Congressional Republicans call it their "winning ugly" strategy. Even when controlling both chambers, Republican leaders have discovered that advancing their social and economic agenda is much easier when they punt contentious legislation into House and Senate negotiations, where Republicans are firmly in command. The latest example came this week when Senate Republicans, flummoxed in their push to pass an energy bill before leaving town, resorted to resurrecting and passing last year's Democratic energy proposal just to get into talks with their House brethren. That same path has been followed all year on difficult bills: get a budget, tax cut or Medicare bill off the floor and out of the line of fire � even if it has flaws that make lawmakers cringe � and force it into conference for a thorough massaging. "An obvious advantage to being in the majority, even if it is a tiny majority like ours, is that you control the conference," Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, said today as the Senate adjourned until Sept. 2. "It is elementary that if you can get a bill to conference, you have a wide latitude to produce a bill the majority is comfortable with and the president is comfortable with." It may be elementary, but it is not exactly the textbook version of how a bill becomes law. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/02/politics/02CONG.html

Suit Challenges Constitutionality of Powers in Antiterrorism Law The American Civil Liberties Union and six Muslim groups today brought the first constitutional challenge to the sweeping antiterrorism legislation passed after the Sept. 11 attacks, arguing that the law gives federal agents virtually unchecked authority to spy on Americans. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Michigan, seeks to have a major section of the law, the U.S.A. Patriot Act, declared unconstitutional on the grounds that it violates the privacy, due process and free speech rights of Americans. "We think the Constitution is really on our side," Ann Beeson, the civil liberties union's chief lawyer in the suit, said in an interview. "There are basically no limits to the amount of information the F.B.I. can get now � library book records, medical records, hotel records, charitable contributions � the list goes on and on, and it's the secrecy of the whole operation that is really troublesome." http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/31/national/31PATR.html

Mideast Peace Process Hits More Bumps In a move that drew fierce Palestinian opposition and ran counter to the language of the ``road map,'' Israel issued a tender on Thursday to expand a Gaza Strip settlement. The tender, by the Israel Lands Authority, offers the rights to build 22 new housing units in the Neve Dekalim settlement, the largest in Gaza. Israel says that a certain amount of building is necessary to accommodate natural growth within the settlements. Palestinians, however, see the settlements as illegal occupation of their land and have long pushed for their dismantlement, and the road map specifically precludes expansion for ``natural growth.'' ``This is a very dangerous step taken by the Israeli government,'' said Nabil Abu Rdeneh, an aide to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Early Thursday, overnight negotiations between Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and Mohammed Dahlan, the Palestinian minister in charge of security, ended with no agreement on a promised Israeli withdrawal from two Palestinian towns. Israeli officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Mofaz offered to turn over Qalqiliya and another West Bank town, Jericho, to Palestinian security control. Israeli forces have already withdrawn from parts of Gaza and the West Bank town of Bethlehem. The Palestinian side, however, insisted at the talks that any withdrawal from the Palestinian cities also be accompanied by steps to allow Palestinians to move around the West Bank more freely. ``We wanted the withdrawal to be a genuine one that would allow the Palestinian cities to connect with each other and would give people free ways to move,'' Dahlan said Thursday. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html

All Bets Are Off The so-called terrorism futures market sounded like a hoax: investors would have been able to make money from attacks and strife. Now that the red-faced Pentagon has closed down the project, it's appropriate to ask, "What were they thinking?" The Department of Defense argued that markets "are extremely efficient, effective and timely aggregators of dispersed and even hidden information . . . often better than expert opinions." That's true. The University of Iowa has a neat system allowing bettors to establish the odds for candidates in races in America and overseas. The Iowa markets have generally done a better job than pollsters at predicting the outcomes of elections. Markets also do a great job at more traditional tasks, like matching buyers and sellers and setting prices for everything from chickens to semiconductor chips. Still, the Pentagon's concept is flawed. Markets are not very good at setting prices for rare events. Those who trade in the Iowa political exchange have the benefit of historical election results and daily polls; property insurance companies know full well when the Florida hurricane season starts. But