and thus have lower top dividend tax rates than the United States."

Edwards continues: "High dividend tax rates add to the income tax code's general bias against savings and investment. That bias reduces U.S. economic growth and is becoming increasingly out-of-step with the tax structures of other nations. Indeed, there is a global trend toward lower statutory tax rates on all forms of capital income, including corporate income taxes and individual taxes on dividends and capital gains. [T]he United States has the fourth highest corporate tax rate in the world. Or consider that numerous countries have tax rates of zero percent on individual capital gains, including Hong Kong, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Taiwan. Zero is much lower than the 20 percent U.S. rate on capital gains."


Republicans Push for Renewing the PATRIOT Act

"Republican legislators in the House and Senate reached a tentative agreement [Thursday] to reauthorize the USA PATRIOT Act before the surveillance law expires at the end of this month," according to The Boston Globe.

"Under the agreement, most parts of the PATRIOT Act would be made permanent, while several of its more disputed provisions would expire at the end of 2009 if members of Congress decided not to authorize them again. The Bush administration and House Republicans had been pushing to extend those powers for 10 years, but settled for the Senate's preference for shorter terms."

In "Why Reward Failure?," Timothy Lynch, director of Cato's Project on Criminal Justice, questions the FBI's performance record when using the PATRIOT Act: "In June, the inspector general release[d] his findings regarding the FBI's inability to detect and disrupt the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The inspector's ultimate conclusion -- that the attacks represented a 'significant failure' by the FBI -- surprised no one. [In October], a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit revealed that the [FBI] is presently investigating hundreds of potential violations relating to its use of secret surveillance operations. Hundreds? Had this lawsuit not been filed, it is highly unlikely that the FBI would have ever brought these problems to the attention of Congress or the press."


Government Spending after Hurricane Katrina

"A senator leading an investigation into the government's response to Hurricane Katrina questioned whether requests after the storm by New Orleans officials for golf carts, air conditioners and travel aid were necessary," the Associated Press reports.

"'Are these typical of the requests that you would expect to get from state and local governments to FEMA in the aftermath of a disaster?' asked [Senator Susan] Collins, R-ME. Documents released Thursday by Republican aides to a Senate committee show that New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's administration also asked for hundreds of laptop computers, patrol cars, handcuffs and guns for police."

In "Congress Should Make Some Sacrifices, Too," Stephen Slivinski, director of Cato's budget studies, writes: "There's no reason why money spent on natural-disaster relief should not compete with spending in other areas of government. If the relief spending is truly more necessary than other programs in the budget, then those less essential programs should be pared back to make room for it. Congress does not seem concerned about how the federal government (read: taxpayers) is going to pay for any of this. Yet now is exactly the time to figure that out. Charity does require sacrifice, even from big-spending politicians using other people's money for charitable purposes."


Greg Garner, editor, ggarner@cato.org

Supreme Court Hears Arguments in Military Recruiting Case
On Tuesday, Dec. 6, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Rumsfield v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights (FAIR), which challenges the Solomon Amendment, a federal law withholding federal funding from colleges and universities that protest the military's "don't ask-don't tell" policy by banning military recruiters from campus. The Cato Institute filed a friend-of-the-Court brief in the case arguing that the Solomon Amendment is unconstitutional as applied against those private law schools that brought the suit against the Department of Defense.

Cato's vice president for legal affairs Roger Pilon said: "Relying on earlier Court cases upholding the right of private parade organizers to exclude homosexual marchers from their St. Patrick's Day parade and the right of the Boy Scouts to exclude homosexual Scout leaders, the Cato brief argues that the right of 'expressive association,' guaranteed by the First Amendment, permits the law schools not only to advocate their cause but to select the best means for doing so. Here, the law schools are fighting discrimination with discrimination, barring military recruiters from using school property to solicit students in a discriminatory fashion. Like the Scouts, the law schools' educational strategy teaches 'by example.'"

U.S. Farm Programs Violate International Obligations
United States farm subsidy programs are in direct violation of its agreement with other members of the World Trade Organization (WTO), according to a new study released today. A recent WTO ruling against U.S. cotton subsidies has thrown a spotlight on this conflict between U.S. farm programs and its international obligations, and numerous other U.S. commodities besides cotton are vulnerable to WTO challenge.

In "Boxed In: Conflicts between U.S. Farm Policies and WTO Obligations," Daniel A. Sumner, the director of the University of California Agricultural Issues Center and Brazil's economic consultant in the WTO cotton case, argues that in order for America to conform with its WTO obligations, a major reform of farm subsidy policy needs to implemented. Sumner's research shows that that the U.S.'s total trade-distorting subsidies far exceed and will continue to exceed the WTO cap. Based on his calculations, the farm programs totaled $29.1 billion in 2000, $25.3 billion in 2001 and are projected to total $26.3 billion in 2006. These subsidies greatly surpass the $19.1 billion limit set by the WTO.

Avoiding Medicare's Pharmaceutical Trap
The Medicare drug benefit has set a dangerous trap, warns a new Cato Institute study. The enormous tax burden required to fund the drug benefit will forever pressure Washington to impose price controls on prescription drugs. The only way to avoid that trap is to repeal the program.

In "Avoiding Medicare's Pharmaceutical Trap," Cato senior fellow Doug Bandow argues that price controls imposed on pharmaceuticals can be detrimental. "Existing federal price controls have already cost Americans an estimated 140 million life-years," Bandow writes. Placing a government cap on drug prices will reduce incentives to invest in pharmaceutical research and development (R&D), leading to fewer new therapies and lower-quality medical care. Bandow argues, "Applying these controls to Medicare purchasing would eliminate approximately 40 percent of all future pharmaceutical R&D and cost another 277 million life-years." According to Bandow, "That's like saying that everyone currently under age 65 should die one year sooner so seniors can save some money on their drug bills."

Catching Up to Global Tax Reforms
President Bush's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform has proposed two plans to modernize the tax system. Both plans would take steps to simplify the tax code and reduce taxes on savings and investment. But in a new Tax and Budget Bulletin, Cato director of tax policy Chris Edwards argues that the plans do not include large enough cuts to top individual or corporate tax rates.

Many countries have cut their income tax rates in recent years to attract foreign investment and promote growth. The reforms in Eastern Europe have been particularly dramatic, with many countries adopting flat-rate taxes for individuals. Countries in Europe and elsewhere have also made large cuts to corporate tax rates.

Edwards argues that today's global economy requires policymakers to respond to foreign reforms and cut U.S. income tax rates. If such reforms were enacted, it would help America regain its competitive edge and boost investment, wages, and growth.

Snake Oil: Eliminating the Strategic Petroleum Reserve
Thirty years ago, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) was established to guard against disruptions in the nation's oil supply. However, according to a new study by the Cato Institute, there is little evidence to suggest that the SPR is necessary in protecting the U.S. against oil supply emergencies.

