QUESTIONS ABOUT THE VEEP WHO COULDN'T SHOOT STRAIGHT

 WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN DICK CHENEY'S HUNTING "ACCIDENT"? (Updated)

A smart mid-western friend who has a lot of quail-hunting experience writes:

The entire Cheney hunting accident story stinks.  The delay in announcing it is  suspicious, obviously.  I'll bet Cheney had a few beers in him, but I'm not sure that is illegal in Texas (drinking and hunting is illegal in most states, but I couldn't find out if that includes Texas).

But a few other points that may be worth noting:

1. The news reports say the accident happened "around 5:30 pm" on Saturday.  In Texas, quail can be hunted until 30 minutes after sunset.  Sunset on Saturday, in Corpus Christi, was at 6:18, which means they were legal until 6:48.  The "around" is suspicious.

2. The news reports say that after Whittington (left) had gotten off his shot and went looking for his bird, Cheney and the other hunter went to another spot where they saw a covey of quail.  Texas quail might be different from Iowa quail, but in Iowa when a shotgun goes off, every quail within earshot flutters away.  The story doesn't make sense.

3. None of the stories have commented on the fact that they were "road hunting", or hunting from a car.  That is just about the lowest kind of low-rent, dishonorable kind of hunting there is (the phrase "road hunting" is often used synonymously with "poaching").  When I was growing up in Iowa, I went pheasant or quail hunting on scores of occasions with my Dad and others.  We never would have hunted from a vehicle and it was an insult to even suggest that someone might.  It was considered dangerous and declasse, as it was too great an advantage for the hunter to be "fair".   It most states, including Texas, it is also illegal:

"It is unlawful to hunt from or by means of motor-driven vehicles and land conveyances or aircraft of any kind except paraplegics and single or double amputees of legs may hunt from stationary motor-driven vehicles or land conveyances."

However, Texas exempts private property owners from the prohibition when they are on their own land and Cheney was with the property owner on his ranch.  But it is still really tacky.

4. Hunting quail in Texas requires an "Upland game bird stamp", which costs $7.  This is a relatively new requirement, but I'll bet Cheney didn't have one.

5. The spin is that Whittington "came up from behind the Vice President", implying that he snuck up on him or was somehow partially responsible because Cheney didn't know he was there.  When hunting, it is bad form to walk in front of someone's gun.  When given a choice, one would always approach another hunter from behind.

Cheney has gotten negative press in the past for participating in "canned hunts" and a couple of years ago he got really negative press for going on a canned pheasant hunt in Pennsylvania where he got between 70 and 95 birds (depending on which report is to be believed).  The typical daily limit in places like Iowa and South Dakota, where we have many more pheasants than Pennsylvania, is 3 or 5 per day and a possession limit of 15 or 20. 

To many of our milieu, hunting is hunting is hunting and the distinctions noted above aren't that big of a deal.  To hunters, these are important distinctions.  Hunting regulations are strictly enforced in most states and every sixpack Joe knows he better abide by them or he'll get in trouble.  Most hunters aren't affluent suede vest guys, they are working class guys within a couple of generations of agriculatural roots.  The gluttony of shooting 70 pheasant in a day is almost impossible for them to comprehend.

 

Focusing on the kill rather than the hunt is frowned upon.  Killing more than you can eat is frowned upon.  Canned hunts and that kind of over-indulgence is for the Rambo hunters, who are not thought highly of by the old-fashioned Izaak Walton league type of guys, like my Dad.

 

Someone should be asking if Cheney was drinking, if he was properly licensed with his Upland Game Bird Stamp, when (and if) the hunting accident was actually reported to the authorities and if anyone has investigated why the quail in Texas seem to have gone deaf.

 

Ms. Armstrong claims to have been in the car, but to have witnessed the shooting.  If so, that would mean the hunters were fairly close, within eyeshot, which makes it even less likely that Whittington had gotten off a shot at a quail and then there were other quail still waiting around for Cheney to find them. It just does not make sense!

 

UPDATE AT 1:50 PM: CBS news' White House correspondent reports that Secret Service agents prevented local law enforcement from interviewing Cheney. At White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan's late morning press conference, he said that Cheney had a valid hunting license -- but no one asked whether the Veep had the required Upland Game Bird Stamp. Think Progress has a partial transcript of the McClellan presser here. And my quail-hunting friend updates his comments above with the following:

 

"I spoke to my younger brother today who did not know anything about the hunting accident.  He kind of lives off the grid, doesn't pay attention to news, I'm not sure he has a wallet, checking account or even pays taxes.  What he does is hunt and fish.  And generally vote Republican I am sorry to report.

 

I read him the story and when I got to the part about Cheney and the other guy going to flush a second covey of quail, he interrupted me "You NEVER break your hunting party when hunting quail.  NEVER NEVER NEVER."  He explained that game birds flight patterns vary when they are taking flight or flushed.  Quail flush in a starburst or "blizzard pattern" and fly all around, often between the hunters themselves.  Pheasant go up in a linear fashion, away from the hunters. 

 

My brother said that it also depended on what kind of quail they were hunting and whether or not they were stocked quail or wild quail.  He said if they were "blues" (one of the two main species in Texas) (left), they typically first run on the ground, in a single file, to the nearest cover.  It might be a piece of sagebrush, but the entire covey will hover underneath it.  Then, when one of them sees better cover and takes off for it, they'll all follow single file. 

 

He thinks it may be possible that some of them were flushed--and Whittington took his shot--and the other birds ran a few yards to better cover, and Cheney and the other hunter followed those birds.  At this point he repeated his comment about "never breaking your party when hunting quail".  That is, apparently, one of the most common reasons for hunting accidents (that and alcohol).

 

Bobwhite quail (right) don't run and they'll sit tight until they are flushed. 

 

Whether the initial shot would have caused the other nearby birds to flush or not may depend on whether or not they were stocked birds.  He said that wild birds usually would flush upon hearing a shot, but stocked birds may be less likely to and could just sit tight.  "They'll watch the hunters and if the hunters don't see them, they'll sit tight until they figure out they've been detected and then they'll flush".

 

In any case, when I read to him the part about Whittington approaching the Veep from behind, without announcing himself, he said "that's bullshit, it is his fault.  It is always the shooters' fault".  That reminded me of "the pause" which was what our Dad taught us to do right before squeezing the trigger.  We were taught to build in a moment, even if a fraction of a second, right before firing the gun to look at precisely what you were shooting at.  This was true whether hunting birds or shooting skeet (clay pigeons).  You never fired your gun as part of a swinging motion or in excitement; you maintained safety and control by always having that fractional pause.

He said Cheney is "a weekend warrior who really just wants to do his blasting" and is "more interested in the kill than in the hunt". (Left, Cheney gets gift of gun from NRA Convention.) He called that type of hunter "overzealous and lazy" and said they "don't enjoy the hunt for what it is".

 

My brother and our Dad have won all sorts of awards for hunting, as have their dogs.  They travel all over the continent to shoot various fowl (no mammals), including some of the most respected bird hunts, like the []deleted] and the [deleted] Championship. 