could markets have given us a price for the odds of a shooting in the balcony of City Hall in New York? Sure, markets learn from experience. It's been a long time, though, since Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton � and that was across the river in New Jersey. Before Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, I directed a White House study on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Should we add to the reserve? What were the chances of a war in the gulf or an OPEC boycott like the one in 1973? These events take place intermittently and are hard to predict. But we had to make some estimates. Likewise, in order to allocate our domestic defense resources, we have to estimate the odds of terrorist events on the ground, in the sky or at sea. Here again, markets work better when they are deep and liquid � that is, with many participants and lots of transactions. This raises reliability and reduces the risk of manipulation. How deep and liquid could the market for terrorism futures be? This was the problem faced by the Pentagon. To attract "investors," the Pentagon needed to offer a significant payoff. But with big payoffs, the incentive for market manipulation rises. And in the case of terrorism futures, market manipulation can show up not as a forged buy order but as a bullet. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/31/opinion/31BUCH.html

Privacy pendulum swings back In the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, the worry in Washington, D.C., was more about national security than about individual privacy. A couple days after the terror attacks, the U.S. Senate voted to grant the Federal Bureau of Investigation sweeping Internet surveillance powers that, in some cases, would not require a judge's approval. Huge portions of that bill, self-importantly titled the Combating Terrorism Act, eventually became part of the even more grandly named law called the USA Patriot Act. Soon after the law's enactment, Attorney General John Ashcroft began likening criticism of such dubious legislation to the treasonous offense of "aiding terrorists." Noted civil libertarians such as Alan Dershowitz began to suggest that entrepreneurial judges could issue "torture warrants" against suspected terrorists, while automated face recognition cameras began popping up in airports and politicians began scheming about how to ban encryption products without backdoors for government snoops. Suffice it to say that privacy was not exactly paramount on everyone's mind. But as the two-year anniversary of Sept. 11 approaches, there are signs that Congress realizes it went too far in allowing electronic surveillance and other invasions of personal privacy. Consider some recent evidence: � By a 309 to 118 vote last Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation that would essentially block part of the USA Patriot Act that permitted police to seek a court order that let them surreptitiously enter a home or business. The amendment to the Commerce, Justice and State spending bill would not repeal the "secret search" law but instead would deny federal agencies any funds that could be used in order to take advantage of it. � During the floor debate, Rep. C.L. "Butch" Otter, R-Idaho, the amendment's sponsor, offered this impassioned defense of liberty: "Sneak-and-peek searches give the government the power to repeatedly search a private residence without informing the residents that he or she is the target of an investigation. Not only does this provision allow the seizure of personal property and business records without notification, but it also opens the door to nationwide search warrants and allows the CIA and the NSA to operate domestically." � Also last week, some House members tried to nix the part of the USA Patriot Act that handed the FBI broad powers to search library or bookstore records without the usual need for search warrants or judicial oversight. Offered by Rep. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., the amendment was ruled to be out of order--but it enjoys the support of 129 members of Congress and advocacy groups like the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression. � On July 17, the U.S. Senate yanked funding for the Pentagon's creepy Total Information Awareness plan (TIA), which aims to weave together strands of data from various sources--such as travel, credit card, bank, electronic toll and driver's license databases--with the stated purpose of identifying terrorists before they strike. (Earlier, the Pentagon had responded to public outcry by changing the project's name to Terrorist Information Awareness.) � Last Tuesday, at a meeting of a U.S. Department of Defense advisory committee, top intelligence officers said TIA wasn't really all that spectacular an idea, anyway. "They need to work on the underlying business model before it is implemented," said Maureen Baginski, the FBI's executive assistant director for intelligence, according to Federal Computer Week. Alan Wade, chief information officer at the CIA, warned that "the scope may be too big." Ouch. And this is from the cadre of spooks who supposedly wanted TIA in the first place? Ashcroft and his aides at the U.S. Department of Justice are hardly delighted by this privacy backlash-backlash. Not only are they intent on keeping the USA Patriot Act