News Analysis: Exposing President Bush’s Historic Consolidation and Abuse of Power

Posted on July 23, 2008 by Team VCS

July 23, 2008 – The last several years have brought a parade of dark revelations about the George W. Bush administration, from the manipulation of intelligence to torture to extrajudicial spying inside the United States. But there are growing indications that these known abuses of power may only be the tip of the iceberg. Now, in the twilight of the Bush presidency, a movement is stirring in Washington for a sweeping new inquiry into White House malfeasance that would be modeled after the famous Church Committee congressional investigation of the 1970s.

While reporting on domestic surveillance under Bush, Salon obtained a detailed memo proposing such an inquiry, and spoke with several sources involved in recent discussions around it on Capitol Hill. The memo was written by a former senior member of the original Church Committee; the discussions have included aides to top House Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers, and until now have not been disclosed publicly.

Salon has also uncovered further indications of far-reaching and possibly illegal surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency inside the United States under President Bush. That includes the alleged use of a top-secret, sophisticated database system for monitoring people considered to be a threat to national security. It also includes signs of the NSA’s working closely with other U.S. government agencies to track financial transactions domestically as well as globally.

The proposal for a Church Committee-style investigation emerged from talks between civil liberties advocates and aides to Democratic leaders in Congress, according to sources involved. (Pelosi’s and Conyers’ offices both declined to comment.) Looking forward to 2009, when both Congress and the White House may well be controlled by Democrats, the idea is to have Congress appoint an investigative body to discover the full extent of what the Bush White House did in the war on terror to undermine the Constitution and U.S. and international laws. The goal would be to implement government reforms aimed at preventing future abuses — and perhaps to bring accountability for wrongdoing by Bush officials.

“If we know this much about torture, rendition, secret prisons and warrantless wiretapping despite the administration’s attempts to stonewall, then imagine what we don’t know,” says a senior Democratic congressional aide who is familiar with the proposal and has been involved in several high-profile congressional investigations.

“You have to go back to the McCarthy era to find this level of abuse,” says Barry Steinhardt, the director of the Program on Technology and Liberty for the American Civil Liberties Union. “Because the Bush administration has been so opaque, we don’t know [the extent of] what laws have been violated.”

The parameters for an investigation were outlined in a seven-page memo, written after the former member of the Church Committee met for discussions with the ACLU, the Center for Democracy and Technology, Common Cause and other watchdog groups. Key issues to investigate, those involved say, would include the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance activities; the Central Intelligence Agency’s use of extraordinary rendition and torture against terrorist suspects; and the U.S. government’s extensive use of military assets — including satellites, Pentagon intelligence agencies and U2 surveillance planes — for a vast spying apparatus that could be used against the American people.

Specifically, the ACLU and other groups want to know how the NSA’s use of databases and data mining may have meshed with other domestic intelligence activities, such as the U.S. government’s extensive use of no-fly lists and the Treasury Department’s list of “specially designated global terrorists” to identify potential suspects. As of mid-July, says Steinhardt, the no-fly list includes more than 1 million records corresponding to more than 400,000 names. If those people really represent terrorist threats, he says, “our cities would be ablaze.” A deeper investigation into intelligence abuses should focus on how these lists feed on each other, Steinhardt says, as well as the government’s “inexorable trend towards treating everyone as a suspect.”

“It’s not just the ‘Terrorist Surveillance Program,'” agrees Gregory T. Nojeim from the Center for Democracy and Technology, referring to the Bush administration’s misleading name for the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program. “We need a broad investigation on the way all the moving parts fit together. It seems like we’re always looking at little chunks and missing the big picture.”

A prime area of inquiry for a sweeping new investigation would be the Bush administration’s alleged use of a top-secret database to guide its domestic surveillance. Dating back to the 1980s and known to government insiders as “Main Core,” the database reportedly collects and stores — without warrants or court orders — the names and detailed data of Americans considered to be threats to national security.

According to several former U.S. government officials with extensive knowledge of intelligence operations, Main Core in its current incarnation apparently contains a vast amount of personal data on Americans, including NSA intercepts of bank and credit card transactions and the results of surveillance efforts by the FBI, the CIA and other agencies. One former intelligence official described Main Core as “an emergency internal security database system” designed for use by the military in the event of a national catastrophe, a suspension of the Constitution or the imposition of martial law. Its name, he says, is derived from the fact that it contains “copies of the ‘main core’ or essence of each item of intelligence information on Americans produced by the FBI and the other agencies of the U.S. intelligence community.”