 

I asked him if he could be quoted on the record and he said "you gotta be kidding, these people will track you down".  That prompted me to ask him if the election were held today, would he vote for Bush or Kerry and he stunned me by saying he thought he'd go for Kerry now.  That was the best news of the day.  I then asked Bush or Hillary and he said "I won't for her".  I asked Bush or Vilsack and he said, without hesitation, Vilsack."

 

Read More

Heavy Fuel Oil Spills Off New York Harbor

Monday February 13, 2006 9:01 PM

PERTH AMBOY, N.J. (AP) - Up to 30,700 gallons of heavy fuel oil spilled into a waterway off New York Harbor on Monday while the cargo was being transferred from a barge to a Chevron plant, authorities said.

The Coast Guard and spill-response companies set up booms to contain the oil, floating on the Arthur Kill between Perth Amboy and New York's Staten Island.

The oil escaped during a transfer of about 1.5 million gallons of oil from a barge, the Coast Guard said. The cause was under investigation.

Coast Guard officials said Chevron assumed responsibility for the spill and contracted with two companies to help with the cleanup.

Chevron representatives did not immediately respond to calls for comment.

 

Read On

Bush Admin. spent over $1.6 Billion on advertising and P.R. since 2003

Today Rep. Henry A. Waxman, Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, Rep. George Miller, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, and other senior Democrats released a new Government Accountability Office report finding that the Bush Administration spent more than $1.6 billion in public relations and media contracts in a two and a half year span.

"The government is spending over a billion dollars per year on PR and advertising," said Rep. Waxman. "Careful oversight of this spending is essential given the track record of the Bush Administration, which has used taxpayer dollars to fund covert propaganda within the United States."

Raed On

 

We demand our money back! Not one of wishes to be a party to false advertising!

Outed CIA officer was working on Iran, intelligence sources say

The unmasking of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson by White House officials in 2003 caused significant damage to U.S. national security and its ability to counter nuclear proliferation abroad, RAW STORY has learned.

According to current and former intelligence officials, Plame Wilson, who worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran.

Speaking under strict confidentiality, intelligence officials revealed heretofore unreported elements of Plame's work. Their accounts suggest that Plame's outing was more serious than has previously been reported and carries grave implications for U.S. national security and its ability to monitor Iran's burgeoning nuclear program.

Read On

Employees made to have chip implant, so they can be tracked

Via (Avedon (via Jeralyn)), get this:

Two employees have been injected with RFID chips this week as part of a new requirement to access their company’s datacenter.

So, having a RFID chip implanted is now a condition of employment? Is that legal? And those work permits the Republicans want everyone to get—would those be RFID implants too?

The company’s called CityWatcher. Savor their mission statement.

NOTE See Rev. 13:16-18 for “666,” the mark of the beast. This happy news hasn’t yet been reflected on the rapture index, but I’m sure that’s only a matter of time…

Technorati Tags: implant surveillance RFID

 

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Senators: Cheney Should Be Probed in Leak

Something tells me Cheney is about to get too sick to govern or stand trial........

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald should investigate Vice President Dick Cheney and others in the CIA leak probe if they authorized an aide to give secret information to reporters, Democratic and Republican senators said Sunday.

Sen. Jack Reed (news, bio, voting record), D-R.I., called the leak of intelligence information "inappropriate" if it is true that unnamed "superiors" instructed Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, to divulge the material on Iraq.

Sen. George Allen (news, bio, voting record), R-Va., said a full investigation is necessary.

"I don't think anybody should be releasing classified information, period, whether in the Congress, executive branch or some underling in some bureaucracy," said Allen, who appeared with Reed on "Fox News Sunday."

According to court documents disclosed last week, Libby told a federal grand jury that he disclosed in July 2003 the contents of a classified National Intelligence Estimate as part of the Bush administration's defense of intelligence used to justify invading Iraq.

Fitzgerald said in the documents it was his understanding that "Mr. Libby testified that he was authorized to disclose information about the NIE to the press by his superiors."

The White House has refused to comment on the case.

"I think this calls into question in terms of Fitzgerald's investigation of the conduct of the vice president and others," Reed said. "I think he has to look closely at their behavior."

Allen expressed confidence in Fitzgerald, whom he called "a very articulate, professional prosecutor."

"And I think the facts will lead wherever they lead, and I think he will prosecute as appropriate," Allen said.

Libby, 55, was indicted on charges that he lied to FBI agents and the grand jury about how he learned CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity and when he told reporters. He is not charged with leaking classified information.

LINK-

CIA chief sacked for opposing torture

 

This just proves, once again, that the people who have stolen power in this country, want even more, (They want absolute power.) are detestable, dangerous people; war criminals, according to every international law I have ever read.

 

They will suffer no dissent against their on-going evil.

 

But, if this there is no doubt: They must be stopped!

"Shadow War" : mainstream Protestant denominations under seige

By Bruce Wilson

Sat Feb 11, 2006 at 01:55:09 PM EST

John Dorhauer's new weekly series on Talk To Action may be unprecedented :

Dorhauer's series concerns an over two decade long campaign, by the far-right wing financed Institute For Religion and Democracy and so called "renewal" groups advocating literal interpretations of the Bible and far right social and political views, to destroy mainstream Protestant Christianity in America. Operating from within mainline Protestant denominations "renewal" groups to sow dissension with wedge issues such as gay marriage, incite schisms, and so break apart mainstream and liberal denominations and neutralize them as an effective force in American politics.

Before now  this campaign has seldom been discussed so publicly, and with John Dorhauer's series we have an ongoing chronicle from the heart of one embattled denomination, the United Churches of Christ.

There are more Christians on the left/liberal side of politics than on the right, observed George Lakoff, but they are not organized to even remotely the same degree as the Christian right.

Well, here's the reason for that. Here are excerpts from the first three parts of a continuing series by John Dorhauer on Talk To Action, along with a related post by retired Methodist Ministers Andrew J. Weaver and Fred W. Kandeler, and a related series - on the takeover of the Southern baptist Convetion -  by Dr. Bruce Prescott.

Talk To Action Co founder Frederick Clarkson frames the backdrop of the story for us :

Once upon a time, the member denominations of the National Council of Churches maintained a vigorous social witness. That's what such mainline Protestants as the Presbyterians, United Church of Christ, the Methodists, and the Episcopalians called their stands for social justice including such things as civil rights for African Americans, equality for women -- including ordination, and opposition to the excesses of American foreign policy from Vietnam to El Salvador. While there was some conservative opposition to these advances over the course of the 20th century, including some schisms, the direction of mainline protestantism was clear.

Then, the strategic funders of the Right, such as Richard Mellon Scaife and several others, helped create an agency that would help to network, organize and inform internal opposition groups. That agency is still around and is called the Institute on Religion and Democracy

....Many in the mainline churches are waking up to the simple fact that they have been under attack for more than two decades by rightist interests set on neutralizing their effectiveness -- and that the IRD and its allies have had considerable success.

....IRD remains a well-funded and influential agency to this day. It's minions in the mainline churches are treated as credible spokespersons for conservative dissent by mainstream religion reporters.

A few years ago, the National Council of Churches, faced with budget problems, and political gridlock, almost shut down. It has managed to resurect itself and under the leadership of Rev. Bob Edgar, appears poised to be once again an influential body in American public life.

