from The Washington Post "We believe that Chairman Schisler violated the provisions of the Maryland code," said Morton Edelstein, the Baltimore lawyer retained by engineer Blaine Keener and accountant Randy M. Allen. "But our strongest position is, what he did was unconstitutional."
30 April 2004
GAO, FEMA clash over agency preparedness
Federal officials today could not agree on how prepared agencies are to continue operations if disaster strikes. Linda Koontz, the General Accounting Office’s director of information management issues, told lawmakers that she could not guarantee that agencies would continue to operate at full capacity if a catastrophe hit the Washington region. Koontz said no agency has fully implemented the 1999 Federal Preparedness Circular 65, which sets basic guidelines for continuity of operations plans, commonly referred to as COOP. “There are a couple of different things going on,” Koontz said at a hearing of the House Government Reform Committee. “The guidance from FEMA is not clear, which made for inconsistent plans, and FEMA has not provided regular oversight on agency plans.” But Michael Brown, undersecretary for the Homeland Security Department’s Emergency Preparedness and Response directorate (FEMA), said GAO’s assessment is incorrect. “We are getting there,” Brown said. “All major departments have continuity of operations plans in place and we have looked at them. They need to be fine tuned and improved, but all of the agencies have them.” Brown said agencies will test their COOP plans May 11 during a three-day exercise called Exercise Forward Challenge. “This full-scale COOP exercise will require departments in the National Capital Region to relocate and operate from their alternate facilities,” Brown said. “Some 45 agencies plan to participate in Forward Challenge. There will be approximately 45 separate but linked COOP exercises conducted concurrently with the main Forward Challenge event.” A small number of employees will perform their usual work at the alternate facilities, which will require them to access e-mail and online files and to communicate with headquarters, said Reynold Hoover, director of FEMA’s Office of National Security Coordination. No matter the results of this exercise, lawmakers said private-sector experience should be considered. “We could sometimes use a little of the private-sector culture in government to stay ahead of the curve on some of these things,” committee chairman Tom Davis (R-Va.) said. “Because we’re not in a competitive mode, we tend to be more reactive than proactive.”
Sen. Kennedy Blasts Wolfowitz For Giving "Disingenuous" Testimony on Iraq
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz asserted at a hearing of the Armed Services Committee that Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who had to be deposed. Sen. Edward Kennedy interrupted Wolfowitz's statement calling his testimony "somewhat disingenuous." We hear an excerpt.Listen here.
29 April 2004
diebold knew of legal risks
Diebold knew of legal risks
Attorneys warned firm that use of uncertified vote-counting software violated state law
By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER
Attorneys for Diebold Election Systems Inc. warned in late November that its use of uncertified vote-counting software in Alameda County violated California election law and broke its $12.7 million contract with Alameda County.
Soon after, a review of internal legal memos obtained by the Oakland Tribune shows Diebold's attorneys at the Los Angeles office of Jones Day realized the McKinney, Texas-based firm also faced a threat of criminal charges and exile from California elections.
Yet despite warnings from the state's chief elections officer, Diebold continued fielding poorly tested, faulty software and hardware in at least two of California's largest urban counties during the Super Tuesday primary, when e-voting temporarily broke down and voters were turned away at the polls.
Oakland Tribune Online - Local & Regional News
23 April 2004
managing expectations
US Senators Question Impact of Iraq Power Transfer
"It might be actually worse if we don't deliver what was expected on June 30," said U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine, a New Jersey Democrat. "If the expectation of the Iraqi public is not met I think it could be a very real long-term setback."
why Republicans don't like McCain
Administration Details Plan for Returning Power to Iraq
"There is no plan," declared Sen. John McCain, (R-Ariz.). "Not enough troops, and no plan."
22 April 2004
21 April 2004
"I want to be John Fitzgerald Kennedy"
What Kerry really meant when he submitted his official request for duty to the Chief of Naval Personnel. "I request duty in Vietnam." thanks to Josh Marshall.
stupid terrorist update: MXIVII
Palestinian Student Reportedly Intended to Make HIV Bomb A Palestinian engineering student intended to construct an HIV-infected bomb to be detonated in a crowded place in Israel by a suicide bomber, Fox News reported today from Jerusalem (see GSN, April 13). Rami Abdullah, 24 and a member of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, said he had researched the possibility of making an HIV-infected weapon on the Internet. He was searching for an HIV-infected blood donor when he was arrested last month. “After a period, it will kill a lot of people,” Abdullah said. Abdullah said he still intends to build a biological weapon once he is freed from prison if the intifada is still going on (Claudia Cowen, Fox News, April 21).
