A large explosion ripped apart a vehicle in an American diplomatic convoy in the Gaza Strip today, killing three American security staff members and wounding one in the most serious attack on Americans since the Palestinian uprising started more than three years ago. The explosion, caused by a roadside bomb or mine, hit the small convoy on the outskirts of this Palestinian town, after the vehicles had passed through the Erez Crossing, which connects Israel with the Palestinian-ruled Strip. It was not immediately clear whether the convoy, which included a Palestinian security car, was attacked because it was American. The convoy vehicles, which were armored and had diplomatic license plates, bore no outward identification as being American. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/15/international/middleeast/15CND-Gaza.html?pagewanted=all&position=

Toward Death Penalty Reform Even as Congress was advancing long-delayed death penalty reforms last week, the Supreme Court was moving in the opposite direction, lending tacit approval to modern-day barbarism. The justices declined to review a lower court ruling allowing a deranged prisoner to be forcibly medicated to make him sane enough to be executed. Public enthusiasm for the death penalty has been muted in recent years as the country learns more about how it is actually applied. And those stories continue surfacing, one more distressing than the next. A recent article in The Times pointed to a growing debate among legal and medical experts about the supposedly humane use of lethal injection to kill condemned prisoners, noting that Tennessee recently outlawed use of one of the chemicals for pet euthanasia. The developments in Congress reflect the positive side of all these disclosures � a desire even among supporters of the death penalty to eliminate some of the most outrageous aspects of how it is applied.�The new legislation combines President Bush's initiative to reduce the backlog of biological evidence awaiting testing with a pale version of Senator Patrick Leahy's Innocence Protection Act, a measure that has languished year after year. The hybrid includes provisions to require the preservation of physical evidence in federal criminal cases, expand the availability of post-conviction DNA testing and help nudge states to raise the abysmal caliber of legal representation in capital cases. The bill has cleared an important hurdle, passing the House Judiciary Committee by a 28-to-1 vote. A vote by the full House is expected shortly. No one should be deluded into thinking the measure is a cure-all, however. In the redrafting, for one thing, penalties for noncompliance with lawyering standards were replaced with a voluntary system of large financial incentives to goad states to bind themselves to federal guidelines. The effectiveness of the incentives depends largely on whether the bill is fully financed � a big if � and even then it is possible some states with more primitive death penalty practices may decline to participate. More fundamentally, plenty of factors that contribute to the risk of executing the innocent were left unaddressed, like coerced confessions and the faulty recollection of eyewitnesses. Nor would the bill stop states from forcibly medicating deranged prisoners to get around the Eighth Amendment ban on executing the mentally incompetent � the serious constitutional issue sidestepped by the justices. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/13/opinion/13MON2.html

The N.R.A. Is Naming Names The National Rifle Association doesn't call it an enemies list, but deep in the recesses of the organization's Web site is a long, long compilation of the names of groups and individuals that the N.R.A. considers unfriendly. �The A.F.L.-C.I.O. is there, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. The Children's Defense Fund and the Lutheran Office for Governmental Affairs are there. The United States Catholic Conference, the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the Y.W.C.A. of the U.S.A. are all there. Among the celebrities on the list are Dr. Joyce Brothers, Candice Bergen, Walter Cronkite, Doug Flutie, Michelle Pfeiffer, Vinny Testaverde, Moon Zappa and the Temptations. Also on the list are the Kansas City Chiefs, Hallmark Cards, the Sara Lee Corporation, Ben & Jerry's, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City. I'm sure there's a method to the N.R.A. madness, but to tell you the truth, all I can see is the madness http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/13/opinion/13HERB.html

Unable to find weapons of mass destruction, the Bush team has turned to weapons of personal destruction. It's bad enough that the administration hasn't come up with any plausible reason for not having uncovered any W.M.D., even as it's requesting $600 million more to find them; now it's practicing Crawford McCarthyism. At his office yesterday, a block from the White House that he has turned into Bleak House, Mr. Wilson was calm, even as Republicans continued to rip him. For Bush officials, who have wielded patriotism as a bludgeon on critics, you'd think that doing something as unpatriotic as outing Mr. Wilson's wife and endangering the lives of her C.I.A. contacts would be enough. Nah. The group that fights so ferally to keep everything secret, from the cronies who met with Dick Cheney to the identities of the people it has tossed into the brig at Gitmo, had no problem spilling the beans on its own spy when self-preservation was at stake. The issue is the administration's credibility, not Joe Wilson's. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/02/opinion/02DOWD.html

They imposed estimated annual costs of $1.6 billion to $2 billion, but produced estimated annual benefits of $2.4 billion to $6.5 billion.

