Christopher Patton's shared items
1. Any ballpark estimate — any number at all, really — of how many Americans had their communications intercepted by the NSA through the “President’s Surveillance Program.” The fact that this is missing from an inspectors general report is a glaring oversight.
2. The error rate in collecting terrorism communications. According to the inspectors general of the CIA, FBI and NSA, much if not most of the information collected by the program was unrelated to terrorism. The NSA inspector general found “no evidence of intentional misuse” of the surveillance efforts. Which is groovy. But it still doesn’t tell us how much irrelevant data the program collected, which is a crucial question when determining its efficacy.
3. How much so-called Fruit of the Poisoned Tree resulted. That’s a legal doctrine referring to evidence that has to be thrown out of court. Long story short: if an investigation or a technique to get information is inadmissible in court, no evidence yielded by such methods can be used either. Warrantless surveillance is most certainly a case that would generate inadmissible evidence. That’s one of the issues at stake in yesterday’s al-Haramain filing that I wrote about. And it’s huge. If information from warrantless surveillance made its way into indictments or prosecutions, then those cases are jeopardized. That’s the sort of thing that lets terrorists out on the streets.
Check this out, for instance: the Justice Department “was aware as early as 2002 that information collected under the PSP could have implications for DOJ’s litigation responsibilities under Rule of Criminal Procedure Rule 16 and Brady v. Maryland.” Rule 16 and Brady prevent prosecutors from withholding germane information from a defendant — like, you know, whether part or all of an investigation is based on an illegal search. But what happened? “[N]o DOJ attorneys with terrorism prosecution responsibilities were read into the PSP until mid-2004, and as a result DOJ continued to lack the advice of attorneys who were best equipped to identify and examine the discovery issues in connection with the PSP.” That means that from 2001 to 2004, U.S. attorneys could have been given — from FBI or intelligence officials — information relevant to a terrorism prosecution that they would have no way of knowing came from a poisoned tree like the PSP, and could therefore never have disclosed that fact to defense counsel. And yet the report doesn’t tell us how often that happened.
Relatedly, this is dense but important:
Chapters Three and Six of the DOJ IG [inspector general] report describe how DOJ and the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court] addressed the impact PSP-derived information had on the FISA process. The DOJ IG concluded that it was foreseeable that [PSP-derived] information might impact the process and that the initial delay in reading anyone from DOJ’s Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR) or the [FISA Court] into the PSP unnecessarily jeopardized DOJ’s relationship with the Court.
That’s hard to follow, but what it appears to mean is that OIPR, the office responsible for generating FISA warrants, had no idea if information it submitted as probable cause to the FISA Court for such a warrant came from PSP surveillance. OIPR whistleblower Thomas Tamm realized in 2004 that there were special procedures for some warrant submissions that seemed to come from a certain subset of NSA information; he had no idea what PSP was. We still don’t know how many warrants for the FISA Court effectively laundered dirty information into the criminal-justice process.
Update: Sorry, just two more.
4. Any assessment, at all, of the legality of the warrantless surveillance programs collectively called PSP. Just a total dodge on this one.
5. Relatedly: the words “exclusive means.” Like for instance, the inspectors general write: “Prior to September 11, 2001, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 and Executive Order 1233 were generally viewed as the principal governing authorities for conducting electronic surveillance for national security purposes.” Well, not exactly. What FISA actually says is this:
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 shall be the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance, as defined in section 101 of such Act, and the interception of domestic wire, oral, and electronic communications may be conducted.
My emphasis. By not mentioning these crucial words in the FISA statute, the inspectors general look like they’re running away from addressing the question of PSP’s legality.
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One warrantless surveillance mystery solved. My friend Marcy Wheeler beat me to this: George W. Bush personally ordered White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Chief of Staff Andy Card to visit an ailing Attorney General John Ashcroft in the hospital in March 2004 after Ashcroft’s deputy Jim Comey refused to certify the warrantless surveillance program. Just look at this profile in courage:
According to notes from Ashcroft’s FBI security detail, at 6:20 p.m. that evening Card called the hospital and spoke with an agent in Ashcroft’s security detail, advising him that President Bush would be calling shortly to speak with Ashcroft. Ashcroft’s wife told the agent that Ashcroft would not accept the call. Ten minutes later, the agent called Ashcroft’s Chief of Staff David Ayers at DOJ to request that Ayers speak with Card about the President’s intention to call Ashcroft. The agent conveyed to Ayers Mrs. Ashcroft’s desire that no calls be made to Ashcroft for another day or two. However, at 6:45 p.m., Card and the President called the hospital and, according to the agent’s notes, “insisted on speaking [with Attorney General Ashcroft].” According to the agent’s notes, Mrs. Ashcroft took the call from Card and the President and was informed that Gonzales and Card were coming to the hospital to see Ashcroft regarding a matter involving national security.
