FBI plans new Net-tapping push | Tech News on ZDNet By Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com

The FBI has drafted sweeping legislation that would require Internet service providers to create wiretapping hubs for police surveillance and force makers of networking gear to build in backdoors for eavesdropping, CNET News.com has learned.

FBI Agent Barry Smith distributed the proposal at a private meeting last Friday with industry representatives and indicated it would be introduced by Sen. Mike DeWine, an Ohio Republican, according to two sources familiar with the meeting. …

Eliminate the current legal requirement saying the Justice Department must publish a public “notice of the actual number of communications interceptions” every year. …

DeWine has relatively low approval ratings–47 percent, according to SurveyUSA.com–and is enmeshed in a fierce battle with a Democratic challenger to retain his Senate seat in the November elections. DeWine is a member of a Senate Judiciary subcommittee charged with overseeing electronic privacy and antiterrorism enforcement and is a former prosecutor in Ohio.

Bush Sharpens His Attack on Democrats By Peter Baker, Washington Post Staff Writer

President Bush attacked congressional Democrats and the news media at a Republican fundraiser Wednesday night….

“There’s a group in the opposition party who are willing to retreat before the mission is done,” he said. “They’re willing to wave the white flag of surrender. And if they succeed, the United States will be worse off, and the world will be worse off.”

An Alert Press Washington Post Editorial

Oversight of the government’s national security policies is needed now more than ever.

THE DECISION on whether to publish information that government officials assert would damage national security is one of the gravest choices a newspaper can face. There may be times when editors get it wrong, either printing material that proves harmful or withholding information that should have come to light. But these are risks that the Constitution contemplated and that the Framers were persuaded were worth tolerating to ensure a free and vigorous press.

Justice Potter Stewart stated this trade-off well in a concurring opinion in the Pentagon Papers case 35 years ago. “In the absence of the governmental checks and balances present in other areas of our national life, the only effective restraint upon executive policy and power in the areas of national defense and international affairs may lie in an enlightened citizenry — in an informed and critical public opinion which alone can here protect the values of democratic government,” he wrote. “For this reason, it is perhaps here that a press that is alert, aware, and free most vitally serves the basic purpose of the First Amendment. For, without an informed and free press, there cannot be an enlightened people.”

The wisdom and perspective of Justice Stewart have been conspicuously lacking in the recent uproar over reports about secret government programs. …

All administrations jealously guard secrets, often for important reasons. But this administration, more than any since the one that prosecuted the Pentagon Papers case, has resisted disclosure and effective oversight, whether by Congress or the press. This across-the-board aversion to scrutiny makes it all the more difficult for responsible media organizations to separate the legitimate claims of national security from the overblown.

Those who complain about disclosures assert that the war on terrorism has changed the calculus of risk. They would prefer a media meekly obeying official demands for secrecy. But in the end, as Justice Stewart understood, the nation stands to benefit far more than it could lose from a press that is “alert, aware and free.”

President Bush ordered the disappearance of the editors of the New York Times to Guantanamo and the appointment of Fox editors in their place. “We cannot allow the Fatherland to be threatened by the Press and other traitors,” he said. mjh

Surveillance Disclosure Denounced By Peter Baker, Washington Post Staff Writer

The president used a White House appearance with supporters of troops in Iraq to lash out at newspapers that revealed the program, which has examined hundreds of thousands of private banking records from around the world. His remarks led off a broader White House assault later amplified by Vice President Cheney and Treasury Secretary John W. Snow.

“What we did was fully authorized under the law,” Bush said in an angry tone as he leaned forward in his chair and wagged his finger. “And the disclosure of this program is disgraceful. We’re at war with a bunch of people who want to hurt the United States of America, and for people to leak that program, and for a newspaper to publish it, does great harm to the United States of America.” …

“Some of the press, in particular the New York Times, have made the job of defending against further terrorist attacks more difficult by insisting on publishing detailed information about vital national security programs,” Cheney said at a Republican fundraiser in Nebraska.

Referring to the NSA program, he added: “What is doubly disturbing for me is that not only have they gone forward with these stories, but they’ve been rewarded for it, for example, in the case of the terrorist surveillance program, by being awarded the Pulitzer Prize for outstanding journalism. I think that is a disgrace.” …

Neither Bush nor Cheney raised the prospect of investigating journalists, as proposed by Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), who called on the Justice Department to prosecute the New York Times for “treasonous” action. …

“It’s not designed to have a chilling effect,” White House press secretary Tony Snow said. “If the New York Times wants a spirited debate about it, it’s got it. But certainly nobody is going to deny First Amendment rights. But the New York Times and other news organizations ought to think long and hard about whether a public’s right to know, in some cases, might overwrite somebody’s right to live.”