Review of Environment Rules Finds Benefits Outweigh Costs The White House office in charge of reviewing federal regulations has reported that the benefits of some major environmental rules appear to exceed the costs by several times and that the net benefits may be even larger than previously acknowledged. In its annual review of the costs and benefits of regulations, the Office of Management and Budget examined a sampling of major rules and found that the total benefits, to the extent they can be measured, were at least triple the costs. In this report, which was described on Saturday in The Washington Post, the Environmental Protection Agency was found to have produced significantly greater net benefits than last year's report acknowledged. But the change was mainly due to accounting technicalities. In one change, the budget office expanded its review by looking back 10 years. This meant the latest report included the effects of the successful efforts of the 1990's to rein in the pollution that causes acid rain. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/28/politics/28COST.html

At Central Command, Death Gets an Online Demotion More than 300 American troops have been killed since the war in Iraq began. According to Pentagon records, more than 160 have been killed since President Bush declared on May 1 that major combat operations had ended. At least 70 of those deaths have been the result of hostile fire. Every week seems to bring more deaths. When the guns are silent, there are fatal traffic accidents, fires, even electrocutions. But as the death toll rises, it is growing less visible, at least to those who visit the Web site operated by the United States Central Command, which controls American troops in Iraq. Until early September, the Central Command official site, www.centcom.mil, posted press releases of American military deaths at the top of its home page, along with other releases. The result was a m�lange of good news and bad that reflected the gap between intention and outcome plaguing the United States-led occupation here. Earlier this month, for example, a visitor to the Web site would have seen "Coalition Offers Help With Water, Jobs, Public Safety," topped by a reference to deaths in the First Armored Division: "Two Soldiers Killed, One Wounded in Attack and 1AD Soldier Killed in Helicopter Accident." But about two weeks ago, the site began offering a different picture of the occupation in which death assumed a far less prominent role. In fact, the deaths of American soldiers were now nowhere to be seen on the home page. To find them, visitors had to scroll to the bottom of the page and click on a small link called "Casualty Reports." http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/28/weekinreview/28ALEX.html

Senator: Cheney pushes line - Report questions nature of VP's Halliburton ties A Congressional Research Service report undermines Vice President Dick Cheney's denial of an ongoing relationship with Halliburton Co., the energy company he once led, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said Thursday. The report concluded that federal ethics laws treat Cheney's annual deferred-compensation checks and unexercised stock options as financial interests in the company. The seven-page report did not name Cheney or Halliburton; it addressed the general legal question. It was prepared at Lautenberg's request. The report from the law division of the congressional research arm of the Library of Congress said deferred salary or compensation received from a private corporation -- as well as unexercised stock options -- may represent a continuing financial interest as defined by federal ethics laws. Democrats have challenged Cheney's claim that he has no financial ties to Halliburton. Cheney said on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sept. 14 that since becoming vice president, "I've severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interest. I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven't had, now, for over three years." Democrats disputed that because Cheney received deferred compensation of $147,579 in 2001 and $162,392 in 2002, with the payments scheduled to continue for three more years. In response, Cheney's office said he had purchased an insurance policy so he would be paid even if Halliburton failed. And his office also has announced he has agreed to donate the after-tax proceeds from his stock options to charity. But the congressional report said that neither the insurance policy nor the charity designation would change a public official's obligation to treat the pay and options as ties to a private corporation. Halliburton, a Houston-based energy conglomerate, has been awarded more than $2 billion in contracts for rebuilding Iraq, including one worth $1.22 billion awarded on a non-competitive basis. Cheney was chief executive officer of Halliburton from 1995 through August 2000. Lautenberg said the report makes clear that Cheney has financial ties to Halliburton. "I ask the vice president to stop dodging the issue with legalese," Lautenberg said. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0309260335sep26,1,7807894.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