Hager resigns as VA HS Director
Va. Homeland Security Chief to Resign
"He's really helped the entire region work as a team whether it's with Maryland, Virginia or the Department of Homeland Security," said Tom Lockwood, Maryland's deputy director of homeland security.
19 April 2004
Because it bears repeating....
"Every threat we must take seriously" George W. Bush, in his speech to the American people, 13 April 2004
"Like 10000 spoons, when all you need is a knife.... "
From the ‘gotta love irony’ file: The guy who brings healthy food to McDonalds’ menus drops dead of sudden heart attack at 60. ------------------------------------
McDonald's Chairman Cantalupo Dies of Heart Attack (Update6)
14 April 2004
because you'll never win a beurocratic battle against the CIA
from the NYTimes
F.B.I. Is Assailed for Its Handling of Terror Risks The F.B.I. came under withering criticism on Tuesday from the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, with its chairman describing new staff reports on the bureau's performance before and after the attacks as an "indictment of the F.B.I." "It failed and it failed and it failed and it failed," the chairman, Thomas H. Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, said of the bureau at a public hearing of the 10-member panel. "This is an agency that does not work. It makes you angry. And I don't know how to fix it." As the commission released a pair of interim staff reports that offered extensive and agonizing new details about how the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. may have bungled opportunities to thwart the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Kean said he welcomed President Bush's comments this week that the White House would consider an overhaul of the nation's intelligence agencies, including the F.B.I. Mr. Kean's criticisms of the bureau were echoed by others on the bipartisan commission on Tuesday and came as the panel conducted sometimes harsh questioning of Louis J. Freeh, director of the F.B.I. from 1993 until he retired three months before the Sept. 11 attacks; Thomas J. Pickard, who was the bureau's acting director during the summer of 2001; Attorney General John Ashcroft and his predecessor, Janet Reno. In their testimony, all four insisted that they had no higher priority than counterterrorism before Sept. 11.
13 April 2004
"Every threat we must take seriously"
George W. Bush, in his speech to the American people, April 13, 2004
'Based on a review of all-source reporting over the last five months, we believe that UBL [Usama bin Laden] will launch a significant terrorist attack against U.S. and/or Israeli interests in the coming weeks. The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against U.S. facilities or interests. Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning.'" - briefing prepared for senior government officials at the beginning of July 2001Incredibly.....
"there was no recommendation [coming from the White House] that we do something about" the flurry of threat warnings in the months preceding the attacks. - Condoleezza Rice, to the 9/11 commission
Abusing Secrets
originally published at TomPaine.com
Abusing Secrets
The White House decision to release the now-infamous Aug. 6, 2001 President’s Daily Brief not only shows the Bush administration could not be trusted when it previously characterized the document as merely a "historical" analysis that made the obvious point that Osama bin Laden was interested in traditional hijacking. This briefing—which noted that bin Laden was determined to strike within the United States and that Al Qaeda apparently had set up a support structure in this country—also provides proof, if any more is needed, that this White House cannot be trusted whenever it argues it must keep information secret. The PDB episode is but one in a line of instances when the Bush White House hid information and claimed releasing the material would compromise national security or the presidency, when the real motive was protecting its own rear end.
FBI Budget Squeezed After 9/11
washingtonpost.com: FBI Budget Squeezed After 9/11
FBI Budget Squeezed After 9/11
Request for New Counterterror Funds Cut by Two-Thirds
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 22, 2004; Page A06
In the early days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush White House cut by nearly two-thirds an emergency request for counterterrorism funds by the FBI, an internal administration budget document shows.
The document, dated Oct. 12, 2001, shows that the FBI requested $1.5 billion in additional funds to enhance its counterterrorism efforts with the creation of 2,024 positions. But the White House Office of Management and Budget cut that request to $531 million. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, working within the White House limits, cut the FBI's request for items such as computer networking and foreign language intercepts by half, cut a cyber-security request by three quarters and eliminated entirely a request for "collaborative capabilities."
The document was one of several administration papers obtained and given to The Washington Post by the Center for American Progress, a liberal group run by former Clinton chief of staff John D. Podesta. The papers show that Ashcroft ranked counterterrorism efforts as a lower priority than his predecessor did, and that he resisted FBI requests for more counterterrorism funding before and immediately after the attacks.
The documents are being released as Clinton and Bush administration officials prepare to testify this week about their counterterrorism efforts before the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks. They add to an already vigorous debate in which Bush officials and former Clinton aides are blaming each other for failing to take the terrorist threat seriously enough.
