Slashdot | TSA Violated Privacy Act: "Remember when the TSA said they wanted info on travelers last year? They said they were only using names to test new software. Apparently, they lied. The Guardian has an AP wire about a Congressional report on the TSA. From the article: 'The agency actually took 43,000 names of passengers and used about 200,000 variations of those names - who turned out to be real people who may not have flown that month, the GAO said. A TSA contractor collected 100 million records on those names.' They also 'published a second notice indicating that it would do the things it had earlier said it wouldn't do.' A TSA spokesman said the info will be destroyed when the test is over. My question -- will the test actually end?"

(Via /.)

Defense Tech: Bump in the Night: "Now, this is the point when I should have been the most scared – when my fears suddenly, deafeningly came true. But that’s not what happened at all. As I crouched behind a Humvee, all of the fright drained out of me. I could see what I was supposed to scare me. And it didn't any more.

Now, this is all easy to say, because the fighting ended after that single round. Who knows what would have happened in a real firefight. But yesterday, there were no more RPGs, or even a single shot fired on either side. Our unit retreated a bit; soldiers swept the area; the threat passed.

When we got back to the base, around 1:30 pm, we watched the last few minutes of ‘Starship Troopers.’ And then I went to bed, sleeping with a baby's calm."

(Via a DefenseTech.)

AlterNet: Readers Write: No Room for Moderate Republicans?: "Rose Aguilar's article about how moderate Republicans have been sidelined -- not only in the Supreme Court debate, but in many other policy areas of their party -- brought up a lot of comments from readers.

Aguilar observed that in the wake of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's resignation, the media focused almost entirely on the debate over abortion rights and Roe v. Wade. When the media only cites anti-choice groups like Focus on the Family, numerous pro-choice or pro-family planning Republican groups get ignored.

The writer also quoted Ann Stone, the national chair of Republicans for Choice: 'It is mind-boggling to me that the press only focuses on right-wingers. Is it just because sensationalism sells? When moderates try to do something, it might get attention on NPR or in the Los Angeles Times, but the press here in Washington is pretty much ignoring moderates.'"

(Via AlterNet.)

ArmsControlWonk: Wilson Bashers and Rove Defenders:Hearing You Talk is a Waste of Silence: "Others are doing a fine job keeping up with the legal issues and day-to-day news regarding the whole Wilson/Plame/Rove thing.

However, as this NYT oped points out, the Wilson affair is part of a larger issue: the administration’s deceptions regarding the Iraq WMD issue. Wilson simply (and correctly) pointed out that the Niger/Iraq/uranium intel was a relevant data point.

I realize that we all know the right-wing line (Rove was merely trying to set the record straight) is bullshit, but this silliness has gained enough currency in places like the WSJ and Slate where it should be convincingly and repeatedly refuted.

[As an aside,you’d expect this crap from the WSJ oped page, but Slate should really be embarrassed for printing the Hitchens screed.]"

(Via ArmsControlWonk.com.)

Salon.com Wire Story: "Some 50 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have declared they are on a hunger strike, a Pentagon spokesman said Thursday.

They went on strike three days ago, spokesman Bryan Whitman said. Some have already begun eating again, he said. The spokesman said he did not know why they went on strike and said the health of the striking detainees is being monitored.

The Pentagon's version of this incident contrasted somewhat from the accounts of two Afghans released from the facility for terrorist suspects earlier this week. On Wednesday, they claimed that more than about 180 Afghans were on a hunger strike to protest alleged mistreatment at the facility at a U.S. military base in Cuba."

(Via Salon.)

Salon.com News | The Iraq war is over, and the winner is... Iran: "Iraq's new government has been trumpeted by the Bush administration as a close friend and a model for democracy in the region. In contrast, Bush calls Iran part of an axis of evil and dismisses its elections and government as illegitimate. So the Bush administration cannot have been filled with joy when Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and eight high-powered cabinet ministers paid an extremely friendly visit to Tehran this week.

The two governments went into a tizzy of wheeling and dealing of a sort not seen since Texas oil millionaires found out about Saudi Arabia. Oil pipelines, port access, pilgrimage, trade, security, military assistance, were all on the table in Tehran. All the sorts of contracts and deals that U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney had imagined for Halliburton, and that the Pentagon neoconservatives had hoped for Israel, were heading instead due east."

(Via Salon.)

