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A Wave of the Watch List, and Speech Disappears Steve Marshall is an English travel agent. He lives in Spain, and he sells trips to Europeans who want to go to sunny places, including Cuba. In October, about 80 of his Web sites stopped working, thanks to the United States government. t turned out, though, that Mr. Marshall’s Web sites had been put on a Treasury Department blacklist and, as a consequence, his American domain name registrar, eNom Inc., had disabled them. Mr. Marshall said eNom told him it did so after a call from the Treasury Department; the company, based in Bellevue, Wash., says it learned that the sites were on the blacklist through a blog. Either way, there is no dispute that eNom shut down Mr. Marshall’s sites without notifying him and has refused to release the domain names to him. In effect, Mr. Marshall said, eNom has taken his property and interfered with his business. A Treasury spokesman, John Rankin, referred a caller to a press release issued in December 2004, almost three years before eNom acted. It said Mr. Marshall’s company had helped Americans evade restrictions on travel to Cuba and was “a generator of resources that the Cuban regime uses to oppress its people.” It added that American companies must not only stop doing business with the company but also freeze its assets, meaning that eNom did exactly what it was legally required to do. Peter L. Fitzgerald, a law professor at Stetson University in Florida who has studied the blacklist — which the Treasury calls a list of “specially designated nationals” — said its operation was quite mysterious. “There really is no explanation or standard,” he said, “for why someone gets on the list.” Susan Crawford, a visiting law professor at Yale and a leading authority on Internet law, said the fact that many large domain name registrars are based in the United States gives the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, control “over a great deal of speech — none of which may be actually hosted in the U.S., about the U.S. or conflicting with any U.S. rights.” “OFAC apparently has the power to order that this speech disappear,” Professor Crawford said....
Power to Build Border Fence Is Above U.S. Law Securing the nation’s borders is so important, Congress says, that Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, must have the power to ignore any laws that stand in the way of building a border fence. Any laws at all. Last week, Mr. Chertoff issued waivers suspending more than 30 laws he said could interfere with “the expeditious construction of barriers” in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas. The list included laws protecting the environment, endangered species, migratory birds, the bald eagle, antiquities, farms, deserts, forests, Native American graves and religious freedom. The secretary of homeland security was granted the power in 2005 to void any federal law that might interfere with fence building on the border. For good measure, Congress forbade the courts to second-guess the secretary’s determinations. So long as Mr. Chertoff is willing to say it is necessary to void a given law, his word is final. The delegation of power to Mr. Chertoff is unprecedented, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service. It is also, if papers filed in the Supreme Court last month are correct, unconstitutional. People can disagree about the urgency of border security and about whether it is more or less important than, say, the environment. Congress is entrusted with making those judgments, and here it has spoken clearly. In the process, it has also granted the executive branch more of the sort of unilateral power the Bush administration has so often claimed for itself. No one doubts that Congress may repeal old laws through new legislation. But there is a difference between passing a law that overrides a previous one and tinkering with the structure of the Constitution itself. The extraordinary powers granted to Mr. Chertoff may test the limits of how much of its own authority Congress can cede to another branch of the government....
State high court shoots down S.F. handgun ban The state Supreme Court dealt a final blow Wednesday to San Francisco's voter-approved ban on handguns, rejecting the city's appeal of a lower-court ruling that sharply limited the ability of localities to regulate firearms. The court's unanimous order was a victory for the National Rifle Association, which sued on behalf of gun owners, advocates and dealers a day after the measure passed with 58 percent of the vote in November 2005. The initiative has never taken effect. The ordinance, Proposition H, would have forbidden San Francisco residents to possess handguns, exempting only law enforcement officers and others who needed guns for professional purposes. It would have also prohibited the manufacture, sale or distribution of any type of firearms or ammunition in San Francisco. Lower courts ruled that the measure interfered with a statewide system of gun regulation, which bars certain types of weapons and allows others. The rulings did not address the scope of the constitutional right to bear arms under the Second Amendment, the focus of a pending U.S. Supreme Court case involving a handgun ban in Washington, D.C. The state courts recognized that "law-abiding citizens are part of the solution, not part of the problem of violent crime," said Chuck Michel, lawyer for the plaintiffs in the NRA suit. "The authority of local cities to over-regulate firearms is very limited." Alexis Thompson, spokeswoman for City Attorney Dennis Herrera, said the court's action was disappointing....
