Reacting to concern about Catholic terrorist actions in Ireland and elsewhere, Massacusetts Governor Mitt Romney today suggested wiretapping churches…

…except that in reality he recommended wiretapping mosques. (Substitute “churches” and you can see how outrageous the idea is.) Mitt is telling the world that we think Islam, not Islamic terrorists, is our enemy. Mitt’s given the terrorist propagandists a gift and we are all less safe because of it.

Blanket wiretapping of mosques would also be a huge erosion of our civil liberties: We can monitor and wiretap your faith-based conversations, so to speak, simply because you belong to one of the West’s three major religions?

Mitt, a self-proclaimined expert in homeland security, is going in entirely the wrong direction. The Globe quotes Ali Noorani, exec. dir. of the Massachusetts Immigrants and Refugee Advocacy Coalition:

”Blanket eavesdropping and blanket profiling only erodes the safety and security of our country,” Noorani said. ”People who really know what national security is and what intelligence is realize that we need to build trust between law enforcement and immigrant communities.”

I can’t wait until Mitt, a man without political integrity, is out of Massachusetts. Given his recent statements and schedule, it sounds like he can’t wait to leave either. Win win. [Tags: MittRomney security]

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Andrew Rasiej got 5% of the vote in his campaign to be NYC’s Public Advocate. The incumbent, with the power of the incumbency and the NY Times’ endorsement, got 48%. Too bad. Andrew would have been good for NYC, would have invigorated the office, and would have been good for the Net.

Here’s part of Andrew’s concession/victory speech:

I don’t consider this to be anything other than a victory speech…We changed the whole notion of what the Public Advocate’s office could be…It doesn’t matter what the percentages are, we created a real debate about what the Public Advocate’s office could be and we raised a lot of important ideas…In case you didn’t hear, today the New York Parks Department announced that they will be giving free Wi-Fi in most of the city’s parks today.

Andrew, I’m glad you ran. You ran a campaign of ideas. You were honest, open and transparent. You pulled together a community of supporters who will go on to the next fight and the next one. You showed us some of what’s possible in the new connected world. Thank you, Andrew.

We’ll get there. [Tags: AndrewRasiej nyc politics]

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Gary Kamiya has as a long review in Salon of what seems to be a remarkable book: Anthony Shadid’s “Night Draws Near: Iraq’s People in the Shadow of America’s War.” Shadid is a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter for the Washington Post, an Arab-American fluent in Arabic, who reports on how the war looks to a broader swath of Iraqis than we usually hear from. According to Kamiya, Shadid’s book is an attempt to understand the war from Iraqi perspectives, not a political tract, although of course it has political implications.

It sounds like an amazing book, and the review is rich in stories and insights from the book. [Tags: iraq]

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Matt Margolis and Tom Goldstein are live-blogging the Roberts Senate hearings. Mark Tapscott talks about why this matters. (Found via Memeorandum.) [Tags: politics JohnRoberts blogs]

The US Agency for International Development is funding a blog about the Gaza disengagement. USAID is an “independent federal government agency” that “supports long-term and equitable economic growth and advances U.S. foreign policy objectives,” according to its About page. The blog aims at providing “minute by minute information on Israel’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip.” (Thanks to Hanan Cohen for the link.) [Tags: israel palestine politics blogs]

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One of the arguments being used to prop up the existing telephone system (and, more important, the existing telephone system companies) is that we need big ol’ companies to guarantee reliable service in an emergency.

So, Jeff Pulver has pulled together a bunch of stories about how effective VOIP has been in the areas Katrina hit hardest. (As you know VOIP, or voice over IP, uses the Internet to transmit calls.)

And Cringely is proposing putting portable Wimax hotspots at the fringes of a disaster area to enable VOIP where the Net is otherwise unavailable.

What network has been shown to be more resilient than the Net? (Thanks to emails from Tom Evslin and Kevin Marks for the links.)