As the slumbering giant of mainstream protestantism begins once again to stir, and the IRD and it's rightwing backers scramble to sew division and discord, will anyone be there to help? Or will the voices of mainline Christianity once again be silenced?

That is indeed the question - and the challenge now for Liberal Protestant faith in America.

The efforts of the IRD, and the growing resistance to its suberversionary tactics, has become one of the areas of focus for Talk To Action.  

Anatomy of an Attack: Part I

[ excerpt from John Dorhauer's story, linked above ] In the coming weeks, I want to begin to look specifically at local congregations that have been targeted for attack from the right. Each will have its own distinct set of circumstances and characters: but over time patterns will emerge. And if at any point along the way it should dawn on you that something like that is happening in a congregation you know about, then that should be brought to the attention of the church's pastor, Council, and judicatory offices.

On November 16 2003, Evangelical Church of the Redeemer United Church of Christ voted to disaffiliate with the United Church of Christ. Just how that happened is a long and sordid story of deceit, coercion, and manipulation that played out over years. Today we catch just a glimpse of their story. You will soon hear more.

That Which We Call Renewal Groups

[ excerpt from Dorhauer's piece linked above ] Today's wedge issue is homosexuality, and renewal groups have latched onto it as the most recent evidence of the church's apostasy. Their mission is to save the church from such heretical practices, and to `renew' and restore the church to its truer, more historic past.

The problem is that these groups have much more nefarious intentions. It is not the `renewal' of the church that they are interested in, but the destabilization and destruction of what has been throughout the history of the United States the most consistent, courageous, and clear voice of social reform and justice.

Their own words betray them.

In the Mission Statement found on the IRD website we read this lengthy quote:

"The IRD aims its reports and analyses at a broad audience of U.S. Christians. Its organizational work is concentrated in the Oldline Protestant churches and the National Council of Churches, where the problems are most serious. We have committees that unite reform activists in three denominations representing over 12 million persons.... The IRD trains activists, with topics ranging from issues to tactics. At national church meetings, IRD activists assist delegates in drafting legislation and framing arguments for debate. This work is done in cooperation with like-minded groups in seven major denominations (representing nearly 20 million Americans) through our Association for Church Renewal."

These are not renewal groups: they are trained activists intent on the demise, the destabilization, and the destruction of Mainline Protestant Christianity.

Religion Under Attack

[ excerpt from Dorhauer's first Talk To Action post ] "The creation mandate was precisely the requirement that man subdue the earth and exercise dominion over it. There is not one word of Scripture to indicate or imply that this mandate ever was revoked. There is every word of Scripture to declare that this mandate must and shall be fulfilled. Those who attempt to break it shall themselves be broken." (Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law, 1973, p.14)

Language about mandate, subjugation, submission, and dominion drive their own ideology, and they proceed from the mouth of a God who for them will never accept compromise, moderation, or tolerance.

Knowing that such ideologies will not yet play well in an America whose genetic material is still replete with the proscriptions for individual liberty, personal choice, and freedom of expression in all things political and religious, most of the work of these extremists is done covertly. Their strategies include an array of clandestine tactics, coded language, and political deception that have gone unnoticed and unchallenged for far too long. Although offered in a much different context, the words of Linda Loman in Arthur Miller's classic Death of a Salesman seem appropriate here: "Attention must be paid."

And this is what I propose to do: pay attention. Jesus once disclosed to his disciples: "So do not be afraid of them. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known." (Mt. 10.26) Having spent years now tracking the radical religious right; having watched the horrors they have wrought upon otherwise innocent and fruitful congregations; having known first-hand their hatred and vitriol I wish in this space to tell what I have known and experienced. Their attacks, their tactics, their words will be made known: it is my belief that what abides in their darkness cannot long endure the light of day.

Stay in touch. Each Tuesday I will write about those things which I, and others, have experienced watching local churches, judicatory authorities, and entire congregations endure one attack after another. This isn't right. It needs to stop. "

Retired Methodist Ministers Andrew J. Weaver and Fred W. Kandeler recently wrote the following Talk To Action piece on one of the IRD's opening red-baiting salvos, in 1983, against the National Council of Churches

Being 60 Minutes Means You Never Have to Say You are Sorry - Except Once

Sixty minutes executive producer Don Hewitt appeared on the December 2, 2002, edition of Larry King Live (CNN) and was asked whether he regretted any shows that he had done in his 36-year career. Hewitt named only one, the 1983 60 Minutes double segment on the National Council of Churches and World Council of Churches. Hewitt told King that;

   

"We once took off on the National Council of Churches as being left wing and radical and a lot of nonsense. And the next morning I got a congratulatory phone call from every redneck bishop in America and I thought, oh, my God, we must have done something wrong last night, and I think we probably did."

The broadcast on CBS's 60 Minutes entitled "The Gospel According to Whom" began with Roman Catholic priest, Richard John Neuhaus, saying, "I am worried - I am outraged when the church lies to its own people." The camera moved from an offering plate in a United Methodist church in the Midwest to images of the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and then to marchers in Communist Red Square. The lengthy segment over and over suggested that the National Council of Churches (NCC) was using Sunday offerings to promote Marxist revolution.    

Talk To Action writer Dr. Bruce Prescott has also written a series on the takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention :

On Restoring America

Learning to be Patient Revolutionaries

From Reconstructionism to Dominionism, Part I

From Reconstructionism to Dominionism, Part II

Another Reconstructionist/Dominioni

st Distinction

SBC Takeover Leaders and the CNP

LINK

GOP castoffs are spilling the beans

President Bush was probably happy to be in Atlanta last week for the six-hour funeral service of Coretta Scott King, even if some of the speakers, including former President Jimmy Carter, used the occasion to take potshots at Bush on the war in Iraq, the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, poverty and government eavesdropping. Compared to what awaited the president on his return to Washington, the knocks in Atlanta were a bubble bath.

On Capitol Hill, congressional Republicans are standing up to the Bush-Cheney White House on such issues as the balance between security and civil liberties, budget insanity and the conflict between executive and legislative powers in the administration's domestic eavesdropping program.

But that's not the half of it.

Brownie is talking to Congress. Scooter is talking to a grand jury, and Jack is talking to reporters. And what they are saying does not exactly follow the White House script on Katrina, the corruption in Washington or the leaking of classified information by White House officials to make the case for going to war against Iraq.

Former federal disaster chief, Michael ("You're doing a heck of a job, Brownie") Brown told a Senate committee on Friday that he had notified top White House and Homeland Security officials "we were realizing our worst nightmare" on the day Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans. Brown's testimony is at odds with the White House line that the president's men didn't realize the extent of the damage until the next day. "Just baloney," Brownie said of that official claim.

Brown took the fall for the dysfunctional federal response to Katrina, but now he wants to set the record straight. "I feel somewhat abandoned," he told the senators.

Jack Abramoff, the poster boy of the congressional lobbying scandal that has Republicans running for cover, must feel the same way. The president says he doesn't remember meeting with Abramoff, although he said he could have bumped into him since so many people are run through the White House for various functions. He just can't keep track of all those names and faces.