In the Policy Analysis "The Case against the Strategic Petroleum Reserve," Cato senior fellows Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren argue that the SPR has become costly and counterproductive, claiming that so far the costs of the reserve have greatly exceeded the benefits of the program and will almost certainly continue to do so in the future.

Taylor and Van Doren's research shows that as of 2004, the price of the SPR is between $42-51 billion, or roughly $64.5-79.6 per barrel of oil. Compared to the annual average world cost of oil, "the cost of the oil stockpiled in the SPR is greater than the highest annual average cost of oil ever encountered in world markets." In other words, the SPR oil is more expensive. Public managers also have a poor track record when it comes to the deployment of SPR oil, the authors say. The government has proven an incompetent manager of the inventory and is unlikely to improve on past performance.

Cato Scholar Offers a Blueprint for Federal Budget Reform

The federal government is running huge budget deficits, spending too much, and heading toward a financial crisis. Federal spending has soared under President George W. Bush, and the costs of programs for the elderly are set to balloon in coming years.

In a new book, Downsizing the Federal Government, Cato Institute budget expert Chris Edwards provides policymakers with solutions to the growing federal budget mess. Edwards identifies more than 100 federal programs that should be terminated, transferred to the states, or privatized in order to balance the budget and save hundreds of billions of dollars.

Former Secretary of State George P. Shultz offered this about Edwards' latest work: "Spending is criticized in the aggregate by people who go wild on the particulars. Can federal spending be contained? This book gives you a detailed plan for doing just that. Please, members of Congress, read this book and act accordingly."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

December 10, 2005
Lieberman's Iraq Stance Brings Widening Split With His Party
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ
and WILLIAM YARDLEY
WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 - Five years after running as the vice-presidential nominee on the Democratic ticket and a year after his own presidential bid, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut has become an increasingly unwelcome figure within his party, with some Democrats seeing him more as a wayward son than a favorite son.

In the last few days, the senator has riled Democratic activists and politicians here and in his home state with his vigorous defense of President Bush's handling of the Iraq war at a time some Democrats are pressuring the administration to begin a withdrawal.

Mr. Lieberman particularly infuriated his colleagues when he pointed out at a conference here that President Bush would be commander in chief for three more years and said that "it's time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that."

"We undermine the president's credibility at our nation's peril," Mr. Lieberman said.

Much of the open criticism has been from liberal groups and House members. But his comments have also rankled Democrats in the Senate. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the minority leader, phoned Mr. Lieberman this week to express concerns with his views, Mr. Reid's aide said.

"Senator Reid has a lot of respect for Senator Lieberman," said Jim Manley, a Reid spokesman. "But he feels that Senator Lieberman's position on Iraq is at odds with many Americans."

An aide to another leading Democratic senator who insisted on anonymity said the feelings toward Mr. Lieberman could be summed up as, "The American people want to hold George Bush accountable for the failed policy in Iraq, and Senator Lieberman doesn't."

Mr. Lieberman, who remains immensely popular in his home state, is aware of the hornet's nest he has stirred.

"Some Democrats said I was being a traitor," he said in an interview on Friday, adding that he was not surprised by the reaction, "given the depth of feeling about the war."

Although some Democrats are upset with Mr. Lieberman, Republicans are embracing him, with President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld singling him out, and his support for the war, for praise in speeches this week.

"He is entirely correct," Mr. Cheney said on Tuesday at Fort Drum, N.Y. "On this, both Republicans and Democrats should be able to agree. The only way the terrorists can win is if we lose our nerve and abandon our mission."

Concerns about Mr. Lieberman's coziness with the administration grew this week when he had breakfast with Mr. Rumsfeld at the Pentagon. Later, rumors spread that Mr. Bush was considering asking Mr. Lieberman to join the administration to succeed Mr. Rumsfeld next year as defense secretary.

"It's a total fantasy," Mr. Lieberman said. "There's just no truth to it."

In the interview on Friday, he said the two sides were making too much of his comments, and he argued that the overreactions reflected how politically polarized the debate over the war had become.

Mr. Lieberman noted that his positions on Iraq had not changed over the years, dating from 1991, when he supported the first Persian Gulf war. In 1998, he and Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, proposed the Iraq Liberation Act, which made the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein official American policy.

"The positive and negative reactions may have less to do with the substance of what I said than with the fact that a Democrat is saying it," Mr. Lieberman said. "It reflects the terribly divisive state of our politics."

He has always been something of a maverick in his party. He was the first prominent Democrat to chastise President Bill Clinton openly for his affair with Monica S. Lewinsky.

More recently, Mr. Lieberman, a centrist, angered Democratic activists by expressing a willingness to work with President Bush to overhaul Social Security, an effort that ultimately stalled in Congress.

Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House minority leader, said the breach was deep.

"I completely disagree with Mr. Lieberman," Ms. Pelosi said at a news conference. "I believe that we have a responsibility to speak out if we think that the course of action that our country is on is not making the American people safer."

The question in some quarters now is whether the moderate brand of politics practiced by Mr. Lieberman, who is up for re-election next year, will hurt him when the electorate is so divided, particularly over some of the president's policies.

This week, for example, former Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. criticized his continued support of the Iraq war and said that if no candidate challenged the senator on it next year, he would consider running.

In 1988, Mr. Lieberman, who was attorney general of Connecticut, narrowly defeated Mr. Weicker, a Republican senator. Two years later, Mr. Weicker ran for governor as an independent and won. He served one term before retiring in 1995.

Mr. Weicker remains something of a fixture in state politics, well known for his independent streak. In 1999, Reform Party supporters encouraged him to run for president in 2000, but he ultimately decided against that.

Mr. Lieberman faces trouble in other quarters in his home state. Although few elected Democrats would criticize him publicly, several Democratic activists promised retaliation at the polls.

James H. Dean, brother of Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, lives in Connecticut and heads Democracy for America, a group that is gathering signatures on the Internet for a letter that criticizes the senator.

An aide to James Dean said he and others from the group would deliver the letter to Mr. Lieberman's office in Hartford on Tuesday. The aide said the letter had 30,000 signatures.

Other Democratic activists warned that they might try to organize a primary challenge against Mr. Lieberman, specifically because of his position on the war.

Tom Matzzie, the Washington director for MoveOn.org, a liberal advocacy group with 10,000 members in Connecticut, said it would consider a challenge if the right candidate came along.

"It's like a betrayal," Mr. Matzzie said of Mr. Lieberman's stand on the war. "He is cheering the Bush Iraq policy at a time when Republicans are running away from the president."

But for all the criticism that Mr. Lieberman faces, few people say they believe that he is vulnerable to a challenge.

