Locus Medius

The Wiretapping Hearings — Letter to Schumer

I listened to some of the Senate Judiciary Committee's proceedings this morning. Given current political circumstances I feel it's necessary to rely on the Democratic Senators to oppose this policy, since the Republicans are not likely to muster the same level of opposition, considering the partisan issues at hand.

I was a little surprised that the Democratic Senators were not as well prepared to address some of the technical details of the administration's arguments as I had hoped. I did not hear all of the morning testimony, but heard enough to feel the need to send this letter to my home state Senator on the committee (Charles Schumer), and copy the ranking Democrat (Patrick Leahy).

Dear Senator Schumer,

I have been listening to the Judiciary Committee hearings this morning and have been bothered that two points I feel are compelling have so far not been addressed. These are important questions that I would be very interested in hearing Attorney General Gonzalez's answers to.

1) The administration relies on the Hamdi case to validate their interpretation of the AUMF. Hamdi relies on the AUMF trumping 18 U.S.C. 4001. Unlike the FISA legislation, however, 18 U.S.C. 4001 does not contain specific language regarding how the legislation is to be interpreted in relation to a Declaration of War. Since this statute was very broadly worded and did not address the specific situation involved in this instance, the court had broader leeway to interpret the effect of the AUMF on the preceding statute. However, FISA specifically addresses what is to happen in the case of a Declaration of War. FISA explicitly states how FISA should be interpreted in relation to a Declaration of War, and that interpretation is NOT that a Declaration of War trumps FISA. In this regards, there is no reason to believe that the AUMF is different that a Declaration of War. In fact, it is arguable that the AUMF should be interpreted as granting LESS power to the Executive than a formal Declaration of War would.

2) In Hamdi, the Supreme Court upheld the role of an independent third party to review the actions of the Executive. They ruled that Hamdi had the right to have the justification for his detainment reviewed by an independent tribunal, although that tribunal did not have to be formally a part of the federal judiciary -- but it did have to be independent of the Executive. An independent tribunal separate from the formal judicial structure to review Executive actions sounds an awful lot like the FISA court. Why does the administration believe that the correct interpretation of Hamdi is that its actions are not subject to independent review?

Senator, I hope this note reaches you in time to address these questions to the Attorney General, as I believe they represent significant gaps to his legal analysis.

Sincerely,
[Chuck]
Resident: New York City

Update: I just realized I used the word "Urgent" in the subject line of this e-mail. That probably means it will get rejected by the Senators' spam filters. Sigh...

Update 2: I feel strongly enough that I would at least like to hear the administration's answers to these questions that I just called Senator Schumer's office in D.C. to make sure someone has thought about these issues. A very nice gentleman answered the phone and took down my comments, but I am a little wary that anything will be done with them. Oh well, I tried.

Update 3: I should probably link to my previous discussion of Hamdi.

Good News From Iraq

The nutjobs over at the American Enterprise Institute have published a story in their monthly magazine regarding good news out of Iraq. Given the source, take this with a grain of salt (or maybe a whole salt lick), but plenty of the supporting data they give is from public polls, so there's probably some basis here.

Here's a couple examples of things that no one else seems to be reporting:

Troops wounded in action are down from 7,920 in 2004 to 5,961 in 2005.

...

Economic losses are also moderating. Attacks carried out on oil and gas facilities in Iraq can serve as an indicator of this. There were 146 such attacks in 2004, versus 101 in 2005.

...

In December, Iraqis filed a record number of tips informing on insurgents.

...

The World Bank and International Monetary Fund estimate that Iraqi national income per capita exceeded $1,050 in 2005—up more than 30 percent from the year before the war began ($802 in 2002). One consumer survey by British researchers found that average household income rose 60 percent from February 2004 to November 2005. The IMF projects that Iraq’s gross domestic product will grow 17 percent in 2006 after inflation.