Critics said Bush was trying to divert attention from his own actions. Bush, Cheney and other Republicans “have adopted a shoot-the-messenger strategy by attacking the newspaper that revealed the existence of the secret bank surveillance program rather than answering the disturbing questions that those reports raise about possible violations of the U.S. Constitution and U.S. privacy laws,” said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.).
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Press Conferences of Ari Fleischer

“Americans,” Fleischer warned, “need to watch what they do and watch what they say” (in 2001)

In Hungary, Bush Salutes Anti-Soviet Revolt of ’56 By Michael Abramowitz, Washington Post Staff Writer

The president sought to draw parallels between Hungary’s transition from dictatorship to democracy and the U.S. enterprise in Iraq, where the administration is struggling to help launch a democratically elected government. …

Aniko Kellner, a 34-year-old graduate student at Central European University, noted how the Western powers failed to come to the aid of Hungary when the popular rebellion was crushed by the Soviet Union. At the time, the United States was preoccupied with the Suez crisis and had no interest in pressing for a confrontation with Moscow.

For Bush to praise a revolt that the United States did not support “is a very tricky thing,” Kellner observed. “For Hungarians, it could be seen as unintentional cynicism.” …

“There is a contradiction here,” said Tibor Varady, a Budapest lawyer who helped organize protests Thursday while Bush was speaking. “The revolution in 1956 ended with occupation by the Soviets. The problem is today George Bush stands for occupation. He has not represented freedom.”
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World War II and Iraq: Polls Apart? By Al Kamen

White House press secretary Tony Snow , on CNN’s “Late Edition” on Sunday, said: “The president understands peoples’ impatience — not impatience, but how a war can wear on a nation. He understands that. If somebody had taken a poll in the Battle of the Bulge, I dare say people would have said, ‘Wow, my goodness, what are we doing here?’ But you cannot conduct a war based on polls.”

In fact, there was a poll taken by Gallup from Dec. 31, 1944, to Jan. 4, 1945 — three years into that war and right in the middle of the bloody Battle of the Bulge, where U.S. casualties were estimated between 70,000 and 80,000. It found that 73 percent of Americans would refuse to make peace with Adolf Hitler if he offered it and that 86 percent of Americans thought there was no chance that we would lose the war in Europe.

Indianz.com > News > Headlines
GOP lobbyist scores big with tribes
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2002

Financially successful tribes are more than happy to pay Jack Abramoff, a Republican lobbyist, $500 an hour to argue their cause in Washington, D.C.

Report details extent of Abramoff fraud of Sandia Pueblo By JENNIFER TALHELM | Associated Press
June 23, 2006

Leaders of New Mexico’s Sandia Pueblo were initially impressed by lobbyist Jack Abramoff when they went looking for help convincing Congress in 2002 to make the main ridge of Sandia Mountain the pueblo’s eastern boundary.

The Albuquerque Tribune: National Government
Lobbyist made 1.17M off pueblo
By James W. Brosnan
Scripps Howard News Service
January 4, 2006

Sandia Pueblo’s dealings with Abramoff and Scanlon have not drawn as much attention in Washington as the two men’s efforts to help the Mississippi Choctaws and Louisiana block a rival tribe’s casino, but the Sandia case is typical of their methods.

Former Sandia Pueblo Gov. Stuwart Paisano hired Abramoff in February 2002 to lobby for federal legislation to settle the pueblo’s long-standing claim to Sandia Mountain.

At $500 an Hour, Lobbyist’s Influence Rises With G.O.P. By DAVID E. ROSENBAUM

April 3, 2002 [mjh: at most 2 months after Sandia hired Abramoff.]

In the last six months of 2001, the Coushatta Indians, a tribe with 800 members and a large casino in southwest Louisiana, paid $1.76 million to the law firm of Jack Abramoff, a Republican lobbyist here.

Last month, the Bush administration handed the tribe a big victory by blocking construction of a casino by a rival tribe that would have drained off much of the Coushattas’ business.

William Worfel, vice chairman of the Coushattas, views the administration’s decision as a direct benefit of the eye-popping lobbying fees his tribe paid Mr. Abramoff, more money than many giant corporations like AOL Time Warner and American Airlines paid lobbyists in the same period.

“I call Jack Abramoff, and I get results,” Mr. Worfel said. “You get everything you pay for.”

