A new Associated Press poll on how Americans think we're doing in the terror war finds the answer is not so good:

Half of Americans have concerns that terrorists might be winning the war on terrorism, and one in five feels strongly that way, according to an Associated Press poll that found many people pessimistic about their security. Fears about an attack against this country are high. Two-thirds in the poll said it was likely terrorists would strike before the November elections. And a third said it was likely there would be an attack at one of the political conventions this summer.

....two-thirds of Americans acknowledge some concern that terrorists may be recruiting faster than the United States can keep up. A third of those polled feel strongly this is the case, and another third say they have at least some worries.

Strangely, this seems to help Bush instead of Kerry:

As for the election campaign, President Bush has the advantage over Democrat John Kerry on people's trust to do a better job of protecting the country, 53 percent to 37 percent.

Poll results are available here.

The Washington Post takes Ashcroft to task in an editorial for his smear of 9/11/ Commission member Jamie Gorelick in accusing her of being responsible for creating "the wall."

Round 2 was Gorelick's response to Ashcroft. Round 1 was Ashcroft's partisan attack of Gorelick to the 9/11 Commission.

Suggested music and video to accompany reading the three rounds: We Can Be Together from Volunteers by the Jefferson Airplane ("Up against the wall motherf**er, tear down the walls," and The Wall by Pink Floyd.

by TChris

Congressman John Hostettler (R-IN) had one of those forgetful moments that lead to trouble. As Hostettler passed through a security checkpoint at an airport in Louisville, alert TSA screeners noticed that he had a 9-mm handgun in his carry-on bag.

Others have been arrested (sometimes unnecessarily) for attempting to smuggle banned (albeit less deadly) items onto an airplane, but the Congressman was "briefly detained." He explained that he grabbed the wrong bag and forgot that the bag contained a gun. An honest mistake, no doubt, but one that would cause most people more grief than a brief detention. Moral of the story: It pays to be a Congressman.

9/11 Commission member and former Department of Justice official Jamie Gorelick repudiates John Ashcroft's testimony of last week in today's Washington Post:

At last week's hearing, Attorney General John Ashcroft, facing criticism, asserted that "the single greatest structural cause for September 11 was the wall that segregated criminal investigators and intelligence agents" and that I built that wall through a March 1995 memo. This is simply not true.

First, I did not invent the "wall," which is not a wall but a set of procedures implementing a 1978 statute (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA) and federal court decisions interpreting it. In a nutshell, that law, as the courts read it, said intelligence investigators could conduct electronic surveillance in the United States against foreign targets under a more lenient standard than is required in ordinary criminal cases, but only if the "primary purpose" of the surveillance were foreign intelligence rather than a criminal prosecution.

The 9/11 Commission studied the use of wiretaps since the Sept. 11 attacks:

The number of secret surveillance warrants sought by the FBI has increased 85 percent in the past three years, a pace that has outstripped the Justice Department's ability to process them quickly. Even after warrants are approved, the FBI often doesn't have enough agents or other personnel with the expertise to conduct the surveillance. And the agency still is trying to build a cadre of translators who can understand conversations intercepted in such languages as Arabic, Pashto and Farsi.

....The warrants, authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, allow for wiretaps, video surveillance, property searches and other spying on people thought to be terrorists or spies. After the 2001 Patriot Act and a key 2002 court decision crumbled the legal wall separating the FBI's criminal and intelligence investigations, use of FISA warrants has soared as sharing of information has become easier.

And now, Bush calls for renewal of the Patriot Act. We say no, pass the Safe Act instead.

[Ed. title edited to reflect the 85% figure reflects increase in wiretap requests rather than actual wiretaps]

by TChris

George Tenet testified before the 9/11 commission that he hadn't talked with President Bush during the entire month of August 2001. Well, not quite.

CIA records showed Tenet briefed the president on national security threats once during Bush's 27-day ranch vacation, on Aug. 17, and again at the White House on Aug. 31. He also met with the president at least six more times during the first eight days of September, the spokesman said.

Since Tenet received a memo in August 2001 entitled "Islamic Extremist Learns to Fly," as well as the infamous August 6, 2001 memo warning of "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks," it is reasonable to wonder whether he briefed the President about a possible connection between extremists learning to fly and extremists who plotted to hijack airplanes. If he didn't, why not? Difficult questions for Tenet to answer, given his inability to recall the meetings he had with the President.

Regardless of what Tenet remembers, Bush still has a difficult question to answer:

No one has been able to say whether Bush followed up in any way after he asked his intelligence agencies whether there was a domestic threat from Al Qaeda, and got a loud "yes" in response.

Osama bin Laden has released a new tape, referring to the recent train bombings in Spain. He offers Europe a truce--but not the U.S. or Israel. The tape was played Thursday on Al Jazeera.

I offer a truce to them (Europe) with a commitment to stop operations against any state which vows to stop attacking Muslims or interfere in their affairs," the voice said on the tape aired by Dubai-based Al Arabiya and Qatar-based Al Jazeera channels.

"The announcement of the truce starts with the withdrawal of the last soldier from our land and the door is open for three months from the date of the announcement of this statement. "Whoever rejects this truce and wants war, we are its (war's) sons and whoever wants this truce, here we bring it." Security analysts said bin Laden was maneuvering to split the U.S.-led coalition and scare wavering members out of Iraq.

