A Reporter at Large: The Black Sites: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

A Reporter at Large: The Black Sites: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker:

"The circumstances surrounding the confession of Mohammed, whom law-enforcement
officials refer to as K.S.M., were perplexing. He had no lawyer. After his
capture in Pakistan, in March of 2003, the Central Intelligence Agency had
detained him in undisclosed locations for more than two years; last fall, he was
transferred to military custody in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. There were no named
witnesses to his initial confession, and no solid information about what form of
interrogation might have prodded him to talk, although reports had been
published, in the Times and elsewhere, suggesting that C.I.A. officers had
tortured him. At a hearing held at Guantánamo, Mohammed said that his testimony
was freely given, but he also indicated that he had been abused by the C.I.A.
(The Pentagon had classified as “top secret” a statement he had written
detailing the alleged mistreatment.) And although Mohammed said that there were
photographs confirming his guilt, U.S. authorities had found none. Instead, they
had a copy of the video that had been released on the Internet, which showed the
killer’s arms but offered no other clues to his identity. "

That is the problem with secret trials, they have been abused in the past, the power has been abused and people don't trust it. If you want to assure the American people that you are being honest, working to protect them, and doing your best to discover truth - you need a witness. It doesn't need to be an open trial, there are clear understandable reasons why that would not work. However a trial needs to be done in such a way that the accused is proven to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. When all the evidence is a secret, and all the interrogations are done in secret, there is only doubt.

American Thinker: Stare Decisis: Not Quite What Senator Schumer Would Have You Believe

American Thinker: Stare Decisis: Not Quite What Senator Schumer Would Have You Believe:

"Led by Senator Charles Schumer, Senate Democrats are trying to bamboozle the American public into believing that Bush appointees to the Supreme Court are dangerous radicals.
Senator Schumer's suggestion and Justice Beyer's unusual and inappropriate complaint to Senator Specter that the newest members of the Supreme Court -- Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito -- are ignoring and overruling established precedent is of a piece with the mandarinate's general and untrue response to the Administration: the Mongols have taken over."

Does this mean that the bickering that has been the standard in Congress is going to start infecting the Supreme Court? There should be one body in this country that is above petty politics and that is the court.

CQ Today - House Approves Probe of Contested Vote in Bid to Restore Civility

CQ Today - House Approves Probe of Contested Vote in Bid to Restore Civility:

"The House took a step toward easing its latest partisan confrontation by agreeing Friday to create a panel that will investigate a controversial floor vote and make recommendations for changes in voting rules.
The bipartisan six-member select committee will probe Thursday’s contested vote on a Republican motion to send the fiscal 2008 Agriculture spending bill back to committee.
The Republican-sponsored resolution (H Res 611) creating the investigative panel was adopted minus “whereas” clauses accusing Democrats of improperly manipulating that vote."

This sounds like a fair resolution to the problem. When ever I am watching Congress I am shocked at the way they do their votes. Personally, I don't understand why they don't do all the votes through an electronic tally, with a record kept of each vote. The system as it is set up now, seems confusing to me.

Kucinich Questions Rumsfeld

TPMtv: Yearly Kos Chapter 17

The Corner on National Review Online

The Corner on National Review Online:

"They just replayed the whole mess from the House last night on C-Span. I spoke
to Novak and he doesn't remember anything quite like this happening before. Pretty outrageous, really. It is about as blatant an abuse of power as you can have in a
legislative body, to cheat on a vote total.

Republicans were playing a game that the minority usually plays — you have your guys vote with the other side, then have them change at the last minute. This forces the majority to come up with votes quickly. Although on close issues they would rather spare their endangered members in swing districts and give them a free vote, the majority leadership then has to tell their endangered members to bite their tongues and vote the party line.

Two Democrats changed their votes to ensure that the measure would fail, but then three Republicans did the same. The vote total was 215-213 in favor of the Republican motion to recommit. At that moment, Rep. Mike McNulty ( D-N.Y.), who was in the Speaker's chair, gavelled out the vote, thinking that it was a tie and the motion had failed. But he had miscounted — the motion had actually passed. The Democrats were only able to change this by cheating and changing more votes after the gavel.

Although they did not do so for hours, the House clerk's office finally did put a record of the vote online this morning, with the measure failing by a vote of 216-212."

I know that a lot of you might be reading this and thinking - BORING... but read it Click on the link and read more about it, you should attempt to understand it. I am not taking a side on this issue, it seems murky to me. I am posting it here because this is what John McCain would call a Seminole moment, and it is going to factor importantly into the campaign season for 2008 and perhaps beyond. It is also instructive to see how the gears of our government turn.