In the seven years since Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives, Mr. Abramoff, 43, has used his close ties to Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the Republican whip, and other conservatives in the House to become one of the most influential — and, at $500 an hour, best compensated — lobbyists in Washington.

He is also an important Republican fund-raiser.

Mr. Abramoff’s recent success and importance in Republican circles is a reminder that … the business of lobbying has been humming along quite nicely, more out of the spotlight than usual but more profitable than ever for those with the right connections.

Unlike many lobbyists who take almost any client who is willing to pay their fee, Mr. Abramoff says he represents only those who stand for conservative principles. They include three Indian tribes with big casinos and, until recently, the Northern Mariana Islands.

“All of my political work,” he said, “is driven by philosophical interests, not by a desire to gain wealth.”

Mr. Abramoff argues that Indian reservations and the island territory, which is exempt from United States labor laws, are “just what conservatives have always wanted, which is enterprise zones — tax-free, regulation-free zones where with the right motivation, great industry could take place and spill out into the general communities.”

His success in making this case to Republicans in the House has paid off handsomely. …

For lobbyists, perception of influence can often be as valuable as actual influence. …

Mr. Abramoff’s background and personality hardly fit the mold of the typical Washington lobbyist. … [H]is religion is a central element of his life. …

Most unusual, he is, by his own description, a committed ideologue.

In the early 1980’s, Mr. Abramoff was chairman of the College Republican National Committee, where he made important contacts. Among those on his staff were Grover Norquist, now a leading conservative strategist here and president of Americans for Tax Reform, and Ralph Reed, the former director of the Christian Coalition, who is a prominent Republican political consultant. …

Mr. Abramoff’s rising influence is also illustrative of another trend in lobbying: success can be built on a strong relationship between a lobbyist and a single, powerful lawmaker. His interest in raising money for Republicans and conservative causes is the foundation of Mr. Abramoff’s relationship with Mr. DeLay, who is determined to meld the lobbyists on K Street here into the Republican Party’s political, legislative and fund-raising operations.

Mr. Abramoff described the bond this way: “We are the same politically and philosophically. Tom’s goal is specific — to keep Republicans in power and advance the conservative movement. I have Tom’s goal precisely.”

Mr. Norquist, who is friendly with both men, said of Mr. Abramoff, “He walks in to see DeLay and DeLay knows that he is representing clients whose views are in sync with DeLay’s views.”

The Albuquerque Tribune: National

What is puzzling to the New Mexico delegation is why Sandia Pueblo paid $2.7 million to Abramoff and Scanlon – two men they never saw – over a strictly local, albeit contentious, bill.

Washington and the West » Duped by Abramoff, tribe still smiling

Of the several tribes Abramoff is accused to have cheated, the Sandia have perhaps received the least attention. And Sandia’s association with one of the most vilified men in Washington raises few eyebrows here — perhaps because they won. They now control the craggy peaks that play a central role in the pueblo’s spiritual life, and are the location of sacred sites that are important to the tribe’s religious ceremonies.

For 20 years, the tribe sued the Interior Department and sent attorneys into courtrooms without a clear victory. Within a year of hiring Abramoff, they had their mountain….

The tribe’s governors and lieutenant governors — always men — are picked by religious leaders after a period of seclusion.

Paisano was replaced two days before Abramoff’s plea agreement made many of the tribe’s dealings with the lobbyist public.

But the former governor said he has no idea why he was replaced or if it has anything to do with the scandal.
“Out of respect … for my culture, I didn’t ask,” he said.

Clinton Says GOP Blindly Follows Bush By Dan Balz, Washington Post Staff Writer

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) said, “We’re not blindly united like the other side is, where they are like the three monkeys — ‘hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil,’ ” she told reporters after a speech to the Democratic group NDN. “They’re not going to say anything negative about the president, the vice president, the secretary of defense or anybody else. I think that’s irresponsible. It’s negligent.” …

“When people say, ‘Gee, the Democrats seemed not to have a unified position,’ I can very straightforwardly say I’m proud of the debate that we’re having,” she said. “We are trying to fulfill our responsibilities, in contrast to our friends on the other side, who have abdicated theirs.” …

Clinton said her party’s stance of “honestly and openly struggling” with the issue of Iraq is in contrast to the GOP’s embrace of the White House’s conduct. “There is very little willingness to do what should be done in holding this administration accountable,” she said. …

The aggressive Republican rhetoric throughout the debate caused considerable consternation among Democratic politicians and strategists. … Republican National Committee spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt offered a harsher appraisal, saying that the Democratic divisions add up to “surrender to the terrorists.”
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