intact, but they're not happy at finding themselves suddenly on the defensive. Secret searches Last week, while touring Alaska, Ashcroft employed a venerable Washingtonian tactic: Blame the press. It was understandable that Americans are worried about privacy invasions, Ashcroft informed reporters, "but when the so-called invasion is one that's falsely reported and nonexistent, and they don't hear about the fact that it's falsely reported and nonexistent, it's not helpful." On Friday, Ashcroft's deputy, Assistant Attorney General William Moschella, went even further. Moschella sent a letter to the speaker of the House warning that the "secret search" amendment would have a "devastating effect on the United States' ongoing efforts to detect and prevent terrorism, as well as to combat other serious crimes...The terrorist would likely destroy computer equipment containing information about which targets he plans to strike." The letter, which urged the House to reconsider its decision, cited procedural irregularities, complaining that the House's vote was a "hasty" one. But you never saw the Justice Department demanding a careful, reasoned process when the USA Patriot Act was being rushed into law in October 2001. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., said after that memorable vote: "What we have today is an outrageous procedure. A bill, drafted by a handful of people in secret, comes to us without a committee review and immune to amendment." What the Justice Department also didn't mention last week is that it had been lobbying for the power to conduct "secret searches" for at least four years, long before the Sept. 11 attacks took place and terrorism became a convenient justification for it. As far back as 1999, the FBI had used a secret search warrant when installing a keystroke logger in the office computer of alleged mobster Nicodemo Scarfo. He had used Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption software to encode confidential business data--but with the keystroke logger, the FBI was able to glean his pass phrase. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107_2-5055885.html

FBI wants to tap Net phones Internet telephone calls are fast becoming a national security threat that must be countered with new police wiretap rules, according to an FBI proposal presented quietly to regulators this month. Representatives of the FBI's Electronic Surveillance Technology Section in Chantilly, Va., have met at least twice in the past three weeks with senior officials of the Federal Communications Commission to lobby for proposed new Internet eavesdropping rules. The FBI-drafted plan seeks to force broadband providers to provide more efficient, standardized surveillance facilities and could substantially change the way that cable modem and DSL (digital subscriber line) companies operate. The new rules are necessary, because terrorists could otherwise frustrate legitimate wiretaps by placing phone calls over the Internet, warns a summary of a July 10 meeting with the FCC that the FBI prepared. "Broadband networks may ultimately replace narrowband networks," the summary says. "This trend offers increasing opportunities for terrorists, spies and criminals to evade lawful electronic surveillance." According to the proposal that the FCC is considering, any company offering cable modem or DSL service to residences or businesses would be required to comply with a thicket of federal regulations that would establish a central hub for police surveillance of their customers. The proposal has alarmed civil libertarians who fear that it might jeopardize privacy and warn that the existence of such hubs could facilitate broad surveillance of other Internet communications such as e-mail, Web browsing and instant messaging. Under existing federal wiretapping laws, the FBI already has the ability to seek a court order to conduct surveillance of any broadband user though its DCS1000 system, previously called Carnivore. But the bureau worries that unless Internet providers offer surveillance hubs based on common standards, lawbreakers can evade or, at the very least, complicate surveillance by using VOIP providers such as Vonage, Time Warner Cable, Net2Phone, 8X8, deltathree and DigitalVoice. Digital wiretapping The origins of this debate date back nine years, to when the FBI persuaded Congress to enact a controversial law called the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA. Louis Freeh, FBI director at the time, testified in 1994 that emerging technologies such as call forwarding, call waiting and cellular phones had frustrated surveillance efforts. Congress responded to the FBI's concern by requiring that telecommunications services rewire their networks to provide police with guaranteed access for wiretaps. Legislators also granted the FCC substantial leeway in defining what types of companies must comply. So far, the FCC has interpreted CALEA's wiretap-ready requirements to cover only traditional analog and wireless telephone service. "I think the FCC has a lot of room here," said Stewart Baker, a partner at Steptoe & Johnson who represents Internet service providers. "CALEA was written knowing that there would be new technologies for telecommunications." Baker, the former general counsel of the National Security Agency, said it was not clear whether the FBI had yet been