Some of the former U.S. officials interviewed, although they have no direct knowledge of the issue, said they believe that Main Core may have been used by the NSA to determine who to spy on in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Moreover, the NSA’s use of the database, they say, may have triggered the now-famous March 2004 confrontation between the White House and the Justice Department that nearly led Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI director William Mueller and other top Justice officials to resign en masse.

The Justice Department officials who objected to the legal basis for the surveillance program — former Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey and Jack Goldsmith, the former head of the Office of Legal Counsel — testified before Congress last year about the 2004 showdown with the White House. Although they refused to discuss the highly classified details behind their concerns, the New York Times later reported that they were objecting to a program that “involved computer searches through massive electronic databases” containing “records of the phone calls and e-mail messages of millions of Americans.”

According to William Hamilton, a former NSA intelligence officer who left the agency in the 1970s, that description sounded a lot like Main Core, which he first heard about in detail in 1992. Hamilton, who is the president of Inslaw Inc., a computer services firm with many clients in government and the private sector, says there are strong indications that the Bush administration’s domestic surveillance operations use Main Core.

Hamilton’s company Inslaw is widely respected in the law enforcement community for creating a program called the Prosecutors’ Management Information System, or PROMIS. It keeps track of criminal investigations through a powerful search engine that can quickly access all stored data components of a case, from the name of the initial investigators to the telephone numbers of key suspects. PROMIS, also widely used in the insurance industry, can also sort through other databases fast, with results showing up almost instantly. “It operates just like Google,” Hamilton told me in an interview in his Washington office in May.

Since the late 1980s, Inslaw has been involved in a legal dispute over its claim that Justice Department officials in the Reagan administration appropriated the PROMIS software. Hamilton claims that Reagan officials gave PROMIS to the NSA and the CIA, which then adapted the software — and its outstanding ability to search other databases — to manage intelligence operations and track financial transactions. Over the years, Hamilton has employed prominent lawyers to pursue the case, including Elliot Richardson, the former attorney general and secretary of defense who died in 1999, and C. Boyden Gray, the former White House counsel to President George H.W. Bush. The dispute has never been settled. But based on the long-running case, Hamilton says he believes U.S. intelligence uses PROMIS as the primary software for searching the Main Core database.

Hamilton was first told about the connection between PROMIS and Main Core in the spring of 1992 by a U.S. intelligence official, and again in 1995 by a former NSA official. In July 2001, Hamilton says, he discussed his case with retired Adm. Dan Murphy, a former military advisor to Elliot Richardson who later served under President George H.W. Bush as deputy director of the CIA. Murphy, who died shortly after his meeting with Hamilton, did not specifically mention Main Core. But he informed Hamilton that the NSA’s use of PROMIS involved something “so seriously wrong that money alone cannot cure the problem,” Hamilton told me. He added, “I believe in retrospect that Murphy was alluding to Main Core.” Hamilton also provided copies of letters that Richardson and Gray sent to U.S. intelligence officials and the Justice Department on Inslaw’s behalf alleging that the NSA and the CIA had appropriated PROMIS for intelligence use.

Hamilton says James B. Comey’s congressional testimony in May 2007, in which he described a hospitalized John Ashcroft’s dramatic standoff with senior Bush officials Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card, was another illuminating moment. “It was then that we [at Inslaw] started hearing again about the Main Core derivative of PROMIS for spying on Americans,” he told me.

Through a former senior Justice Department official with more than 25 years of government experience, Salon has learned of a high-level former national security official who reportedly has firsthand knowledge of the U.S. government’s use of Main Core. The official worked as a senior intelligence analyst for a large domestic law enforcement agency inside the Bush White House. He would not agree to an interview. But according to the former Justice Department official, the former intelligence analyst told her that while stationed at the White House after the 9/11 attacks, one day he accidentally walked into a restricted room and came across a computer system that was logged on to what he recognized to be the Main Core database. When she mentioned the specific name of the top-secret system during their conversation, she recalled, “he turned white as a sheet.”

An article in Radar magazine in May, citing three unnamed former government officials, reported that “8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect” and, in the event of a national emergency, “could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and even detention.”