Clark Comes Out Blazing at Bush's 'Arrogance' on Iraq Former Gen. Wesley Clark, in his first full day as a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, blasted President Bush for a "dogmatic" foreign policy and for putting "strong-arm tactics" on Congress to rush approval for the war in Iraq. Saying the Bush White House used its executive authority "in ways that cut off debate," Clark said he would likely have voted to authorize the war because "the simple truth is that when the president of the United States lays the power of office" on the line, "the balance of judgment probably goes to the president." "I was against the war," Clark said. "In retrospect, we should never have gone in there. We could have waited. We could have brought the allies in." Asked whether he would support the president's $87-billion request for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, Clark said he would first want to see an accounting of the administration's projected costs and its exit strategy. He faulted the administration for "arrogance" in slighting Congress and many of the nation's traditional allies. But he added, "Now that we're there, I want the mission to succeed." Standing on a chair and using a microphone, Clark assailed Bush's economic record, asking why the country has lost 2.7 million jobs, to which the crowd responded, "Bush!" Clark said he had some other tough questions for Bush: "Why are we engaged in Iraq?" Clark asked. "Mr. President, tell us the truth. Was it because Saddam Hussein was assisting the hijackers? Was it because Saddam Hussein had a nuclear weapon?" Someone in the audience yelled, "Oil!" Clark said: "We don't know. And that's the truth. We have to ask that question." To which another person in the crowd shouted, "Halliburton is why!" http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-clark19sep19,1,2682695.story?coll=la-headlines-nation-manual

MISTAKES HAVE BEEN MADE Iraqis wonder how U.S. can be so inept On Aug. 19, when the United Nations building in Baghdad was blown up, a little-known Franco-Egyptian UN worker, Jean-Selim Kanaan, was killed. He had volunteered for Iraq duty to help people, and was counting on the protection of the world's mightiest power. Two weeks after his arrival in June, he wrote letters to friends around the world. "Americans understand only what is American. . . . [They] made this war for their interests and surely not to liberate the Iraqi people . . . the revolt is growing," he said in the letters. There are some a series of questions on the streets of Iraq. How is it possible for the U.S. to make so many mistakes? Does the U.S. want to destroy Iraq or have it plunge into civil war and disintegrate? Is all of this an American conspiracy? People cannot believe that the U.S., with all its might and capabilities, could not provide basic security after the fall of the Baath regime in April or restore essential services such as electricity and water. The lawlessness that prevailed after the fall of Baghdad, the looting and destruction of hospitals, museums, public offices and private businesses, while American troops watched, will remain in the minds of many people. They see what happened as a purposeful dereliction of the occupying power's duty to protect the population. The protection is required of occupying armies by the Geneva Conventions. To have disbanded the entire Iraqi army and police, leaving the cities and streets undefended, sending home several hundred thousand trained persons without income, is insanity. These and other failures to provide for the people's elementary needs raise questions about U.S. motives. Many Iraqis see this as a conspiracy to bring about a civil war between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, leading to the breakdown of their country so that the U.S. can take over its oil--the world's second-largest oil reserve. And as is de rigueur in Middle East matters, Israel is added to the mix, though it has nothing to do with that "made in the U.S." mess. None of this is the American intention, but there is no way to explain these many mistakes. The economy Another astonishing decision recently announced by Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, is the privatization of Iraq's economy. Because there is no private capital in Iraq and the banking system has collapsed, it means that outside capital will own Iraq's future. Who is to benefit? The Ahmad Chalabi crowd supported by Deputy Defense Secretaries Douglas Feith and Paul Wolfowitz? Add a layer to the conspiracy. Last, but not least, is the U.S. failure to bring the worst Baathist criminals to justice--one of the avowed U.S. purposes in going to war in Iraq. None of the Baath leaders held in U.S. custody, some for months, has been brought to trial, and there are no known plans to prosecute them before a legitimate international or national judicial body. The U.S. even rejects having a United Nations commission gather the evidence, just as one did in Yugoslavia, whose success led to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, which is now prosecuting Slobodan Milosevic. Meanwhile in Iraq, mass graves are dug out and bodies removed, documents pilfered from public officials, and on the whole, the evidence is being lost. In Baghdad, the word is that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized U.S. intelligence to make deals with the infamous deck of cards of most wanted criminals in exchange for information, particularly about the hitherto undiscovered weapons of mass destruction. In the U.S., the administration's Iraq occupation policies are mostly questioned from narrow perspectives addressing smaller pieces of the puzzle. The administration avoids those parts of the puzzle that do not fit the image it wants to convey. It also makes it possible to blame security problems in Iraq on "outside terrorists." It does not report the hundreds of Iraqi civilians accidentally killed by American troops. Nor does it account for thousands of civilian detainees. There is one added allegation not reported extensively in the U.S. That is the claim of kidnapping and presumed rape of more than 400 women, according to an Arab news agency. For Iraqi families, there is nothing worse that can befall them. These crimes are committed by Iraqis, but the people blame U.S. forces for the situation. Moreover, when they try to go to the U.S. authorities for help, they are turned away, like the families of the 5,000 detainees who seek news about their loved ones. The naive impression we are conveying is that our leaders were surprised by Iraqi nationalistic reactions because Iraqis were expected to greet invading American troops as Parisian troops did in 1945. That they didn't see Iraqi opposition coming when common people in the streets of every Arab country could have told them so strains credibility. These are, after all, brilliant people. If they purposely concealed it and misled the American people, they should be held accountable. And if they were imbued with their own arrogance to such a degree or deceived by their self-selected agents of change in Iraq, such as Chalabi, they should be removed from office for incompetence. Yet they still impose Chalabi, even when it is now well-established that he has little or no credibility in Iraq. Not unpredictable Nothing of what is happening in Iraq was unpredictable. Yet, despite consistent evidence of misguided policies and practices during the occupation, there is no indication of a significant change. We hear of cosmetic changes, such as having a Security Council resolution establish a multinational force under the command and control of the U.S. But that will not delude nor deflect Iraqi resistance, and it will not bring security for the Iraqi people. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/perspective/chi-0309140031sep14,1,5066949.story?coll=chi-newsopinionperspective-hed