For his part, Mr. Lieberman said he would run hard on his record.

"I'm not taking anything for granted," he said. "I know there are a lot of people in the party who disagree with me about the war."



Copyright 2005The New York Times Company Home Privacy Policy Search Corrections XML Help Contact Us Work for Us Site Map Back to Top

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

December 11, 2005
Politics, Iraqi Style: Slick Ads, Text Messaging and Gunfire
By ROBERT F. WORTH
and EDWARD WONG
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 10 - After putting up 100,000 posters across Iraq to promote his political party, Hamid Kifai discovered this week that they had all been torn down, even the ones on the front of his own campaign headquarters in the south.

"They have made it impossible for us to compete," said Mr. Kifai, a stocky, talkative Shiite candidate who spent his entire $50,000 war chest on the posters and has nothing left. "This is not democracy."

It is democracy, but in a distinctly Iraqi style. This country is in the final days of a campaign that is at once more ruthless and more sophisticated than anything yet seen here.

Slick television spots run throughout the day, showing candidates who soberly promise to defeat terrorism and revive the economy. Cellphone users routinely get unexpected text messages advertising one candidate or another. Thousands of posters decorate the capital's gray blast walls, including one that shows a split face - half Saddam Hussein, half Ayad Allawi - in a blunt effort to smear Mr. Allawi, the former prime minister, and his secular coalition.

"Who does this man remind you of?" the poster asks.

In a sense, it is the first full-scale political contest here since the fall of Saddam Hussein. The Sunni Arabs, who largely boycotted last January's election, are now campaigning fiercely, and voter turnout is expected to be considerably higher as a result. All told, 226 political groups will compete in the elections, representing more than 7,000 candidates.

The winners will form Iraq's first full-term government since the war began, and face the task of unifying an increasingly fractious and violent nation. Any American plan to reduce troop levels will depend on the success of that effort.

So far, the campaign has been as turbulent as any endeavor in Iraq. In the past two weeks, 11 people associated with Mr. Allawi's group have been killed, including one of its leading candidates in southern Iraq. On Tuesday, gunmen stormed five northern offices belonging to the Kurdistan Islamic Union, killing two party members and wounding 10. It is often hard to distinguish political killings from the terrorism that has become a part of daily life here, but in both cases, the parties have accused rivals of carrying out the attacks.

"I think these negative tactics will backfire," said Azzam Alwash, an ebullient 47-year-old civil engineer who is co-director of the campaign for Mr. Allawi's coalition. Like almost all of his counterparts in these elections, he has no prior experience in the field, though he oversees 80 campaign workers with a budget of $2.5 million. He toils in a "war room" in Mr. Allawi's Baghdad headquarters, where staff members work 18-hour days and coordinate satellite offices in all of Iraq's provinces.

"Our posters got pulled down too, so we decided the best way was with TV, radios and newspapers," Mr. Alwash said. Like many other groups, Mr. Allawi's has its own newspaper and enough money to pay for plenty of television and radio time. About 6 of the nearly 20 Iraqi television stations - and about half of the 200 Iraqi newspapers - are owned by parties. Rates for political ads on the larger Baghdad stations run as high as $3,000 per minute.

At his own desk, Mr. Alwash clicked on an Internet link and a song began to play: a campaign tune recorded last month by Elham al-Madfai, one of Iraq's best-known singers. The words, written in 1941, are about a doctor who can solve all the patient's problems. Every time the word doctor comes up in the song, the accompanying video shows a smiling Mr. Allawi.

"We're playing it all over our radio stations," Mr. Alwash said.

Like Mr. Kifai, Mr. Alwash says he believes the culprit in the poster-tearing - and other incidents involving underhanded tactics - is the United Iraqi Alliance, a religious Shiite group whose main parties now control the government. "We have videos and photographs of police defacing our posters and putting up posters for 555," Mr. Alwash said, referring to the Shiite alliance by its ballot number.

Redha Jowad Taki, a spokesman for the Shiite coalition, said it condemned the removal of posters. Some of its own had also been torn down, he said, and four of its campaign volunteers had been killed while putting up posters.

The campaign is being conducted with few real rules. Technically, the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq is in charge, but it has little money to investigate the more than 80 violations that have been reported in the last month, said Safwat Rashid Sidqi, a commissioner. Last year, the commission fined the Shiite alliance about $1,500 for campaigning after the 48-hour cutoff point before the vote, a pittance for a party with deep pockets.

Money has become a campaign issue too, though there are no limits on spending or contributions, and no public funding. Critics of Mr. Allawi, a White House favorite, accuse him of taking American government money, while enemies of the Shiite alliance say that group gets much of its financing from Iran. Both groups deny the charges, though the sources of their large war chests remain mysterious.

One of the more promising aspects of the election is the participation by Sunni Arabs, who largely boycotted the vote to elect the 275-member National Assembly last January. Many are risking their lives by campaigning in areas where the Sunni-led insurgency is at its worst.

Hatem Mukhlis, the leader of the Assembly of Patriots, a secular Sunni party, has been traveling three or four times a week from Baghdad to Salahuddin Province, an insurgent stronghold whose capital is Tikrit, Mr. Hussein's hometown.

"My father upgraded Tikrit with money and schools," said Mr. Mukhlis, a doctor who lived in the United States for 20 years and met with President Bush at the White House before the war. "They remember my father for the services he provided the people."

Mr. Mukhlis said he hoped the people of Salahuddin would view him in the same light as his father, a respected military officer. He said he has opened up a printing press in Tikrit, and started two mobile health clinics that roam the province in white vans.

Like many other candidates, he has also set up a Web site, www.almalaf.net, to get out his message. The home page shows a photo of Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the Shiite prime minister, next to the bruised back of a male detainee, alluding to the Sunni Arabs' fears that government-sponsored militias are abducting, torturing and killing Sunnis.

The headline on the site talks about "secret documents" linking Mr. Jaafari to incidents of torture.

The Web site has other draws. At the bottom of the home page, Mr. Mukhlis has posted photos of Ms. Egypt and Ms. Puerto Rico in bikinis.

Several American groups are teaching Iraqi politicians the basics of campaigning and helping them polish their messages. Chief among them are the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute, both democracy-promotion groups with financing from the American government and ties to the two major American parties. They run workshops, help coordinate media campaigns and give lessons in organizing volunteers and conducting polls.

Still, these campaigns could never be mistaken for American ones. The sheer number of political groups and competing messages make it hard for Iraqis to distinguish one party from another. There are few debates or substantive discussions of the issues in this campaign, which is still mostly rooted in personalities and appeals to ethnic or sectarian loyalties.

Because of the possibility of drawing attacks by insurgents or rivals, political rallies and barnstorming speeches are virtually unheard of. Mosques are about the only accessible public spaces here, a fact that has remained a serious obstacle for the more secular parties. Some secular candidates, including Mr. Allawi, have accused the Shiite alliance of using religious imagery in their posters to suggest that voting for their own groups is a religious duty.