Jack Goldsmith remembers that after a seriously-ill Ashcroft told Gonzales and Card to follow Comey’s legal advice, Goldsmith seriously thought Ashcroft might actually die right then and there. Ashcroft earns himself a place in the patriot’s pantheon just for that. I truly can’t wait to see how Bush’s presidential library treats this incident.
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Sarah Palin's announcement of her resignation as governor of Alaska may be the end of her political career or, as some speculate, the real beginning. What seems clear is that Palin is not conservatism's new hope but its dead end. In recent days, this has been amply confirmed by the arguments of Palin defenders, focused less on her presumed merits than on her presumed injuries at her enemies' hands.
Thus, Ross Douthat, the new conservative voice at the New York Times, hails Palin as Everywoman—living proof you can aspire to the White House without an Ivy League degree—and deplores her abuse by the political and media elites based on her "gender and social class." The message to other non-elite women with political ambitions, Douthat sums up, is: "Your children will go through the tabloid wringer. Your religion will be mocked and misrepresented. Your political record will be distorted, to better parody your family and your faith."
Yet Douthat admits that Palin's "missteps, scandals, dreadful interviews and self-pitying monologues" tarnished her role as a spunky common woman challenging the elites. But in that case, how much of the harsh treatment was due to prejudice and how much to Palin's own failings?
Yes, Palin has been the target of extremely vicious attacks (though the notion that no other politician has endured comparable nastiness would amuse Bill and Hillary Clinton). Her left-wing feminist foes have been especially rabid, mocking her in startlingly misogynistic language—"Republican blow-up doll" was one of the milder epithets—and denouncing "her pretense that she is a woman." The bizarre theory that Palin's youngest child, Trig, is really her grandson is still afloat in the gutters of the Internet.
And yes, this hostility has an element of snobbery. Former New Republic editor in chief Andrew Sullivan, currently a blogger with a bad case of Palin Derangement Syndrome, recently posted a catalogue of Palin's sins that included "white trash concupiscence."
Yet, such revolting extremes aside, some of the unpleasantness has been self-inflicted. Palin agreed to be John McCain's running mate knowing her teenage daughter was pregnant and single. (Of course, if Chelsea Clinton had been the expecting unwed mom, not one unkind word would have crossed the lips of Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter.) Nor was she particularly eager to shield Bristol Palin from the spotlight.
And then there's the matter of Palin's fitness for the second-highest office in the land. I say this as someone who initially hoped she would be an inspiring standard-bearer for conservative/libertarian feminism, a model of a woman who had it all and was a winner, not a victim.
It's not just the "liberal elites" that found Palin clueless; so did many in her own camp. Indeed, Douthat concedes she has to "bone up on the issues" if she is to have a political future. Those who believe Palin held her own debating Joe Biden forget that the McCain camp had requested a less-challenging format for that debate, with follow-up questions limited.
Palin critics on the right—George Will, Peggy Noonan, David Frum—have been slammed by the Palinistas as "haters," elitists threatened by a political star without proper intellectual credentials. Yet these same conservatives have been devout admirers of Ronald Reagan, hardly a product of the Ivy League.
Some of Palin's followers see her as the second coming of Reagan. But Reagan, despised as a "dunce" by his liberal detractors, had extensively read, written, and talked about the key issues of his day. While not an intellectual, he was a man of ideas. Palin is not known to harbor those. Her appeal is described in terms of "speaking from the heart" and exemplifying the virtues of faith and family—which is ironic, given the usual conservative derision of emotion-based liberal politics. Shortly after Palin's nomination, former George W. Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson suggested that her choice to bear a child with Down's Syndrome rather than have an abortion was an adequate substitute for a political philosophy.
If Palin does have a philosophy, it is the flip side of the class-and-culture warfare of which she has been a target. In fact, it was Palin who fired many of the volleys in this war—extolling the moral superiority of small towns and rural areas and calling them "pro-American parts of the country," mocking people who had traveled abroad as spoiled kids with rich parents.
While eschewing "victim feminism," Palin has enthusiastically embraced "victim conservatism": the grievances of cultural traditionalists who feel trampled and disdained by the more educated and influential (and often, more affluent) segments of American society. Like the "oppressed groups" of the left, these traditionalists have some valid complaints but channel them into a destructive ideology of polarization and resentment.
Such a zeal can energize the base—but also fatally split it and alienate the unconverted.
Most likely, Palin will be back. But if conservatives expect her to be their warrior princess in shining armor, they are courting defeat.
Cathy Young is a Reason contributing editor and a columnist at RealClearPolitics. She blogs at cathyyoung.wordpress.com. This article originally appeared at RealClearPolitics.
