In the News - Feb. 09

Ex-FEMA chief: I may tell all about Katrina - 9 Feb 2006 at 8:29am - WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former disaster agency chief Michael Brown is indicating he is ready to reveal his correspondence with President Bush and other officials during Hurricane Katrina unless the White House forbids it and offers legal support.


U.S. straps down hunger strikers? - 9 Feb 2006 at 7:25am - U.S. military officials at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, strapped hunger-striking prisoners into restraint chairs for hours to feed them through tubes and isolated them in cold cells, The New York Times reported Thursday.


Bush: US, allies thwarted terrorist plot to attack Los Angeles - 9 Feb 2006 at 12:43pm - WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush unveiled new details about a thwarted September 11th-style Al-Qaeda plot to crash a hijacked airliner into the tallest building in Los Angeles in 2002.

From the article: "White House spokesman Scott McClellan denied any linkage between the new details and Bush's aggressive campaign to defend his secret domestic spying program, which some lawmakers have called illegal."

That's good. I really do hope GWB isn't trying to suggest that the FISA court would turn down a request to monitor the communications of the evildoers named as the would-be attackers, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Hambali, a "leader of the Al-Qaeda affiliate Jemaah Islamiyah", although the current Rovian strategy seems to be for Republicans to suggest that the choice faced in the present circumstance is between: 1) continuing the warrantless wiretapping exactly as it has been carried out thus far; or 2) scrapping the program altogether—as in "See how productive this program has already been! How can we NOT continue it?"—deliberately neglecting to mention an obvious third choice: continue the program, but with legally-prescribed safeguards of FISA and congressional oversight in place to ensure that it targets only those who are legitimately suspected of something which would... ummm.. warrant a warrant for the eavesdropping.

Poll: Surveillance wins some more backers - 9 Feb 2006 at 1:11pm - WASHINGTON -- President Bush's monthlong campaign to convince the public that the government's eavesdropping program is an essential anti-terrorism tool appears to have made an impact, a new AP-Ipsos poll suggests.


Senate Republicans reach Patriot Act deal - 9 Feb 2006 at 2:54pm - WASHINGTON -- Several Senate Republicans who are key to extension of the terror-fighting Patriot Act have reached a tentative agreement with the White House on a compromise version, congressional officials said Thursday.


Passenger security check program scrapped - 9 Feb 2006 at 2:38pm - WASHINGTON -- An ambitious program to check every domestic airline passenger's name against government terrorist watch lists may not be immune from hackers, a congressional investigator said Thursday.

L.A. Mayor Blindsided by Bush Announcement (AP) - 9 Feb 2006 at 3:02pm - AP - Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Thursday he was blindsided by President Bush's announcement of new details on a purported 2002 hijacking plot aimed at a downtown skyscraper, and described communication with the White House as "nonexistent."


Libby: White House 'superiors' OK'd leaks - 9 Feb 2006 at 9:13pm - WASHINGTON -- A former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney told a federal grand jury that his superiors authorized him to give secret information to reporters as part of the Bush administration's defense of intelligence used to justify invading Iraq, according to court papers.


Bush told to "shut up" over cartoons - 9 Feb 2006 at 9:04pm - Hundreds of thousands of Shiite Muslims transformed a religious ceremony in Lebanon on Thursday into an emotional but peaceful protest against cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.


Paper: White House knew about levees early - 9 Feb 2006 at 8:27pm - WASHINGTON -- Twenty-eight government agencies, from local Louisiana parishes to the White House, reported that New Orleans levees were breached Aug. 29, the day Hurricane Katrina roared ashore, documents released Thursday show.