I suppose a lot of people don't worry about the illegal wiretapping going on because they aren't a potential target--and they don't make overseas calls--and if they do make calls they don't call any 3rd world countries where terrorists might be hanging out.

Well, I was on the phone with Citibank yesterday, talking to their call center in Bangalore.  Thinking back, I probably talk to somebody in India once a month or so.  I never thought myself off the list in any case--i communicate fairly regularly with folks in Mozambique.

But you should note that the flip side of the President's argument that the world is more interconnected, so broader surveillance is necessary is that  more people become targets. 

I'm sure Josh's crew is busy assessing what happened this morning, so I'll offer my experience in lieu of anything official.

The new site was up. I logged in fine, but had trouble saving the personal profile, and then was not able to load the site at all. I restarted my browser, could get in, but had trouble with the moderation feature.

I reported the profile failure, and the lockout.

Then the site became unavailable (I assume they were trying to resolve the problems). Then it reverted. It doesn't look like anything was lost to me, but it's a big site.

Matt has a comment on TAPPED that says the same thing:

This is a kind of strange point of agreement between the president and his critics. We're saying Bush was committed to the invade-Iraq policy, never mind the evidence, and that this attitude led him to dramatically overstate the threat in a variety of ways. Bush, in essence, concedes the point that, for him, evidence regarding the scope and imminence of the threat was besides the point. 

The commitment had been made long before--the previous July according to Woodward. The whole campaign, as one staffer described it, started in September and was never intended to be a policy debate. It was intended to get all the stamps on the ticket.

Getting Powell's and Blair's stamps required involving the UN.* Getting Congress's entailed maintaining the fiction that going to war hadn't been decided yet. As I said,  his current petulant whining is tied back to the fact that this was a fiction, and all the insiders knew it. Senate Democrats had been forced to stamp the ticket through clever politics.

Once they had the tickets stamped, the plan was to proceed come hell or high water. When the inspectors came back with the official news that there were weapons to be found and the media was publishing stories that undermined the fishier side justifications, the war got started. They started the war despite the fact that the deployment was incomplete; there were still troops that were supposed to go through Turkey who couldn't reach the theatre as planned.

There was some malarkey cooked up about weather for why the invasion had to happen when it did. In fact the US could have started the war whenever it wanted. This was a war of choice.  It could have been delayed another six months, which would have allowed Rumfeld a better-equipped "army that we have."  But it couldn't have been delayed another six months politically.  The justifications would have collapsed.

Now all this is simply true, but for some reason, it's hard to say this in the public MSM and political sphere.  We're still seeing boneheaded arguments from Bush's defenders and apparently uncomprehending pieces from the middle of the road.

*I've always believed that the reason Powell ended up carrying the administration's water to the UN was that it was his insistence that the UN be involved. It was, in some sense, his mess to clean up. 

At the end of the day, in March, when the president told the UN that he was going to ask for a vote on his resolution declaring Saddam Hussein in violation of UN resolutions and still a threat to the world, he didn't do it. No matter the "whip count" he said. We'll get them on record.

He pulled that resolution off the table. He looked at his whip count, saw he was going to lose and bailed. (For a stubborn, unwavering, get 'im dead or alive kind of guy, he does that pretty often.) He told the inspectors to leave and started the war, ignoring the following facts (that were absolutely clear at the time):

1. There was no threat to the US from Iraq
2. There was no threat to the region from Iraq
3. There was no nuclear program
4. There was no link to al qaeda
5. There was no link to 9/11
6. There had been no weapons of mass destruction of any kind found anywhere, including the places the US had assured the UN they would be found.
7. There was every possibility that there were none to be found. Blix proposed an inspection regime to prove that negative.
   

In the fullness of time, the only open issue in March 2003, whether there were any weapons at all proved to be settled in the negative.

In today's dead tree version of the NYTimes,  John Tierney remarks on his discovery that the market doesn't always work out as well one might like. I mean, in general and all, it works great, but when it comes down to people in his neighborhood buying up property and putting up excreble McMansions.

He, hilariously, suddenly sees the light--sometimes people want to get together and restrict their neighbors' property rights.  As Gomer Pyle used to say, "Well, Golllllleeeee!!"

Maybe we need someone to foul his local stream or something.   

They say that if, in fact, government officials were prosecuted for breaking the laws they acknowledge when they sign clearance agreements, then the reporters couldn't do their jobs.

Um, Hello? 

If you won't be able to do your job because you're relying on lawbreakers, your problem isn't with the prosecutor.  You sound like 50 Cent in his memoir all irritated  because a cop killing led to the police showing up in his neighborhood and enforcing the laws against dealing crack.  Yeah, it was messing with his business, but hewas breaking the law.