The alleged use of Main Core by the Bush administration for surveillance, if confirmed to be true, would indicate a much deeper level of secretive government intrusion into Americans’ lives than has been previously known. With respect to civil liberties, says the ACLU’s Steinhardt, it would be “pretty frightening stuff.”

The Inslaw case also points to what may be an extensive role played by the NSA in financial spying inside the United States. According to reports over the years in the U.S. and foreign press, Inslaw’s PROMIS software was embedded surreptitiously in systems sold to foreign and global banks as a way to give the NSA secret “backdoor” access to the electronic flow of money around the world.

In May, I interviewed Norman Bailey, a private financial consultant with years of government intelligence experience dating from the George W. Bush administration back to the Reagan administration. According to Bailey — who from 2006 to 2007 headed a special unit within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence focused on financial intelligence on Cuba and Venezuela — the NSA has been using its vast powers with signals intelligence to track financial transactions around the world since the early 1980s.

From 1982 to 1984, Bailey ran a top-secret program for President Reagan’s National Security Council, called “Follow the Money,” that used NSA signals intelligence to track loans from Western banks to the Soviet Union and its allies. PROMIS, he told me, was “the principal software element” used by the NSA and the Treasury Department then in their electronic surveillance programs tracking financial flows to the Soviet bloc, organized crime and terrorist groups. His admission is the first public acknowledgement by a former U.S. intelligence official that the NSA used the PROMIS software.

According to Bailey, the Reagan program marked a significant shift in resources from human spying to electronic surveillance, as a way to track money flows to suspected criminals and American enemies. “That was the beginning of the whole process,” he said.

After 9/11, this capability was instantly seen within the U.S. government as a critical tool in the war on terror — and apparently was deployed by the Bush administration inside the United States, in cases involving alleged terrorist supporters. One such case was that of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation in Oregon, which was accused of having terrorist ties after the NSA, at the request of the Treasury Department, eavesdropped on the phone calls of Al-Haramain officials and their American lawyers. The charges against Al-Haramain were based primarily on secret evidence that the Bush administration refused to disclose in legal proceedings; Al-Haramain’s lawyers argued in a lawsuit that was a violation of the defendants’ due process rights.

According to Bailey, the NSA also likely would have used its technological capabilities to track the charity’s financial activity. “The vast majority of financial movements of any significance take place electronically, so intercepts have become an extremely important element” in intelligence, he explained. “If the government suspects that a particular Muslim charitable organization is engaged in collecting funds to funnel to terrorists, the NSA would be asked to follow the money going into and out of the bank accounts of that charity.” (The now-defunct Al-Haramain Foundation, although affiliated with a Saudi Arabian-based global charity, was founded and based in Ashland, Ore.)

The use of a powerful database and extensive watch lists, Bailey said, would make the NSA’s job much easier. “The biggest problems with intercepts, quite frankly, is that the volumes of data, daily or even by the hour, are gigantic,” he said. “Unless you have a very precise idea of what it is you’re looking for, the NSA people or their counterparts [overseas] will just throw up their hands and say ‘forget it.'” Regarding domestic surveillance, Bailey said there’s a “whole gray area where the initiation of the transaction was in the United States and the final destination was outside, or vice versa. That’s something for the lawyers to figure out.”

Bailey’s information on the evolution of the Reagan intelligence program appears to corroborate and clarify an article published in March in the Wall Street Journal, which reported that the NSA was conducting domestic surveillance using “an ad-hoc collection of so-called ‘black programs’ whose existence is undisclosed.” Some of these programs began “years before the 9/11 attacks but have since been given greater reach.” Among them, the article said, are a joint NSA-Treasury database on financial transactions that dates back “about 15 years” to 1993. That’s not quite right, Bailey clarified: “It started in the early ’80s, at least 10 years before.”

Main Core may be the contemporary incarnation of a government watch list system that was part of a highly classified “Continuity of Government” program created by the Reagan administration to keep the U.S. government functioning in the event of a nuclear attack. Under a 1982 presidential directive, the outbreak of war could trigger the proclamation of martial law nationwide, giving the military the authority to use its domestic database to round up citizens and residents considered to be threats to national security. The emergency measures for domestic security were to be carried out by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Army.