AlterNet: Rove's Most Telling Words: "Because so far, I can't think of a single Republican official or conservative commentator who has even acknowledged that Rove's conversation with Matt Cooper may have been the least bit problematic. No GOP elected official has breathed a word of doubt. Over at The Corner, they're turning somersaults trying to prove that Cooper's language may have meant this and not that, or running interviews with Robert Luskin that actually introduce no information that bears on the facts of the case, which other Cornerites then bray 'proves' Rove's innocence.

At The Weekly Standard -- which in 2001 boasted of the 'Responsibility President' -- it's the same duck-and-cover routine, led by a lengthy Scrapbook item trying to debunk Wilson's credibility. They never acknowledge the remotest possibility that Rove might have done something untoward.

And, of course, they never will, which is the Watergate-paradigm idea. The conventional wisdom is that Richard Nixon might never have fallen if his own party hadn't given up on him, if Barry Goldwater and some other GOP leaders hadn't gone to him and advised him to throw in the towel. So if they just hold the line now, and make it seem like Wilson is a liar and the evil liberals will stoop to anything to nail poor Rove, their man will survive."

(Via AlterNet.)

ArmsControlWonk | an arms control weblog: North Korea's One Ton Bomb?: "I now have the full text of the report. They guy says that North Korea’s bomb uses 4 kg of the Pu. That’s the bare minimum for an all Pu pit. I don’t believe this guy. More in a bit ..."

(Via ArmsControlWonk.com.)

Defense Tech: North Korea's One Ton Bomb?: "The Financial Times reports a North Korean defector claims 'Kim Jong-il's regime has made a one-tonne nuclear bomb and is working on lighter weapons that could be fired more reliably, according to a South Korean magazine.'

Is this plausible? Yeah, kinda."

...

Rowan Scarborough (of the Washington Times) reported on a classified DIA report that estimated the NORKs couldn't do better than 650-750 kg (1,400-1,700 lbs).

So, one ton is at the edge of plausible, but my guess is they aren't that good.

(Via a DefenseTech.)

LewRockwell.com Blog: Stormtroopers of the New World Order: "Today Congress passed the truly terrifying foreign affairs authorization act with an amendment that few seem to have paid attention to, but which will codify the new world order and will provide the critical back side of the people's revolution Leninist tsunamis. I am referring to an amendment by California Congressman David Drier to establish an 'Active Response Corps' composed of federal employees, 'employees of the Department of State including foreign service nationals, employees of the United States Agency of International Development, employees of any other Executive agency...and employees of the legislative and judicial branches,' as well as employees of the non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The purpose of these rapid-response shock troops will be to 'provide assistance in support of stabilization and reconstruction activities in foreign countries that are in, or are in transition from, or are likely to enter into, conflict or civil strife.'

What does this mean in plain language? The color-coded revolutions that are funded by the US government overtly through the National Endowment for Democracy, its various cutout organizations like the CIA-front Freedom House, and USAID, and others, and covertly through the CIA itself have heretofore somewhat neglected the stabilization phase of the immediate post coup d'etat period, and that is a lot to leave up to chance after so much money has been spent. It is one thing to produce a mountain of black propaganda about the phony massacre in Uzbekistan, but as we have seen the variables can be tricky and may not produce the action required on the ground in the short run. And then critical momentum is lost. Additionally, look at how much money was spent to overthrow popular (and freely-elected) Belarusian leader Aleksander Lukashenka and there was no 'stabilization' to back-up the couple of dozen paid protesters in the streets."

(Via LewRockwell.com Blog.)

Defense Tech: US-India Nuclear Cooperation: "The Bush Administration is eagerly courting India because ... well, frankly, I don't know. I am told the intellectual argument for the Bush Administration policy is reflected in Ashley Tellis' India as a New Global Power: An Action Agenda for the United States.

Tellis argues the 'change in approach' arose 'from three evolving perceptions within the Bush administration':

First, the administration had come to realize that India would not give up its nuclear weapons so long as various regional adversaries continued to possess comparable capabilities. The fact that the administration initially viewed both of India’s antagonists — Pakistan and China — with considerable suspicion only made senior U.S. officials more sympathetic to New Delhi’s predicament.

Second, the administration was now of the understanding that India’s nuclear weapons did not pose a threat to U.S. security and the United States’ larger geopolitical interests, and could in certain circumstances actually advance American strategic objectives in Asia and beyond"

...

