|
News
- -01-12-06 Administration Asks Supreme Court to Dismiss Terror Case (Blomberg.com)
"The Bush administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to cancel a scheduled showdown over the use of military tribunals to try terrorism suspects, saying a new law stripped the court of power to consider the case." 01-06
- -01-16-06 Gore: Bush Repeatedly and Persistently Broke the Law (MSNBC News)
"Former Vice President Al Gore asserted Monday that President Bush “repeatedly and persistently” broke the law by eavesdropping on Americans without a court warrant and called for a federal investigation of the practice."
"Gore, also a former member of the Senate from Tennessee, proposed that a special counsel be appointed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to investigate whether there have been violations of the law." The full text of Gore's speech is available here. 01-06
- -01-17-06 Groups Sue to Stop Bush Domestic Spying Without a Warrant (CBS News)
"The lawsuits accusing Mr. Bush of exceeding his constitutional powers were filed in federal courts were filed in New York by the Center for Constitutional Rights and in Detroit by the American Civil Liberties Union." 01-06
- -01-26-06 Administration Using Anti-Terrorism Law for Political Purposes? (New York Times)
"Mr. Ramadan, a Swiss citizen, has been denied a United States visa since July 2004, when he was on the verge of moving with his family to Indiana to take up a tenured professor's position at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame."
"The author of some 20 books on Islamic theology and the place of Muslims in the Western world, Mr. Ramadan, 43, is an outspoken critic of the Bush administration's policies in the Middle East. He has also rejected Muslim terrorism, calling it 'anti-Islam.' Last August, he was invited by Prime Minister Tony Blair to participate in a task force to counter extremism after the London bombings in July." 01-06
- -02-23-06 UN Proposes New Human Rights Council (BBC News)
"The new council would replace the Human Rights Commission, which has been largely discredited for giving seats to nations with poor rights records."
"A new compromise proposal by General Assembly president Jan Eliasson would create a council of 47 members who would be reviewed on their record." 02-06
- -02-24-06 Judge Orders Pentagon to Release Guantanamo Names (MSNBC News)
"A federal judge ordered the Pentagon on Thursday to release the identities of hundreds of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay to The Associated Press, a move that would force the government to break its secrecy and reveal the most comprehensive list yet of those who have been imprisoned there."
"Currently, OSHA regulations cap chromium levels at work to 52 micrograms per cubic meter. It supports restricting levels to 1 microgram per cubic meter, which is slightly lower than 'intermediate' exposure levels of 1.5 to 16.0, according to the paper." 02-06
- -02-27-06 Coast Guard: Gaps in Port Security (MSNBC News)
"Citing broad gaps in U.S. intelligence, the Coast Guard cautioned the Bush administration weeks ago that it could not determine whether a United Arab Emirates-based company seeking a stake in some U.S. port operations might support terrorist operations." 02-06
- -05-11-06 Congress Demands Answers About Bush Administration Spying on Americans (CBS News)
"Congressional Republicans and Democrats demanded answers from the Bush administration Thursday about a government spy agency secretly collecting records of ordinary Americans' phone calls to build a database of every call made within the country." 05-06
- -05-11-06 USA Today: NSA Collecting Phone Records of 200 Million Ordinary Americans (ABC News)
"The newspaper says that the [NSA] spy agency has been collecting information on every phone call made in this country."
"The data NSA gathers are so private that phone companies would normally face steep fines for divulging the information."
"According to USA Today, one phone company, Qwest, has refused to turn over its records, citing legal concerns."
"[President] Bush said any intelligence activities specifically target terrorists. 'Our intelligence activities strictly target al Qaeda and their known affiliates,' Bush said. 'We are not mining or trolling through the personal lives of innocent Americans.' " 05-06
- -05-11-06 USA Today: NSA Collecting Phone Records of 200 Million Ordinary Americans (MSNBC News)
"USA Today reported Thursday that the National Security Agency has been building up the database using records provided by three major phone companies — AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. — but that the program 'does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations.' "
" 'It’s the largest database ever assembled in the world,' the paper quoted one source as saying. The agency’s goal is 'to create a database of every call ever made' within U.S. borders, it said the source added." 05-06
- -05-12-06 Russert: We Need to Know Why the Government Is Spying on Us (MSNBC News - Russert)
"Quest [Qwest phone company] wanted to know who authorized this [collection of domestic phone calls] program. America has very strict laws on collecting this data and sharing it." (Qwest refused to give the National Security Agency the information because it did not present the legal justification. Other phone companies gave them the information.)
