Bad Deeds for 7-24-2007

Alberto Gonzales Contradicts Prior Statements, Confirms Existence Of Other Spying Programs

Karl Rove and White House Aides Gave Political Briefings to Diplomats – White House aides have conducted at least half a dozen political briefings for the Bush administration’s top diplomats, including a PowerPoint presentation for ambassadors with senior adviser Karl Rove that named Democratic incumbents targeted for defeat in 2008 and a “general political briefing” at the Peace Corps headquarters after the 2002 midterm elections. The briefings, mostly run by Rove’s deputies at the White House political affairs office, began in early 2001 and included detailed analyses for senior officials of the political landscape surrounding critical congressional and gubernatorial races. The documents show for the first time how the White House sought to ensure that even its appointees involved in foreign policy were kept attuned to the administration’s election goals.

New York Governor’s Aides Used State Police to Gather Information on Rival – New York governor Eliot Spitzer’s aides, including one of his closest advisers, improperly used the State Police to gather information about the governor’s chief rival, Joseph L. Bruno, the State Senate majority leader, in an effort to plant a negative story about Mr. Bruno and damage him politically.

Classified Plan Shows US in Iraq Through 2009 – The American command in Iraq has prepared a classified, detailed plan that foresees a significant American role for the next two years.

USDA Sent $1.1Billion to Deceased Farmers – The Agriculture Department sent $1.1 billion in farm payments to more than 170,000 dead people over a seven-year period, congressional investigators say. The auditors said they found that the department has not been conducting the necessary checks to ensure that subsidy payments are proper. “USDA has made farm payments to estates more than two years after recipients died, without determining, as its regulations require, whether the estates were kept open to receive these payments,” their report said.

British Will Be Required To Disclose Religious, Sexual & Political Beliefs When Flying To U.S. – Highly sensitive information about the religious beliefs, political opinions and even the sex life of Britons traveling to the United States is to be made available to US authorities when the European Commission agrees to a new system of checking passengers. The EC is in the final stages of agreeing a new Passenger Name Record system with the US which will allow American officials to access detailed biographical information about passengers entering international airports. The information sharing system with the US Department of Homeland Security is designed to tackle terrorism but civil liberty groups warn it will have serious consequences for European passengers. And it has emerged that both the European parliament and the European data protection supervisor are alarmed at the plan.

Milwaukee Election Records Indicate Apparent Forgery, Ballot Box Stuffing in 2004 Presidential Election – The signatures on the cover pages of the inspectors’ reports look to me to be obvious forgeries. Both the names are bogus (e.g. Joe Doe, Jane Smith) and, in my opinion, are clearly written in the same hand. The hand which “signed” the inspectors’ reports does not match any of the signatures redacted from the poll book list. Creating false canvass reports is a felony under WI Stats 12.13(2)(b)4. The numbers concerning the number of ballots handled do not match. The Optech IIIP Eagle optical scanner claims it scanned 1219 ballots. On the poll book certification page, the poll workers checking in voters and handing out blank ballots claim they handed 1071 ballots to electors. On the Inspectors’ reports with the forged signatures, it is claimed only 981 ballots were handed to electors. If I believe the machine and the poll book, then the ballot box in Ward One was stuffed with 148 extra ballots.

US Has Fallen Behind in Internet Speeds, but It Cost More Here – The world’s fastest internet connection is now in Sweden. Enjoy 1,500 high definition HDTV channels simultaneously. Download a full high-definition DVD in just two seconds. “The most difficult part of the whole project was installing Windows on Sigbritt’s PC,” said network boss Hafsteinn Jonsson.

In 2001, after the explosive growth of the Internet and online businesses in the 1990s, the United States had taken the lead online. In terms of percentage of the population with high-speed access, countries like Japan and Germany had half the penetration we did. France had less than a quarter. Now, all three of those countries have passed us. We’re falling behind in providing high-speed access to the Internet, and just as importantly, our high-speed connections are much slower and more expensive than other countries.

The world may look flat once you’re in cyberspace – but to get there you need to go through a narrow passageway, down your phone line or down your TV cable. And if the companies controlling these passageways can behave like the robber barons of yore, levying whatever tolls they like on those who pass by, commerce suffers.

America’s Internet flourished in the dial-up era because federal regulators didn’t let that happen – they forced local phone companies to act as common carriers, allowing competing service providers to use their lines. Clinton administration officials, including Al Gore and Reed Hundt, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, tried to ensure that this open competition would continue – but the telecommunications giants sabotaged their efforts, while The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page ridiculed them as people with the minds of French bureaucrats.

And when the Bush administration put Michael Powell in charge of the F.C.C., the digital robber barons were basically set free to do whatever they liked. As a result, there’s little competition in U.S. broadband – if you’re lucky, you have a choice between the services offered by the local cable monopoly and the local phone monopoly. The price is high and the service is poor, but there’s nowhere else to go.

What happened to America’s Internet lead? Bad policy.

Regards,

Jim