Clinton Assails Bush at Gathering for Hopefuls Former President Bill Clinton seized the Democratic stage tonight, offering one of his strongest denunciations of President Bush since leaving office as he tried to rally Democrats here around candidates who have yet to stir the excitement he did in 1992. Speaking without notes or a prepared text, Mr. Clinton invoked the circumstances of the 2000 presidential election as he argued that the Bush administration had squandered the domestic and foreign policy gains he had made in his eight years in office. "That election was not a mandate for radical change, but that is what we got," Mr. Clinton said, adding, "We went from surplus to deficit, from job gain to job loss, from a reduction in poverty to an increase in poverty, from a reduction in people without health insurance to an increase of people without health insurance." The former president said that Mr. Bush had wasted an opportunity to unite the country and enhance its international standing in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks. "Instead of uniting the world, we alienated it," he said. "And instead of uniting America, we divided it by trying to push it too far to the right." Mr. Clinton used his own economic situation to mock Mr. Bush's tax cut. Mr. Clinton said he might, as a very wealthy former president living in Chappaqua, N.Y., be paying more taxes than just about anyone else in America. "I get my tax cut, and they are going to take 300,000 poor children and kick them out of after-school programs," he said. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/14/politics/14DEMS.html

Bush Seeks to Expand Access to Private Data For months, President Bush's advisers have assured a skittish public that law-abiding Americans have no reason to fear the long reach of the antiterrorism law known as the Patriot Act because its most intrusive measures would require a judge's sign-off. But in a plan announced this week to expand counterterrorism powers, President Bush adopted a very different tack. In a three-point presidential plan that critics are already dubbing Patriot Act II, Mr. Bush is seeking broad new authority to allow federal agents � without the approval of a judge or even a federal prosecutor � to demand private records and compel testimony. Mr. Bush also wants to expand the use of the death penalty in crimes like terrorist financing, and he wants to make it tougher for defendants in such cases to be freed on bail before trial. These proposals are also sure to prompt sharp debate, even among Republicans. Opponents say that the proposal to allow federal agents to issue subpoenas without the approval of a judge or grand jury will significantly expand the law enforcement powers granted by Congress after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. And they say it will also allow the Justice Department � after months of growing friction with some judges � to limit the role of the judiciary still further in terrorism cases.� http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/14/national/14PATR.html?pagewanted=all&position=

