Bad Deeds for 10-19-2007

Attorney General Nominee Isn’t Sure if Waterboarding Should be Considered Torture – President Bush’s nominee for attorney general, Michael B. Mukasey, declined Thursday to say if he considered harsh interrogation techniques like waterboarding, which simulates drowning, to constitute torture or to be illegal if used on terrorism suspects. During questioning by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) yesterday, Mukasey said he wasn’t quite sure if waterboarding should be considered torture. Mukasey said the president’s authority as commander in chief might allow him to supersede laws written by Congress.

Joe Scarborough Says ‘90% of Americans’ Would Approve Waterboarding – MSNBC host Joe Scarborough says that the controversial interrogation tactic known as waterboarding — a method of simulated drowning used by interrogators to extract information from subjects — is an effective practice that most Americans would overwhelmingly approve of if asked. Maybe Joe’s got that confused with snowboarding.

Cheney’s Hand Seen Behind Leaks of Misleading Stories About Syria – Allegations that a Syrian envoy admitted during a United Nations meeting Oct. 17 that an Israeli air strike hit a nuclear facility in September are inaccurate and have raised the ire of some in the US intelligence community, who see the Vice President’s hand as allegedly being behind the disinformation. A United Nations press release discussing the General Assembly’s Disarmament Committee meeting mistranslated comments ascribed to an unnamed Syrian diplomat as saying that Israel had on various occasions “taken action against nuclear facilities, including the 6 July attack in Syria.” The UN has since gone through the tape recordings of the meeting and found that there was no mention of the word “nuclear” at all.

2,225 Minors in US Serve Life Sentences– Too young to drive, but old enough for life locked up; breaks UN Child Rights.

Comcast Impersonates Users’ Computers to Block Internet File Sharing – Comcast subscribers have been complaining since last summer that the country’s second-largest Internet service provider is deliberately cutting off peer-to-peer file sharing. Now a study by the Associated Press has confirmed those reports. Peer-to-peer networks can be used for unauthorized distribution of copyrighted materials but also have many legitimate uses. File-sharing is now estimated to account for as much as 90% of Internet traffic, and many ISP’s attempt to preserve bandwidth by slowing it down. Comcast is using an even more drastic method, which can prevent file-sharing almost entirely by sending fake messages to both computers involved in a peer-to-peer transaction, telling them to drop the connection.

Bush/Cheney Administration Trying to Dismantle Vital Protections for our National Forests and Grasslands – A proposal introduced by the Bush/Cheney Administration would dismantle vital protections for our National Forests and grasslands and eliminate key federal protections for all wildlife in those areas… including the still-struggling grizzly bear. The 2007 proposed revisions of the National Forest Management Act regulations would eliminate current protections for all wildlife inhabiting every national forest and grassland. Eliminating these protections, which have protected forest wildlife for more than 20 years, would threaten wolves, wolverines, elk, salmon and many other species. The proposal would foreclose citizen participation in the planning process, water down standards for timber harvesting, de-emphasize the role of scientists in the planning process, and exempt all forest plans from meaningful environmental review.

Bush Administration Trying to Open the Fragile Teshekpuk Lake Area to Oil and Gas Leasing – The Bush Administration is trying to open the fragile Teshekpuk Lake area to oil and gas leasing – even though it’s one of the most ecologically important wetland areas in the Arctic region. One of the most important wetlands in the Arctic, the Teshekpuk Lake region provides habitat for a million birds, including threatened species like the Spectacled Eider, as well as the 45,000-member Teshekpuk Lake Caribou Herd. The draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement issued by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) could lead to the opening of this ecologically important wetland habitat to lease sales. The region’s Native residents have expressed strong opposition to the plan. So have sportsmen’s groups, scientists, conservationists and the public at large.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Secretly Pushing for a Vote to Relax Media Ownership Rules by Dec. 18 – Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin is secretly pushing for a vote to relax media ownership rules by Dec. 18. The FCC is reviewing longstanding regulations that forbid a company to own both a newspaper and a television or radio station in the same city. “We are gravely concerned that Chairman Martin would try to secretly move on such a critical issue with such a short timetable,” said Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press, which coordinates the StopBigMedia Coalition. “The public is being shut out of the process so that Martin can move forward with his Big Media giveaway.” Chairman Martin’s secret plans were uncovered during a Commerce Committee hearing yesterday by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), one of the most vocal critics of media consolidation. Sen. Dorgan has co-authored a letter with Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) to the FCC calling for a more transparent and open public review of the media ownership rules.

Regards,

Jim