In the late 1980s, reports about a domestic database linked to FEMA and the Continuity of Government program began to appear in the press. For example, in 1986 the Austin American-Statesman uncovered evidence of a large database that authorities were proposing to use to intern Latino dissidents and refugees during a national emergency that might follow a potential U.S. invasion of Nicaragua. During the Iran-Contra congressional hearings in 1987, questions to Reagan aide Oliver North about the database were ruled out of order by the committee chairman, Democratic Sen. Daniel Inouye, because of the “highly sensitive and classified” nature of FEMA’s domestic security operations.

In September 2001, according to “The Rise of the Vulcans,” a 2004 book on Bush’s war cabinet by James Mann, a contemporary version of the Continuity of Government program was put into play in the hours after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when Vice President Cheney and senior members of Congress were dispersed to “undisclosed locations” to maintain government functions. It was during this emergency period, Hamilton and other former government officials believe, that President Bush may have authorized the NSA to begin actively using the Main Core database for domestic surveillance. One indicator they cite is a statement by Bush in December 2005, after the New York Times had revealed the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping, in which he made a rare reference to the emergency program: The Justice Department’s legal reviews of the NSA activity, Bush said, were based on “fresh intelligence assessment of terrorist threats to the continuity of our government.”

It is noteworthy that two key players on Bush’s national security team, Cheney and his chief of staff, David Addington, have been involved in the Continuity of Government program since its inception. Along with Donald Rumsfeld, Bush’s first secretary of defense, both men took part in simulated drills for the program during the 1980s and early 1990s. Addington’s role was disclosed in “The Dark Side,” a book published this month about the Bush administration’s war on terror by New Yorker reporter Jane Mayer. In the book, Mayer calls Addington “the father of the [NSA] eavesdropping program,” and reports that he was the key figure involved in the 2004 dispute between the White House and the Justice Department over the legality of the program. That would seem to make him a prime witness for a broader investigation.

Getting a full picture on Bush’s intelligence programs, however, will almost certainly require any sweeping new investigation to have a scope that would inoculate it against charges of partisanship. During one recent discussion on Capitol Hill, according to a participant, a senior aide to Speaker Pelosi was asked for Pelosi’s views on a proposal to expand the investigation to past administrations, including those of Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush. “The question was, how far back in time would we have to go to make this credible?” the participant in the meeting recalled.

That question was answered in the seven-page memo. “The rise of the ‘surveillance state’ driven by new technologies and the demands of counter-terrorism did not begin with this Administration,” the author wrote. Even though he acknowledged in interviews with Salon that the scope of abuse under George W. Bush would likely be an order of magnitude greater than under preceding presidents, he recommended in the memo that any new investigation follow the precedent of the Church Committee and investigate the origins of Bush’s programs, going as far back as the Reagan administration.

The proposal has emerged in a political climate reminiscent of the Watergate era. The Church Committee was formed in 1975 in the wake of media reports about illegal spying against American antiwar activists and civil rights leaders, CIA assassination squads, and other dubious activities under Nixon and his predecessors. Chaired by Sen. Frank Church of Idaho, the committee interviewed more than 800 officials and held 21 public hearings. As a result of its work, Congress in 1978 passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which required warrants and court supervision for domestic wiretaps, and created intelligence oversight committees in the House and Senate.

So far, no lawmaker has openly endorsed a proposal for a new Church Committee-style investigation. A spokesman for Pelosi declined to say whether Pelosi herself would be in favor of a broader probe into U.S. intelligence. On the Senate side, the most logical supporters for a broader probe would be Democratic senators such as Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, who led the failed fight against the recent Bush-backed changes to FISA. (Both Feingold and Leahy’s offices declined to comment on a broader intelligence inquiry.)

The Democrats’ reticence on such action ultimately may be rooted in congressional complicity with the Bush administration’s intelligence policies. Many of the war on terror programs, including the NSA’s warrantless surveillance and the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques,” were cleared with key congressional Democrats, including Pelosi, Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Rockefeller, and former House Intelligence chairwoman Jane Harman, among others.