Now, Abramoff, who pleaded guilty last month to conspiring to bribe public officials, has told Washingtonian magazine that he met the president many times and was even invited to his Texas ranch for a gathering of campaign contributors in 2003 (he says he didn't go because he does not travel on the Sabbath). What about those photos of Bush and Abramoff the White House refuses to release?

Brown and Abramoff have put another dent in the White House's credibility, but Scooter Libby could be the big dog who leaves a potentially damaging mess on Vice President Dick Cheney's carpet.

Libby resigned last year as Cheney's chief of staff after being indicted on charges that he lied about his role in leaking to reporters the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame, whose husband had accused the administration of manipulating intelligence to build its case for going to war. We know from special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation that, contrary to what Libby told the grand jury, he learned about Plame's identity not from NBC News' Tim Russert but from White House insiders, including Cheney himself.

Now, according to documents filed in the CIA leak case by Fitzgerald, Libby has testified that his "superiors" in the White House instructed him to leak information from a highly classified intelligence report suggesting Iraq was trying to obtain weapons of mass destruction. The National Journal reported Cheney himself had authorized the leak, although it's unclear whether the information had been declassified before Libby passed it on to reporters. In this White House, today's top-secret intelligence is tomorrow's spin.

This is an administration that has gone after government leakers who have exposed secret CIA prisons overseas and warrantless eavesdropping at home. The president says leaks like that could damage our national security, and he may be right. Libby's leaks, of course, were considered good leaks. They only helped pave the way for a war that has become a quagmire.

Let's hope Scooter and Brownie and Jack keep spilling the beans. Compared to this trio, Jimmy Carter is a sanctimonious bore.

--Philip Gailey's e-mail address is gailey@sptimes.com

LINK

 

Couldn't agree more. Just keep on spilling those beans and blowing those whistles. Our nation depends on it.

Dean: Vice President Cheney's Power Grab Began Long Before 9/11

Vice President Cheney and The Fight Over "Inherent" Presidential Powers: His Attempt to Swing the Pendulum Back Began Long Before 9/11

By JOHN W. DEAN

Friday, Feb. 10, 2006

Vice President Dick Cheney has stirred up an old fight in Washington. He sent a rookie, however, to make his case publicly. It did not work.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to offer what may have been the weakest legal argument for presidential power to conduct warrantless electronic surveillance since Nixon's Justice Department invoked the views of King George III.

Read On

 

What is it with Cheney grabbing power he will never legally exercise?

Some Republicans Tire of Bush's Wiretap Stance

By Michael Isikoff, Mark Hosenball and Evan Thomas

Newsweek

Feb. 20, 2006 issue - The attorney general of the United States was playing rope-a-dope. Why, the senators wanted to know, did the White House circumvent a law passed by Congress, the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires intelligence services to obtain search warrants before intercepting international communications inside the United States? Alberto Gonzales was evasive and bland. Speaking in legalisms, he offered few details about the National Security Agency's sweeping post-9/11 eavesdropping program. After a series of senatorial questions had gone essentially unanswered, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont interjected, "Of course, I'm sorry, Mr. Attorney General, I forgot: you can't answer any questions that might be relevant to this."

Such sarcasm might be expected of a Democrat like Leahy. But Gonzales also came under tough questioning from four of the 10 Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee, including its chairman, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. At the hearing, Gonzales argued, as President George W. Bush has several times before, that Congress gave the executive branch the power to wiretap when it passed a resolution, right after 9/11, authorizing the "use of force" to battle terrorism. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a conservative Republican, called that argument "very dangerous in terms of its application to the future. When I voted for it, I never envisioned that I was giving to this president or any other president the ability to go around FISA carte blanche."

It is not yet clear how the public feels about warrantless wiretapping. As usual, the answer depends on the question. Asked if they approve of government eavesdropping on U.S. citizens, most people say no; asked if they approve of eavesdropping to catch terrorists, most people say yes. More-sophisticated polls show a roughly even split in opinion, so it's hard to know how the issue will cut in the 2006 elections. But there is no question that the solons of Capitol Hill—and, increasingly, those in the Republican Party—are growing restless and ready to challenge the authority of the Bush White House.

In part, congressional egos and prerogatives are on the line. Members of both parties feel bullied by the sometimes high-handed treatment they get from the Bush administration, particularly from Vice President Dick Cheney, the outspoken avatar of executive power. Congress has always been the place to go to complain about executive-branch bungling and malfeasance. Last week was particularly rough for the Bush team on Capitol Hill: former FEMA director Michael Brown used a congressional hearing to lay the blame for the botched handling of Hurricane Katrina on the White House and the Homeland Security Department—both of which, Brown argued, had been promptly informed of the storm's terrible toll, an assertion that may shift more of the blame for the disaster-within-a-disaster away from the seemingly hapless "Brownie," as President Bush called his ousted FEMA director.

This coming week is not going to be any better. The Senate intelligence committee is likely to vote to open an investigation into the NSA's wiretapping program, according to senior congressional aides who declined to be identified discussing sensitive matters. The chairman of the committee, Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, will probably follow the White House line and try to keep a lid on the hearings. But three Republicans—Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Olympia Snowe of Maine and Mike DeWine of Ohio—are expected to join with the Democrats on the committee to vote to demand more information about the secret eavesdropping program from the White House and intelligence agencies.

CONTINUED

 

What we want...scratch that...insist on knowing is if political opposition and dissent are a target of spying by the government.

 

Now, we already know that the Pentagon has been spying on Americans who have done nothing wrong, in a legal sense. So, why are we expected to just trust the Bush administration when they say that all NSA wiretapping was done on Al Qaeda in and out of the country?

 

Republican senator says he was mistaken on Schiavo debate

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Nearly a year after calling for federal involvement to keep a brain-damaged woman artificially alive against her husband's wishes, Republican U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez has said it was a mistake to become involved.

Martinez, who has just completed his first year in office, led the Senate charge pushing a bill that would have given federal courts jurisdiction to reinstate Terri Schiavo's feeding tubes.

"If I had to take one lesson away, it's perhaps decisions of this nature really belong in state courts, not federal courts," Martinez said in a taped interview for "Political Connections" that aired Sunday on Bay News 9.

"Perhaps this was not in the realm of federal concern. It may have been better left to state courts to deal with it," Martinez said.

"Political Connections" is a joint venture between the St. Petersburg Times and Bay News 9.

Read On

Will Shotgun blast rid us of Darth? We doubt it.

I'm hearing speculation that the GOP will use this blast fest as an excuse to get rid of Dick. I have to admit that was my first thought, especially since George Allen was on Fox News this morning calling for investigation into the declassification of the NIE. The GOP obviously knew the shooting had happened and after putting so much energy into spreading the meme that Cheney had the absolute right to do what he did they wouldn't allow Allen off the reservation like that without some sort of larger purpose. Maybe it was only a trial balloon, but still.

The fact is that they do not know what will happen in the fall of 2006, and should the Democrats take either of the houses of Congress the stone wall they've been able to erect in front of all their crimes suddenly begins to crumble. With subpoena power the Democrats could now start to dismantle the GOP crime family, and there could be a whole lot more people than Scooter Libby in need of pardoning.