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Under the headline Stop ‘Brüno' From Molesting Children and Teens, Christian movie review site Movieguide says they are asking the government to suspend today's release of Bruno. Movieguide® has sent a letter asking local government officials throughout the U.S. to consider stopping the screening of the controversial movie "Brüno" starring comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, Movieguide® Publisher Dr. Ted Baehr announced today. In the letter, Movieguide® asks officials to get an injunction against screening the movie on Friday until officials can look at the movie and determine whether it should be banned because it does not fit the "community standards" in their area, as defined by U.S. Supreme Court rulings on obscenity and pornography. "This movie has been cut to get an R rating," Dr. Baehr said, "but it still contains much pornographic, offensive content." Among the "pornographic" content in the movie, according to Movieguide® and Dr. Baehr, are "extremely graphic" sex scenes, including depicted intercourse, depicted homosexual sodomy, a depicted orgy, and depicted oral sex (including anal licking); explicit shots, including extensive close-ups, of full male and female nudity; and, "obscene" language about sex acts. "The movie also contains scenes mocking Jews, African Americans and Christian evangelicals," Dr. Baehr said.Baehr's claims may actually help the movie as the reviews have been mixed at best. From David Rakoff's Slate piece, Why Bruno Is Bad For The Gays:
The film is cringily thin broth, even as many will view Baron Cohen's gay-face portrayal as a testament to his versatility as a performer. Such a performance by an out gay actor would have the opposite effect: It would be the final nail, confirming his essential uncastability. But no actual gay guy would ever have made this film. "Brüno" preaches a false emancipation. It's Jerry Lewis playing Steve Biko. A shot of Snoop Dogg, mere seconds long, rapping in the film's closing number -- which includes Bono and Elton John -- "He's gay. He's gay ..." He shrugs. "OK," does more to advance the cause than the previous, interminable 80 minutes.
If there is any comfort to take away from this it is that Baron Cohen exhibits a similar disconnect and misunderstanding about attitudes toward gay men as the government, since most polls show that Washington lags behind popular opinion when it comes to tolerance.
There will be those who will tell me to lighten up, and it's not like I don't want to. I really, really do. Brüno gets his anus bleached in the movie, whereas I don't know if there is Clorox enough in the world to make me clean again.
A 46-year-old Kimball Township man who is a former local youth pastor is facing a felony charge of accosting a child for immoral purposes, a case that involves confiscated computers and electronics from a Clyde Township church, officials said.
Craig Coon is due in court for a preliminary hearing at 1:30 p.m. July 21 in front of District Court Judge John Monaghan, said Mike Wendling, St. Clair County Prosecutor.... The felony warrant said Coon was wanted since he "did accost, entice, or solicit (victim), a child less than 16 years of age, with the intent to induce or force that child to commit an immoral act, to submit to an act of sexual intercourse or an act of gross indecency, or other act of depravity or delinquency, or did encourage the child to engage in one of these acts." ...
In 2004, the Times Herald reported about Coon as the leader of The Quest, a contemporary church service that attracted many teenagers and 20-somethings in a casual setting. "I want to get people to start asking where they are spiritually, what they need to do to start walking with Jesus," Coon said in the article. "We need to get past those stereotypes they hold about church. They're roadblocks to Christianity."
A Cottage Grove youth pastor was charged with criminal sexual conduct for allegedly inappropriately touching and sending texts of a sexual nature to a 15-year-old. Jeffrey Arlan Mobley, 32, of Cottage Grove, allegedly made the sexual advances while he was a youth pastor at Southside Baptist Church in Sunfish Lake. According to the court complaint, Mobley allegedly hugged and grabbed the 15-year-old’s buttocks and made calls and sent text messages to the minor. Mobley confirmed to police that he had hugged and sent sexual text messages to the teenager, according to the court complaint.
A lot of youth pastors might love the chance to openly share their faith with a movie star for two hours and then be featured in the star's next motion picture, testifying about Jesus. Jody Trautwein, youth pastor at Point of Grace Ministries in Birmingham, got that chance.
Sacha Baron Cohen, the actor best known for his comedic character Borat, parodies Alabama again in his latest movie, "Bruno," in which he sits down for a counseling session with Trautwein, who explains that faith in Jesus Christ can help lead someone out of homosexuality. At one point, Trautwein asks whether "Bruno" is ready to ask Jesus into his heart. "Are you hitting on me?" replied Cohen, in character as the gay Austrian fashionista Bruno, who wears purple thongs and other outrageous attire while shocking people with vulgar antics....
"It's an example of the deception and perversion that is trying to enter our world through the entertainment industry," Trautwein said. "The holy and precious things of God are not to be touched and not to be mocked. I pray God has mercy on Sacha Baron Cohen."
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On the first day of Singularity University the students and staff were given the opportunity to sit down with Ray Kurzweil in a Q&A free-for-all with the luminary that lasted for more than an hour. Singularity Hub was there to capture footage as Kurzweil answered questions about new paradigms, virtual reality, the future, and much more. See below for the edited video of the best content from the session:
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