Dimitris Poulikakos - Na fygei autos o xeimwnas

Bush Administration Memo Says Fourth Amendment Does Not Apply To Military Operations Within U.S.

ACLU Calls For Immediate Release Of Withheld Legal Memo

A newly disclosed secret memo authored by the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in March 2003 that asserts President Bush has unlimited power to order brutal interrogations of detainees also reveals a radical interpretation of the Constitution's Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable search and seizure. The memo, declassified yesterday as the result of an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit, cites a still-secret DOJ memo from 2001 that found that the "Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations."

The October 2001 memo was almost certainly meant to provide a legal basis for the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program, which President Bush launched the same month the memo was issued. As a component of the Department of Defense, the NSA is a military agency.

"The recent disclosures underscore the Bush administration's extraordinarily sweeping conception of executive power," said Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU's National Security Project. "The administration's lawyers believe the president should be permitted to violate statutory law, to violate international treaties, and even to violate the Fourth Amendment inside the U.S. They believe that the president should be above the law."

[ ... ]

The March 2003 memo was declassified in response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU, the New York Civil Liberties Union, and other organizations in June 2004 to enforce Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for records concerning the treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody abroad. The ACLU has been fighting for the release of the March 2003 Yoo memo since filing the lawsuit. A few weeks ago, after the court ordered additional briefing on whether the Defense Department could continue to withhold the memo, the government reluctantly agreed to conduct a declassification review by March 31. The Defense Department released this memo after conducting the review.

The 2003 Department of Justice memo can be found online at:
www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/34745res20030314.html

Documents relating to the ACLU's NSA FOIA lawsuit are available online at:
www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/30022res20060207.html

To date, more than 100,000 pages of government documents have been released in response to the ACLU's FOIA lawsuit related the abuse of prisoner in U.S. custody abroad. These documents are available online at: www.aclu.org/torturefoia

Quote of the day

From the movie 'Repo Man':

"A lot o' people don't realize what's really going on. They view life as a bunch o' unconnected incidents 'n things. They don't realize that there's this, like, lattice o' coincidence that lays on top o' everything. Give you an example; show you what I mean: suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o' shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconsciousness."

The effect of a faltering global economy on the Mideast peace process

From Peace will take a plunge as financial markets do :

The economic crisis we are currently experiencing internationally appears to be extreme, largely because it really comprises three major simultaneous and interlocking crises. The first is a complex financial crisis in American capital markets. The second is a prolonged macro-economic crisis in the United States that began several years ago and affects global currency exchange rates. And the third is the extreme rise in oil prices.

Each of these crises is big; but together, they create a critical situation. In what ways will these economic developments directly or indirectly affect Israeli-Palestinian relations?

The new economic reality will, in the near future, divert the world's attention away from the conflict in the Middle East, as the world focuses on economic problems and their domestic significance for each individual country. The scope of this crisis is so broad that virtually no country will escape its effects, with the exception of the oil producing states that benefit from a huge income windfall thanks to the rise in oil prices.

In the US, President George W. Bush will be busy with economic issues. Even the American elections will focus on the economy. Caught in the eye of the economic storm, Washington will redouble its efforts to find a solution in Iraq (though probably not before 2010) that enables it to withdraw, thereby reducing its defense burden and budget deficit. This American weakness, however temporary, will of course immediately be projected onto the Annapolis process and Washington's allies in the region - first and foremost Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

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There are still many unanswered questions with regard to longer-term developments in the global economy and their effect on the Middle East. Conceivably, the world will recover relatively quickly from the economic crisis. But in the short term, the moderates behind the Israeli-Palestinian negotiating track will be weakened with regard to the extremists. In the near future, irreversible developments are liable to confront Israel with extremist forces and a deteriorating political reality.

 

The War Against Fertility

From WSJ review of Fatal Misconception :

 

The population controllers reorganized after World War II with the help of John D. Rockefeller 3rd, a birth-control advocate whose wealth created, in 1952, the Population Council, a population-control advocacy group. Six of the council's 10 founding members were eugenicists. The Ford Foundation also began giving money to the cause, initiating its own programs and handing out its own grants. Dr. Clarence Gamble, a Procter & Gamble heir, attempted various free-lance efforts to promote birth control in India and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). He routinely referred to the citizens of these two countries as "coolies" and "natives."

As Mr. Connelly observes, the dispensers of population-control grants often enjoyed a kind of pasha existence. Frank Notestein, a longtime adviser to John D. Rockefeller 3rd, recalled that wherever he went -- Cairo, Karachi, Seoul -- he faced the prospect of a groaning table, only to face "another day of tremendous eating." Douglas Ensminger, who ran the Ford Foundation's New Delhi office, had a staff of nine people -- gardeners, maids, cooks -- to serve him. At least foundation officers knew how to benefit from the population that already existed.

The eugenicists of the 1920s and 1930s dreamed of a "world eugenics" movement that could regulate global fertility. That movement, Mr. Connelly argues, nearly became a reality in 1970, when population controllers in Washington, New York and London appeared on the verge of creating a new international order. It was around this time that huge government aid programs -- alongside United Nations initiatives -- took over from the foundations the greater burden of the population-control agenda. Mr. Connelly notes that many people had by then become aware of "the dark chapters of eugenics and medical experimentation." Thus the movement shifted its emphasis. It did not give up its eugenicist mission entirely, but it also claimed to be eradicating poverty and saving the environment.