Especially in southern Iraq, the parched Shiite heartland, the power of the religious hierarchy is often impossible to separate from politics.

One local group, the Islamic Coalition, includes six parties that are loyal to ayatollahs from the Shiite holy city of Karbala. In the past two weeks, the coalition's posters have popped up everywhere there. Some carry images of the group's two main spiritual leaders, Ayatollah Sadiq Shirazi, who lives in the Iranian holy city of Qum, and the Ayatollah Hadi Muderassi, of Karbala.

Clerics who follow these ayatollahs tell their congregations to vote for the coalition. Ayatollah Shirazi's organization finances a local university, satellite channel and radio station, and all those outlets have given exposure to the coalition's candidates.

One option for more secular candidates is forming alliances with tribal leaders, who often have the clout to deliver a substantial number of votes.

On Thursday afternoon, Sheik Abdul Karim Mahoud al-Muhammadawi, the leader of a small party, received several dozen such leaders in the courtyard of a house in eastern Baghdad. For hours, the men sat in two long rows, sipping tea and asking Sheik Muhammadawi for his views on various topics. He responded at length.

Afterward, Ali Feisal al-Lami, the sheik's campaign manager, explained that some of the men indicated they would urge their followers to vote for the sheik's candidates.

Private networks like these are crucial in Iraq's hierarchical social structure, Mr. Lami said. Similar networks exist among devotees of Iraq's leading Shiite ayatollahs, he added. Those networks - formed to evade Mr. Hussein's informants - might help the ayatollahs shepherd voters to the more religious parties. But the networks could also prevent religious parties from falsely claiming the support of the ayatollahs if they did not really have it, he added.

"They have their campaign, we have a countercampaign," Mr. Lami said. "People count on secret networks more than public ones."

Kidnapped Egyptian Found Dead

TIKRIT, Iraq, Dec. 10 (Reuters) - An Egyptian man reported kidnapped here on Friday has been found shot to death, the Iraqi police said Saturday.

Lt. Col. Muthana Ibrahim of the police said the man, a translator at an American military base here, was found near a village north of the city with identity papers in his pocket. He had been seized from his house.

He was the eighth foreigner in Iraq abducted in the last two weeks. On Friday, an American hostage was reported to have been executed but there has been no confirmation of that.


Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi and Khalid al-Ansary contributed reporting for this article.



Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

December 10, 2005
U.S., Under Fire, Eases Its Stance in Climate Talks
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
MONTREAL, Saturday, Dec. 10 - The United States dropped its opposition early Saturday morning to nonbinding talks on addressing global warming after a few words were adjusted in the text of statements that, 24 hours earlier, prompted a top American official to walk out on negotiations.

At the same time, other industrialized nations that have signed on to the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty binding them to curb emissions of greenhouse gases, agreed to start meeting to set new deadlines once the existing pact's terms expire in 2012.

Such is the nature of progress in the 17-years-and-counting effort by the world's nations to act in the face of scientists' conclusions that emissions from burning essential fuels like coal and oil are raising temperatures and could potentially disrupt climate patterns and inundate coasts.

The United States and China, the world's current and projected leaders in greenhouse gas emissions, still refused to agree to mandatory steps to curtail the emissions as the talks drew toward a close early Saturday.

But there was a growing sense that some longstanding barriers, particularly between developed and developing nations, were starting to erode under the weight of evidence that climate was shifting in potentially dangerous ways.

In a sign of its growing isolation on climate issues, the Bush administration had come under sharp criticism for walking out of informal discussions on finding new ways to reduce emissions under the United Nations' 1992 treaty on climate change.

The walkout, by Harlan L. Watson, the chief American negotiator here, came Friday, shortly after midnight, on what was to have been the last day of the talks, during which the administration has been repeatedly assailed by the leaders of other wealthy industrialized nations for refusing to negotiate to advance the goals of that treaty, and in which former President Bill Clinton chided both sides for lack of flexibility.

At a closed session of about 50 delegates, Dr. Watson objected to the proposed title of a statement calling for long-term international cooperation to carry out the 1992 climate treaty, participants said. He then got up from the table and departed.

Environmentalists here called his actions the capstone of two weeks of American efforts to prevent any fresh initiatives from being discussed. "This shows just how willing the U.S. administration is to walk away from a healthy planet and its responsibilities to its own people," said Jennifer Morgan, director of the climate change project at the World Wildlife Fund.

In the end, though, some adjustments of wording - including a shift from "mechanisms" to the softer word "opportunities" in one statement - ended the dispute.

In Washington, Adam Ereli, a State Department spokesman, said the administration was determined to achieve greenhouse-gas reductions not through binding limits but through long-term work to develop cleaner technologies.

"If you want to talk about global consciousness," he said, "I'd say there's one country that is focused on action, that is focused on dialogue, that is focused on cooperation, and that is focused on helping the developing world, and that's the United States."

There were still a few more details involving Russia that were being worked on, but delegates and participants among the 9,000 people in the halls were confident the overall deal would hold.

The amount of progress is still achingly slow, many environmentalist say. The world's major sources of greenhouse emissions - the United States, big developing countries like China and India, and a bloc led by Europe and Japan - remain divided over how to proceed under both the 1992 treaty and the Kyoto Protocol, an addendum that took effect this year.

The original treaty - since ratified by 189 nations, including the United States - has no binding restrictions. The Kyoto pact does impose mandatory limits on industrialized nations, but they do not apply to developing nations, including China and India. The United States and Australia have rejected that pact.

On Friday, countries bound by the Kyoto Protocol were close to agreeing on a plan to negotiate a new set of targets and timetables for cutting emissions after its terms expire.

But under pressure from some countries already having trouble meeting Kyoto targets, the language included no specific year for ending talks on next steps, instead indicating that parties would "aim to complete" work "as soon as possible."

Early in the afternoon, Mr. Clinton gave a hastily arranged speech to the thousands of delegates in which he sketched a route around the impasse that included gentle rebukes of those seeking concrete targets and also of the Bush administration.

Mr. Clinton said that, given the impasse over global targets for emissions, countries might do better to consider specific, smaller initiatives to advance and disseminate technologies that could greatly reduce emissions in both rich and poor countries.

"If you can't agree on a target, agree on a set of projects so everyone has something to do when they get up in the morning," he said.

In a comment clearly directed at the Bush administration, he declared to waves of applause that just as the United States had taken a precautionary approach in its fight against terrorism, "there is no more important place in the world to apply the principle of precaution than the area of climate change."

