News and Current Events

A Detention Bill You Ought to Read More Carefully

TheAtlantic.com
U.S. CITIZENS SUSPECTED OF TERRORIST ACTIVITY
COULD BE DETAINED BY THE MILITARY ON U.S. SOIL INDEFINITELY
By Marc Ambinder
03/05/10

Why is the national security community treating the “Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010,” introduced by Sens. John McCain and Joseph Lieberman on Thursday as a standard proposal, as a simple response to the administration’s choices in the aftermath of the Christmas Day bombing attempt? A close reading of the bill suggests it would allow the U.S. military to detain U.S. citizens without trial indefinitely in the U.S. based on suspected activity. Read the bill here, and then read the summarized points after the jump.

According to the summary, the bill sets out a comprehensive policy for the detention, interrogation and trial of suspected enemy belligerents who are believed to have engaged in hostilities against the United States by requiring these individuals to be held in military custody, interrogated for their intelligence value and not provided with a Miranda warning.

(There is no distinction between U.S. persons--visa holders or citizens--and non-U.S. persons.)

It would require these “belligerents” to be coded as “high-value detainee[s]” to be held in military custody and interrogated for their intelligence value by a High-Value Detainee Interrogation Team established by the president. (The H.I.G., of course, was established to bring a sophisticated interrogation capacity to the federal justice system.)

Any suspected unprivileged enemy belligerents considered a “high-value detainee” shall not be provided with a Miranda warning.

The bill asks the President to determine criteria for designating an individual as a “high-value detainee” if he/she: (1) poses a threat of an attack on civilians or civilian facilities within the U.S. or U.S. facilities abroad; (2) poses a threat to U.S. military personnel or U.S. military facilities; (3) potential intelligence value; (4) is a member of al Qaeda or a terrorist group affiliated with al Qaeda or (5) such other matters as the President considers appropriate. The President must submit the regulations and guidance to the appropriate committees of Congress no later than 60 days after enactment.

To the extent possible, the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Team must make a preliminary determination whether the detainee is an unprivileged enemy belligerent within 48 hours of taking detainee into custody.

The High-Value Detainee Interrogation Team must submit its determination to the Secretary of Defense and the Attorney General after consultation with the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.  The Secretary of Defense and the Attorney General make a final determination and report the determination to the President and the appropriate committees of Congress.  In the case of any disagreement between the Secretary of Defense and the Attorney General, the President will make the determination. 

Note that the president himself doesn’t get to make the call.
This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/03/a-detention-bill-you-ought-to-read-more-carefully/37116/

Copyright © 2010 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights Reserved.
U.S. CITIZENS SUSPECTED OF TERRORIST ACTIVITY COULD BE DETAINED BY THE MILITARY ON U.S. SOIL INDEFINITELY

By Marc Ambinder
Why is the national security community treating the “Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010,” introduced by Sens. John McCain and Joseph Lieberman on Thursday as a standard proposal, as a simple response to the administration’s choices in the aftermath of the Christmas Day bombing attempt? A close reading of the bill suggests it would allow the U.S. military to detain U.S. citizens without trial indefinitely in the U.S. based on suspected activity. Read the bill here, and then read the summarized points after the jump.
According to the summary, the bill sets out a comprehensive policy for the detention, interrogation and trial of suspected enemy belligerents who are believed to have engaged in hostilities against the United States by requiring these individuals to be held in military custody, interrogated for their intelligence value and not provided with a Miranda warning.

(There is no distinction between U.S. persons--visa holders or citizens--and non-U.S. persons.)

It would require these “belligerents” to be coded as “high-value detainee[s]” to be held in military custody and interrogated for their intelligence value by a High-Value Detainee Interrogation Team established by the president. (The H.I.G., of course, was established to bring a sophisticated interrogation capacity to the federal justice system.)

Any suspected unprivileged enemy belligerents considered a “high-value detainee” shall not be provided with a Miranda warning.