Who will play the Gerald Ford in all of this? Who could be counted on to be the good soldier and pardon them all? Allen himself would be a prime contender, as would McCain or McConnell. Though after the drubbing that BushCo. has delivered to McCain if it was me I sure wouldn't want to put him in the position holding my life in his hands, paybacks being a bitch and all.

And then there is Condi, probably the one who could most reliably be counted upon to be the good soldier in the situation. We could be knee deep in people scrambling for power real soon.

So what do you think? Is Dick's hold on his power so secure this will all blow over? Or is the time right to push him out the door?

Jeralyn has more on whether Cheney could be charged with reckless or criminal negligence in the case. And Taylor's hunter husband thinks the account of the accident being given to the media is bullshit.

For More on this topic

 

Cheney knows where all the bodies are buried....because he buried most of them.

A wrathful right turns on Bush

By Nina J. Easton, Globe Staff  |  February 12, 2006

The Republican family feud was laid bare in public last week at the Conservative Political Action Committee's annual confab. CPAC activists are a notoriously cranky bunch, quick to pounce on politician friends who stray toward the center. But this year the spears aimed at George W. Bush were especially sharp.

It can't be a good sign for a White House hoping to maintain control of Congress next November when its one-time allies lump in the president with two of their perpetual bogeymen: John McCain and Ted Kennedy.

Bush's budget-busting spending was a big reason for the foul mood. But two other issues captured the growing split between the president and a powerful conservative movement that twice helped him capture the Oval Office: immigration and the Medicare prescription drug plan.

Bush's decision to use his State of the Union address to reiterate his support for a guest worker program -- despite objections from the right -- infuriated this crowd, who applauded talk of building a wall along the Mexican border and wore red stickers reading, ''STOP GUEST WORKER AMNESTY."

Representative Tom Tancredo, the Colorado Republican famous for his calls to stop illegal immigration, lashed out at another critical Republican constituency involved in the issue: the business community.

''I do take offense," said Randel Johnson, a Chamber of Commerce vice president and lifelong Republican, of Tancredo's speech. ''I'm perplexed at how the business community that creates the wealth of this country all of a sudden becomes the bad guy in this debate." Like Bush, the chamber supports plans to enable the 11 million illegal immigrants already in the United States to work their way toward legal status.

The audience for Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly roared its approval as she argued that guest worker programs produce ''a subservient underclass of people who will not assimilate, will not speak our language, and will cause trouble. America wants immigrants who want to be 100 percent American."

Tancredo also drew big applause when he called for repealing the administration's costly prescription drug plan, which the president extolled in his Saturday radio address as ''a good deal for seniors."

Return of the K Street crowd

The K Street Project, brainchild of anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist and Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the dethroned House majority leader, was launched to pressure Washington lobbying firms and trade associations to hire like-minded Republicans.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid has called the project a scandal and asked a Senate committee to investigate.

And with the Jack Abramoff case rocking Capitol Hill and DeLay under investigation, Republican lawmakers also are distancing themselves.

John Boehner of Ohio, who won the race to succeed DeLay, campaigned on a promise that if elected, ''there will no longer be a K Street project or anything else like it."

But at CPAC, activists at a booth for Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform were handing out flyers for the K Street Project as if they were nothing more than menus for Chinese takeout. ''Find out Where lobbyists are working," the fliers read, ''and Who they give money to! GREAT JOB OPENINGS!"

And in an especially creative use of language, the handouts describe the K Street Project as a purveyor of ''non partisan" research.

A PC coffee connection

For all you rightists who are sick of watching liberals market rain forest-friendly ice cream and cosmetics that haven't been tested on animals, there's now a product to match with your own ideological bent: ''Contra Café."

For just $10, customers can buy a pound of rich Nicaraguan coffee and support former Contras -- the country's antisocialist militias supported by the Reagan administration -- at the same time.

The Contras, which President Reagan dubbed ''freedom fighters," became heroes to the American right in the 1980s with their guerrilla war against the leftist Sandinista government.

Now, their sponsors say, Contra farmers ''grow some of the best coffee in the world in the same mountains where they once battled Sandinista troops. The high-altitude volcanic soil and the close attention of these small-scale farmers create a coffee with uniquely vibrant flavor and richness."

Winners in the fund-raising race

Last week The Briefing understated Senator John Kerry's campaign war chest. In addition to nearly $800,000 in his PAC and Senate committee, Kerry has $9.1 million left over from his 2004 primary campaign account.

Aides say that since the 2004 campaign, the once and perhaps future presidential candidate has doled out $3 million to Democratic candidates and organizations.

On the Romney '08 front, a new Strategic Vision poll shows the Massachusetts governor tied for third with Newt Gingrich and George Allen among Michigan Republican voters asked to consider prospective presidential candidates.

The winners: John McCain, at 37 percent, and Rudolph Giuliani, at 25 percent. Michigan -- Mitt Romney's childhood home and the state his father governed -- is considered key to a potential presidential run. 

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FBI says Puerto Rico sweep aimed at stopping domestic terror

Yeah, right .....

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has launched a sweep in the US Caribbean commonwealth of Puerto Rico, saying it was needed to stop a "potential domestic terrorist attack."

In the operation Friday, in which authorities said no arrests were made, six federal search warrants were executed "aimed at preventing a potential domestic terrorist attack and the gathering of evidence related to an ongoing domestic terrorism investigation," said Luis Fraticelli, Special Agent in Charge, San Juan Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

"Investigation by the FBI has revealed that this potential attack, where explosives devices were to be utilized, was directed at privately owned interests in Puerto Rico, as well as the general public," he added after the warrants were executed at a business and fives residences in San Juan, Trujillo Alto, San German, Mayaguez, Aguadilla, and Isabela.

Some critics scoffed at the claim saying it was a clear move by US federal officials to crack down on lingering support for pro-independence forces on the island of more than four million US citizens.

Political discourse there centers around whether the island, a former Spanish colony, should remain a US commonwealth, become a 51st US state or seek independence. Polls usually have shown a preference for the status quo.

Puerto Ricans are US citizens but cannot vote for president, have no voting representatives in the US Congress and pay no federal taxes. The United States invaded and occupied Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American War of 1898.

Though independence supporters have long been a tiny minority in Puerto Rico, the fatal shooting of a 72-year-old Puerto Rican nationalist during his arrest by FBI officials late last year is widely seen as having injected new public sympathy, if not support, for the "independentista" cause.

Filiberto Ojeda had been sentenced to 55 years for a 1983 robbery in Hartford in the northeastern US state of Connecticut. He was released on parole, but slipped into hiding, in 1990, triggering an FBI search.

He was the leader of a clandestine group supporting independence for Puerto Rico. The group, the Boricua-Macheteros Popular Army, has taken credit for numerous bombings at US military and government sites on the island.

In September, he was shot in the collarbone at his home in the Puerto Rican town of Hormigueros. The site was immediately sealed; local police and relatives were denied access. Ojeda died from his wounds the next day.

The FBI said that Ojeda had opened fire on federal agents who came to arrest him and that one agent was wounded. His wife, Elma Beatriz Rosado, gave a different account, saying the FBI shot first.