"I think it's crazy for us to play games with our children's future," Mr. Clinton said. "We know what's happening to the climate, we have a highly predictable set of consequences if we continue to pour greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and we know we have an alternative that will lead us to greater prosperity."

The Montreal talks have yielded significant new signs that developing countries are beginning to consider ways to promote economic growth without increasing emissions.

Papua New Guinea, Costa Rica and Brazil all proposed ways to add incentives for reducing destruction of rain forests to the climate agreements. China agreed to additional discussions under both the 1992 and Kyoto treaties about ways to involve big developing countries in projects that could curb the heat-trapping pollution - as long as they did not involve binding limits.

But even if new talks under the Kyoto treaty lead to new targets for industrial nations, some scientists said Friday that they would not be enough to stem harmful warming without broader actions by the biggest and fastest-growing polluters.

In a statement from London, Lord Martin Rees, the new president of Britain's Royal Society, an independent national scientific academy, said the disputes among wealthy nations over how to reduce emissions were distracting them from carrying out steps to make the cuts.

Environmental campaigners insisted that the Kyoto process would eventually force other countries, particularly the United States, to act. These advocates predicted a growing market for "cap and trade" credits, in which businesses acquire credits by reducing their greenhouse gas emissions below a required level, then sell those credits to other businesses or even other countries, which can then increase their output of emissions above the target level.



Copyright 2005The New York Times

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

December 10, 2005
Live Tracking of Mobile Phones Prompts Court Fights on Privacy
By MATT RICHTEL
Most Americans carry cellphones, but many may not know that government agencies can track their movements through the signals emanating from the handset.

In recent years, law enforcement officials have turned to cellular technology as a tool for easily and secretly monitoring the movements of suspects as they occur. But this kind of surveillance - which investigators have been able to conduct with easily obtained court orders - has now come under tougher legal scrutiny.

In the last four months, three federal judges have denied prosecutors the right to get cellphone tracking information from wireless companies without first showing "probable cause" to believe that a crime has been or is being committed. That is the same standard applied to requests for search warrants.

The rulings, issued by magistrate judges in New York, Texas and Maryland, underscore the growing debate over privacy rights and government surveillance in the digital age.

With mobile phones becoming as prevalent as conventional phones (there are 195 million cellular subscribers in this country), wireless companies are starting to exploit the phones' tracking abilities. For example, companies are marketing services that turn phones into even more precise global positioning devices for driving or allowing parents to track the whereabouts of their children through the handsets.

Not surprisingly, law enforcement agencies want to exploit this technology, too - which means more courts are bound to wrestle with what legal standard applies when government agents ask to conduct such surveillance.

Cellular operators like Verizon Wireless and Cingular Wireless know, within about 300 yards, the location of their subscribers whenever a phone is turned on. Even if the phone is not in use it is communicating with cellphone tower sites, and the wireless provider keeps track of the phone's position as it travels. The operators have said that they turn over location information when presented with a court order to do so.

The recent rulings by the magistrates, who are appointed by a majority of the federal district judges in a given court, do not bind other courts. But they could significantly curtail access to cell location data if other jurisdictions adopt the same reasoning. (The government's requests in the three cases, with their details, were sealed because they involve investigations still under way.)

"It can have a major negative impact," said Clifford S. Fishman, a former prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney's office and a professor at the Catholic University of America's law school in Washington. "If I'm on an investigation and I need to know where somebody is located who might be committing a crime, or, worse, might have a hostage, real-time knowledge of where this person is could be a matter of life or death."

Prosecutors argue that having such information is crucial to finding suspects, corroborating their whereabouts with witness accounts, or helping build a case for a wiretap on the phone - especially now that technology gives criminals greater tools for evading law enforcement.

The government has routinely used records of cellphone calls and caller locations to show where a suspect was at a particular time, with access to those records obtainable under a lower legal standard. (Wireless operators keep cellphone location records for varying lengths of time, from several months to years.)

But it is unclear how often prosecutors have asked courts for the right to obtain cell-tracking data as a suspect is moving. And the government is not required to report publicly when it makes such requests.

Legal experts say that such live tracking has tended to happen in drug-trafficking cases. In a 2003 Ohio case, for example, federal drug agents used cell tracking data to arrest and convict two men on drug charges.

Mr. Fishman said he believed that the number of requests had become more prevalent in the last two years - and the requests have often been granted with a stroke of a magistrate's pen.

Prosecutors, while acknowledging that they have to get a court order before obtaining real-time cell-site data, argue that the relevant standard is found in a 1994 amendment to the 1986 Stored Communications Act, a law that governs some aspects of cellphone surveillance.

The standard calls for the government to show "specific and articulable facts" that demonstrate that the records sought are "relevant and material to an ongoing investigation" - a standard lower than the probable-cause hurdle.

The magistrate judges, however, ruled that surveillance by cellphone - because it acts like an electronic tracking device that can follow people into homes and other personal spaces - must meet the same high legal standard required to obtain a search warrant to enter private places.

"Permitting surreptitious conversion of a cellphone into a tracking device without probable cause raises serious Fourth Amendment concerns, especially when the phone is monitored in the home or other places where privacy is reasonably expected," wrote Stephen W. Smith, a magistrate in Federal District Court in the Southern District of Texas, in his ruling.

"The distinction between cell site data and information gathered by a tracking device has practically vanished," wrote Judge Smith. He added that when a phone is monitored, the process is usually "unknown to the phone users, who may not even be on the phone."

Prosecutors in the recent cases also unsuccessfully argued that the expanded police powers under the USA Patriot Act could be read as allowing cellphone tracking under a standard lower than probable cause.

As Judge Smith noted in his 31-page opinion, the debate goes beyond a question of legal standard. In fact, the nature of digital communications makes it difficult to distinguish between content that is clearly private and information that is public. When information is communicated on paper, for instance, it is relatively clear that information written on an envelope deserves a different kind of protection than the contents of the letter inside.

But in a digital era, the stream of data that carries a telephone conversation or an e-mail message contains a great deal of information - like when and where the communications originated.

In the digital era, what's on the envelope and what's inside of it, "have absolutely blurred," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a privacy advocacy group.

And that makes it harder for courts to determine whether a certain digital surveillance method invokes Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches.

In the cellular-tracking cases, some legal experts say that the Store Communications Act refers only to records of where a person has been, i.e. historical location data, but does not address live tracking.

Kevin Bankston, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy advocacy group that has filed briefs in the case in the Eastern District of New York, said the law did not speak to that use. James Orenstein, the magistrate in the New York case, reached the same conclusion, as did Judge Smith in Houston and James Bredar, a magistrate judge in the Federal District Court in Maryland.

Orin S. Kerr, a professor at the George Washington School of Law and a former trial attorney in the Justice Department specializing in computer law, said the major problem for prosecutors was Congress did not appear to have directly addressed the question of what standard prosecutors must meet to obtain cell-site information as it occurs.