The bill asks the President to determine criteria for designating an individual as a “high-value detainee” if he/she: (1) poses a threat of an attack on civilians or civilian facilities within the U.S. or U.S. facilities abroad; (2) poses a threat to U.S. military personnel or U.S. military facilities; (3) potential intelligence value; (4) is a member of al Qaeda or a terrorist group affiliated with al Qaeda or (5) such other matters as the President considers appropriate. The President must submit the regulations and guidance to the appropriate committees of Congress no later than 60 days after enactment.

To the extent possible, the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Team must make a preliminary determination whether the detainee is an unprivileged enemy belligerent within 48 hours of taking detainee into custody.

The High-Value Detainee Interrogation Team must submit its determination to the Secretary of Defense and the Attorney General after consultation with the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.  The Secretary of Defense and the Attorney General make a final determination and report the determination to the President and the appropriate committees of Congress.  In the case of any disagreement between the Secretary of Defense and the Attorney General, the President will make the determination. 

Note that the president himself doesn’t get to make the call.
This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/03/a-detention-bill-you-ought-to-read-more-carefully/37116/

Copyright © 2010 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights Reserved.

ANTI-GAY REPUBLICAN State Sen. ARRESTED for DUI After Leaving GAY (Faces) Nightclub

http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=&sc3=&id=103053&pf=1
by Kilian Melloy
Thursday Mar 4, 2010

An anti-gay California state senator was placed under arrest for drunk driving after leaving a gay bar. A male passenger was in the vehicle along with the lawmaker was not arrested, reported Sacramento CBS affiliate Channel 13.

State Sen. Roy Ashburn was pulled over by the California Highway Patrol at about 2:00 a.m. on March 3 when his state-issued vehicle was observed being driven erratically. The driver, identified as Ashburn, was taken in and charged for driving under the influence. Channel 13 reported that unidentified sources said the senator had been at Faces, a popular gay nightspot, prior to his arrest.

In a March 4 article, the online news site Talking Points Memo characterized Ashburn, who is married and has four children, as “a fierce opponent of gay rights” who had led anti-marriage equality rallies.

Ashburn issued a contrite apology, stating, “I am deeply sorry for my actions and offer no excuse for my poor judgment. I accept complete responsibility for my conduct and am prepared to accept the consequences for what I did.”

Ashburn will not be able to drive for a month and the vehicle he was in at the time of his arrest has been impounded, reported online news site Bakersfield.com on March 3. If the state senator receives the same penalties as do others arrested for drunk driving, the article said, Ashburn could face three years of probation, fines of up to $1,000, attendance at a “DUI offender program,” and two days’ jail time.

It is uncertain how the arrest--or his reported presence at a gay bar--will affect Ashburn’s prospects for re-election. He already faces a fellow Republican for in the upcoming race for the seat he occupies in the state senate.

Anti-gay lawmakers who are alleged to engage in sexual activity with members of their own gender have attracted significant media attention in recent years. Among the high-profile cases in lawmakers with records of voting against gay equality measures is the arrest of former Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, who was charged with soliciting another man for sex in an airport restroom, and a 2006 scandal involving Republican Sen. Mark Foley, who allegedly exchanged sexually charged text messages with teenaged male pages and young men who had formerly been pages. A 2009 documentary titled Outrage noted that rumors have long swirled around Florida governor Charlie Crist, who supported a successful ballot initiative to amend the state’s constitution in a way that bars marriage equality for gay and lesbian families. The film also traced the careers of other anti-gay politicians rumored to be closeted gays themselves, such as Republican Congressman David Drier, a California representative.

In California, marriage equality was legal for six months in 2008, until voters narrowly approved Proposition 8, which rescinded marriage rights for gays, in November of that year.

Kilian Melloy reviews media, conducts interviews, and writes commentary for EDGEBoston, where he also serves as Assistant Arts Editor.

Exclusive: RNC document mocks donors, plays on ‘fear’

Politico
By: Ben Smith
March 3, 2010

The Republican National Committee plans to raise money this election cycle through an aggressive campaign capitalizing on “fear” of President Barack Obama and a promise to “save the country from trending toward socialism.”