frustrated by problems when wiretapping VOIP calls. Derek Khlopin, regulatory counsel at the Telecommunications Industry Association, whose members include Cisco Systems, Ericsson, Lucent Technologies, Motorola and Nortel Networks, said what the FBI is "worried about is, when you have voice over DSL, if there's a way someone could say they're not subject to CALEA." In a letter to the FCC, the FBI wrote: "CALEA applies to telecommunications carriers providing DSL and other types of wire line broadband access." Some members of Khlopin's trade association, such as Cisco, already manufacture products that follow CALEA guidelines. Khlopin said his group did not have a position on the FBI's request, but suggested that "CALEA is not the only way that law enforcement can get the bad guys." The FBI's proposal has drawn criticism in regard to privacy issues. A representative of DSL provider Speakeasy said the company "does not support the extension of CALEA to ISPs, because the proposal appears to run counter to our commitment to protect our subscribers' privacy first and foremost. We certainly will be closely monitoring the progression of this particular proposal." Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)'s technology and liberty program, said the FCC could not legally extend CALEA to cover the Internet without additional action by Congress. "CALEA does not apply to 'information services,' which was the then term of art for the Internet," Steinhardt said. "Voice over IP is just that, a voice service over the Net. CALEA should not, and so far has not, applied to VOIP." http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5056424.html

Afghanistan: Warlords Implicated in New Abuses Report Details Threats to Women's Rights, Freedom of Expression "Human rights abuses in Afghanistan are being committed by gunmen and warlords who were propelled into power by the United States and its coalition partners after the Taliban fell in 2001," said Brad Adams, executive director of the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch. "These men and others have essentially hijacked the country outside of Kabul. With less than a year to go before national elections, Afghanistan's human rights situation appears to be worsening." The 101-page report, "Killing You Is a Very Easy Thing for Us": Human Rights Abuses in Southeast Afghanistan, documents army and police troops kidnapping Afghans and holding them for ransom in unofficial prisons; breaking into households and robbing families; raping women, girls and boys; and extorting shopkeepers and bus, truck and taxi drivers. The report also describes political organizers, journalists and media editors being threatened with death, arrested and harassed by army, police and intelligence agents. The subject area of the report, the southeast of Afghanistan and Kabul city, is one of the most densely populated areas of Afghanistan. Because soldiers are targeting women and girls, many are staying indoors, especially in rural areas, making it impossible for them to attend school, go to work, or actively participate in the country's reconstruction. In many places, human rights abuses are driving many Afghan families to keep their girls out of school. The atmosphere of violence, along with resurgent religious fundamentalism in parts of the country, is endangering the most important human rights improvement since the end of the Taliban--the ability of girls to go back to school. "The fact is that most girls in Afghanistan are still not in school," said Adams. "In many cases, returning refugee families who sent their girls to school in Pakistan or Iran are afraid to do the same in Afghanistan." The testimony of victims and witnesses implicates soldiers and police under the command of many high-level military and political officials in Afghanistan. These include Mohammad Qasim Fahim, the Minister of Defense; Hazrat Ali, the military leader of the Eastern Region; Younis Qanooni, the Minister of Education; Burhanuddin Rabbani, the former president of Afghanistan; and Abdul Rabb al-Rasul Sayyaf, a powerful former mujahidin leader to whom many of the officials involved in the documented abuses in Kabul city and province remain loyal. The report urges the Afghan government to sideline and pressure abusive leaders and to seek more international assistance in its efforts. Human Rights Watch called on the United States, the United Kingdom, Iran, Russia and other external powers to end their support for local strongmen and commanders involved in human rights abuses. "External support for warlords is destabilizing Afghanistan," said Adams. "The United States and the United Kingdom, in particular, need to decide whether they are with President Karzai and other reformers in Kabul or with the warlords. The longer they wait, the more difficult it will be to loosen the warlords' grip on power." http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/07/afghan072903.htm

In March of two thousand three, John Ashcroft set the Bureau free, from its resposibility to even try for accuracy (in the name, of course, of security) Since now there is no penalty or legal culpability near five percent of our population are terrorists in the Bureau's estimation. To the rest of us it's obvious without accountability we lose our hard won liberty and even set the guilty free by reason of inanity.

