Congress approves renewal of expiring PATRIOT Act provisions

After months of wrangling, Congress has approved the renewal the 16 expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act by making 14 of them permanent and extending the other two by four years. The renewal also includes things like fighting methamphetamine abuse. This version of the bill is the last one passed by the House on December 14 of last year, so none of the delay accomplished anything to improve it.

A few reforms were included--libraries can't be subpoenaed without a court approval, recipients of subpoenas don't have to provide the names of their attorneys, and individuals subject to gag orders can challenge the orders--after waiting a year.

The Senate is considering passing an additional requirement that targets of "sneak-and-peek" searches be notified within seven days.

The bill, HR 3199, the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act, was passed by an 89-10 vote in the Senate. Both of Arizona's Senators, Kyl and McCain, voted in favor of it. The ten no votes were from Sens. Akaka (D-HI), Bingaman (D-NM), Byrd (D-WV), Feingold (D-WI), Harkin (D-IA), Jeffords (I-VT), Leahy (D-VT), Levin (D-MI), Murray (D-WA), and Wyden (D-WA). Sen. Inouye (D-HI) did not vote.

The House passed the bill on December 14, 2005 with a 251-174 vote, the details of which are here. Arizona's Representatives voted along party lines: For: Flake (R-6th), Franks (R-2nd), Hayworth (R-5th), Kolbe (R-8th), Renzi (R-1st), Shadegg (R-3rd), Against: Grijalva (D-7th), Pastor (D-4th).

Santorum flip-flops on Intelligent Design--again

After the Dover decision came down in December 2005, Sen. Rick Santorum resigned as a director of the Thomas More Law Center (which defended the Dover school board) and publicly stated that "I thought the Thomas More Law Center made a huge mistake in taking this case and in pushing this case to the extent they did."

This was his first flip-flop, as he had earlier in 2005 written an op-ed which supported the Dover school board.

Now he's flip-flopped again, writing a forward to a new book about Philip Johnson, Darwin's Nemesis. (Hat tip: Pharyngula.)

United Auto Workers' Jobs Bank program

This Wall Street Journal article describes the UAW Jobs Bank program, under which American auto manufacturers pay some 15,000 unneeded employees wages and benefits which can exceed $100,000 a year, with a total cost of over $1.4 billion per year. GM has the most workers in the program--between this and the pensions, it's no wonder GM is not competitive.

While many of the workers in the program do community service or participate in educational programs, some of the latter seem rather dubious (studying crossword puzzles?). Other employees spend their time in the "rubber room" engaging in creative loafing.

(Via The Agitator.)

Skeptics Circle #29

The 29th Skeptics' Circle is hosted at the Huge Entity.

Phoenix weekly paper New Times publishes Mohammed cartoons

The Phoenix New Times, one of the country's oldest free "alternative" weekly newspapers which has won numerous awards for its investigative reporting, has published the Mohammed cartoons that have stirred up so many protests. The cartoons appear in conjunction with an article titled "The Chosen One," about local feminist Muslim Deedra Abboud, the director of the Arizona chapter of the Muslim American Society's Freedom Foundation, a civil rights group headquartered in D.C., and former director of the Arizona chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). She left CAIR after growing tired of responding to Ann Coulter, whom she feels doesn't deserve the attention. (I agree.)

Abboud is a recent Muslim convert, a former Southern Baptist business major at the University of Arkansas. She converted after a period of arguing against Muslims, then reading the Koran. Apparently she found Islam more sensible than Christianity, as she questioned the Trinity and how the notion of Jesus dying for the sins of mankind could possibly make any sense. It's too bad she jumped out of the frying pan into the fire, dropping one bogus religion only to adopt another.

Regarding the cartoon controversy, she is quoted saying

"I don't think Americans have been given the full context of those cartoons," Abboud tells Uncle Nasty, her voice becoming louder as she tries to speak over the one on the other end of the phone. "I'm not defending the violence. But the editor of the Danish paper wasn't trying to make a point; he was clearly trying to offend people."

Actually, the editor of the Danish paper, Jyllands-Posten, solicited the cartoons because Danish author Kare Bluitgen had written a children's book about Mohammed and was unable to find an illustrator. The editor wanted to see if there was really such a chilling effect against artists that they were afraid to illustrate the book, and solicited artists' renditions of Mohammed, without specifying that they take any particular position. The instruction was to "draw the Prophet as they saw him."