Gunsmoke and Mirrors This is how bad things are for George W. Bush: He's back in a dead heat with Al Gore. (And this is how bad things are for Al Gore: He's back in a dead heat with George W. Bush.) One terrorist attack, two wars, three tax cuts, four months of guerrilla mayhem in Iraq, five silly colors on a terror alert chart, nine nattering Democratic candidates, 10 Iraqi cops killed by Americans, $87 billion in Pentagon illusions, a gazillion boastful Osama tapes, zero Saddam and zilch W.M.D. have left America split evenly between the president and former vice president. "More than two and a half years after the 2000 election and we are back where we started," marveled John Zogby, who conducted the poll. It's plus ?a change all over again. We are learning once more, as we did on 9/11, that all the fantastic technology in the world will not save us. The undigitalized human will is able to frustrate our most elaborate schemes and lofty policies. What unleashed Shock and Awe and the most extravagant display of American military prowess ever was a bunch of theologically deranged Arabs with box cutters. The Bush administration thought it could use scientific superiority to impose its will on alien tribal cultures. But we're spending hundreds of billions subduing two backward countries without subduing them. After the president celebrated victory in our high-tech war in Iraq, our enemies came back to rattle us with a diabolically ingenious low-tech war, a homemade bomb in a truck obliterating the U.N. offices, and improvised explosive devices hidden in soda cans, plastic bags and dead animals blowing up our soldiers. Afghanistan has mirror chaos, with reconstruction sabotaged by Taliban assaults on American forces, the Afghan police and aid workers. The Pentagon blithely says that we have 56,000 Iraqi police and security officers and that we will soon have more. But it may be hard to keep and recruit Iraqi cops; the job pays O.K. but it might end very suddenly, given the rate at which Americans and guerrillas are mowing them down. "This shows the Americans are completely out of control," First Lt. Mazen Hamid, an Iraqi policeman, said Friday after angry demonstrators gathered in Falluja to demand the victims' bodies. Secretary Pangloss at Defense and Wolfie the Naif are terminally enchanted by their own descriptions of the world. They know how to use their minds, but it's not clear they know how to use their eyes.? http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/14/opinion/14DOWD.html

Plans for Terror Inquiries Still Fall Short, Report Says The Justice Department, criticized for its treatment of hundreds of illegal immigrants jailed after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has not done enough to avoid a repeat by spelling out clear criteria for determining who is considered a terrorist suspect, an internal report concluded today. In its report, the Justice Department inspector general's office said federal authorities had not developed adequate plans for classifying illegal immigrants arrested in terror investigations to ensure that those with no ties to terrorism would be cleared quickly and adequate F.B.I. resources would be devoted to such investigations. The inspector general's report offered a mixed verdict on the progress the authorities had made in avoiding the pitfalls surrounding the arrests of more than 700 illegal immigrants after the 9/11 attacks. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/09/politics/09DETA.html

Another Friday Outrage By PAUL KRUGMAN When the E.P.A. makes our air dirtier, or the Interior Department opens a wilderness to mining companies, or the Labor Department strips workers of some more rights, the announcement always comes late on Friday � when the news is most likely to be ignored on TV and nearly ignored by major newspapers. Last Friday the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, known as FERC, announced settlements with energy companies accused of manipulating markets during the California energy crisis. Why on Friday? Because the settlements were a joke: the companies got away with only token payments. It was yet another demonstration of how electricity deregulation has gone wrong. Most independent experts now believe that during 2000-2001, price manipulation by energy companies, mainly taking the form of "economic withholding" � keeping capacity offline to drive up prices � added billions of dollars to California's electricity bills. A March FERC report concluded that there had been extensive manipulation of prices in both the natural gas and electricity markets. Using methods widely accepted among economists, the California Independent System Operator � which operates the power grid � estimated that withholding by electricity companies had cost the state $8.9 billion. This estimate doesn't include the continuing cost of long-term contracts the state signed, at inflated prices, to keep the lights on during the crisis. Yet the charges energy companies agreed to added up to only a bit more than $1 million. That is, the average Californian was bilked of more than $250, but the state will receive compensation of about 3 cents.� http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/02/opinion/02KRUG.html