Evidence of growth can be seen in the jump in car usage. The number of registered autos has more than doubled, and traffic is estimated to be five times as heavy as before the war. Purchases of nearly all consumer goods—air conditioners, refrigerators, freezers, washing machines, farm machinery, computers—are soaring. Cell phone ownership has jumped from 6 percent in early 2004 to over 65 percent today.

TV satellite dishes are as ubiquitous as mobile phones, and now sprout from even the rudest abodes in Iraq’s most out-of-the-way corners. Fully 86 percent of Iraqi households reported having satellite TV at the end of 2005. The number of Iraqi commercial TV stations is now 44, and there are 72 commercial radio stations (there were none of either prior to 2003). The number of newspapers exceeds 100.

...

Asked how things are going for them personally, 71 percent of Iraqis now say life is “good,” compared to 29 percent who say “bad.” A majority insist that despite the war, life is already better for them than it was under Saddam Hussein. By 5:1 they expect their lives will be even better one year from now. Seven out of ten Iraqis think their country as a whole will be a better place in one year.

...

According to surveys in 17 nations carried out in 2005 by an organization chaired by Madeleine Albright, support for terrorism in defense of Islam has “declined dramatically” in the last couple years—from 73 percent to 26 percent in Lebanon, from 40 percent down to 13 percent in Morocco, from 41 percent to 25 percent in Pakistan.

Support for Osama bin Laden has plummeted in nearly every Islamic nation. Rationalizing suicide bombing and violence against civilian targets is way down.

Redefining the Food Chain

This is wild. The Seattle Acquarium decided to move one of its giant octopus into a larger tank that had sharks and other big fish. Turns out, these octopi can take down 2-3 foot long sharks. Take a look at the video. Its pretty wild.

New York Times Editorial on Bush's Wiretapping

I've neglected this blog for a few days, so I haven't had a chance to post a link to this editorial in the New York Times. It's an interesting read and raises some points I'd like to highlight:

"President Bush believes if Al Qaeda is calling somebody in America, it is in our national security interest to know who they're calling and why," [Karl Rove] told Republican officials. "Some important Democrats clearly disagree."

Mr. Rove knows perfectly well that no Democrat has ever said any such thing — and that nothing prevented American intelligence from listening to a call from Al Qaeda to the United States, or a call from the United States to Al Qaeda, before Sept. 11, 2001, or since. The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act simply required the government to obey the Constitution in doing so.

As others have pointed out, Rove is clearly outlining what the Republican mid-term election strategy will be. Unfortunately, the New York Times' counterargument here will be dismissed as mere "liberal bias".

Bush officials have said the surveillance is tightly focused only on contacts between people in this country and Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Vice President Dick Cheney claimed it saved thousands of lives by preventing attacks. But reporting in this paper has shown that the National Security Agency swept up vast quantities of e-mail messages and telephone calls and used computer searches to generate thousands of leads. F.B.I. officials said virtually all of these led to dead ends or to innocent Americans. [emphasis mine]

Anyone else see the inconsistency there?

Open Tip Bullets

A week or so ago, there was an interesting article over at Murdoc's site concerning an Army JAG who issued an order banning snipers from using open tip rifle bullets over concern that they are similar to expanding hollow point bullets. Blackfive also posted about this issue. The open tip bullets are used because they are more accurate than regular full metal jacketed military bullets and, in fact, are not expanding bullets at all.

Murdoc and Blackfive have pretty good discussions of the legality of open tip and hollow point bullets and the degree to which the JAG stepped out of bounds. Specifically, it appears that JAGs are not even authorized to issue these types of orders in the first place. They advise commanders who then issue orders based on that advice.

After reading these articles, I found myself asking a variety of questions. Why are open tip bullets more accurate? Since they have an open tip, why don't they expand the way hollow points do? Knowing nothing about bullet design/aerodynamics, I spent some time over the last week looking around for some information on-line. I did not find a lot, so I figured I'd draw some pictures and post what I have been able to find.