A doctor designated by Ojeda's family to monitor the autopsy, Hector Pesquera, alleged the FBI had denied him medical aid and left him to bleed to death. Thousands of mourners turned out in San Juan to pay respects.

Authorities pepper-sprayed members of the media in San Juan on Friday outside one of the locations that was searched, media reported. And a demonstration outside the federal building drew about 100 people.

Fraticelli said "it appears members of the media and the general public attempted to cross the established law-enforcement perimeter, and the use of non-lethal force was utilized.

"The FBI is committed to aggressively investigating all matters related to national security and the safety of the citizens of the United States, to include Puerto Rico," Fraticelli added.

Norberto Cintron Fiallo, a human rights activist who was in charge of organizing Ojeda Rios' funeral in September, told the daily El Nuevo Dia: "This was an operation to crack down on the surge of pro-independence sentiment on the island after the death of Filiberto Ojeda Rios."

For Luis Abreu Elias, a former defense attorney for Ojeda Rios, "it is absurd for them to say they are investigating a terrorist plot. They are trying to turn public opinion against the pro-independence forces," he told the daily.

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Cheney Shoots Fellow Hunter in Mishap on a Texas Ranch

By ANNE E. KORNBLUT

WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 — Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and wounded a prominent Austin, Tex., lawyer on Saturday while the two men were quail hunting in South Texas, firing a shotgun at the man while trying to aim for a bird, a member of the hunting party said.

Mr. Cheney, a practiced hunter, shot the lawyer, Harry Whittington, on an outing at the Armstrong Ranch in South Texas. Mr. Whittington, 78, was taken by helicopter to Christus Spohn Memorial Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition in the intensive care unit on Sunday, according to Michele Trevino, a hospital spokeswoman.

White House officials did not release details of the accident. But Katharine Armstrong, who was with the hunting party at the time of the shooting, said that Mr. Cheney, 65, fired his shotgun without realizing that Mr. Whittington had approached the group, hitting him on his right side, on his cheek, neck and chest. The incident, which occurred at about 5:30 p.m., was first reported on the Web site of The Corpus Christi Caller-Times on Sunday.

"It was accidental, a hunting accident," Sheriff Ramon Salinas III of Kenedy County said from his office in Sarita, Tex., adding that the Secret Service notified him Saturday of the episode. "They did what they had to according to law."

The Armstrong Ranch is a familiar hunting venue for Republican politicians, including Mr. Cheney, who sometimes hunts there several times a year. Mr. Whittington is a friend of the Armstrong family and is a frequent visitor to the ranch, one of the largest private properties in Texas.

Mr. Whittington is a former member of the Texas Board of Corrections, which runs the state's prisons, and he once led the Texas Public Finance Authority Board.

In 1999, George W. Bush, then governor of Texas, named Mr. Whittington to head the Texas Funeral Service Commission, which licenses and regulates funeral directors and embalmers in the state. When he was named, a former executive director of the commission, Eliza May, was suing the state, saying that she had been fired because she investigated a funeral home chain that was owned by a friend of Mr. Bush.

The suit was settled in 2001, but the details were not disclosed. Mr. Whittington still serves in the position.

White House officials, who did not make public the shooting incident for nearly 24 hours, did not say how Mr. Whittington and Mr. Cheney were acquainted, although both have longstanding ties to the Armstrong family.

Mr. Cheney often goes hunting with other political figures. Two years ago he went duck hunting with Justice Antonin Scalia in Louisiana, a trip that drew criticism because the Supreme Court had just agreed to hear a case involving Mr. Cheney's energy task force.

Anne Armstrong, the matriarch of the family that owns the ranch, is a Republican Party stalwart who served in the Nixon and Ford administrations and also as ambassador to Great Britain. When her husband, Tobin Armstrong, died in October, Mr. Cheney and James A. Baker III, the former secretary of state, spoke at the funeral.

The 50,000-acre ranch, which features Spanish-style cottages and usually has a full working staff, was settled in 1882 by a Texas Ranger named John Armstrong III, who passed the land on to the family. It sits near the King Ranch, the legendary property settled by the Kleberg family, also in South Texas.

According to Katharine Armstrong, the daughter of Anne Armstrong, Mr. Whittington broke away from a line of three hunters, including Mr. Cheney, and failed to announce that he was returning to the group. When he approached, Mr. Cheney had already begun to shoot into a covey of quail that was taking off from the ground.

"This all happened pretty quickly," Ms. Armstrong said in a telephone interview from her ranch. Mr. Whittington, she said, "did not announce — which would be protocol — 'Hey, it's me, I'm coming up,' " she said.

"He didn't do what he was supposed to do," she added, referring to Mr. Whittington. "So when a bird flushed and the vice president swung in to shoot it, Harry was where the bird was."

Mr. Whittington was "sprayed — peppered, is what we call it — on his right side, on part of his face, neck, shoulder and rib cage," she said, noting that she, too, had been sprayed on her leg in a hunting accident.

"A shotgun sprays a bunch of little bitty pellets; it's not a bullet involved," Ms. Armstrong said. She said she believed that Mr. Cheney was shooting a 28-gauge shotgun and added that guests typically bring their own firearms.

Mr. Whittington was about 30 yards from the vice president when the shooting occurred, Ms. Armstrong said. Altogether, there were five people in the group. Ms. Armstrong declined to identify the other hunters.

After the accident, Mr. Cheney's medical attendants helped Mr. Whittington, treating his wounds and covering him in blankets so he would not go into shock, Ms. Armstrong said. He did not lose consciousness. She described Mr. Cheney's immediate response to the shooting as "very appropriate."

"He immediately went to Harry's side and was right there and made sure his detail was totally focused on him," she said. "Of course he's very concerned. He's been checking in almost on a minute-by-minute basis."

Afterward, she said, her brother-in-law and another guest went to the hospital to check on Mr. Whittington. The rest of the party had dinner, and Mr. Cheney, who had flown to Texas on Friday night, departed on Sunday.

"Mr. Whittington is fine," Ms. Armstrong said. "He's sitting up in bed, yakking and cracking jokes."

Campaign finance records show that Mr. Whittington contributed $2,000 — the maximum personal amount allowed — to the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign.

Mr. Whittington has been involved in a long-running dispute with the City of Austin, which is trying to condemn a block his family owns to build a parking garage. He has won several legal victories in the case, most recently last month in the Texas Supreme Court.

Lea Anne McBride, Mr. Cheney's spokeswoman, said, "The vice president visited with Harry Whittington at the hospital today and was pleased to see that he's doing fine and in good spirits." Asked why the vice president's office had made no announcement about the accident, Ms. McBride said, "We deferred to the Armstrongs regarding what had taken place at their ranch."

Ralph Blumenthal contributed reporting from Houston for this article.