Taking Arabs Seriously Marc Lynch From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2003 RIGHT GOAL, WRONG APPROACH For the hawks in the Bush administration, one of the keys to understanding the Middle East is Osama bin Laden's observation that people flock to the "strong horse." Bush officials think U.S. problems in the region stem in part from "weak" responses offered by previous administrations to terrorist attacks in the 1980s and 1990s, and they came into office determined to reestablish respect for U.S. power abroad. After nearly two years of aggressive military actions, however, the United States' regional standing has never been lower. As the recent Pew Global Attitudes survey put it, "the bottom has fallen out of Arab and Muslim support for the United States." The failure to find dramatic evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction has spurred widespread debate in the Middle East about the real purpose of the recent war, which most Arab commentators now see as a bid by the United States to consolidate its regional and global hegemony. U.S. threats against Iran and Syria play into this fear, increasing a general determination to resist. And the chaos that followed the fall of Baghdad, the escalating Iraqi anger at what is always described as an American occupation, and the seemingly ambivalent U.S. attitude toward Iraqi democracy have reinforced deep preexisting skepticism about Washington's intentions. Because of the speed with which intense anti-Americanism has recently emerged across all social groups in the region -- including educated, Westernized Arab liberals -- the problem cannot be attributed to enduring cultural differences, nor to long-standing U.S. policies such as support for Israel or local authoritarian leaders. Arabs themselves clearly and nearly unanimously blame specific Bush administration moves, such as the invasion of Iraq and what they see as a desultory and one-sided approach to Israeli-Palestinian relations. But perhaps even more important than the substance of the administration's policies is the crude, tone-deaf style in which those policies have been pursued. The first step toward improving the United States' image, therefore, must be figuring out how to address Arabs and Muslims effectively. Ironically, for this administration above all others, taking Arab public opinion seriously cannot be considered either a luxury or a concession to "Arabists" lurking in the bureaucracy. It is instead crucial to the success of the administration's own strategy, which links U.S. security to a democratic and liberal transformation of the region. The Bush team's practice, however, has worked against its stated goals, largely because it has been based on misguided assumptions about the Arab world.� http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20030901faessay82506/marc-lynch/taking-arabs-seriously.html

Bridges, Bombs, or Bluster? Madeleine K. Albright From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2003 Summary: Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Bush administration has pressured every country in the world to make a simple choice: Are you with the United States or with the terrorists? But by casting the choice so starkly--and expanding the war on terror to include its campaign in Iraq--Washington has alienated many natural and potential allies and made the fight against al Qaeda more difficult. It didn't have to be this way. The White House has acted as if it doesn't care what others think, and the country is paying the price for its mistake. http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20030901faessay82501/madeleine-k-albright/bridges-bombs-or-bluster.html