The discussions about a broad investigation were jump-started among civil liberties advocates this spring, when it became clear that the Democrats didn’t have the votes to oppose the Bush-backed bill updating FISA. The new legislation could prevent the full story of the NSA surveillance programs from ever being uncovered; it included retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that may have violated FISA by collaborating with the NSA on warrantless wiretapping. Opponents of Bush’s policies were further angered when Democratic leaders stripped from their competing FISA bill a provision that would have established a national commission to investigate post-9/11 surveillance programs.

The next president obviously would play a key role in any decision to investigate intelligence abuses. Sen. John McCain, the Republican candidate, is running as a champion of Bush’s national security policies and would be unlikely to embrace an investigation that would, foremost, embarrass his own party. (Randy Scheunemann, McCain’s spokesman on national security, declined to comment.)

Some see a brighter prospect in Barack Obama, should he be elected. The plus with Obama, says the former Church Committee staffer, is that as a proponent of open government, he could order the executive branch to be more cooperative with Congress, rolling back the obsessive secrecy and stonewalling of the Bush White House. That could open the door to greater congressional scrutiny and oversight of the intelligence community, since the legislative branch lacked any real teeth under Bush. (Obama’s spokesman on national security, Ben Rhodes, did not reply to telephone calls and e-mails seeking comment.)

But even that may be a lofty hope. “It may be the last thing a new president would want to do,” said a participant in the ongoing discussions. Unfortunately, he said, “some people see the Church Committee ideas as a substitute for prosecutions that should already have happened.”

Posted in Veterans for Common Sense News | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on News Analysis: Exposing President Bush’s Historic Consolidation and Abuse of Power

July 22, Voting Rights Update: Influx of First-Time Voters Expected to Test New Voting Technology

Posted on July 22, 2008 by Team VCS

July 21, 2008 – With millions of new voters heading to the polls this November and many states introducing new voting technologies, election officials and voting monitors say they fear the combination is likely to create long lines, stressed-out poll workers and late tallies on Election Day.

At least 11 states will use new voting equipment as the nation shifts away from touch-screen machines and to the paper ballots of optical scanners, which will be used by more than 55 percent of voters.

About half of all voters will use machines unlike the ones they used in the last presidential election, experts say, and more than half of the states will use new statewide databases to verify voter registration.

With Senator Barack Obama’s candidacy expected to attract many people who have never encountered a voting machine, voting experts and election officials say they are worried that the system may buckle under the increased strain.

“I’m concerned about the weak spots,” said Rosemary E. Rodriguez, the chairwoman of the United States Election Assistance Commission, which oversees voting. “So much depends on whether there will be enough poll workers, whether they are trained enough and whether their state and county election directors give them contingency plans and resources to handle the unexpected.”

Some areas, including Baltimore, ran out of paper ballots either in 2006 or in this year’s primaries and plan to order many more this fall.

Ohio plans to add paper backups in case its electronic machines break down again, as they did in 2004, creating long lines. New Jersey, New York and California, among other states, face shortages of poll workers or the money to pay for them.

Voting rights advocates are working with officials in Florida, Missouri, Ohio and Pennsylvania to try to prevent the kind of ballot design problems that added to the loss of around 12,000 votes in this year’s presidential primary in Los Angeles County and 18,000 votes in a 2006 Congressional race in Sarasota County, Fla.

As state and local election officials scramble to get enough ballots, workers and equipment to handle the predicted high turnout, many are trying to ease the strain of Election Day by encouraging voters to cast their ballots early. But the problems may be complicated by changes to the lists of eligible voters. Recent purges of voters from registration lists and the influx of registrations may result in names erroneously being dropped and eligible voters showing up at the polls to find their names not on the rolls. (Advocacy groups have encouraged voters to check their registration with election officials at least two weeks before the polls open.)

“Election officials are unanimous in their commitment to ensuring every eligible American’s right to vote, but in many places the system they oversee simply isn’t designed to handle anywhere near the number of voters that may turn out,” said Doug Chapin, director of electionline.org, a project of the Pew Center on the States. “In previous elections, the question has been, ‘Will the system work for each voter?’ But this year the real question is whether the system can handle the load of all these voters.”

Poll worker training and ballot design will be more important than ever this year. The election commission has predicted that at least two million poll workers will be needed in November, double the number in the 2004 presidential election. In New Jersey, election officials placed advertisements in newspapers asking people to sign up to work the polls. In California, election officials posted pleas on the Internet.