Saying that it's wrong to put people in jail for leaking classifed information to people who aren't cleared for the information is insane.  Just flat insane. If it's against the law to release this information, then the leakers don't get a pass, anymore than the crack dealers do because they're fulfilling a deeply felt consumer need.

Yes (as they like to say), it's interesting that after the leaked material hits the paper, it gets declassified so that the people exposed by the leak can defend themselves. Yes, it's interesting that sometimes the effect of leaks of classified information is that it gets declassified.

But that's not a good thing.

It's a bad thing that information is needlessly classified. Nay, not merely needlessly. It's  a bad thing that information is classified for entirely political reasons. It's an abuse of the classification system to use national security as a reason to not engage in a legitimate, open debate of policy.

Cohen decries the possibility that people may go to jail because reporters printed secrets known to every dogwalker in DC. On the Daily Show, Carl Bernstein says a day doesn't go by when a Washington journalist doesn't see classified material. Judy says one reason she sucked up to Libby was to get access to more classified stuff, even if she couldn't write about it.

HELLO!! What are you doing? What are you saying?

The problem here is that system of classification is so deeply abused, the cult of reporter/source so deeply entwined that it doesn't even register that what you and your source is doing is illegal.  It's  illegal becausesupposedly the very fabric of the nation is being endangered by what you're doing. Your finding out that the contractor who got the deal to deliver the MREs did it by nefarious means is, legally speaking, a threat to the republic.

It's way past time to throw some of these guys in jail. It's way past time to say that signing the documents  Larry Johnson writes about actually means something.  When you' say that breaking the law every single working day is essential to your doing your job, there's something seriously wrong with the law.

When, with a straight face, you write an article in a national publication that says that if you and your sources comply with the law, there will be a chilling effect on newsgathering, and that therefore you and your sources should be exempt from breaking the law, shouldn't it cross your mind that just maybe there's a bigger problem operating here?

Here's a clip you should see.

Here's the transcript.

Former chief of staff to Powell. Talking about policy making and the Cheney/Rumsfeld cabal.  This is not merely important because of Bush and his administration. He is talking about fundamental problems of governance in the executive branch.

And an extremely powerful Vice President and an extremely powerful in the issues that impacted him, Secretary of Defense, remember a Vice President who’s been Secretary of Defense, too, and obviously has an inclination that way and also has known the Secretary of Defense for a long time, and also is a member of what Dwight Eisenhower wanted that God bless Eisenhower in 1961 in his farewell address the military industrial complex and don’t you think they aren’t the [UI] today in a concentration of power that is just unparalleled. It all happened because of the end of the Cold War.

[UI] tell you how many contractors who did billion dollars or so business with the Defense Department that we have in 1988 and how many do we have now. And they’re always working together. If one of them is the lead on the satellite program, I hope there’s some Lockheed and Grumman and others here today [UI] if one of them’s a lead on satellites, the others are subs. And they’ve learned their lesson there in every state.

They’ve got every Congressman, every Senator, they got it covered. Now, it’s not to say that they aren’t smart businessmen. They are, and women. They are. But it’s something we should be looking at, something we should be looking at. So you’ve got this collegiality there between the Secretary of Defense and the Vice President. And then you’ve got a President who is not versed in international relations. And not too much interested in them either.

And so it’s not too difficult to make decisions in this, what I call Oval Office cabal, and decisions often that are the opposite of what you thought were made in the formal process.

If I'm gonna post links to crazy rumors from wacky blogs, I guess USNews should get a shot too.

As I was reading TalkLeft's assessment of the likelihood of Fitzgerald flipping mid-level officials a comment on the TalkLeft site reminded me that the Bush family has made a substantial investment, over time, in not getting mid-level officials to flip.

If they serve the time that they absolutely have to, there is a history that they will 1) receive a pardon 2) get a well-paying job in the republican machinery 3) rejoin the government in a capacity that interests them, if they so choose.

Eliot Abrams. John Poindexter.  

They get taken care of. OTOH, we've what happens when you cross them. Perhaps the Bartlett firing wasn't about Miers after all.

One occasionally reads comparisons of the Bush family to a Mafia organization.  If Fitzgerald ever writes his book, we might found out how apt that comparison is.

There are some interesting letters to Romensko today.

Example:

From ALEX DERING: The NY Times article (The Miller Case: A Notebook, a Cause, a Jail Cell and a Deal) has the following lamentation from Bill Keller: "I wish it had been a clear-cut whistle-blower case. I wish it had been a reporter who came with less public baggage."