The strategy was detailed in a confidential party fundraising presentation, obtained by POLITICO, which also outlines how “ego-driven” wealthy donors can be tapped with offers of access and “tchochkes.”

The presentation was delivered by RNC Finance Director Rob Bickhart to top donors and fundraisers at a party retreat in Boca Grande, Florida on February 18, a source at the gathering said.

In neat PowerPoint pages, it lifts the curtain on the often-cynical terms of political marketing, displaying an air of disdain for the party’s donors that is usually confined to the barroom conversations of political operatives.

The presentation explains the Republican fundraising in simple terms.

“What can you sell when you do not have the White House, the House, or the Senate...?” it asks.

The answer: “Save the country from trending toward Socialism!”

Manipulating donors with crude caricatures and playing on their fears is hardly unique to Republicans or to the RNC – Democrats raised millions off George W. Bush in similar terms – but rarely is it practiced in such cartoonish terms.

One page, headed “The Evil Empire,” pictures Obama as the Joker from Batman, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leaders Harry Reid are depicted as Cruella DeVille and Scooby Doo, respectively.

The document, which two Republican sources said was prepared by the party’s finance staff, comes as Chairman Michael Steele struggles to retain the trust and allegiance of major donors, who can give as much as $30,400 a year to the party.

Under Steele, the RNC has shifted toward a reliance on small donors, but the document reveals extensive, confidential details of the strategy for luring wealthy checkwriters, which range from luxury retreats in California wine country to tickets to a professional fight in Las Vegas.

The 72-page document was provided to POLITICO by a Democrat, who said a hard copy had been left in the hotel hosting the $2,500-a-head retreat, the Gasparilla Inn & Club. Sources at the event said the presentation was delivered by Bickhart and by the RNC Finance Chairman, Peter Terpeluk, a former ambassador to Luxembourg under President George W. Bush.

The RNC reacted with alarm to a question about it Wednesday, emailing major donors to warn them of a reporter’s question, and distancing Steele from its contents.

“The document was used for a fundraising presentation Chairman Steele did not attend, nor had he seen the document,” RNC Communications Director Doug Heye said in an email. “Fundraising documents are often controversial.

“Obviously, the Chairman disagrees with the language and finds the use of such imagery to be unacceptable. It will not be used by the Republican National Committee – in any capacity – in the future,” Heye said.

The most unusual section of the presentation is a set of six slides headed “RNC Marketing 101.” The presentation divides fundraising into two traditional categories, direct marketing and major donors, and lays out the details of how to approach each group.

The small donors who are the targets of direct marketing are described under the heading “Visceral Giving.” Their motivations are listed as “fear;” “Extreme negative feelings toward existing Administration;” and “Reactionary.”

Major donors, by contrast, are treated in a column headed “Calculated Giving.”
Their motivations include: “Peer to Peer Pressure”; “access”; and “Ego-Driven.”

The slide also allows that donors may have more honorable motives, including “Patriotic Duty.”

A major Republican donor described the state of the RNC’s relationship with major donors as “disastrous,” with veteran givers beginning to abandon the committee, which is becoming increasingly reliant on small donors.

The party’s average contribution in 2009, according to the document, was just $40, and the shift toward a financial reliance on the grassroots may help explain Steele’s increasingly strident tone toward the Obama Administration.

While the crude portrayal of Obama may be - as Steele ‘s spokesman put it - “unacceptable,” other elements of the presentation may be of equal interest to close political observers.

The RNC plans to raise $8.6 million from major donors alone in 2010, less than 10% of its total 2009 fundraising take, which was primarily from small donors.”

The center of that plan is an extensive, and colorful, schedule of events. Along with traditional fundraisers with conservative luminaries including Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol and former presidential candidate Steve Forbes, the party plans to raise $80,000 for a trip to London to meet David Cameron, the British Conservative Party leader, on September 17.