Roots of Distrust: Betrayal, Real or Feared For all the hand-wringing over the decision to release photographs of the bloodied corpses of Uday and Qusay Hussein, it had to be done, to hear many Iraqis tell it � not just because of their fear that the old regime could return, but because of their memories of American duplicity in Iraq. When American officials describe the difficulties they face in Iraq, the failure to capture Saddam Hussein continues to be cited as a principal reason that insurgents feel emboldened to strike American soldiers. But in the view of many Iraqis � Sunni as well as Shiite, Baghdadis and rural folk � that is just half the picture. To them, the fear of Mr. Hussein, his henchmen and his loyalists is compounded enormously by the dishonesty and disloyalty they feel Americans showed to Mr. Hussein's antagonists during the gulf war in 1991, when American troops pulled back even as Iraqis were rising up to challenge his rule.� Given the depth of the United States' military commitment to Iraq, and its obvious importance to President Bush, Americans may be tempted to dismiss such sentiments as improbable paranoia. But consider the experience of a population that has had very little reliable information during the past 35 years, and has had far too much of rumor, conspiracy theories and propaganda. And, more to the point, terror. In such an environment, even good information becomes difficult to believe. Who can say for sure that it, too, isn't some form of calculated lie? What's more, distrust of Americans is a lesson many Iraqis learned the hard way. On Feb. 15, 1991, during the Persian Gulf war, President George H. W. Bush publicly encouraged "the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands, to force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside." American land forces soon thrust across southern Iraq to oust Mr. Hussein's forces from Kuwait, but when that goal had been accomplished, the Americans suspended offensive operations and offered Iraq a cease-fire. Days later, they stood by as Mr. Hussein sent his helicopters to quash uprisings, or intifadas, that were spreading quickly from Basra across southern Iraq. Mr. Hussein's forces also lashed out furiously at rebellious Kurds in the north. At the time, American policy was heavily influenced by fears that such rebellions could splinter Iraq and lead to Iranian influence in the south. During the uprisings, southern Iraqis killed Mr. Hussein's local henchmen and Baath officials in large cities like Kerbala and Najaf. Once the rebellions had been quelled, thousands of young men � and often whole families � who were suspected of disloyalty to Mr. Hussein were driven to mass grave sites, where they were machine-gunned or buried alive. Memories of the slaughter of 1991 are now being reinforced by excavations across the country of mass graves. News of them plays in a particularly corrosive way into news of the failure of the coalition forces to account for Saddam Hussein. Even as Americans try to bring everyday Iraqis into the coalition fold, the excavations remind the Iraqis of what could happen if the Americans don't fully uproot the old regime. Indeed, Baathists in hiding have already begun murdering some Iraqis who go to work for the Americans, even as taped messages of defiance from Saddam Hussein continue to surface. In Mosul, Nasser Hazim, no relation to the shopkeeper, walked with his children on Thursday morning in front of his home, near the site of the shootout, and said few Iraqis were bothered by the outcome. "Maybe one percent of the people liked Uday and Qusay," he said. "People aren't sorry. But they want some proof they have been killed. They don't want words and they don't want media. People aren't ready to help the Americans because they are always promising, always promising." http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/27/weekinreview/27OPPE.html?pagewanted=all&position=