Perhaps Mr. Keller could run the name Zhao Yan through the Times' search engine. There's not a lot there, certainly nothing like the oceans of ink spilled in Ms. Miller's defense. But there is enough to learn the following:

Zhao Yan has been in a Chinese prison for a year. Zhao Yan has had limited or no access to many things that Judy Miller (I genuflect as I type) had while in jail: adequate food, visits from friends and loved ones, medical care, legal representation, etc. Zhao Yan is a researcher for the New York Times.

If the Times is looking for something with which to wrap themselves in the cloak of sanctimoniousness, they need go no farther than the other side of the world. Somewhere in China, one of their employees sits rotting in a cell.

Timely, given that Keller is Asia right now. 

There’s no need to worry about nuance, no need to worry about what you thought in 2002. The situation has been reset, afresh. The deck has been reshuffled, the hand has been dealt and the President says that the plan is to continue military operations in Iraq indefinitely.  Moreover, we can expect the War on Terror to be the Cold War returned.  This means we can expect more than fifty years of massive commitments of American resources, another couple of wars like Iraq  We should expect to leave troops stationed in Iraq for at least the next 50 years (Cold war troops remain in Korea and Germany) and should expect economic repercussions for at least as long (Cuba is still under embargo and nuclear weapons are still standing by, targeted at Russia).

Last week, Ed Kilgore took some grief from the blogosphere when he remarked that Democrats had taken clear positions on the War in Iraq.  The grief was civilly expressed, but the tone was predominantly disbelief that he’d say such a thing. Other than Feingold, incumbent Democrats have been conspicuously silent on this question. Occasionally, a hawk will ask for more troops, but even those voices have been muted lately.

So it’s good for everyone that the President has restated the objectives, and made it clear that the mission in Iraq is unchanged.  Now Democrats can follow through on Ed’s perception, and take some clear stands.  There are plenty on offer:

The Deaniac Position: This war was a mistake from the outset, based on dishonest presentation of intelligence information. The President is wrong to prosecute a war, indefinitely, based on false premises.

The Kerry Position: In order to conduct meaningful negotiations, the president needed military authority in 2002, and a in the Senate gave him that authority.   The idea of continuing to fight a war indefinitely in Iraq with no clearly stated objectives, no timetable and no condition of victory is unacceptable.  The mandate tied to that vote is long past.  It is also well past time to work out an exit strategy.  It is time to put control of their future into the hands of the Iraqis.

The Liberal Hawk Position: Saddam was a dangerous tyrant who had to be removed. I supported the war as the most certain means of doing so.  That objective was achieved early in the war effort.  Now the US is engaged in a war with no ending, no timetable, no conditions thaty would constitute victory. The President, in his speech on Thursday has committed the US to fight in Iraq indefinitely.  At this point, the primary objective has been achieved. The secondary objectives, of constructing a stable Iraqi state, now needs to be left to the Iraqis. It’s time to set a timetable for withdrawal.

The Katrina Position: The president stood on a ship and announced Mission Accomplished more than two long years ago.  Since then, thousands innocent Iraqis and brave Americans have died, apparently needlessly.  Nothing has changed for the better since the President’s announcement. The lives of ordinary Iraqis is worse today than it was when  the President stood before that banner.  Power systems don’t work, and the streets are not secure.  The administration has demonstrated complete incompetence in managing the aftermath of this war, incompetence that we’ve seen echoed in our country in the aftermath of Katrina.  On Thursday, the President said that he wants to continue these failed policies indefinitely.  To do so would be to compound a long series of nation-building failures. It is time to define a set of clear targets of accomplishment that will be tied to withdrawal of American forces.

The Diplomatic Position:  The president’s speech on Thursday neglected to mention that the Iraqis are well on their way to political independence and control of their own destiny Either the constitutional referendum will be passed next week, or a new parliament will be elected. By suggesting that the US stay in Iraq indefinitely, the president is undermining those political processes. In the interest of Iraqi independence and democracy in the Middle East, the time has come to schedule a withdrawal that furthers Iraqi independence.

----- 

There is no sentient commentator on this situation, from the Pentagon to Juan Cole, who agrees with the President’s position as stated on Thursday.  The time is long past for the US to develop a withdrawal timetable, or a series of intermediate objectives that  will be tied to withdrawal. At this point, even the most pulsinanimous careful incumbent should be able to find a way to say this.

Introduction

I expected more talk about getting out. In fact, much was discussed about the situation on the ground.