IRS Faulted for Lax Identity Theft Protection Efforts With just a few days left to go in the tax season and filers frantically filling out forms and returns, the likelihood that their personal information could be stolen or misused increases dramatically -- and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has admitted that its efforts to protect personal data from identity theft and fraud could use some improvement. In a new report, the Treasury Department's Inspector General (TIGTA) found that, "the IRS has not placed sufficient emphasis on employment-related and tax fraud identity theft strategies." "Specifically, its prevention strategy does not include pursuing individuals using another person's identity, unless their cases directly relate to a substantive tax or conspiracy violation...the actual crime of identity theft will only be investigated...if it is committed in conjunction with other criminal offenses having a large tax effect," the auditors said. According to the auditors' findings, although the IRS received over 92,000 complaints related to identity theft during 2005 and 2006, only 100 cases of criminal investigation recommended for prosecution over the two-year period contained a charge or count of identity theft. The IRS told TIGTA that it lacked the resources to pursue enforcement of cases involving identity theft....This is a good example of where the average citizen stands with the feds. They have the resources to collect your taxes, confiscate your property, freeze your assets and garnishee your wages. They just don't seem to have the resources to protect the information you are required by law to send them. They come first, you come second.
China protester is torched by critics The brainy South Bronx activist who stirred an Olympic torch-bearing ruckus in San Francisco said Thursday her conscience fueled her surprise anti-China protest. A day after she used her torch-toting turn for a headline-grabbing pro-Tibet shoutout, Majora Carter was being showered with cheers and jeers. One of three New Yorkers chosen to bear the Beijing Olympic torch in San Francisco on Wednesday, Carter foiled an elaborate attempt by police to avoid thousands of demonstrators by pulling a Trojan horse-type ploy. Once she got her hands on the Olympic flame, she pulled a Tibetan flag from her sleeve to protest China's human rights abuses in the Himalayan province. A Chinese paramilitary squad escorting the torch quickly snatched it from her, and cops pushed her into the crowd....Dear President Bush - What is a "Chinese paramilitary squad" doing on U.S. soil, infringing on the First Amendment rights of a U.S. citizen?
Stolen military equipment sold on Web Stolen and sensitive U.S. military equipment, including fighter jet parts wanted by Iran and nuclear biological protective gear, has been available to the highest bidder on popular Internet sales sites, according to congressional investigators. Using undercover identities, investigators purchased a dozen defense-related items on the auction site eBay and the online network Craigslist from January 2007 through last month and received the items "no questions asked." The Defense Department regards much of the stolen equipment to be on the U.S. Munitions List, meaning there are restrictions on their overseas sales, the Government Accountability Office said Thursday. The equipment could land in international brokers' hands or be transferred overseas, said the GAO, Congress' investigative arm. The Army recognizes that the U.S. military has had "property accountability and visibility challenges," said Sarah H. Finnicum, director of supply at the Office of Deputy Chief of Staff for the Army, in testimony to a House subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs....Dear President Bush - Why are you constantly pushing to limit our Constitutional liberties to "protect" us from terrorists when your own Administration can't keep our military inventory out of the hands of this same enemy?
Torches, bungee cords used to breach border fence Illegal immigrants armed with torches, hacksaws, ladders and even bungee cords are making it around a section of the border fence hailed as the most efficient way to stop them. In the 10 months since the section was put up, the only method federal agents haven't seen is a tunnel — "Yet," said Victor Guzman, the supervisory Border Patrol agent responsible for the stretch of close-together 15-foot cement-filled steel poles planted three feet into the ground. Agents responsible for guarding the stretch of border here "almost immediately" started seeing cuts in the fence. The towering gray and rust colored posts are marked with bright orange spray paint in areas believed to have been breached, Guzman said. Guzman, who has worked in the area for nearly a decade, said agents have found holes cut with acetylene torches, hacksaws and even plasma torches — a high-powered tool that uses inert gas or condensed air to quickly cut through steel and other dense metals. "We see it once or twice a week," Guzman said of the holes along the 1.5-mile stretch of fencing about 80 miles west of El Paso. Officials monitoring cameras in the area have seen at least one group using a massive ladder to scale the south side of the fence. The group tried to drop into the U.S. with bungee cords before agents caught them. But it's not just illegal immigrants worrying the Border Patrol. The fence itself — built by the National Guard and Border Patrol — is starting to settle into the ground and gaps between the posts are widening. In one spot, an average sized woman could wedge herself through one of the gaps....
