Data mining: Bush's Star Wars

* get yer ethics here:

" In a burst of activity that ended 16 months of inaction, the House ethics committee on Wednesday opened investigations of a Republican and a Democrat who are subjects of federal bribery inquiries. One lawmaker is connected to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, who had strong ties to Abramoff and accepted favors from him, will be investigated along with Rep. William Jefferson"

* busby leads bilbray (link) 47/40

* josh:

"It seems the whole security clearance process is shutdown indefinitely at the Pentagon because Steve Cambone, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and the Office of Personnel Management can't work out a silly billing dispute.
That means that anybody new we hire to do national security related work can't start because they can't get their clearance."

* "Vice President Dick Cheney is said to have recently criticized the (Iran) intelligence assessment in private as "too cautious."" (link)

* demnow:

"After months of resistance, the Bush administration has agreed to brief all members of the House and Senate intelligence committees on its domestic wiretapping program. Analysts said the decision was made to shore up support for CIA nominee Gen. Michael Hayden, who oversaw the National Security Agency when the program was introduced. Hayden’s confirmation hearings begin Thursday. Republican strategists cited another benefit. Because of congressional rules over classified information, lawmakers would be forced to temper public discussion of the program once they were briefed on it. One senior Republican aide told the Los Angeles Times: "When they know about it, they are obligated to be quiet.""

* demnow:

On Monday, the US announced it is banning arms sales to Venezuela because it has not cooperated with the Bush administration’s so-called anti-terrorism efforts. Venezuelan officials said the ban is laying the political groundwork for a possible attack... In response to the arms embargo, Venezuela says it would consider sending its fleet of US-made F-16 fighter jets to Iran."

* tpmm:

"James Tobin, the biggest fish in the New Hampshire phone jamming scandal so far, sentenced to 10 months in prison (minimum security recommended); 2 years probation, and a $10,000 fine."

* tpmm:

" Just spoke with Nancy Libin, a lawyer and policy expert with the nonpartisan Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington, D.C., who downplays the importance of the (Bush/negroponte) memorandum. "All this would do would immunize [telcos] from a lawsuit under securities laws," she told me. "It woudn't protect them from suits under the Electronic Communiations Privacy Act," which protects the privacy of customer data."

* turley:

"Congress has become a sad parody of itself. In his State of the Union address in January, Bush proudly said he had repeatedly ordered the domestic surveillance operation and would continue to do so. In perhaps the most bizarre moment in modern congressional history, members from both houses proceeded to give him a standing ovation — cheering their own institutional irrelevancy.
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It is time to separate true patriots from cringing politicians. The assertion of unchecked power by this president has created a danger to our constitutional system. Congress must demand an independent investigation of these programs. It must also pass a federal shield law and strengthen whistleblower protections to preserve the only current check on governmental abuse. It should change the federal law to prevent the abusive use of the Espionage Act, such as in the AIPAC case."

* arkin: "Data mining is the Bush administration's Star Wars."

* digby:

"I simply cannot understand why there is even a debate among Democrats, much less a public debate, about whether or not they should openly call for investigations if they win office. I realize that the Republicans are mau-mauing the hell out of them on this --- and the press is hungrily eating it up --- but it still makes no sense to me.
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Third, as a matter of short term political consideration I simply do not agree that this is an electoral loser. The country is very upset with George W. Bush and the Republican congress. The wrong track number is at 70%. It's bizarre that politicians believe that the voters don't want investigations into what in the hell went wrong, just because the Republicans say they don't. By what strange mathematical equation can Democrats believe that when two thirds of the country thinks the nation is going off the rails and the same two thirds disapprove of the president that they don't want any accounting? That doesn't seem human to me."