MotherJones.com | MoJoBlog - Social Issues and Political Commentary: Let the Warantless Wiretapping Resume

MotherJones.com MoJoBlog - Social Issues and Political Commentary: Let the Warantless Wiretapping Resume:

"It's official: The Protect America Act is on it's way to the president's desk
and, once it arrives, you can be sure it will be signed promptly so the
administration can resume its warantless eavesdropping program (legally this
time). Last night 41 House Democrats sided with their Republican colleagues to
pass the measure, greenlighted by the Senate on Friday, which revises the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), allowing the NSA to intercept
foreign communications without obtaining a court order. Troubling to civil
libertarians and the House Democrats who voted against the legislation, is the
wording in the bill, which seems just vague enough that U.S. citizens and
domestic communications could still be swept up in the surveillance net, which
was the whole problem with the first incarnation of the administration’s
warrantless wiretapping program. According to the bill, electronic intercepts
involving people 'reasonably believed to be outside the United States' are fair
game. The question is what constitutes 'reasonable belief' and can the intel
community be counted on to adhere to this standard, particularly after the FBI's
well publicized abuses of its FISA authority."

These are issues that need to be resolved, it needs to be understood what the power of the government is and what the power of the government isn't in dealing with civil rights. Over the next six months, Congress and the White House have a chance to discuss these issues and find the right balance of power. In this issue more than any other I think that the voice of the American people need to be heard. Both sides in this debate are saying that they are speaking for the protection of Americans and they both have valid points. The problem is that on both sides there is also egos involved and it it hard to know where the stand for rights end and the stand for the sake of the stand begin.

My personal opinion is that they can listen to my phone. I am not breaking the law. I think that the fourth amendment that forbade unlawful search and seizure was more about the violation of property and person involved in having someone enter your home without your permission and take your property. It does no harm to me, if they are listening to my phone calls, they are really boring so it might allow them to get some sleep. I don't think that the same level of protection is needed for electronic searches as of standard searches.

The BRAD BLOG : CA Source Code Report: Diebold Voting Machines Can Be Hacked With Virus by Single Person, Affecting Entire Election

The BRAD BLOG : CA Source Code Report: Diebold Voting Machines Can Be Hacked With Virus by Single Person, Affecting Entire Election:

"Diebold Election Systems Inc. voting machines are not secure enough to
guarantee a trustworthy election, and an attacker with access to a single
machine could disrupt or change the outcome of an election using viruses,
according to a review of Diebold's source code.
'The software contains serious design flaws that have led directly to specific vulnerabilities that attackers could exploit to affect election outcomes,' read the University of
California at Berkeley report, commissioned by the California Secretary of State
as part of a two-month 'top-to-bottom' review of electronic voting systems
certified for use in California."

The fear on everyone mind is that of a person or group who would use this to take advantage of the system and manipulate a win for their candidate. While that is a scary prospect, we should also consider what a terrorist could do if they were intent on disrupting the system. In some ways this is the scariest idea, because at least there is some constructive logic to manipulating for one person versus another. What if a terrorist could break into the system and erase the election results so that whole segments of the population just lost their votes all together. We need to know that our voting system is more secure than that. A paper trail would not stop someone who was set not on changing the election, but destroying it.

McCain's one option to revive his campaign. - By John Dickerson - Slate Magazine

McCain's one option to revive his campaign. - By John Dickerson - Slate Magazine:

"In conversations I've had this week with Republican activists in Iowa and New
Hampshire, the comments about John McCain's campaign have been of a piece. It's
not just that they don't think he has a chance. They've moved past that. They're
now trading theories about the real reason he's staying in the race. The
prevailing view is that McCain is hanging on until January so he can claim
federal matching funds to pay off his debts.
McCain and his campaign insist they're earnestly trying to win, but that's not going to stop the chatter. He doesn't have enough money for ads. His campaign is so broke, in fact, the
candidate is flying coach and carrying his own bags."

I think that McCain is serving a useful role in the debate, I think he is a strong person, a strong candidate and that his ideas are contributing to the general debate. It is a shame that he does not have a better chance to get the nomination, I think he has the best chance of all the group of beating the democrats in the general election.

Then again, he isn't the only person in the campaign that is running low in the polls and show no sign of giving in. I think that it takes a special courage and will to run in the election, even when you are polling at one percent. You really have to believe in your ideas and hope that you are injecting ideas into the discussion and effecting the way those ideas are talked about.

Democracy Now Headlines- Fri. Aug. 03, 2007