"Third, the administration now appreciated that the range of technological resources associated with weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their delivery systems that were present in India in both the public and private sectors posed a far more serious threat to American safety—were these resources to be leaked, whether deliberately or inadvertently, to hostile regimes or nonstate actors—than New Delhi’s ownership of various nuclear assets."

(Via a DefenseTech.)

Salon.com News | What does John Roberts believe?: "But closer examination suggests that the president may be playing by yesterday's rules, in which mere qualification and demeanor might have been sufficient. President Bush has made ideology a critical basis for selection of his judicial nominees, and Democrats in the Senate have responded in kind. Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, in particular, has argued in the context of lower-court nominations that the Senate need not and ought not to confirm judges who refuse to divulge their own views about the meaning of the Constitution. And already he and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who, like Schumer, sits on the Judiciary Committee, have said that they have an obligation to find out what Judge Roberts thinks about the most important constitutional questions, including the scope of the constitutional right to privacy, which the Supreme Court has held protects a woman's right to choose abortion but which justices like Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas reject.

The importance of such questions in this case almost couldn't be greater. For if Roberts turns out to be what the president has promised to appoint (and what many people on both ends of the ideological spectrum seem to suspect), a conservative with substantive views in the mold of Justices Scalia and Thomas, his appointment would be a seismic event in American law and the life of our country."

(Via Salon.)

LewRockwell.com Blog: It's Immoral to Shut Up During an Unjust (or Stupid) War: "'There is something immoral or amoral in the constant statement: I think it would be wrong, morally wrong, stupid, foolish for us to get into the war, but if we should get in, then it's the duty of all of us to rally behind the President. National unity before all else! National unity, even in the prosecution of an unjust war?

'If a war is unjust, then it must be opposed before the outbreak of hostilities and after. If a war is unjust I must refuse to be a party to the injustice after the declaration of war, as well as before."

...

Fr. John P. Delaney, S.J.
The Catholic World, April 1941

(Via LewRockwell.com Blog.)

British Intelligence Cites Iraq War as Cause of Terrorism | AfterDowningStreet.org: "'Events in Iraq are continuing to act as motivation and a focus of a range of terrorist related activity in the U.K.,' said the report, a copy of which was made available by a foreign intelligence service and was not disputed by four senior British officials who were asked about it.

...

On Monday, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, an influential private research organization commonly known as Chatham House, concluded that Britain's participation in the war in Iraq and as 'pillion passenger' of American foreign policy had made it vulnerable to terrorist attack. A pillion is the second seat on a motorcycle."

(Via AfterDowningStreet.org.)

The Raw Story | Raw acquires copy of 2002 letter from British ambassador: 'The need to wrongfoot Saddam' : "In the letter from Meyer, he indicates that the British had a 'need to wrongfoot Saddam on the inspectors and the UN' Security Council Resolutions, possibly suggesting that the British and the United States were coordinating to 'trick' Saddam into starting a war."

(Via NervousFishBlog.)

Reply to Mark Stein: "Lots of right-wing blogs are linking to Mark Steyn's article in last Sunday's Chicago Sun-Times. In the piece, Steyn argues that America needs to be protected from diplomats who lose sight of their job in their quest for personal recognition. In other words, diplomats like Joe Wilson.

The main problem with Steyn's argument is that it attempts to discredit Wilson, and thereby critics of the war, through a sensationalized reading of the facts about Iraqi WMDs and, more specifically, Iraq's efforts to acquire uranium in Africa."

(Via NervousFishBlog.)

Large Volume of F.B.I. Files Alarms U.S. Activist Groups - New York Times: "The Federal Bureau of Investigation has collected at least 3,500 pages of internal documents in the last several years on a handful of civil rights and antiwar protest groups in what the groups charge is an attempt to stifle political opposition to the Bush administration.

The F.B.I. has in its files 1,173 pages of internal documents on the American Civil Liberties Union, the leading critic of the Bush administration's antiterrorism policies, and 2,383 pages on Greenpeace, an environmental group that has led acts of civil disobedience in protest over the administration's policies, the Justice Department disclosed in a court filing this month in a federal court in Washington."

(Via NY Times.)

Baghdad Burning: "Raed of Raed in the Middle has some very bad news. His brother Khalid of the blog Tell Me a Secret has been abducted by the new Iraqi mukhabarat.

We're all praying he'll be alright and that Allah/God gives his family the strength to make it through this."

(Via Baghdad Burning.)