Tom Evslin blogs about Stuart Henshall‘s idea, already a week old, that the telephone companies make the phone numbers of the victims of Katrina available as VOIP numbers. Then the people whose phone lines are literally under water could use VOIP wherever they are — and presumably, VOIP phones would be made available to them — to make calls, check phone mail, etc. (Normal phone numbers lead to a particular socket in a particular location, even if that location is now underwater. VOIP numbers are virtual and can be accessed wherever there’s an Internet connection.)

It’s a great idea and it’s dismaying that a week later — even though the FCC took the first step of waiving some waiting periods for transfers — those in charge are still thinking that the transfer should be to a new hardwired phone rather than to VOIP number that a displaced person could use wherever she is.

And while we’re talking about real steps that would make us more secure, Michael Moore wonders how even the people who voted for Bush feel now that we’ve learned he appoints leaders of FEMA the way presidents appoint ambassadors to Luxembourg.

I can tell you honestly that I feel less safe with Bush in office than I would have with Kerry, Dean, McCain or Sean Penn. And when I say “I feel less safe,” what I actually mean is “My kids are more at risk.” [Tags: HurricaneKatrina voip wimax fcc security MichaelMoore]

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War-profiteer Halliburton — after $1.5B in “questioned” and “unsupported” costs in its Iraq bonanza — has been awarded $29.8M to start rebuilding naval bases in Louisiana and Mississippi.

I know $29.8M is nothing to a company like Halliburton, but, can’t we get even a semblance of propriety? [Tags: HurricaneKatrina]

Bush has also taken this opportunity to allow companies doing repair work in the Katrina-stricken areas to pay lower than minimum wage to their employees.

According to Slate, Bush wrote to Congress that he’s taking the action because of the state of emergency:

Bush wrote that his decision is justified because Davis-Bacon increases construction costs, and suspension “will result in greater assistance to these devastated communities and will permit the employment of thousands of additional individuals.”

This is basically the Republican argument against minimum wage overall. In this case, it means that the cost of Bush’s tax cuts and reckless war-mongering, which resulted in the largest deficit in our history, will once again be born disproportionately by working people.

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Andrew Rasiej’s campaign for NYC Public Advocate is heading towards the big moment on Tuesday. Public Advocate has not been a powerhouse of a position – which makes it even odder that the NY Times half-heartedly endorsed the incumbent who has failed to make much of the position – but Andrew wants to use it to bring the Net’s power to bear on the city’s problems. He’s not looking for technological solutions. Rather, he wants to use the technology to enable neighborhood and citizen solutions. He will do some cool stuff with the position, which is more than can be said about the incumbent.

Doc‘s got a good write-up about Andrew’s quest. If you’re in NYC, why not give Andrew a chance to show how the Net can help make government more responsive and more human…

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Gov. Arnold, is vetoing the California gay marriage law. Here’s a place where you can let him know that you disagree with him.

PS: It seems to be working out pretty well here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. [Technorati tags: GayMarriage california schwartzenegger]

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Scott Bradner has a very interesting column on the meaning of the World Trade Organization’s ruling that the US cannot prevent US citizens from gambling online at a casinos based in Antigua and Barbuda. As Scott says:

This ruling establishes that the U.S. cannot unilaterally control what people can use the Internet for, even U.S. residents using the Internet from within this country. This is certainly not going to go over well with those people in Congress or other parts of government who think the U.S. should own the Internet because “we built it.”

Of course, the people who actually built the Internet — people like Scott — are the ones who understand best that the Internet is un-owned. At least so far. Pretty much. We hope.

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Now’s not the time to start pointing the political finger for what wasn’t done that could have ameliorated the devastating effects of Katrina. So read this article next week. Right now, check with Wikipedia for news and for links to places, like the Red Cross, looking for help… (PS: David W. Stephenson has started a category of his blog for Smart Mobs relief for Katrina and other natural disasters.) [Tags: katrina hurricane]

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