Bad Deeds for 4-2-2008

Bush Administration Suspends Laws Along the U.S./Mexico Border – The Bush/Cheney Administration announced that it will waive environmental and land management laws along 470 miles of the U.S./Mexico border. The REAL ID Act grants Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Michael Chertoff unprecedented and sweeping authority to waive any and all laws to expedite the construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Laws ensuring clean water for us and our children? Dismissed. Laws protecting wildlife, land, rivers, streams and places of cultural significance? Disregarded. And laws giving American citizens a voice in the process? Gone. Clearly, this is out of control. By granting one government official the absolute power to pick and choose which laws apply to border wall construction, the REAL ID Act proves itself to be both inherently dangerous and profoundly un-American. Please call your U.S. Representative and Senators.

Pentagon Now Using FBI to Spy on Americans – The military is using the FBI to skirt legal restrictions on domestic surveillance to obtain private records of Americans’ Internet service providers, financial institutions and telephone companies, according to Pentagon documents. The military is allowed to demand financial and credit records in certain instances but does not have the authority to get e-mail and phone records or lists of Web sites that people have visited. That is the kind of information that the FBI can get by using a national security letter. The DoD may be accessing the kinds of records they are not allowed to get.

Pentagon Says Colleges Must Hand Over Student Information for Recruiting – The Defense Department has announced a new get-tough policy with colleges and universities that interfere with the work of military recruiters and Reserve Officer Training Corps programs. Under rules that will take effect April 28, defense officials said they want the exact same access to student directories that is provided to all other prospective employers. Students can opt out of having their information turned over to the military only if they opt out of having their information provided to all other job recruiters.

Administration Sought to Find Ways to Avoid Legal Restrictions and Accountability on Torture

How the Administration Pressured the Military to Torture – As the first anniversary of 9/11 approached, and a prized Guantánamo detainee wouldn’t talk, the Bush administration’s highest-ranking lawyers argued for extreme interrogation techniques, circumventing international law, the Geneva Conventions, and the army’s own Field Manual. The attorneys would even fly to Guantánamo to ratchet up the pressure—then blame abuses on the military. Philippe Sands follows the torture trail.

Comcast Continues to Blow Smoke – Last Friday, Comcast’s Executive Vice President David Cohen sent a letter to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin filled, as usual, with lies and half-truths. Cohen’s letter was in response to Chairman Martin’s statement on the recent Comcast and BitTorrent, Inc. agreement to end the cable company’s blocking of BitTorrent’s file-sharing applications. The agreement itself hasn’t been made public and its details are unclear. For months, Comcast had been deceptively blocking the popular Internet protocol — used to transfer large files including full-length videos — in part because it competed with the cable company’s video-on-demand and television offerings. When word first emerged last year that Comcast was blocking, the company lied to the press and the public, saying it didn’t interfere with BitTorrent. But several independent tests confirmed the opposite to be true.

Regards,

Jim