DON'T TREAD ON ME Is the war on terror really a war on rights? The Declaration of Independence heralded the values of freedom, justice and equality in a country whose government was accountable to the people. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights enshrined these and other principles, which became the hallmark of this country. We extolled the virtues of our legal system and held it as a model to others. Across 200 years, the progress has been steady in affirming constitutional rights and embedding the rule of law in our society. Among the memorable road hazards of that historic trip are: Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War, Roosevelt's internment of Japanese-Americans, Sen. Joseph McCarthy's witch hunt for Communists or their sympathizers among Americans of all walks of life but particularly among intellectuals and the movie industry. But the nation has never before seen a more systematic erosion of civil rights than after 9/11. This has taken the form of undermining the legal system, coupled with egregious governmental abuses of power, all in the name of combating terrorism. The targets of these measures have been Arabs and Muslims, but the effects extend to everyone. The erosion actually started in 1996 with anti-terrorism and immigration legislation. Permanent residents who were recognized by the Constitution's equal-protection clause as having most of the rights enjoyed by citizens were stripped of them. Non-citizens could be arrested and deported on "secret evidence," which revoked the constitutional right to confront and cross-examine evidence presented against them. This was precisely the practice used by dictatorial regimes the U.S. has repeatedly denounced since the Cold War. After Sept. 11, 2001, the administration embarked on a series of measures that started with a wave of arrests of aliens whose status was irregular. But the administration's campaign only focused on people of Arab origin and others who were Muslims. Their numbers were not confirmed, their status undisclosed, and their cases' outcomes have not been revealed. The Justice Department's inspector general reported that many cases were unjustified and many individuals were harshly treated, something heretofore deemed shocking by our legal standards. Two years later the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, in a 2-1 decision, reversed an earlier federal court ruling ordering the government to release the names of hundreds of people detained after Sept. 11. One of the concurring judges wrote that "America faces an enemy just as real as its former Cold War Foes, with capabilities beyond the capacity of the judiciary to explore." Judge refuses to cave in The government contended that the disclosure of even one name would compromise national security. In a courageous dissent, however, Judge David Tatel wrote that the majority's "uncritical deference" to the government's vague assertions not only contravened the purpose of the Freedom of Information Act but prevented the American people from discovering whether the present administration "is violating the constitutional rights of hundreds of persons whom it has detained in connection with the terrorism investigation." The war in Afghanistan brought about another type of violation, the placing of enemy war prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Their detention without due process is in clear violation of our international legal obligation under the Third Geneva Convention. The convention requires the U.S. to properly adjudicate their status as prisoners of war and to treat them well. It also provides for their release after the conflict ends. The conflict is over, but they are still detained. Moreover, they were treated in a manner that may fall in the category of torture: sensory deprivation, prolonged hooding and solitary confinement, degrading and humiliating treatment. All of that was glossed over and no one from the U.S. media or human rights organizations was allowed to go inside, view the conditions of detention and talk to the detainees. Among the detainees are people ages 15 to 95, including some who were sick. Secretly, some of them were released to avoid embarrassment, and soon the remaining ones will be released or tried by military commission before which their rights to a fair and impartial defense will not be guaranteed. U.S. courts have shockingly refused to review this situation on the fictitious grounds that Guantanamo Bay, a territory leased from Cuba by the U.S., is not part of the U.S. Our courts found that they are not competent to examine what our troops are doing to their prisoners. That is simply absurd, and judges with moral courage must reverse this position. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/perspective/chi-0308240431aug24,1,3363007.story?coll=chi-newsopinionperspective-hed

Special: California Recall Stateline.org--a site for journalists, policy makers and engaged citizens--has produced a special issue page for the latest developments on the Oct. 7 recall election of California Gov. Gray Davis. The issue page contains links to updated news stories, candidate profiles, political cartoons and Web blogs. California's Oct. 7 gubernatorial recall election is likely to dominate political and entertainment news prior to the voting because of its mixture of political intrigue and Hollywood celebrity. On the first Tuesday in October, California voters will be asked whether or not they want to oust Gov. Gray Davis from office, and if so, who his successor should be. Altogether, 247 Californians submitted the required $3,500 and 65 signatures to qualify for the recall ballot, and 135 were certified as candidates by the secretary of state's office. Davis was elected to a second term in November 2002. His unpopularity stems, among other things, from the state's $38 billion deficit as well as its energy problems. Davis' campaign to stay in office was jolted by the surprise decision of movie super-star and political novice Arnold Schwarzenegger to enter the race. Now, with several prominent Republicans running against him, and Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante�s name also on the ballot, Davis faces the political battle of his career. To stay in office, Davis must get more than 50 percent of the vote. If Davis is recalled, the candidate with the most votes will replace him. (Kavan Peterson, 8/14/03) http://www.stateline.org/issue.do?issueId=320354

