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Counterterror exemption proposed for Privacy Act A little-noticed proposal from the Senate intelligence committee would exempt federal agencies from important provisions of the Privacy Act in the name of the war on terrorism. The committee's annual authorization bill, which was sent to the Senate last month after a unanimous vote, would initiate a three-year pilot program, during which U.S. intelligence agencies would be able to access personal information about Americans held by other federal departments or agencies if it is thought to be relevant to counterterrorism or counterproliferation. In the wake of revelations about the administration's use of data mining and warrantless surveillance of telephone and Internet communications in pursuit of the nation's terrorist enemies, the provision could cause a furor. "If this is enacted, the Privacy Act will look like Swiss cheese," American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) legislative counsel Tim Sparapani said. Mr. Sparapani said he was not reassured by the role that the law envisages for the president's Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which would monitor the program and report to Congress as the three-year sunset approached. "The board is stacked four [Republicans] to one [Democrat]," he said. "It is not truly independent" because it is inside the president's own office, which puts it "under the thumb of the president and his advisers." The board's chairwoman, Texas lawyer Carol Dinkins, did not respond to a request for comment yesterday afternoon. A Democratic committee staffer defended the proposal, saying the exemptions were "narrowly drawn to address the kinds of problems we found during our September 11 inquiry" when U.S. agencies failed to pool information about known al Qaeda militants, who were, thus, able to slip into the country....
Big Brother's new toy Last week, a fire ignited at the Akron Airdock that once housed a fleet of Goodyear blimps. Firemen rushed to the 211-foot-tall structure and quickly doused the flames. Reporters and photographers descended on the landmark. Many were surprised to learn the blimps were no longer being stored there. Turns out Lockheed Martin -- the company that gave us the Trident intercontinental ballistic missile -- was renovating the site for an upcoming project when the fire started. It's being turned into a hangar for a prototype airship. The prototype is called the High Altitude Airship, or HAA. Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems & Sensors in Akron won the $40 million contract from the Missile Defense Agency to build HAA in 2003. It is essentially another blimp. A giant one. Seventeen times the size of the Goodyear dirigible. It's designed to float 12 miles above the earth, far above planes and weather systems. It will be powered by solar energy, and will stay in a geocentric orbit for up to a year, undetectable by ground-based radar. You can't see it from the ground. But it can see you. "The possibilities are endless for homeland security," says Kate Dunlap, a Lockheed Martin spokesperson. "It could house cameras, and other surveillance equipment. It would be an eye in the sky." According to a summary released by the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, the HAA can watch over a circle of countryside 600 miles in diameter. That's everything between Toledo and New York City. And they want to build 11. With high-res cameras, that could mean constant surveillance of every square inch of American soil. "If you had a fleet of them, this could be used for border surveillance," suggests Dunlap....
Back to the Bunker On Monday, June 19, about 4,000 government workers representing more than 50 federal agencies from the State Department to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission will say goodbye to their families and set off for dozens of classified emergency facilities stretching from the Maryland and Virginia suburbs to the foothills of the Alleghenies. They will take to the bunkers in an "evacuation" that my sources describe as the largest "continuity of government" exercise ever conducted, a drill intended to prepare the U.S. government for an event even more catastrophic than the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The exercise is the latest manifestation of an obsession with government survival that has been a hallmark of the Bush administration since 9/11, a focus of enormous and often absurd time, money and effort that has come to echo the worst follies of the Cold War. The vast secret operation has updated the duck-and-cover scenarios of the 1950s with state-of-the-art technology -- alerts and updates delivered by pager and PDA, wireless priority service, video teleconferencing, remote backups -- to ensure that "essential" government functions continue undisrupted should a terrorist's nuclear bomb go off in downtown Washington. But for all the BlackBerry culture, the outcome is still old-fashioned black and white: We've spent hundreds of millions of dollars on alternate facilities, data warehouses and communications, yet no one can really foretell what would happen to the leadership and functioning of the federal government in a catastrophe. After 9/11, The Washington Post reported that President Bush had set up a shadow government of about 100 senior civilian managers to live and work outside Washington on a rotating basis to ensure the continuity of national security. Since then, a program once focused on presidential succession and civilian control of U.S. nuclear weapons has been expanded to encompass the entire government. From the Department of Education to the Small Business Administration to the National Archives, every department and agency is now required to plan for continuity outside Washington. Yet according to scores of documents I've obtained and interviews with half a dozen sources, there's no greater confidence today that essential services would be maintained in a disaster. And no one really knows how an evacuation would even be physically possible....