Bin Laden said the Spain bombings were retaliatory for Spain's actions in Afganistan and Iraq and against the Palestinians.

[comments now closed]

From an esteemed colleague and former D.O.J. official (under Clinton/Reno), who gave us permission to post this on TalkLeft:

John Ashcroft

"
John Ashcroft took office as Attorney General claiming that he wanted to "depoliticize" the Department of Justice. His testimony before the 9/11 Commission this week is only the latest indication that he has, in fact, politicized it to an extent not seen since the days of Richard Nixon. Louis Freeh, Janet Reno, Thomas Pickard and Cofer Black all testified in a measured and serious fashion, identifying what they thought the problems were and talking about potential solutions. It was actually surprising how little cross-firing went on, particularly when one considers the history between, for example, Freeh and Reno.

Ashcroft's testimony was entirely different - completely partisan and combative. He was clearly not interested in truly identifying problems, but simply in attacking others (presumably in part to deflect attention from his own failings. Moreover, his testimony was misleading at best. While he conveniently declassified one memo so that he could use it to attack Commissioner Gorelick, he neglected to mention that his own Deputy Attorney General had expressly reaffirmed those same procedures after Ashcroft took office. The fact is that those procedures (a) were reasonably believed to be required by law and (b) actually required the FBI to provide information to criminal investigators whenever they was a reasonable indication of criminal activity.

This partisanship is part of a consistent pattern with Ashcroft. He has politicized hiring in the Department of Justice Honors program, repeatedly rejecting the recommendations of career lawyers to ensure that Federalist Society types are hired. He has made decisions on matters such as the Second Amendment without consulting the lawyers who have litigated these issues for years, and in a manner that is adverse to the interests of the Department. And his statement in October 2001 that those who opposed the Administration were giving aid and comfort to the enemy was truly scary coming from an Attorney General.

Let's hope that Ashcroft does not have the opportunity to serve beyond this fall; but let's also hope that if Bush is re-elected he has the good sense to bounce this dangerous zealot.

"

by TChris

Last month, TalkLeft pointed to editorials calling upon the military to apologize to Captain James Yee for its misguided effort to prove that he's a spy. After initially accusing Yee of espionage and then charging him with (among other things) mishandling classified material, the military eventually dropped all criminal charges while convicting Yee of administrative offenses for marital infidelity and storing pornography on a government computer. Yee was reprimanded for those alleged offenses.

Those convictions have been overturned.

The appellate decision by Army Gen. James Hill, the Southern Command chief who oversees U.S. military operations at Guantanamo, wipes the slate clean for Capt. James Yee, who had been assigned to minister to prisoners at the base in Cuba.

Yee's civilian lawyer, Eugene Fidell, called the proceedings "a hoax by any standard." He said he could not prepare a defense because the Army did not disclose the evidence against Yee until 11 minutes before Yee's hearing began.

The military still has not apologized to Yee, but the reprimand will be removed from his service record.

by TChris

Current Attorney General John Ashcroft and former AG Janet Reno have very different understandings of the law.

Former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno said Wednesday that nothing prevented the sharing of FBI intelligence with criminal investigators working on counterterrorism, contradicting statements made a day earlier by current Attorney General John Ashcroft.

That isn't Reno's only disagreement with Ashcroft.

She also addressed Ashcroft's statements blaming her for issuing "draconian" guidelines in 1995 that he said made sharing information even more difficult. "It was not really restrictions," Reno said. "It was exactly the opposite situation." She said her guidelines required the FBI to contact investigators and discuss cases.

Senator John Edwards has issued a press release calling for the creation of a new homeland intelligence agency, one with civil liberties safeguards. The objective: to root out terrorist cells in the U.S.

“What we need is a domestic intelligence agency that is focused on fighting terrorism here at home and having a watchdog in place to make sure our freedoms are protected,” said Senator Edwards, who last year introduced legislation to overhaul how terrorists are tracked within the United States .

President Bush, whose administration has until now resisted reforms at the FBI, told reporters on Monday, “Now may be a time to revamp and reform our intelligence services.” Said Senator Edwards, “The president has finally come around to the idea that we need serious structural reform, and this is a structural problem. We have a law enforcement agency trying to do something that they are not suited to do, which is domestic intelligence.”

Senator Edwards on February 13, 2003 proposed legislation to create a Homeland Intelligence Agency to replace FBI units that failed to uncover the plot to attack the World Trade Center and Pentagon. The new agency would focus on intelligence, not law enforcement, so it could do a better job tracking terrorist operatives in this country, improve coordination with local law enforcement and other federal agencies, and protect civil liberties.

We'd like to hear more about the civil liberties protections envisioned for the new agency. We're not jumping aboard this train, at least not yet.

The 60th Session of the UN Human Rights Commission is meeting in Geneva. A network of over 100 U.S. rights groups will address the Commission on US "anti-terror" violations.

The Network will be holding a panel discussion regarding violations by the US on the pretext of "national security" on Wednesday, 14 April, with speakers from the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, the Muslim Civil Rights Center and Amnesty International.

From their media release today, received by email:

As hundreds continue to languish in a US Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay and in prisons around the US - with no idea of when they may be tried or released - members of the US Human Rights Network (USHRN) planned today to urge members of the UN Commission on Human Rights, currently meeting in Geneva, to focus their attention on human rights violations conducted by the US in the name of "security" and the "war on terror" and to establish a special mechanism to monitor such violations.