But many states face budget problems that make it hard to recruit poll workers. New York City election officials have said they lack the money to pay the estimated 8,000 additional poll workers needed in November. Several states have resorted to recruiting high school students.

Ms. Rodriguez said that the high level of turnover in the people who run state and local elections was also a concern. More than two-thirds of the election directors in the nation’s 50 largest counties were new to the office in 2004, and the number may be even higher now, according to Election Data Services, a Washington consulting firm that tracks voting trends.

Many voters heading to the polls in November will receive a paper ballot for the first time. The ballots are counted by optical scanners and provide a more reliable paper trail than touch-screen machines in case of a dispute or a malfunction.

A third of voters will use touch-screen machines, down from 38 percent in 2006, while about 55 percent of voters will use paper ballots read by optical-scan machines, up from 49 percent of voters in 2006, said Kimball W. Brace, president of Election Data Services.

The main issue with the paper ballots will be their unfamiliarity to voters, not the technology itself. Ideally, in fact, paper ballots could reduce lines at polling places, because election officials would not have to set up a limited number of expensive touch-screen machines in each booth. Paper ballots require only a writing surface, and far fewer optical-scan machines are needed to count them.

But poll workers will have to explain the system to new voters and make certain to print and distribute enough paper ballots for each polling place. In the past, shortages of paper ballots or electronic machines have been a common cause of long lines and people leaving the polling places without voting, said Adam Fogel, a program director at FairVote, a voting rights advocacy group.

“For us, the issue isn’t what type of machines will be used but how they are distributed,”  Mr. Fogel said.

He said election officials must be nimble enough to send extra ballots or machines to precincts experiencing heavy turnouts. But a report to be released in August by FairVote says that many swing states have been unable to do that.

The swing states that experienced the longest lines, including Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio and Pennsylvania, lack uniform rules for distributing machines and ballots, the report says. Most states allocate machines and ballots in August, two months before most of the major registration drives are completed, according to the report.

“Allocating enough ballots and machines is a tricky science under any circumstances, but especially when turnout is proving to be so unpredictable,” said Tova A. Wang, vice president for research at Common Cause, a voting rights advocacy group.

In Baltimore, election officials so underestimated turnout in the 2006 primary that polling places ran out of ballots by midday and voters ended up using random pieces of paper, including campaign literature, as ballots, she said.

In Albuquerque, on the other hand, voting officials overestimated turnout in the primaries last month and had to shred more than $1.2 million worth of unused ballots, Ms. Wang said, adding that states should probably still err on the side of ordering more, not fewer.

Although most of the 30 states with touch-screen machines still do not plan to provide backup paper ballots, others, including Ohio, will do so for the first time in a presidential election. In 2004, hundreds of voters in Knox County, Ohio, many of them Kenyon College students, had to wait more than nine hours after one of the two voting machines at their polling place just off campus broke down. There were reports of lines where the wait was several hours long in at least three other counties.

“We refuse to let that happen,” said Jennifer L. Brunner, the Ohio secretary of state, who plans to instruct all counties that use touch-screen machines to order backup paper ballots equal to at least a quarter of the votes cast there in the last presidential election.

Ohio now permits no-fault absentee voting, Ms. Brunner said, which means voters no longer have to provide an excuse to cast an absentee ballot, either in person or through the mail starting 35 days before Election Day.

Thirty other states permit no-excuse absentee voting and a third of voters nationally are expected to vote early or absentee in the next election, experts say.

Larry Norden, a lawyer with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, said he was concerned with the design of this year’s ballots. Too often, Mr. Norden said, voters are confused by ballots with instructions written in unclear legal jargon, lists of candidates that span more than one column, boxes that can be checked on either side of a candidate’s name, or vague borders that fail to distinguish one electoral contest from another.

“The bottom line is that new voters are more prone to mistakes caused by confusing ballots,” Mr. Norden said. “We’re expecting a lot of new voters in November.”

Jonah H. Goldman of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law said the high turnout and surge of new voters were likely to cause bottlenecks as eligible voters arrive at the polls and find their names are missing from the databases that election officials are using to check registration.

In the primaries, reports from at least 12 states said eligible voters ran into that problem.

The new computerized databases, required by a 2002 federal law, were meant to provide uniformity in how states run elections. By coordinating with other state lists, officials can more easily remove from the rolls people who have died, changed residence or been convicted of felonies, to help reduce fraud. But the purges also occur with little oversight, and errors can be significant.