"You know there’s another piece of this. It’s not only telephone calls, but email traffic. And when you couple this with other data collection – when you go to a grocery store or drug store and you give them a little card for discount, they also record your purchase – put those lists together and you have a complete profile of 'Joe Smith on First Street.' These are the drugs he takes, these are the foods he buys, these are the calls he makes, these are the credit lines he has. Pretty soon both the government and private sector companies know everything about you." 05-06
- -05-12-06 U.S. Seeks to Block Lawsuit Against CIA (MSNBC News - Russert)
"The government urged a federal judge on Friday to block a lawsuit filed by a German national who says he was illegally held in a CIA-run prison in Afghanistan for four months and tortured."
"Al-Masri said he was taken into custody after being mistaken for an associate of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers. He said Macedonian authorities arrested him when he crossed the border on New Year’s Eve 2003 and turned him over to the CIA after three weeks."
"He said he was then flown to Afghanistan where he was 'dragged off the plane and thrown into the trunk of a car' and beaten by his captors." 05-06
- -05-13-06 Newsweek Poll: Americans Wary of Domestic Spying (MSNBC News)
"According to the Newsweek poll, 73 percent of Democrats and 26 percent of Republicans think the NSA’s program is overly intrusive. Details of the surveillance efforts were first reported on Wednesday by USA Today. The newspaper said the NSA has collected tens of millions of customer phone records from AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and Bell-South Corp., in an effort to assemble a database of every call made within the United States. While the records include detailed information about when and where phone calls were made, the government isn’t listening in to the actual conversations, a U.S. intelligence official familiar with the program told the newspaper." 05-06
- -06-22-06 International Database Secretly Viewed by U.S. (New York Times)
"Under a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database and examined banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and others in the United States, according to government and industry officials."
"Nearly 20 current and former government officials and industry executives discussed aspects of the Swift operation with The New York Times on condition of anonymity because the program remains classified. Some of those officials expressed reservations about the program, saying that what they viewed as an urgent, temporary measure had become permanent nearly five years later without specific Congressional approval or formal authorization." 06-06
- -06-23-06 U.N. Rights Chief: Reports of Terror Prisons Are Cause for Grave Concern (USA Today)
"European investigators and human rights groups have accused European nations of letting the CIA abduct and transport terror suspects to secret detention facilities in Europe and to locations elsewhere where they might have faced torture. Governments have largely denied the accusations." 06-06
- -06-25-06 Supreme Court Ruling Could Halt Guantanamo Tribunals (USA Today)
The defendant's "military-appointed attorney, Navy Lt. Cmdr Charles Swift, said the lawsuit is aimed at moving the case to the civilian court system or to a traditional military court-martial. Lawyers for several defendants contend the tribunals lack guidelines and favor the prosecution."
" 'This is about a fair trial, not a free pass,' Swift said." 06-06
- -06-30-06 Newspaper Found Afghan Witnesses U.S. Said It Couldn't Find (Guardian Unlimited)
"The US government said it could not find the men that Guantánamo detainee Abdullah Mujahid believes could help set him free. The Guardian found them in three days."
"The case illustrates the egregious flaws that have discredited Guantánamo-style justice and which led the US supreme court [sic] to declare such trials illegal on Thursday in a major rebuke to the Bush administration." 06-06
- -07-09-06 Intelligence Committee Chairman: Bush May Have Broken the Law (MSNBC News)
" 'We can’t be briefed on every little thing that they are doing,' Hoekstra said. 'But in this case, there was at least one major — what I consider significant activity that we have not been briefed on. I want to set the standard there that it is not optional for this president or any president or people in the executive community not to keep the intelligence committees fully informed of what they are doing,' he said on 'Fox News Sunday.' " 07-06
- -10-18-06 Our Rights Evaporate (MSNBC News)
"First thing this morning, the president signed into law the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which does away with habeas corpus, the right of suspected terrorists or anybody else to know why they have been imprisoned, provided the president does not think it should apply to you and declares you an enemy combatant."
"Does that not basically mean that if Mr. Bush or Mr. Rumsfeld say so, anybody in this country, citizen or not, innocent or not, can end up being an unlawful enemy combatant?"
"JONATHAN TURLEY, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY CONSTITUTIONAL LAW PROFESSOR: It certainly does. What the Congress did and what the president signed today essentially revokes over 200 years of American principles and values." 10-06
- -11-17-06 Students "Patrolling the Police" With Videocameras (MSNBC News)
"Alleging racial profiling, a UCLA student intends to sue after a campus police officer shot him with a Taser stun gun. The incident was caught on a cell phone camera, the third time in a week that police behavior in the Los Angeles area was criticized after amateur video surfaced." 11-06
|