"There's no easy answer," Mr. Kerr said. "The law is pretty uncertain here."

Absent a Congressional directive, he said, it is reasonable for magistrates to require prosecutors to meet the probable-cause standard.

Mr. Fishman of Catholic University said that such a requirement could hamper law enforcement's ability to act quickly because of the paperwork required to show probable cause. But Mr. Fishman said he also believed that the current law was unclear on the issue.

Judge Smith "has written a very, very persuasive opinion," Mr. Fishman said. "The government's argument has been based on some tenuous premises." He added that he sympathized with prosecutors' fears.

"Something that they've been able to use quite successfully and usefully is being taken away from them or made harder to get," Mr. Fishman said. "I'd be very, very frustrated."



Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

December 11, 2005
Accepting Peace Prize, ElBaradei Calls for Nuclear Arms Cuts
By WALTER GIBBS
OSLO, Dec. 10 - The world should stop treating the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea as isolated cases and instead deal with them in a common effort to eliminate poverty, organized crime and armed conflict, the director general of the United Nations' nuclear monitoring agency said Saturday in accepting the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize.

The director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, said a "good start" would be for the United States and other nuclear powers to cut nuclear weapon stockpiles sharply and redirect spending toward international development.

"More than 15 years after the end of the cold war, it is incomprehensible to many that the major nuclear weapon states operate with their arsenals on hair-trigger alert," Dr. ElBaradei, 63, said.

Despite some disarmament, he continued, the existence of 27,000 nuclear warheads in various hands around the world still hold the prospect of "the devastation of entire nations in a matter of minutes."

Feelings of insecurity and humiliation, exaggerated by today's nuclear imbalance, are behind the spread of bomb-development programs at the national level, said Dr. ElBaradei, who has headed the International Atomic Energy Agency since 1997. No less dangerous, he added, are the presumed efforts of extremist groups to acquire nuclear materials. With goods, ideas and people moving more freely than ever, the containment of nuclear technology must be part of a broad global effort, he said.

"We cannot respond to these threats by building more walls, developing bigger weapons or dispatching more troops," he said. "These threats require primarily multinational cooperation." Dr. ElBaradei said the manufacture and sale of nuclear fuel for power generation, which can also be enriched to make bombs, should be placed under multinational control, with his agency operating as a "reserve fuel bank" for accredited nations.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee divided the 2005 award between Dr. ElBaradei and the atomic energy agency as a whole. Dr. ElBaradei and Yukiya Amano, the agency's board chairman, were awarded diplomas and medals in a colorful ceremony before more than 1,000 dignitaries at Oslo City Hall.

The committee chairman, Ole Danbolt Mjos, lauded Dr. ElBaradei and his agency for resisting "heavy pressure" in 2003 to fall in line with an American contention that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program despite the failure of the agency's inspectors to find hard evidence. "As the world could see after the war in Iraq, the weapons that were not found proved not to have existed," Mr. Mjos said.

In what appeared to be an allusion to that episode, Dr. ElBaradei said: "Armed with the strength of our convictions, we will continue to speak truth to power, and we will continue to carry out our mandate with independence and objectivity."

For the Nobel committee, this year's choice of winners was a return to basics after last year's untraditional award to Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan environmentalist whose tree-planting campaigns are only tangentially related to war and peace. When Alfred Nobel, the Swedish industrialist who helped develop dynamite, died in 1897, he left money in his will to honor someone each year "who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."

Dr. ElBaradei and the agency will split this year's prize money of 10 million Swedish kroner (about $1.3 million) and have promised their shares to charitable causes.



Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

December 10, 2005
U.S. Rebuffs Red Cross Request for Access to Detainees Held in Secret
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 - The United States said Friday that it would continue to deny the International Committee of the Red Cross access to "a very small, limited number" of prisoners who are held in secret around the world, saying they are terrorists being kept incommunicado for reasons of national security and are not guaranteed any rights under the Geneva Conventions.

Adam Ereli, the State Department's deputy spokesman, said the United States would not alter its position after the president of the International Red Cross said in Geneva that his organization was holding discussions to gain access to all detainees, including those held in secret locations.

Mr. Ereli said that the Geneva Conventions requiring humane treatment of prisoners of war did not apply to certain terrorism suspects seized as "unlawful enemy combatants," but that, in any case, the United States treats most of them as prisoners of war.

"We're going the extra mile here," Mr. Ereli said, by allowing the Red Cross access to Al Qaeda suspects and others held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan. The Red Cross also has access to prisoners held in Iraq.

Aside from those detainees, about two or three dozen terrorism suspects, including a handful of top Al Qaeda operatives, are said by current and former intelligence officials to be held in secret locations.

On Thursday in Geneva, John Bellinger, the senior legal adviser of the State Department, acknowledged that the International Red Cross does not have access to all detainees held by American forces but declined to discuss the existence of secret detention centers.

The Red Cross has recognized that some of those held by the United States are not prisoners of war, and do not have the full protection of the Geneva Conventions. But it has argued that no prisoners, not even those alleged to be terrorists, should fall into what it calls a "black hole" outside any protection under international humanitarian law. A central purpose of the Red Cross is to visit prisoners and protect their human rights.

On Friday, Jakob Kellenberger, the president of the International Red Cross, said the situation of those held secretly remained "a major concern" that would continue to be the focus of discussions with the United States. "We continue to be in an intense dialogue with them with the aim of getting access to all people detained in the framework of the so-called war on terror," he said.

Mr. Ereli of the State Department said that "cases that pose unique threats to our security" would be denied visits by the Red Cross, even on a confidential basis.

In a related development, the Defense Department announced Friday that Anne-Marie Lizin, a representative of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a 55-nation group, would visit American detention facilities at Guantánamo and may question the commanding officers and other staff members.

"The department strives for transparency in our operations to the extent possible, in light of security and operational requirements and the need to ensure the safety of our forces," a department statement said.

Mr. Ereli said "there's no legal requirement" to provide Red Cross access to Guantánamo. "Nevertheless, and even though we're not required to do so, we do provide access to the vast majority of detainees under our control, and we do accord Geneva protections to them."

The Red Cross has been seeking greater access to detainees for at least two years but has been careful to mute its criticism in order to keep the negotiations more productive, according to committee officials.

In Europe over the last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice emphasized that it is American policy not to subject detainees to "cruel, inhumane or degrading" punishment in any location, no matter whether they are held by military or intelligence authorities.

Ms. Rice also said on her European trip that the United States would not hand any prisoners over to other countries in the process known as rendition without obtaining assurances that they would not be tortured.



Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

LA worried about riots if 'Tookie' executed CTV.ca
Authorities in Los Angeles are concerned about possible rioting if the co-founder of the Crips street gang, Stanley "Tookie" Williams, is executed as planned. Williams, 51, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at San Quentin State Prison on Tuesday. However, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is currently weighing Williams' request for clemency. It's not clear when a decision on that might come. Fearing a repeat of the 1992 race riots in which 52 people died, police, schools and community groups have been told to prepare for violence if clemency is not granted.

Stanley 'Tookie' Williams
Robin Toma, executive director of the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission, said the organization had received "credible" threats of violence if Williams is put to death. There are also fears that Williams' execution could cause unrest in the prison system. For that reason, all prisoners at San Quentin will be locked down during the execution, and there is the expectation that other state prisons will choose to do the same. Williams has spent 24 years on death row for the shooting deaths of four people in 1979. He was convicted in 1981 of killing a convenience store worker and, days later, killing two motel owners and their daughter during a robbery. His case has gained wide media attention because of the growing support of many -- including celebrities such as Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx and Archbishop Desmond Tutu -- who say Williams has turned his life around in jail. Williams has written nine anti-gang books aimed at young people, been nominated several times for the Nobel Peace and Literature Prize, and his "Protocol for Street Peace" has been used by rival gangs to broker gang truces. Prosecutors, and some of the families of Williams' victims, say nothing he does now changes the fact that Williams fatally shot four people. The Crips co-founder denies committing the murders. A California governor has not granted clemency since 1967, when Ronald Reagan spared the life of a brain-damaged killer.
Stanley 'Tookie' Williams: Will Justice Be Served? National Ledger
LA Leaders Seek Peace if Williams Dies ABC News
San Francisco Chronicle - Forbes - Los Angeles Times - Newsweek - all 788 related »

Lieberman's pro-war views concern Dems San Jose Mercury News
Sen. Joe Lieberman's staunch stay-the-course defense of President Bush's Iraq policies isn't winning him any friends among fellow Democrats. Lieberman's pro-war views may be winning him praise from a grateful White House, but some Democratic colleagues see him as undercutting their party's efforts to wrest control of Congress from the GOP next fall.
Lieberman's Iraq Stance Brings Widening Split With His Party New York Times
A new take on mistakes Newsday
Voice of America - ABC Online - Reuters AlertNet - Washington Post - all 377 related »

Former US Senator Eugene McCarthy, Vietnam War Opponent, Has Died Voice of America
Former US senator and presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy has died in Washington at the age of 89. Mr. McCarthy helped to crystallize American opposition to the war in Vietnam in the late 1960's.
Eugene J. McCarthy, Senate Dove Who Jolted '68 Race, Dies at 89 New York Times
US Vietnam peace candidate dies CBC News
Minneapolis Star Tribune (subscription) - Ninemsn - Yahoo! News - The Age - all 436 related »

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

December 11, 2005
Propaganda
Military's Information War Is Vast and Often Secretive
By JEFF GERTH
The media center in Fayetteville, N.C., would be the envy of any global communications company.

In state of the art studios, producers prepare the daily mix of music and news for the group's radio stations or spots for friendly television outlets. Writers putting out newspapers and magazines in Baghdad and Kabul converse via teleconferences. Mobile trailers with high-tech gear are parked outside, ready for the next crisis.

The center is not part of a news organization, but a military operation, and those writers and producers are soldiers. The 1,200-strong psychological operations unit based at Fort Bragg turns out what its officers call "truthful messages" to support the United States government's objectives, though its commander acknowledges that those stories are one-sided and their American sponsorship is hidden.

"We call our stuff information and the enemy's propaganda," said Col. Jack N. Summe, then the commander of the Fourth Psychological Operations Group, during a tour in June. Even in the Pentagon, "some public affairs professionals see us unfavorably," and inaccurately, he said, as "lying, dirty tricksters."

The recent disclosures that a Pentagon contractor in Iraq paid newspapers to print "good news" articles written by American soldiers prompted an outcry in Washington, where members of Congress said the practice undermined American credibility and top military and White House officials disavowed any knowledge of it. President Bush was described by Stephen J. Hadley, his national security adviser, as "very troubled" about the matter. The Pentagon is investigating.

But the work of the contractor, the Lincoln Group, was not a rogue operation. Hoping to counter anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world, the Bush administration has been conducting an information war that is extensive, costly and often hidden, according to documents and interviews with contractors, government officials and military personnel.

The campaign was begun by the White House, which set up a secret panel soon after the Sept. 11 attacks to coordinate information operations by the Pentagon, other government agencies and private contractors.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, the focus of most of the activities, the military operates radio stations and newspapers, but does not disclose their American ties. Those outlets produce news material that is at times attributed to the "International Information Center," an untraceable organization.

Lincoln says it planted more than 1,000 articles in the Iraqi and Arab press and placed editorials on an Iraqi Web site, Pentagon documents show. For an expanded stealth persuasion effort into neighboring countries, Lincoln presented plans, since rejected, for an underground newspaper, television news shows and an anti-terrorist comedy based on "The Three Stooges."

Like the Lincoln Group, Army psychological operations units sometimes pay to deliver their message, offering television stations money to run unattributed segments or contracting with writers of newspaper opinion pieces, military officials said.

"We don't want somebody to look at the product and see the U.S. government and tune out," said Col. James Treadwell, who ran psychological operations support at the Special Operations Command in Tampa.

The United States Agency for International Development also masks its role at times. AID finances about 30 radio stations in Afghanistan, but keeps that from listeners. The agency has distributed tens of thousands of iPod-like audio devices in Iraq and Afghanistan that play prepackaged civic messages, but it does so through a contractor that promises "there is no U.S. footprint."

As the Bush administration tries to build democracies overseas and support a free press, getting out its message is critical. But that is enormously difficult, given widespread hostility in the Muslim world over the war in Iraq, deep suspicion of American ambitions and the influence of antagonistic voices. The American message makers who are wary of identifying their role can cite findings by the Pentagon, pollsters and others underscoring the United States' fundamental problems of credibility abroad.

Defenders of influence campaigns argue that they are appropriate. "Psychological operations are an essential part of warfare, more so in the electronic age than ever," said Lt. Col. Charles A. Krohn, a retired Army spokesman and journalism professor. "If you're going to invade a country and eject its government and occupy its territory, you ought to tell people who live there why you've done it. That requires a well-thought-out communications program."

But covert information battles may backfire, others warn, or prove ineffective. The news that the American military was buying influence was met mostly with shrugs in Baghdad, where readers tend to be skeptical about the media. An Iraqi daily newspaper, Azzaman, complained in an editorial that the propaganda campaign was an American effort "to humiliate the independent national press." Many Iraqis say that no amount of money spent on trying to mold public opinion is likely to have much impact, given the harsh conditions under the American military occupation.