The RNC’s “Young Eagles” – younger major donors and the only group, according to a major donor, continuing to pull its weight financially – are invited to a “professional bull riding event” in October, expected to raise $50,000, and to a no-holds-barred Ultimate Fighting Championship fight in Las Vegas the same month, expected to raise $60,000.

The RNC’s aim, according to one section of the document: “Putting the Fun Back in FUNdraising.”

CORRECTION: The RNC raised a total of $81 million in 2009. An earlier version of this story understated that figure.

WBC’s Fred Phelps faces Wizard of Oz in Long Beach protestors

Daily49er.com (CSULB paper)
By Jessica Wood
Published: Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Updated: Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Last Friday, more than 5,000 Wilson High and Cal State Long Beach students swarmed Wilson Classical High School — Bruin territory — to fight for a cause so personal to the Long Beach community: gay rights.

The members of the Westboro Baptist Church, more commonly known as the WBC, traveled on their broomsticks all the way from Kansas to bombard Long Beach with their hate-mongering message: “God Hates Fags.”

God doesn’t stop his hate at those darn “fags,” either. God also hates Jews, military soldiers, America, and basically anything or anyone else that do not fall under the WBC’s neo-Calvinistic beliefs.
Beyond a dick-move, right?

This organization, led by delusional pastor and WBC founder Fred Phelps, and even more notably his daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper, has the audacity to travel throughout the United States using God as a fear tactic to capture more pawns in their game of bigotry.

Look, I know I’m not Billy Graham. I’m not a frequenter of any sort of ceremony pertaining to organized religion. However, it would be safe for me to bet that God loves everything He creates. God created “fags.” Therefore, there is no way God hates fags.

Regardless of whether or not you’re a Christian, even if you may or may not think God exists, it seems we can all reach the mutual agreement that God would never hate anything he created.

So what makes a belief morally wrong or right? Should we take the utilitarian approach, rendering the rightness of an action as a function of what creates the greatest amount of good for the largest number of people? Or perhaps look at the scripture of various religions and determine its morality on the basis of what God or someone of the like might say? Maybe the morality of an action or belief cannot be assessed using either of these principles.

Maybe it’s just a feeling in our gut.

One thing is for certain, even Shirley Phelps-Roper, also known as the Wicked Witch of the West, and the rest of her flying monkeys couldn’t sway the minds of the citizens of Long Beach. The WBC’s truly pitiful attempt at slandering the minority groups of Long Beach had Phelps-Roper “melting” into the pavement across Wilson High School.

The God Hates Fags organization expected to face the Cowardly Lion and instead they were confronted with 5,000 or so pissed-off Wizard of Ozzes — not to mention that creepy guy who opens the door for Dorothy.

The best part about this protest was that despite the fact the people of Long Beach were angry, offended and upset in general. according to what I saw, not once were they disrespectful, negative or downright mean like the members of the WBC.

With our peaceful, yet powerful demeanor, we were able to deflect the WBC’s message and not come off as nut jobs in the process, regardless of what people’s personal beliefs are on the matter.

In order to make progress on this civil rights issue, we must be tactful and go about our ways in a positive, uplifting matter. Taking the hate route is not the answer.

Come to think of it, it is possible that God may hate something. I would think he hates it when people put words in to his mouth.

Jessica Wood is a junior biology major and a columnist for the Daily 49er. She also protested the Westboro Baptist Church’s presence in Long Beach.

Haiti Weather Report: Mostly Foggy With Rain Storms Expected

Mark Hyman, MD
Posted: February 27, 2010 03:59 AM
February 24, 2009

Photo: Haiti’s “IRS” building completely demolished. Tax files lay strewn amongst the rubble and along the street

Imagine all of the Federal buildings in Washington collapsing in less than a minute killing 30-40% of our government workforce, crippling the tax collection system leaving the government no money to pay salaries or overhead. Our government, which seems to barely work at full capacity with gleaming buildings and a gargantuan budget, would come to a halt.