Packer started off with a moving email from a Sunni acquaintence who was in a village in central Iraq, completely under the control of Sunni insurgents.  There are, reported his acquaintence through an email he read from, daily beheadings on the town's bridge. These beheadings are required attendence for children, with same day DVDs available in the market. His correspondent reports that the insurgency is waiting for the US to leave before embarking on full blown civil war.

Baer and Feith spoke next, not particularly memorably. al-Rahim disputed Packer's claim that all Sunnis were opposed to the government (he hadn't, in fact, made that claim. His correspondent was himself  Sunni) and that there was broad support from the Sunnis for the consitution and for democratic processes.

Danner remarked that before Saddam fell, Iraq was a closed book You couldn't go anywhere, and if you did manage to do so, nobody would tell you anything.  Immediately after the fall, things opened up--you could go places, especially rural places, and talk to people.  The country has closed again. The "fantastic" level of violence has forced everyone, government and journalists in particular, into bunkers.  It is very difficult to say what is actually going on.

Interesting questions

Is the neo-con movement dead?

Packer: AHI is still in business.  Weekly Standard is still a weekly. But in terms of policy influence, yes, I'd say its time has passed.

Danner: The trouble with basing a position on power is that if you ever use that power, it has to be overwhelming. With American forces tied down in Iraq, dealing with the other axes of evil has required approaches other than those advocated by the neo-cons. And, because we've shown the limits of American power, our negotiating position has been weakened.

Feith: He was asked this question very directly. He answered in a very convoluted fashion (this was typical of his responses all evening) saying that now that State was on board with Defense, there were fewer apparent conflicts, which may look to outsiders like the WaPo to be an end of neocon influence. Or he may said that getting Powell out and Condi in had opened up a line of communication previously closed.

Should the US stay in Iraq?

This question was not posed explicitly, but there was a clear consensus in all responses. An immediate American departure would have disastrous consequences.  Packer envisioned a Sunni explosion, saying only American airpower was stopping major bloodshed.  Baer said his previous view that we should just leave, let them have their civil war and mail us a card when it was over isn't tenable, given the impact the war is having  on Saudi radicals. al-Rahim talked about the French revolution, of more time being needed and she alluded to (hands open as if holding a chick in it) Iraq as a fledgling still in need of nurture. Feith blathered on, talking (believe it or not) about WMD and the still possible threat.  Woolsey talked about the need for democracy.

What about the Shi-ites?

This question came from the floor.  Packer's response was that the last minute proposal for a shi-ite superstate was troubling. He believes that there is a good chance for normal politics to develop among the Shia if the individual states retain their independence, and if al Sistani does not endorse anyone in the elections.  Danner agreed with this analysis.

What about the region?

There was much talk of Saudi Arabia.  Baer said that the influx of terrorists from outside sources was almost exclusively from Saudi Arabia.  The Saudi security apparatus is glad to see them go, but they pose a threat to everyone. At the moment, they have plenty of targets in Iraq. Feith, in response to the direct question "why do we cozy up to the Saudis said repeatedly, that they are a "problem" but never answered the question.

Danner said that he has had repeated instances when he ends an interview, shuts off the recorder and his interviewee says "What is the US doing? Why is it empowering the Shi-ites?"  Echoing a comment in Larry Johnson's piece, they want to know why the US is supporting the takeover by the Shi-ites, led by Iran, of the largest oil region in the world.

The recent statement from the Saudi foreign minister was mentioned. In response to a lengthy bit from Woolsey about democracy, Danner said that the US has a reputation in the region and among islamist for supporting, with billions of dollars of cash and weapons, oppresive despots.  

That's all I have time for now.  I may add to this later.  I'd appreciate comments from anyone who was there, or who has seen it on TV (CSPAN was rumored to be there.)

Sometimes the best editorial comments in the NYTimes come from the letters:

Why doesn't the church bar priests who have sex with children? That would be less controversial and more to the point.

Heather Finn, Hartford

So what does it take to secede from the Union these days?

How hard would it be for California, Oregon, and Washington to secede?

Do we need our own Army first?  Would Dubya have enough resolve and military resources left to fight a left coast secession?  Might it also be in the right wing's interest, to further their political chances by having an even stronger percentage?

Maybe a deal could be made between left coast and the federal government?

The message for a democrat running against an incumbent republican is simple--everything that's been done has been down the party line. Every single decision the president has made has been with your senator's support.

Take Olympia Snowe. She's a fine senator, a voice of reason and moderation. She served Maine well during Clinton's tenure, contributing to good governance, supporting fiscal sanity and other centrist elements of the Clinton program. She did this while preserving the independence Mainers expect from their politicians.  Mainers like and respect her,and have supported her in Bill Cohen's Congressional District  and in, if you will, his seat in the Senate.