While the United States does not ban the distribution of government propaganda overseas, as it does domestically, the Government Accountability Office said in a recent report that lack of attribution could undermine the credibility of news videos. In finding that video news releases by the Bush administration that appeared on American television were improper, the G.A.O. said that such articles "are no longer purely factual" because "the essential fact of attribution is missing."

In an article titled "War of the Words," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld wrote about the importance of disclosure in America's communications in The Wall Street Journal in July. "The American system of openness works," he wrote. The United States must find "new and better ways to communicate America's mission abroad," including "a healthy culture of communication and transparency between government and public."

Trying to Make a Case

After the Sept. 11 attacks forced many Americans to recognize the nation's precarious standing in the Arab world, the Bush administration decided to act to improve the country's image and promote its values.

"We've got to do a better job of making our case," President Bush told reporters after the attacks.

Much of the government's information machinery, including the United States Information Agency and some C.I.A. programs, was dismantled after the cold war. In that struggle with the Soviet Union, the information warriors benefited from the perception that the United States was backing victims of tyrannical rule. Many Muslims today view Washington as too close to what they characterize as authoritarian regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and elsewhere.

The White House turned to John Rendon, who runs a Washington communications company, to help influence foreign audiences. Before the war in Afghanistan, he helped set up centers in Washington, London and Pakistan so the American government could respond rapidly in the foreign media to Taliban claims. "We were clueless," said Mary Matalin, then the communications aide to Vice President Dick Cheney.

Mr. Rendon's business, the Rendon Group, had a history of government work in trouble spots, In the 1990's, the C.I.A. hired him to secretly help the nascent Iraqi National Congress wage a public relations campaign against Saddam Hussein.

While advising the White House, Mr. Rendon also signed on with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, under a $27.6 million contract, to conduct focus groups around the world and media analysis of outlets like Al Jazeera, the satellite network based in Qatar.

About the same time, the White House recruited Jeffrey B. Jones, a former Army colonel who ran the Fort Bragg psychological operations group, to coordinate the new information war. He led a secret committee, the existence of which has not been previously reported, that dealt with everything from public diplomacy, which includes education, aid and exchange programs, to covert information operations.

The group even examined the president's words. Concerned about alienating Muslims overseas, panel members said, they tried unsuccessfully to stop Mr. Bush from ending speeches with the refrain "God bless America."

The panel, later named the Counter Terrorism Information Strategy Policy Coordinating Committee, included members from the State Department, the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies. Mr. Rendon advised a subgroup on counterpropaganda issues.

Mr. Jones's endeavor stalled within months, though, because of furor over a Pentagon initiative. In February 2002, unnamed officials told The New York Times that a new Pentagon operation called the Office of Strategic Influence planned "to provide news items, possibly even false ones, to foreign news organizations." Though the report was denied and a subsequent Pentagon review found no evidence of plans to use disinformation, Mr. Rumsfeld shut down the office within days.

The incident weakened Mr. Jones's effort to develop a sweeping strategy to win over the Muslim world. The White House grew skittish, some agencies dropped out, and panel members soon were distracted by the war in Iraq, said Mr. Jones, who left his post this year. The White House did not respond to a request to discuss the committee's work.

What had begun as an ambitious effort to bolster America's image largely devolved into a secret propaganda war to counter the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Pentagon, which had money to spend and leaders committed to the cause, took the lead. In late 2002 Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters he gave the press a "corpse" by closing the Office of Strategic Influence, but he intended to "keep doing every single thing that needs to be done."

The Pentagon increased spending on its psychological and influence operations and for the first time outsourced work to contractors. One beneficiary has been the Rendon Group, which won additional multimillion-dollar Pentagon contracts for media analysis and a media operations center in Baghdad, including "damage control planning." The new Lincoln Group was another winner.

Pentagon Contracts

It is something of a mystery how Lincoln came to land more than $25 million in Pentagon contracts in a war zone.

The two men who ran the small business had no background in public relations or the media, according to associates and a résumé. Before coming to Washington and setting up Lincoln in 2004, Christian Bailey, born in Britain and now 30, had worked briefly in California and New York. Paige Craig, now 31, was a former Marine intelligence officer.

When the company was incorporated last year, using the name Iraqex, its stated purpose was to provide support services for business development, trade and investment in Iraq. The company's earliest ventures there included providing security to the military and renovating buildings. Iraqex also started a short-lived online business publication.

In mid-2004, the company formed a partnership with the Rendon Group and later won a $5 million Pentagon contract for an advertising and public relations campaign to "accurately inform the Iraqi people of the Coalition's goals and gain their support." Soon, the company changed its name to Lincoln Group. It is not clear how the partnership was formed; Rendon dropped out weeks after the contract was awarded.

Within a few months, Lincoln shifted to information operations and psychological operations, two former employees said. The company was awarded three new Pentagon contracts, worth tens of millions of dollars, they added. A Lincoln spokeswoman referred a reporter's inquiry about the contracts to Pentagon officials.

The company's work was part of an effort to counter disinformation in the Iraqi press. With nearly $100 million in United States aid, the Iraqi media has sharply expanded since the fall of Mr. Hussein. There are about 200 Iraqi-owned newspapers and 15 to 17 Iraqi-owned television stations. Many, though, are affiliated with political parties, and are fiercely partisan, with fixed pro- or anti-American stances, and some publish rumors, half-truths and outright lies.

From quarters at Camp Victory, the American base, the Lincoln Group works to get out the military's message.

Lincoln's employees work virtually side by side with soldiers. Army officers supervise Lincoln's work and demand to see details of article placements and costs, said one of the former employees, speaking on condition of anonymity because Lincoln's Pentagon contract prohibits workers from discussing their activities.

"Almost nothing we did did not have the command's approval," he said.

The employees would take news dispatches, called storyboards, written by the troops, translate them into Arabic and distribute them to newspapers. Lincoln hired former Arab journalists and paid advertising agencies to place the material.

Typically, Lincoln paid newspapers from $40 to $2,000 to run the articles as news articles or advertisements, documents provided to The New York Times by a former employee show. More than 1,000 articles appeared in 12 to 15 Iraqi and Arab newspapers, according to Pentagon documents. The publications did not disclose that the articles were generated by the military.

A company worker also often visited the Baghdad convention center, where the Iraqi press corps hung out, to recruit journalists who would write and place opinion pieces, paying them $400 to $500 as a monthly stipend, the employees said.

Like the dispatches produced at Fort Bragg, those storyboards were one-sided and upbeat. Each had a target audience, "Iraq General" or "Shi'ia," for example; an underlying theme like "Anti-intimidation" or "Success and Legitimacy of the ISF;" and a target newspaper.

Articles written by the soldiers at Camp Victory often assumed the voice of Iraqis. "We, all Iraqis, are the government. It is our country," noted one artic