Who's Minding Your Data? Thus far, the government appears unconcerned about regulating its sources of personal data. The FBI's use of commercial databases has grown 9,600 percent over the last decade, according to EPIC. The bureau uses credit records, property records, professional licenses, driver's licenses and other data purchased from companies such as ChoicePoint Inc., of Alpharetta, Ga., and LexisNexis, of Dayton, Ohio, as well as credit reporting agencies such as Atlanta-based Equifax Inc., Experian Information Solutions Inc., of Costa Mesa, Calif., and Trans Union LLC, of Chicago. But none of these companies is held accountable for the truth or accuracy of the information it sells. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,1219661,00.asp

U.S. May Fine Some Who Shielded Iraq Sites yan Clancy arrived in Iraq in February in a double-decker bus filled with opponents of the war, after a rocky journey in it all the way from Milan. He had used frequent flier miles to get to Italy from Wisconsin. "There weren't a lot of Milwaukee-Baghdad flights," he explained. Mr. Clancy is 26 and owns a record store. He went to Iraq, he said, to observe, to learn and "to protect the civilian infrastructure." He spent weeks as a human shield at a grain silo that he feared would be the target of American bombing. The government is not happy with Mr. Clancy and several others like him. Not long after they returned home this spring, they received letters from the Treasury Department seeking information about their activities in Iraq and noting that spending money there was a crime that could lead to 12 years in prison and civil penalties of up to $275,000. Mr. Clancy and other opponents of the war say the inquiries are part of an effort to suppress dissent, but the government says they are a routine enforcement of regulations. And a Treasury spokesman bristled at the notion that the inquiries were politically motivated. "Of course not," the spokesman, Taylor Griffin, said. "Unlike in Iraq under Saddam Hussein � where dissent was met with imprisonment or worse � the freedom to protest and disagree with the government is a cornerstone of American democracy. However, the right to free speech is not a license to violate U.S. or international sanctions. While free expression is a right enjoyed by all Americans, choosing which laws to abide by and which to ignore is not a privilege that is granted to anyone." Several hundred people calling themselves human shields camped at oil refineries, water treatment plants, electricity generating stations and similar sites during the war. Many were from Europe; about 20 were American. Several people involved in the effort said that none of the sites were attacked while human shields were present. "That tells me we were successful," said Judith Karpova, a 58-year-old writer in Hoboken, N.J., who placed herself at an oil refinery near Baghdad. "We went there to protect innocent civilians, and I went there to protect my own country against further crimes against humanity and war crimes." The government seeks to punish Ms. Karpova and others not for hurting the war effort but for financial transactions in Iraq. The transactions were not large. Mr. Clancy said he took $1,500 with him, gave much of it away and spent the rest on necessities. Ms. Karpova said her expenses were paid by her hosts. She did admit, in a recent letter to the Treasury Department, to importing "eight sets of coloring books and eight sets of color markers, which I left at the children's hospital in Baghdad." Faith Fippinger, a 62-year-old retired schoolteacher in Sarasota, Fla., wrote to the government that she bought rice, eggs and dates in Iraq. "I purchased an occasional glass of delicious, sweet Iraqi tea at tea stalls and tasty kebobs or chicken at food stalls," Ms. Fippinger added. "I have no receipts." Others said the travel restrictions had been misused in the past. "The main problem has been selective prosecution," said Harold Hongju Koh, a law professor at Yale and a State Department official in the Clinton administration. "Presumably others went to Iraq who did not disapprove of the war, and that gets into tricky constitutional ground." Mr. Griffin, the Treasury spokesman, rejected the premise of Professor Koh's comment. "We're going to enforce U.S. law without regard to the person's motivation for breaking it," he said. Mr. Clancy said the main point was a simple one. "I'm being prosecuted for dissenting and for going to meet the people we were supposedly going to liberate," he said. In July, the government sued Voices in the Wilderness, a Chicago group that has delivered medicine to Iraq since 1996 in violation of the regulations, which allow humanitarian aid but only by those granted a license. The suit was filed in federal court in the District of Columbia. The government seeks to collect $20,000 in fines, which were imposed last year for conduct in 1998. "The timing of it is very questionable," said the group's lawyer, William P. Quigley, a law professor at Loyola University in New Orleans. "If it's not just bureaucratic, it's a very serious effort by the government to punish people for following their convictions." I'll believe the government position when they fine reporters for spending money on hotels in Baghdad. A.I. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/14/politics/14SHIE.html