Chertoff Defends Immigration Enforcement Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says he feels the pain of employers pinched by intensified efforts to control illegal immigration, but adds that until Congress enacts broad immigration reforms they shouldn't expect any changes in enforcement. In an interview with The Associated Press, Chertoff said this week that the rising complaints from businesses offer some evidence the Bush administration's approach is working. "This is harsh but accurate proof positive that, for the first time in decades, we've succeeded in changing the dynamic and (are) actually beginning to reduce illegal immigration," Chertoff said. "Unfortunately, unless you counterbalance that with a robust system to allow people to come in temporarily and legally, you're going to wind up with an economic problem." Chertoff defended the actions of his agency, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "We're enforcing the law as it is, but Congress has not yet given us the authority to really expand the temporary worker program," he said in the Tuesday interview. "If we could do that, then most of these businesses could find legal solutions."....Prior to this I had only suspicioned that Bush was cracking down on illegal immigration to influence immigration reform. Now we know it's a fact.
Administration Set to Use New Spy Program in U.S. The Bush administration said yesterday that it plans to start using the nation's most advanced spy technology for domestic purposes soon, rebuffing challenges by House Democrats over the idea's legal authority. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his department will activate his department's new domestic satellite surveillance office in stages, starting as soon as possible with traditional scientific and homeland security activities -- such as tracking hurricane damage, monitoring climate change and creating terrain maps. Sophisticated overhead sensor data will be used for law enforcement once privacy and civil rights concerns are resolved, he said. The department has previously said the program will not intercept communications. His statements marked a fresh determination to operate the department's new National Applications Office as part of its counterterrorism efforts. The administration in May 2007 gave DHS authority to coordinate requests for satellite imagery, radar, electronic-signal information, chemical detection and other monitoring capabilities that have been used for decades within U.S. borders for mapping and disaster response. But Congress delayed launch of the new office last October. Critics cited its potential to expand the role of military assets in domestic law enforcement, to turn new or as-yet-undeveloped technologies against Americans without adequate public debate, and to divert the existing civilian and scientific focus of some satellite work to security uses....
The Martial Law Act of 2006 Martial law is perhaps the ultimate stomping of freedom. And yet, on September 30, 2006, Congress passed a provision in a 591-page bill that will make it easy for President Bush to impose martial law in response to a terrorist “incident.” It also empowers him to effectively declare martial law in response to what he or other federal officials label a shortfall of “public order” — whatever that means. It took only a few paragraphs in a $500 billion, 591-page bill to raze one of the most important limits on federal power. Congress passed the Insurrection Act in 1807 to severely restrict the president’s ability to deploy the military within the United States. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 tightened those restrictions, imposing a two-year prison sentence on anyone who used the military within the United States without the express permission of Congress. (This act was passed after the depredations of the U.S. military throughout the Southern states during Reconstruction.)But there is a loophole: Posse Comitatus is waived if the president invokes the Insurrection Act. The Insurrection Act and Posse Comitatus Act aim to deter dictatorship while permitting a narrow window for the president to temporarily use the military at home. But the 2006 reforms basically threw any concern about dictatorial abuses out the window. Section 1076 of the Defense Authorization Act of 2006 changed the name of the key provision in the statute book from “Insurrection Act” to “Enforcement of the Laws to Restore Public Order Act.” The Insurrection Act of 1807 stated that the president could deploy troops within the United States only “to suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.” The new law expands the list of pretexts to include “natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition” — and such a “condition” is not defined or limited....

Go here to see a video about gun confiscation after Katrina.