This is the state of Haiti today. Arriving again in Haiti, five weeks after we first landed in the chaos of the first days after the earthquake, the tarmac of the airport was eerily quiet, almost deserted. Some things had changed. There were more tent camps, a few more latrines, less rubble in the roads, more mouths fed, less acute medical injuries and trauma, more tents instead of open air surgical wards at the University Hospital where we were the first surgical team after the quake. But the layers of trauma were more apparent. At the University Hospital, the entire second year nursing class was crushed and died in the nursing school. Teachers and nearly all the schools were destroyed. During the five o’clock hour of the quake all the priests and seminarians met in their churches. Most of the priests, the future priests and their churches are now gone. The Universities with most of their precious intellectual capital of professors and the best and the brightest of Haiti are gone.

With few to govern, few to teach, few to learn, and few to help the people pray and soothe their souls, with the political, cultural, educational, and spiritual amputation of a nation, the world community must recognize the deep, cold, dark and powerful vacuum left by the quake that sucks deep into the heart and soul of every Haitian.

Now imagine New York after a similar disaster, a city of 8 million with a loss of a million citizens, with four million people living in the streets, with winter about to come and a marginally functioning government without resources to help. That is the state of Port au Prince today. With our global attention deficit disorder, we have moved on. The “donate to Haiti” banners at the bottom of our television screens have disappeared. At the Ebolele Hotel in Port au Prince, where many of the major networks stayed, there was one reporter from CBS left on ground, and he too was leaving in a week. Only Al Jeezera, committed to reporting on the poor and Third World countries, is moving in en force build a new Haiti bureau.

We used a hotel room occupied by ABC until a few days ago. Piled nearly to the ceiling in the midst of a city of dehydrated and thirsty Haitians, were cases upon cases of Dharasni filtered pure water. The outpouring of money and aid to Haiti in the immediate aftermath of the quake is still piled half a billion dollars high waiting to be distributed, with only a fraction spent. There are few mechanisms to receive the funding. Absent are the governance, management and accountability necessary for intermediate needs or effective re-building.

We went back to the University Hospital, across the sprawling, crumbling compound patients still were crowded in sweltering tents under the hot Haitian sun. Most of the hospital staff still has not returned to work because their homes were destroyed and many fled to distant locations to find shelter with family or in tent camps, and most had not been paid in many months, even before the earthquake. Many of the NGO’s who came with us the first week, were now gone or are soon to leave, fulfilling their mission of immediate disaster relief. With the outpouring of aid, the nation’s largest and public hospital, which trains nearly all the physicians and nurses in the country, still has no sheets for the beds, still has no wash basins and towels to clean the patients, still doesn’t not have a generator capable of stable power to run even the copier and printer in the makeshift administration office.

In the best of times, their equipment was inadequate for a rural clinic in Alabama, and now in the time of greatest need they still have no EKG machines, pulse oximeters (to measure blood oxygen levels) glucometers to measure blood sugar, a view box to examine X-rays. Imagine the most important University Hospital in the United States without a CT scanner. There was not even the most basic and cheapest medication (chloroquine) to treat the cases malaria and cerebral malaria increasing now that the rainy season has started.

When I asked the director of the hospital, Dr. Alix Lassegue what he needed most, he said 1000 tents for his staff, and enough money to pay their salaries to encourage those who survived to return to work. Those who had not lost their homes, or who could stay with friends did come. Dr. Patrick Charles, a pediatrician who worked at the hospital before the quake was taking care of the dozens of children with marasmus and kwashiorkor (severe malnutrition) in the pediatric tent. He had been working 12-hour shifts without pay since the earthquake and no food all day, while he fed starving children therapeutic milk and Plumpynut, a protein and vitamin rich food.