That children's book, The Koran and the Life of Mohammed, is now a best-seller in Denmark, by the way--though its illustrator remains anonymous.

The controversy arose four months after the Danish paper published the cartoons, and was heightened by Muslim imams who circulated the cartoons along with other, more offensive cartoons which were not published by the paper. Abboud claims she has been following the controversy since the original publication, and is aware of these other cartoons not being published by the Danish paper.

Zuhdi Jasser, another prominent local Muslim (a politically conservative doctor who previously worked as a doctor at the U.S. Capitol and often writes op-ed pieces in the Arizona Republic) is described in the New Times piece as not trusting Abboud or the organizations she represents. Jasser organized a "Muslims Against Terrorism" rally at which CAIR representatives were not permitted to speak, because of what Jasser describes as their promotion of victimhood within the Muslim-American community.

Dirty Politician: Tom DeLay

Jack Abramoff paid for a 2000 DeLay junket to Scotland, see his American Express statement here. (Via Talking Points Memo.)

Dirty Politician: Katherine Harris

It turns out Katherine Harris has been lying about not knowing what defense contractor MZM wanted from her in return for bundles of $2,000 donations from its employees, which were actually laundered donations from MZM owner Mitchell Wade, who bribed Duke Cunningham. MZM wanted help with a defense appropriation, and Harris attempted to get the money for MZM, though she was ultimately unsuccessful.

Dirty Politician: Rick Santorum

The largest known donor to Rick Santorum's charity, The Operation Good Neighbor Foundation, is Preferred Real Estate, Inc., which donated $25,000 in 2002. Preferred Real Estate officers and spouses also donated $22,350 to Santorum's re-election campaign and $6,000 to his Political Action Committee, America's Foundation.

Preferred Real Estate is the developer of the Wharf at Rivertown project in Chester, PA, the site of a former Peco Energy plant, which it bought for $1. Santorum's campaign web site boasts of winning $8.5 million in federal funding for the Preferred Real Estate riverfront project, in the form of a HUD grant. He also obtained another $6 million in highway development earmarks to build access to the riverfront project from Interstate 95 and U.S. 322.

More at the Philadelphia Daily News (via Talking Points Memo).

Bush was warned about New Orleans levee break

On September 1, 2005, George W. Bush said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did appreciate a serious storm but these levees got breached and as a result much of New Orleans is flooded and now we're having to deal with it and will."

He was lying. He was specifically warned in no uncertain terms of this possibility, in advance. And the videotaped proof has now been made public:

In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, risk lives in New Orleans' Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage of the briefings.

Bush didn't ask a single question during the final government-wide briefing the day before Katrina struck on Aug. 29 but assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: "We are fully prepared."

... the video and transcripts show federal and local officials discussed threats clearly, reviewed long-made plans and understood Katrina would wreak devastation of historic proportions. "I'm sure it will be the top 10 or 15 when all is said and done," National Hurricane Center's Max Mayfield warned the day Katrina lashed the Gulf Coast.

Via Talking Points Memo.

UPDATE (March 5, 2006):

Associated Press has issued this "clarification":

WASHINGTON - In a March 1 story, The Associated Press reported that federal disaster officials warned President George W. Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees in New Orleans, citing confidential video footage of an Aug. 28 briefing among U.S. officials.

The Army Corps of Engineers considers a breach a hole developing in a levee rather than an overrun. The story should have made clear that Bush was warned about flood waters overrunning the levees, rather than the levees breaking.

The day before the storm hit, Bush was told there were grave concerns that the levees could be overrun. It wasn't until the next morning, as the storm was hitting, that Michael Brown, then head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Bush had inquired about reports of breaches. Bush did not participate in that briefing.

Illicit wiretapping of Greek politicians was done through legitimate code

Bruce Schneier reports on the technical details of how about 100 Greek politicians and offices, including the U.S. Embassy in Athens and the Greek prime minister, were illictly tapped. What was originally referred to as "malicious code" turned out to be eavesdropping code in Vodafone's mobile phone software that was present for law enforcement interception. The same kind of code is present in U.S. phone switches as required by CALEA. As Schneier points out, "when you build surveillance mechanisms into communication systems, you invite the bad guys to use those mechanisms for their own purposes."