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Maureen Farrell: Detention Camp Jitters

by Maureen Farrell "Recent pronouncements from the Bush Administration and national security initiatives put in place in the Reagan era could see internment camps and martial law in the United States." -- The Sydney Morning Herald, July 27, 2002 In 1984, the Rex-84 readiness exercise program was conducted by 34 federal departments and agencies, reportedly as an exercise to handle an influx of illegal aliens crossing the Mexican/U.S. border. Brought to Americans' attention during the Iran-contra hearings, the exercise, which was conducted alongside another drill, "Night Train 84," also tested military readiness to round up and detain citizens in case of massive civil unrest. None of that ever happened, of course, and in many respects, it seems silly to even mention it. After all, other Reagan-era initiatives, like the Armageddon exercises Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld participated in, are far more interesting. Then, too, despite a brief moment of sunlight in the 1970s (when Congress, according to former President and CIA director George H.W. Bush, "unleashed a bunch of untutored little jerks out there"), emergency detention plans had been in place since the 1950s, without incident. Americans have not been herded into camps since World War II, so why worry about it now? For some, the answer comes in the form of yet another government contract awarded to Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown & Root to build "temporary detention facilities" in case of an "immigration emergency." Reminiscent of Rex 84, which was conducted on the premise of preparing for "an influx of immigrants," there is reason to believe that hoards of poor, tired immigrants are not the true concern. As Tom Hennessy of the Press-Telegram recently pointed out, "there already are thousands of beds in place at various U.S. locations for the purpose of housing illegal immigrants." So what else might these centers be used for? Given predictions that another terror attack is all but certain, it seems far more likely that the centers would be used for post-911-type detentions of immigrants rather than a sudden deluge. "Almost certainly this is preparation for a roundup after the next 9/11 for Mid-Easterners, Muslims and possibly dissenters," Daniel Ellsberg remarked. "They've already done this on a smaller scale, with the 'special registration' detentions of immigrant men from Muslim countries, and with Guantanamo." As it turns out, immigrants aren't the only concern. As a news brief in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution explains: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has awarded a contract worth up to $385 million for building temporary immigration detention centers to Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root. KBR would build the centers for the Homeland Security Department in case of an unexpected influx of immigrants or to house people after a natural disaster or for new programs that require additional detention space, the company said. Hurricane Katrina gave Americans a glimpse of how a natural disaster scenario might play out. John Brinkerhoff, one of the FEMA officials behind the Reagan-era martial law and internment directives who "planned for the detention of at least 21 million American Negroes in assembly centers or relocation camps" began defending the Pentagon's desire to deploy troops on American streets in 2002, and sure enough, after Hurricane Katrina, Blackwater mercenaries were brought in to police the streets of New Orleans -- as soldiers were instructed to "shoot to kill" looters. Brinkerhoff also told PBS that, "The United States itself is now for the first time since the War of 1812 a theater of war. That means that we should apply, in my view, the same kind of command structure in the United States that we apply in other theaters of war." Which brings us to the KBR spokesman's final statement regarding "new programs that require additional detention space." What might these new programs be? Do they have anything to do with the post-9/11 suggestions for forced quarantines or internment camps? Will America's new "secret laws" come into play? Might these "new programs" have anything to do with the contingencies Oliver North prepared for? Inquiring minds want to know. In 1987, the Miami Herald gave us a glimpse of what the lead counsel for the Senate Iran-contra committee called a "secret government-within-a-government" and alerted readers to standby legislation, which, as columnist Jack Anderson had previously warned, was meant to "suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights." Even so, when a memo from the Director of Resource Management for the Department of the Army emerged, discussing "civilian inmate labor camps" to be built on Army installations, only conspiracy buffs on the far fringes of the Internet paid it any mind. In 1998, World Net Daily's Geoff Metcalf addressed such "classic right wing paranoia," trying not to sound paranoid himself. "For several years now I have been getting all sorts of wild reports about 'Government Internment Camps,' he wrote, before disclosing two reasons he began sensing substance behind the rumors: 1) The labor camp memo was authentic, he said and 2) A U.S. congressman substantiated such claims. "The truth is yes -- you do have these standby provisions, and the plans are here ... whereby you could, in the name of stopping terrorism .. evoke the military and arrest Americans and put them in detention camps," Rep. Henry Gonzalez said in an interview. "Heck, we did it before (to Americans of Japanese descent), we could do it again," Metcalf mused. In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, it seemed that yes, we could do it again. When the Boston Herald reported on the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act sent to each state, it sounded sensationally surreal. "Public health officials want to shut down roads and airports, herd people into sports stadiums and, if needed, quarantine entire cities in the event of a smallpox attack, according to a plan being forwarded to all 50 governors this week," the Herald reported in Nov. 2001. By the summer of 2002, Peter Kirsanow, a Bush appointee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, said that a second terror attack would lead to internment camps for Arab-Americans while the Sydney Morning Herald reported that we "could see internment camps and martial law in the United States." The biggest bombshell, however, came from Attorney General John Ashcroft, whose proposal to send US citizens to detention camps, without the benefit of trial, jury or other Constitutional protections, was dissected by the Los Angeles Times. "The camp plan was forged at an optimistic time for Ashcroft's small inner circle, which has been carefully watching two test cases to see whether this vision could become a reality," the Times reported in August, 2002. "The cases of Jose Padilla and Yaser Esam Hamdi will determine whether U.S. citizens can be held without charges and subject to the arbitrary and unchecked authority of the government." Padilla was held without charges for more than three years, and when charges were finally filed against him, the chilling "dirty bomb" allegations made by Ashcroft on national TV were not even mentioned. His attorneys have vowed to take the case to the Supreme Court -- which is expected to side with presidential decrees. By the fall of 2005, news that the US could continue to "confine US citizens without charges," prompted conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan to dig up the following quote: "The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist" -- Winston Churchill, November 21, 1943, describing what is now legal and constitutional in the United States, under president Bush." Churchill, one supposes, did not include President Franklin Roosevelt in his condemnation, but when Ashcroft's plans for detention camps came to light, legal analysts began comparing the Bush administration's scheme to internment of Japanese Americans. "The main distinction is that Ashcroft's camps are smaller in scale. The difference in magnitude should not make the internment of U.S. citizens any more just or palatable," columnist Anita Ramasastry explained. And as Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Tribe said on ABC's Nightline: "It bothers me that the executive branch is taking the amazing position that just on the president's say-so, any American citizen can be picked up, not just in Afghanistan, but at O'Hare Airport or on the streets of any city in this country, and locked up without access to a lawyer or court just because the government says he's connected somehow with the Taliban or Al Qaeda. That's not the American way. It's not the constitutional way. . . ." Nevertheless, concerns over detention camps go hand-in-hand with jokes about black helicopters, and rightly so. The Internet is rife with rumors on everything from the more than "800 detention camps" already in existence to stories about Hurricane Katrina evacuees begin locked behind barbed wire in a concentration camp in Utah, which it turns out, was actually Camp Williams, an Army National Guard training center. When Diane Carmen of the Denver Post reported on evacuees at the Community College of Aurora, she wrote, "If I didn't know better, I'd have thought I was peering through the fence at a concentration camp," which some cited as "proof" that Americans were going to be rounded up and locked away, though the rest of the article