April 14, 2004
National ID
Bruce Schneier responds to the Kristof column that recommmends national ID cards. Bruce replies that they would make us less secure.
Speaker info
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April 11, 2004
Two questions about what we knew when
Over at Loose Democracy, I’ve blogged about two questions I hope the Commission gets around to: Why did we help 140 Saudis leave the US in the first couple of days after 9/11? And why was Ashcroft warned not to fly commercial airlines 6 weeks before 9/11? I’m trying not to be paranoid…
April 8, 2004
Zack goes to Kerry
Over at Loose Democracy I have some comments on the Kerry campaign’s hiring of Zack Exley of MoveOn.org to direct their online organizing…
April 4, 2004
Karen Hughes, off the hook
It was disappointing to hear Terry Gross let Karen Hughes off the hook in her Fresh Air interview. Hughes said something like, “When people talk about this administration being secretive, I think they actually mean that there aren’t many leaks.” Then Hughes gave an example of a leak that did damage. “No,” Terry didn’t say, “That’s not what we mean. We mean that Cheney won’t release the names of the people he consulted with about energy policy…” and then she didn’t go on from there.
March 29, 2004
Patriotic response
I just learned from David Silver that in 2002 the White House declared Sept. 11 as “Patriot Day.” Why do I find this distasteful?
March 23, 2004
Firing gays
From the Daily Mislead. I cannot warrantee its accuracy.
BUSH ALLOWS GAYS TO BE FIRED FOR BEING GAY
Despite President Bush’s pledge that homosexuals “ought to have the same rights” (1) as all other people, his Administration this week ruled that homosexuals can now be fired from the federal workforce because of their sexual orientation.
March 19, 2004
On the road:
I’m at the DC Politics Online Conference, put on by the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet, where Markos Zuniga of the Daily Kos and I are supposed to be “debating” Zack Exley of MoveOn.org and someone from RightMarch.com on the topic: “One lesson from the Dean campaign is that centralization and control are the keys to using the Internet to win campaigns.”
Sure they are. And so are decentralization and the willingness to give up some control.
March 16, 2004
Rumsfeld video and noose of words
While we’re all enjoying the Rumsfeld stutter video, here’s a link to Billmon’s list of quotations out of which the Administration wants to weasel.
March 15, 2004
Bush’s anti-woman isolationism
Here’s an article from Planetwire, forwarded from a friend who prefaces it by saying: “In case you were on the fence about who to vote for…”
New York City: This week the Bush Administration sought to reverse historic agreements that have significantly contributed to advancing the rights, economic status and health of the world’s women. The United States was the only country to reverse long-standing support of the historic agreements reached in Cairo in 1994 and Beijing in 1995.
“This is a devastating blow to women around the world. The actions of the Bush Administration means more women will continue to die because of inadequate reproductive rights and health programs,” noted June Zeitlin, Executive Director of WEDO, the Women’s Environment and Development Organization…
Guantanamo shame
The Guardian has a devastating article by David Rose recounting one British prisoner’s ordeal in Guantanamo.
The fifth paragraph addresses the reliability of the account, acknowledging that there’s no guarantee that it’s truthful, although it apparently accords with other accounts and the reporter’s experience visiting Guantanamo. Likewise, the prisoner’s account of what he was doing in Afghanistan in the first place is underwhelming. Nevertheless, after 26 months of interrogations, there was no evidence that he was in any way a threat to our security and he was released back to his native Briton.
If this story is even roughly true, we Americans ought to be ashamed. And don’t tell me that the fight against terrorism justifies this sort of treatment of prisoners. In fact, as the article points out, the treatment seems custom-made to generate false information.
For shame. I’m sending links to my senators — Kennedy and Kerry — and asking for an investigation. Yeah, sure, that’ll happen in an election year.
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