That voice of reason and moderation has become a party line voter in the most disastrous period of governance in the post war period.  She's no longer the independent Senator from Maine. She's just one more Stepford Senator, a Senator for the Republican Party.  She's vulnerable as she has never been.

The Republicans, through their loyalty, through their unity of message, through their discipline have tied themselves to Bush like Ulysses  lashed to the mast.  They didn't heed the siren calls of independence, of good governance, of fiscal sanity, of American commitment to human rights.

Instead they've sailed on Bush's ship of state. But those sirens were not voices of doom, but voices of reason.  And Senators Chafee,  Snowe, and even Hutchison (given Katrina's proximity) should have heeded those voices.

Opposition campaigns, especially run by anyone other than an incumbent member of Congress should look to Paul Hackett on the war, remember Katrina and keep up with scandals associated with the worst case of US crony capitalism since including Harding   These issues cross party lines. 

Every Republican is vulnerable.   Stop cavilling about a national message, and find some candidates.

There was speculation in the industry a while ago that Google might launch a low-cost or free wifi service. In doing so, they would get people onto Google's private network and off the internet backbones that charge traffic fees.  The idea was that Google would save so much money in traffic fees that giving away the service would represent a net positive revenue stream.

Well, they're cleverer than that.

They've announced a plan to give away wifi encryption.

The idea is that you download their software, log onto their private network (Google WiFi) and then the packets leaving your computer are encrypted.  This is a pretty big deal by itself; a problem with using wifi hotspots is that they are not secure. Even using wifi in your house to get to your high speed connection is usually not secure, because people don't know how to make it secure (and they mostly don't care, and wisely so).

The insecurity of wifi hotspots means that there are business transactions, among them picking up email, that you may not want to do at a hot spot.  Or that your IT department may not want you to do.  They'll provide you with virtual private network access to give you a secure connection, instead.

Using a secure connection makes wifi hotspots a great deal more valuable. Just on principle, I'd switch from my current provider, TMobile, to Google if there were somewhere near the same number of locations (not easy at the moment. There are a lot of Starbucks and Borders near the places I have meetings).  So I'd happily pay up to what I pay TMobile for such a service, and since Google is getting this additional benefit of getting traffic off the for-pay backbones, they may be able to undercut TMobile with  a better service offering.

But, as I said at the outset, Google is cleverer than you are.

From the  Google WiFI FAQ:

What sort of information does Google have access to?

If you choose to use Google Secure Access, your internet traffic will be encrypted and sent through Google's servers to the Internet. The data that is received will then be encrypted and sent back through our servers to your computer. Your privacy is important to us, we strongly encourage you to read our Privacy Policy to be fully informed about how your privacy is protected.

Is there a fee for using Google Secure Access?

No, Google Secure Access is free.

[snip]

Will Google Secure Access work at other locations?

While Google Secure Access should work, we have not tested it at other locations.
-------------------------------



-------------------------------

This pause was intended to give you a moment to think.

Suppose you don't have access to Google Wifi.

It still makes sense to download Secure Access.  It "should...work at other locations."

Secure Access is free. 

It costs Google nothing for you to download or use it (unlike buying routers and wireless hotspot hardware and spreading them around the nation), and if you use Google Secure Access
"your internet traffic will be encrypted and sent through Google's servers to the Internet."

That is, you can get client-based encryption, even if you're just an individual without an IT department. If you own a small business, you can secure your communications on the internet without knowing how to set up a virtual private network. (In fact, you're using Google's.)

So they get the benefit I mentioned at the outset--getting their traffic off servers that charge them for it and give you a bonus for doing so. Transparently (if it works as they're advertising).

Oh, and they can build a for fee wifi network as they go, with an installed base of pre-sold clients.

Clever. 

Ed's right. Decades of Republican unkept promises are now being slapped onto the table by the wingnuts. The Rs are out of excuses. They have the presidency. They have senate. A justice who has voted in support of Roe v Wade is retiring, and they can replace her with someone who will vote the other way.

However.

As the Republicans are learning, it's one thing to stand aside and attack the status quo. It's another thing entirely to change it.  The status quo is as it as because it enjoys widespread support, even to the point of illogic (as in unfunded big government).

It's one thing for Scalia to rail in the minority that women should be stripped of control of their reproductive lives. It's another thing entirely to strip them of that control.  Don't be so sure that, regardless of who is appointed, that the SCOTUS blinks when actually faced with this issue.  Don't be so sure that someone viewed as an anti-choice vote on the current court doesn't become a stare decisis vote on an O'Connor-less court.

Do not underestimate the firestorm that would result.  I am sure that the Court will not.