Fact-checking FISA debate
We've been trying to follow the FISA debate but it's not been easy since there's a lot of politically charged rhetoric going around. The ACLU has done some fact-checking to try and help out. The major sticking point seems to be whether or not there should be immunity for the telecommunications companies that aided the president’s warrantless wiretapping program -- the Senate bill has it, the House bill does not. As we noted in August, 2006, U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor found the NSA's wiretapping program unconstitutional. So it would seem that the telecom companies broke the law and violated their customers' privacy rights in participating in the NSA program. This, then, is why the administration is pushing for their immunity. See the Electronic Frontier Foundation for more information. Continue reading
New Online Legal Database: information about the rights of internally displaced persons
A new online database has been launched today: the Global Database on the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement . This database is geared towards helping the more than 25 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in 50 countries around the world who have been forcibly uprooted from their own homes as a result of armed conflict and human rights violation and need protection and assistance. Meant to assist policy makers and legal advocates in the development of national legal and policy frameworks for the protection of IDPs, the database provides instant access to official documents, including recommendations of United Nations treaty-monitoring bodies, reports of UN charter bodies, and UN General Assembly resolutions about the rights of these IDPs. A joint effort of Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM) and the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, it is a resource for scholars, policymakers, legislators, and humanitarian activists to research, develop, monitor and enforce implementation of IDP policies.
The website is available in English, French and Spanish.
Making of the Cheney Regional Defense Strategy, 1991-1992
The National Security Archive has posted more than a dozen declassified documents from 1991-1992 about the Defense Planning Guidance (DPG). These were prepared by the Pentagon under the Secretary of Defense of that time, Richard Cheney.
- "Prevent the Reemergence of a New Rival" The Making of the Cheney Regional Defense Strategy, 1991-1992, National Security Archive, The George Washington University, February 26, 2008.
One aspect of this release that is noteworthy is the insight it provides into government secrecy, classification and declassification, and the accuracy and completeness of the historical record. As the NSA says:
Remarkably, these new releases censor a half dozen large sections of text that The New York Times printed on March 8, 1992, as well as a number of phrases that were officially published by the Pentagon in January 1993. "On close inspection none of those deleted passages actually meet the standards for classification because embarrassment is not a legal basis for secrecy," remarked Tom Blanton, director of the Archive."
The NSA displays the language that the Times publicized side-by-side with the relevant portions of the February 18, 1992 draft that was the subject of the leak.
The documents are fascinating:
Continue readingThe word "preempt" does not appear in the declassified language, but Document 10 includes wording about "disarming capabilities to destroy" which is followed by several excised words. This suggests that some of the heavily excised pages in the still-classified DPG drafts may include some discussion of preventive action against threatening nuclear and other WMD programs. The excisions are currently under appeal at the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP).
Wikileaks gets its domain back
Breaking news: Last week, the controversial site, Wikileaks -- which allows whistle-blowers to post corporate and government documents anonymously -- was shut down. But now, According to CNET News, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White has reversed his own order and turned the switch back on! Continue reading
Happy February 29th!
Yes, it's Leap Year day, or whatever it's called. Those folks who were born on Feb. 29th get to have a real birthday party this year.
You can read about leap year and other "timely" matters on the rather wonderful website of the National Institute of Standards and Technology Time and Frequency Division, an operating unit of the Physics Laboratory of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce that is located in Boulder, Colorado at the NIST Boulder Laboratories. While you're there you can check out their online exhibits about timekeeping and calendars through the ages, and you can also set your watch and be sure it's the right time!