Bar group will review Bush's legal challenges The board of governors of the American Bar Association voted unanimously yesterday to investigate whether President Bush has exceeded his constitutional authority in reserving the right to ignore more than 750 laws that have been enacted since he took office. Meeting in New Orleans, the board of governors for the world's largest association of legal professionals approved the creation of an all-star legal panel with a number of members from both political parties. They include a former federal appeals court chief judge, a former FBI director, and several prominent scholars -- to evaluate Bush's assertions that he has the power to ignore laws that conflict with his interpretation of the Constitution. Bush has appended statements to new laws when he signs them, noting which provisions he believes interfere with his powers. Among the laws Bush has challenged are the ban on torturing detainees, oversight provisions in the USA Patriot Act, and ``whistle-blower" protections for federal employees. The challenges also have included safeguards against political interference in taxpayer-funded research. Bush has challenged more laws than all previous presidents combined. The ABA's president, Michael Greco, said in an interview that he proposed the task force because he believes the scope and aggressiveness of Bush's signing statements may raise serious constitutional concerns. He said the ABA, which has more than 400,000 members, has a duty to speak out about such legal issues to the public, the courts, and Congress....
Overtime cap curbs patrolling on border Some of the U.S. Border Patrol's most specialized and experienced agents in Arizona are running into an overtime cap that is limiting their ability to arrest undocumented immigrants and interdict drugs. A growing number of Border Patrol agents assigned to search-and-rescue and canine-handling squads are spending less time out in the field because they are restricted from earning more than $35,000 in overtime during a single year. The overtime-cap woes were growing even as the first batch of National Guard troops arrived Saturday near Yuma as part of a $1.9 billion push by the Bush administration to gain control at the southern border. The overtime situation has frustrated Border Patrol field agents and union members, who say many seasoned patrolmen are forced to either quietly work hours of overtime for free or to walk away in the middle of tracking groups of undocumented immigrants or from using dogs to check for contraband at checkpoints. "This restricts their ability to work when and where they're needed," said T.J Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, the agents union. "The administration is essentially saying we care so little about border security and so much about saving what amounts to a few pennies that we're willing to compromise the accomplishments of the mission."....
Border Patrol re-energized about mission With immigration reform and security of the U.S.-Mexico border emerging as among the most impassioned--and divisive--of domestic issues, McKeon and her co-workers in green uniforms are poised to possibly surpass the FBI as the largest force of federal law agents in the land. When President Bush pledged last month to send National Guardsmen to the border, he threw some clout behind the Border Patrol's long-term plan to grow to 18,000 agents by 2008, from 11,466 agents as of April 29. There were 12,556 FBI agents as of May 31, a spokesman said. The 6,000 National Guardsmen dispatched by the president, according to plans, would eventually be relieved by 6,000 new Border Patrol agents hired over the next two years, patrol spokesman Todd Fraser said. It's up to Congress, however, to fund such hiring, he said. Here on the border, such a possible turn of events makes agents like McKeon, 34, feel energized about their agency's growing stature, she said. Her husband is also a Border Patrol agent. "You feel you're making a difference," McKeon said as she escorted a reporter and a photographer during a recent ride along the banks of the Rio Grande....
SAF Files Complaint Against New Orleans Police Chief's Plan To Grab Guns The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) is calling upon U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to investigate New Orleans Police Superintendent Warren Riley over his announcement last week that police in his city would once again confiscate privately-owned firearms in the event of another catastrophic storm like Hurricane Katrina. During a live interview with a New Orleans radio station, Riley acknowledged that citizens may, under state law, carry firearms. He said, however, that police will confiscate firearms, and may arrest people, arguing that "During an exigent circumstance like that, we cannot allow people to walk the street carrying guns." Last summer, SAF was joined by the National Rifle Association in a federal lawsuit against post-Hurricane Katrina gun seizures. That successful lawsuit in federal district court resulted in a restraining order, and subsequent injunction. "We believe Riley's decision is a flagrant disregard of the federal court action, Louisiana state law and both the Louisiana and federal constitutional protections of the right to keep and bear arms," Gottlieb said in his letter to Gonzales. "We're writing to General Gonzales in an effort to prevent Riley and officers under his command from committing the same egregious civil rights violations they did last year," Gottlieb explained. "It is outrageous that Riley would plan such actions when he knows they violate both state law and the state and federal constitutions. His claim that 'exigent circumstances' would allow such confiscations is preposterous....