Mr. Goldman said his organization was closely watching Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi, because those states have purged hundreds of thousands of voters since 2006.

Posted in Veterans for Common Sense News | Tagged | Comments Off on July 22, Voting Rights Update: Influx of First-Time Voters Expected to Test New Voting Technology

VAOIG Report: VA Falls Short When Processing Claims of Seriously Disabled OEF/OIF Vets

Posted on July 22, 2008 by Team VCS

July 21, 2008 – Introduction

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted an audit to determine if Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) controls over transition assistance ensured (1) prompt processing of seriously disabled veterans’ compensation claims from Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF) and (2) effective outreach to OEF/OIF service members and veterans.

The audit covered VBA transition assistance controls in effect during Fiscal Years (FY) 2006–2008 (through January 2008). The audit included a review of 4,969 compensation claims received at 57 VA Regional Offices (VAROs) from seriously disabled OEF/OIF veterans the Department of Defense (DOD) discharged from military service during FY 2006. The audit also evaluated VBA outreach to service members and veterans during FYs 2006 and 2007.

VBA Emphasis on Seriously Disabled OEF/OIF Veterans. In January 2007, VA’s Under Secretary for Benefits wrote the following to all VBA employees:

There is no higher priority for any VBA employee, whether serving in the field or in headquarters, than ensuring that we are timely meeting the needs of those seriously injured in OEF/OIF. At every level of our organization, we must ensure we have identified and are case-managing all of the seriously injured. We must actively work to stay in touch with them and do all we can to ease their transition.

VBA defines seriously disabled veterans as service members who definitely or possibly will be discharged from military service because of an injury or illness and all veterans with DOD classification codes of very seriously injured, seriously injured, or a special category involving an amputation.

Presidential, Congressional, and Government Accountability Office Concerns. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the U.S. led a coalition of military forces from more than 40 countries in two Global War on Terror (GWOT) operations. In October 2001, OEF began in Afghanistan and in March 2003, OIF began in Iraq. During the period of October 2001–December 2007, about 1.7 million U.S. service members supported OEF/OIF operations.

As these service members returned to the U.S., the President, Congress, and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) expressed concerns regarding VBA’s transition assistance. To address these concerns, in March 2007 the President established a Task Force on Returning Global War on Terror Heroes and a Commission on Care for America’s Returning Wounded Soldier. In addition, Congress held five hearings related to VBA’s transition assistance responsibilities during the period August 2005–April 2007. These hearings focused on the effectiveness of the Transition Assistance Program (TAP) for members of the National Guard, cooperation between VA and DOD to meet the needs of returning service members, and timeliness of disability claims processing. Also, GAO issued the report Military and Veterans’ Benefits, Enhanced Services Could Improve Transition Assistance for Reserves and National Guard (Report No. GAO-05-544, May 2005). The report recommended that DOD, in conjunction with the Department of Labor (DOL) and VA, determine what National Guard and Reserve members need to make a smooth transition and to explore options for enhancing their participation in TAP.

VBA Transition Assistance Responsibilities and Controls. Title 10 of the U.S. Code requires VA, DOL, and DOD to administer TAP to meet the needs of service members and veterans transitioning from military service to civilian life. VBA transition assistance responsibilities include promptly processing OEF/OIF veterans’ claims and providing outreach to OEF/OIF service members and veterans.

VBA had several controls over the processing of seriously disabled OEF/OIF veterans’ claims and outreach to OEF/OIF service members and veterans. These controls included a 30-day goal for VARO processing of seriously disabled OEF/OIF veterans’ compensation claims and TAP briefing participation rate goals of 53 percent for FY 2006 and 85 percent for FY 2011.

Results

VBA controls needed strengthening to ensure transition assistance meets the needs of OEF/OIF service members and veterans. Controls over VARO processing of seriously disabled OEF/OIF veterans’ compensation claims needed strengthening to meet VBA’s 30-day claim processing goal. Claim processing delays can cause veterans financial hardship by depriving them of compensation they may need to successfully transition from military service to civilian life. In addition, controls over outreach needed strengthening to ensure VBA informs service members and veterans of available VBA benefits that can ease their transition to civilian life.