White House spokesman Taylor Gross noted that FBI funding has increased by more than 50 percent between 2000 and 2004, not including supplemental funds such as those requested after Sept. 11. Under President Bush, "the FBI has been reformed to make counterterrorism its No. 1 priority," Gross said. "No matter what sort of rhetoric gets thrown about in a campaign season, it doesn't change the fact that this president is committed to fighting the war on terrorism."
The document showing the FBI request after the Sept. 11 attacks was part of the OMB "passback" process, in which the budget office reviews and pares agency requests. Though it is typical for the White House to reduce agency requests, Bush's foes think the sharp reduction in the FBI's counterterrorism request could be politically damaging for the president, who has accused his opponent, Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), of trying to cut intelligence funding in the mid-1990s.
Five days after Ashcroft agreed to reduce the FBI emergency request from $1.5 billion to $531 million, the White House asked Congress for a similar amount, $538.5 million, for the FBI as part of a $20 billion supplemental spending package responding to the Sept. 11 attacks. Just over two months later, Congress approved the $20 billion package as part of a defense spending bill but gave the FBI $745 million. Amendments that would have increased FBI funding further failed under the threat of a Bush veto if the package exceeded $20 billion.
The FBI's overall budget grew from $3.3 billion in fiscal 2001 to $4.3 billion in fiscal 2003.
"Despite multiple terror warnings before and after 9/11, [Bush] repeatedly rejected counterterrorism resources that his own security agencies said was desperately needed to protect America," said David Sirota, spokesman for Podesta's group, which plans to post the documents on its Web site today.
The group released two other administration documents, parts of which have already been made public, showing that just before the Sept. 11 attacks, Ashcroft did not agree to $588 million in increases that the FBI was seeking for 2003. That request included funds to hire 54 translators and 248 counterterrorism agents and support staff. But in his 2003 request sent to the White House, dated Sept. 10, 2001, Ashcroft did not propose that any FBI programs get increases above previously set levels and proposed small cuts to some programs related to counterterrorism.
Other documents indicate that before Sept. 11, Ashcroft did not give terrorism top billing in his strategic plans for the Justice Department, which includes the FBI. A draft of Ashcroft's "Strategic Plan" from Aug. 9, 2001, does not put fighting terrorism as one of the department's seven goals, ranking it as a sub-goal beneath gun violence and drugs. After the attacks, fighting terrorism became the department's primary goal. By contrast, in April 2000, Ashcroft's predecessor, Janet Reno, called terrorism "the most challenging threat in the criminal justice area."
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
10 April 2004
because nobody paid attention
to terrorism before the Bush adminstration. Or so the Bush administration says.... Contingency planning Pentagon MASCAL exercise simulates scenarios in preparing for emergencies
09 April 2004
Salon's great headlines
from Mark Follman in the war room. The best-rested war president in history?
Saddam moved to Qatar over rescue fears
courtesy of ThisisLondon
Saddam Hussein has been moved out of Iraq because of fears he would be rescued from American captivity by insurgents. The deposed dictator is being held on a US airbase in Qatar, where he is being interrogated by the FBI and CIA. Ironically, he is now living a few miles from his wife, Sajida Kheirallah Talfah, who has been given safe haven by the Qatari royal family and a home in one of their palaces. Saddam is unlikely to have been informed of the presence of his family or have been visited by his wife. He was being held under such secrecy at the Al-Udeid airbase, on the outskirts of the capital Doha, that the ruling royal family was initially not told. Despite the move he is not co-operating with his interrogators and is said to give "vague" answers. He has repeated the Iraqi government's official position on the invasion of Kuwait, the United Nations sanctions regime and the Iran-Iraq war without giving any extra insight. Some of the FBI interrogators who had hoped he would crack through techniques which have included sleep deprivation, being subjected to rapid changes of room temperature and being offered rewards for co-operation have lost hope. They have concluded he was so surrounded by sycophants he had no real idea of what was happening in his country. His former deputy prime minister and international envoy Tariq Aziz, who is being held at Baghdad Airport, is being equally unco-operative. US authorities are no nearer to putting Saddam on trial for war crimes, despite having set up a tribunal in Baghdad six weeks after his capture.
04 April 2004
Salon.com's Quote of the Day
"I believe my party has gone astray ... You can't fly in on an aircraft carrier and declare victory and have the deaths continue. You can't do that." John McCain, criticizing the Republican Party for stands on the environment and minority issues and George W. Bush for his handling of the Iraq war.
02 April 2004
Nigerian jailed for e-mail scam
from BBC NEWS
A Nigerian has been jailed for his part in a huge international e-mail fraud.
Peter Okoeguale, 33, was jailed for 20 months for his part in the e-mail fraud, also known as the Nigerian 419 scam.
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