But the problems of the Hospital are a microcosm of what is endemic to Haiti now. A medical school professor makes $500 US dollars a month. Those in private practice can make $5000 making it difficult to rebuild any enduring, effective public hospital.
If our medical school professors made $20,000 a year, while their colleagues in private practice made $200,000 a year our medical schools would collapse. These problems are endemic and will not be overcome easily. The Haitian heart and spirit, their uninvited suffering for centuries call us out of our small worlds to join with them in their struggle to rebuild their country. Mrs. Marlene Thompson, the administrator of the University Hospital lost her home during the quake and has not left the hospital campus in six weeks. She sleeps on a cot in a back room and holds the hospital together through the fierce love for her people and the patients. We cannot leave her alone on a cot in the back of an abandoned hospital ward.

But the question of how to join, how to partner, how to help without dominating and imposing our concepts of development remains as open and rough as the denuded, deforested country. The nation of the first (and only) slave revolt in 1804 was embargoed and isolated in its earliest days by America and the world and then forced to pay reparations of over 400 million francs over many decades for “taking” the French land. Americans occupied and controlled Haitian government directly or indirectly for most of the 20th century and built into the society what Paul Farmer refers to as “structural violence”. It is no accident that there are no trees on the Haitian side of the island of Hispaniola while the Costa Rican side is lush and tropical. It is no accident that there are no industries, no natural resources left, no substantial ways for Haitians to support themselves. This is not just the result of coups and corruption but of centuries of policies that have made the problems structural and embedded.

It is six weeks after the quake and there is no one fully in charge. The UN is observant but not acting, the international aid organizations are mostly disorganized, isolated in silos and uncoordinated, and the government infrastructure had its staff and sources of revenue amputated. The World Bank, International Monetary Fund, various governments are all are scrambling for control of the spoils of the quake. The reparations the world can pay back to Haitians is to accompany them in the process of creating institutions that can sustain civilizations with respect and guidance and co-creation - health care, industry, agriculture, governance, and justice. The collective intelligence and skills of the international community can solve this problem in solidarity with the Haitian people while preserving their sovereignty.

The Haitian people accommodate. Perhaps that is why we ignore them. The dancer who lost both her feet danced for us in her bed, swaying her body and waving her hands entertaining us, imploring us to tell her story. On Sunday morning in Cange, in the central plateau of Haiti where so many escaped Port au Prince to receive care and shelter, the Church was turned into a hospital ward, and Sunday services were held in an old auditorium a thousand people huddled into the building and spilled into the courtyard to celebrate life, to help each other. This was Zanmi Lasante, Partners in Health, the place where Paul Farmer created a vibrant health center and community out of the most desolate place in Haiti 25 years ago. That morning Paul translated the stories of those who survived the quake, who came to Cange to get help and shared their gratitude, their hope, and their love with all of us. There is only gratitude and patience and fortitude in the face of so little.

And soon there will be even less despite the aid. The weather report in Haiti is not good. Storms are coming, rain will wash over the “tent” camps which are often just bed sheets thrown over some sticks housing thousands without sanitation. At the Prime Minister’s house in Port au Prince 3500 people are camped on the ground with four port-a-potties that haven’t been serviced and are piled high with human feces. Children wade through feces in these camps. Some vaccinations against typhoid, measles and yellow fever had been given, but there is no way to vaccinate again cholera, tuberculosis or malaria. The earthquake set the stage for disasters of overcrowding, poor sanitation, and infection. The weather is not good in Haiti.
But the opportunity exists for a partnership model of support for governance aided by the international community so the aid can be effectively deployed, the people house, fed, given clean water, sanitation and soon, jobs to pay them to rebuild their own homes, economy and society. Our army should stay for humanitarian aid. They came when we called them to the hospital and help keep the aid workers and the patients alive. We can bring sunnier days to Haiti. But we have to keep our attention, money, support and participation focused and constant.

The University Hospital needs help now and is caught in the vacuum where aid cannot get through. It is close to our hearts because it is where we spent the first week after the disaster helping bring it back from a standstill and shock. In order to help the hospital, Partners in Health has helped create a small foundation to support the hospital directly, which serves the poor. It is called, at least for now, “Friends of HUEH” or French for University Hospital. Please donate to Partners in Health at http://www.pih.org and request the funds be for “Friends of HUEH”. A small amount can be the difference between good care and no care.