did not substantiate such claims. "Everybody treats you real nice," said one evacuee. "There's a lotta love up here." The idea that dissidents could be sent to detention facilities is perhaps the most widely circulated theory, and it is as popular under President George W. Bush as it was under President Bill Clinton. And though Daniel Ellsberg has also suggested that dissidents could be targeted, most of the theories rest upon circumstantial evidence and long stretches of the imagination. What we do know, however, thanks to the Sydney Morning Herald's investigation into Reagan-era initiatives, alongside documents leaked to the Miami Herald in 1987, is that when Col. Oliver North helped draft contingency plans in the early 80s, one of the reasons cited for possible martial law and internment was "national opposition to a U.S. military invasion abroad" -- a scenario which would become more likely with additional wars and in the event of the return of the draft. Last year, the Project for a New American Century, the think tank that famously advocated preemptive strikes and wars on multiple fronts, called upon Congress to "take the steps necessary to increase substantially the size of the active duty Army and Marine Corps." Such steps should be relatively easy, given that since PNAC's "Rebuilding America's Defenses" was first published, states have been linking driver's license applications to selective service registration. According to the Selective Service System's Web site, "As of August 5, 2005, 35 states, 3 territories, and the District of Columbia have enacted driver's license laws supporting SSS registration." With the military stretched to the breaking point, questions of conscription and subsequent draft-dodging are hardly far-fetched, but the very act of protesting, in and of itself, could become a federal offense. Though conservative columnist William Safire was one of the first to warn of Mr. Bush's "dictatorial powers," and editorials across the country have since voiced similar concerns, few are picking up on attempts to criminalize dissent -- an observation made by former White House counsel John Dean as early as Oct. 2001, who wrote that, thanks to the hastily passed Patriot Act, the "right to dissent" is in jeopardy, with protesters possibly considered "terrorists." Dean considered this an "unintended consequence" of the new anti-terror legislation, but the Oakland Tribune later reported that California's anti-terrorism intelligence center was already "blurring the line between terrorism and political dissent" and National Lawyers Guild president Michael Avery said that the Bush administration was "trying to criminalize dissent, characterize protesters as terrorists and trying to intimidate and marginalize those opposed to its policies." After a New York state jury refused to convict four Catholic antiwar activists for protesting at a U.S. military recruiting office in 2005, the federal government stepped in, filing charges including "conspiracy to impede an officer of the United States," which could send each protester to prison for up six years. Is this an isolated incident? It would seem not. Provisions in the new Patriot Act have also raised concerns. The first questionable provision could make "breaching security perimeters" at any "special event of national significance" a felony while the second calls for the creation of a new federalized "permanent police force" which would be given the authority to arrest citizens in violation of the Bill of Rights. "The obvious purpose of the act is to prevent demonstrations at Bush/Cheney events," former Reagan administration official Paul Craig Roberts recently wrote, adding that the law has "dire implications" for First Amendment guarantees. "We can take for granted that the new federal police will be used to suppress dissent and to break up opposition. The Brownshirts are now arming themselves with a Gestapo." Even before Sept. 11, a document entitled "Domestic Operational Law Handbook for Judge Advocates," reflected a movement towards a more militarized society. The JAG document, which called for "providing military assistance for civil disturbances" cited the '60s era Operation Garden Plot, the United States Civil Disturbance Plan 55-2, which gave federal forces the power to "put down" "disruptive elements" and called for "deadly force to be used against any extremist or dissident perpetrating any and all forms of civil disorder." As Frank Morales stated in an update to his 2003 Project Censored award-winning story "The Pentagon Wages War on America": Operation Garden Plot, originating in 1968 and continually updated, is according to the JAG handbook, tasked with the mission of conducting 'civil disturbance operations throughout the United States,' providing 'wide latitude to a commander to use federal forces to assist civil law enforcement in restoring law and order.' And it's exactly this type of 'wide latitude' that we've witnessed at recent protests in NYC and Oakland. United States Army Field Manual 19-15, entitled Civil Disturbances, issued in 1985, is designed to equip soldiers with the 'tactics, techniques and procedures' necessary to suppress dissent. The manual states that 'crowd control formations may be employed to disperse, contain, or block a crowd. When employed to disperse a crowd, they are particularly effective in urban areas because they enable the control force to split a crowd into smaller segments.' It should be noted that the government has traditionally tried to curb dissent during wartime and much of what we're seeing today existed in the Vietnam era, too. In 1967, with the assistance of an Army task force, President Lyndon Johnson established the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, which called for the use of military force to squelch civil disturbances. A year after four unarmed Kent State University students were gunned down by members of the Ohio National Guard, Sen. Sam Ervin's Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights uncovered information regarding Operation Garden Plot and discovered a massive military surveillance program used against citizens. The FBI's domestic counterintelligence program, COINTELPRO also came to light when the Citizens Committee to Investigate the FBI lifted documents and leaked them to the press. And, as we later learned, from 1967 to 1971 the FBI also kept an "agitator index" or ADEX file, which was a list of individuals to be rounded up as subversives. Operation Cable Splicer, a subplot of Operation Garden Plot which included plans to control civilian populations and take over state and local governments, also appeared to be in play during Hurricane Katrina, when President Bush announced that the Pentagon was developing plans to give the military a larger role in responding to catastrophic events and suggested that the federal government should override state and local authorities. "It is now clear that a challenge on this scale requires greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces," Bush said in a speech. (The president also announced that the U.S. military could enforce quarantines should there be a bird flu outbreak, which Irwin Redlener, associate Dean of Columbia University's School of Public Health for Disaster Preparedness, deemed an "extraordinarily draconian measure," which translates to "martial law in the United States."). In 2002, a New York Times editorial stated that the FBI now has "nearly unbridled power to poke into the affairs of anyone in the United States, even when there is no evidence of illegal activity" and one year later, FBI Intelligence Bulletin no. 89 was sent to police departments, revealing that the federal government was advocating that local authorities spy on U.S. citizens. When the Atlanta Police Department acknowledged that it routinely places antiwar protesters under surveillance, Georgia Rep. Nan Orrock told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "This harkens back to some very dark times in our nation's history." How dark? NSA wiretapping aside, it's now clear that the Pentagon has been monitoring dangerous militants such as the Quakers while the FBI has been spying on the Catholic Worker's Group, Greenpeace and PETA. As Silencing Political Dissent author Nancy Chang pointed out, "With the advent of electronic record-keeping, the FBI is likely to maintain far more dossiers on law-abiding individuals and to disseminate the dossiers far more widely than during the COINTELPRO era." Where will all this data mining lead? Who knows? From Sedition Acts, to the suspension of habeas corpus to the internment of fellow Americans, we've been down rocky roads before. And in the aftermath of Sept. 11, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Conner spelled it out: "We're likely to experience more restrictions on our personal freedom than has ever been the case in our country," she said. Now that writing letters to the editor can be investigated as acts of "sedition" and US citizens can be held without charges for years on end, another terror attack could send us over the edge. Even so, detention camp jitters could prove to be nothing more than Waitsian. After all, Kellogg Brown & Root held US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contracts from 2000 to 2005 without building a single camp. The truth is, we won't know the real purpose of these centers unless contingency plans are needed. And by then, it will be too late.

Maureen Farrell is a writer and media consultant who specializes in helping other writers get television and radio exposure.

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