Claims Received from Seriously Disabled OEF/OIF Veterans Needed to Be Processed Promptly. To improve claim-processing timeliness, VBA needed to strengthen controls for obtaining DOD data identifying seriously disabled OEF/OIF veterans and monitoring case-managed claims. As shown in Chart 1, VAROs did not process 3,776 (76 percent) of 4,969 seriously disabled veteran compensation claims within VBA’s 30-day goal.

Of the 4,969 claims VAROs processed, 3,776 did not meet VBA’s goal by an average of 114 days and as much as 504 days. Chart 2 shows the processing times for all 4,969 claims VAROs processed.

Obtaining DOD Data.

In June 2005, VBA established procedures with DOD in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to obtain medical information that identified seriously disabled OEF/OIF veterans. In support of the MOU, the Under Secretary of Defense directed the U.S. Army Surgeon General to provide VBA a service member data report every 3 weeks that includes the injury and illness classification codes needed to identify these veterans. However, as of January 2008, VBA had not obtained any of the U.S. Army Surgeon General reports. Senior C&P Service officials stated that VBA had not followed up with DOD to obtain these reports because VBA was waiting to obtain the injury and classification codes from a planned VBA/DOD Veterans Tracking Application (VTA). As of January 2008, VBA was testing the reliability of VTA data and could not provide us with a planned full implementation date.

Monitoring Case-Managed Claims. VBA policy requires VAROs to case manage seriously disabled OEF/OIF veterans’ claims. Case management is intended to ensure VAROs process seriously disabled claims within VBA’s 30-day goal. Case management procedures require VAROs to closely monitor the status of each claim and use telephone calls and letters to inform each veteran of their claim’s status. VAROs only case managed 1,049 (21 percent) of the 4,969 seriously disabled OEF/OIF claims requiring case management. VAROs did not identify the remaining 3,920 (79 percent) claims for case management because VBA did not obtain the necessary information discussed above. Regardless, VBA’s case management had minimal effect on the timeliness of claims received from seriously disabled OEF/OIF veterans. For example, VARO claim processing times did not meet the 30-day goal for 77 percent of the 3,920 claims that were not case managed and a minimally lower 74 percent of the 1,049 claims that were case managed.

To monitor the processing of case-managed claims, VBA’s Office of Field Operations (OFO) and VAROs used an OEF/OIF Registry. However, the OEF/OIF Registry was not an effective monitoring tool because it did not clearly show and summarize claim processing timeliness information such as claim processing days to date. As a result, OFO and VARO officials and case managers could not easily identify, track, and follow-up on claim processing delays.

Outreach to OEF/OIF Service Members and Veterans Needed Improvement. We estimated OEF/OIF service member VBA TAP briefing participation rates of 43 percent in FY 2006 and 47 percent in FY 2007. These participation rates were slightly less than VBA’s FY 2006 goal of 53 percent. (VBA did not have a FY 2007 goal and, as discussed below, did not determine actual participation rates.) In addition, VBA did not deliver initial outreach letters to 65,853 (33 percent) of 198,128 OEF/OIF veterans. Furthermore, VBA did not provide special outreach to an additional 3,274 OEF/OIF veterans who did not have a high school diploma or equivalent. To improve outreach to service members and veterans, DoD is in the best position to collect and monitor service member attendance at VBA TAP briefings. In addition, VBA needed to strengthen procedures for processing initial outreach letters and establish policies and procedures for providing special outreach.

Monitoring TAP Briefing Attendance. DOD and VBA did not determine and monitor TAP briefing attendance for OEF/OIF service members because of difficulties in collecting the data needed to calculate participation rates. To calculate these rates, DOD needs to determine the OEF/OIF service members eligible to attend TAP briefings and the OEF/OIF service members who participate in the briefings. (Hospitalized seriously disabled service members who cannot attend TAP briefings receive an individual briefing at the medical facility providing treatment.) Our estimated participation rates of 43 percent in FY 2006 and 47 percent in FY 2007 indicate that VBA was not achieving the 53 percent TAP participation rate goal. In addition to monitoring TAP briefing attendance, to help increase TAP briefing participation, DOD needed to mandate service members to attend a briefing prior to discharge.

Processing Initial Outreach Letters. Title 38 of the U.S. Code requires VBA to advise discharged veterans, through outreach letters, of available VBA benefits. The 65,853 OEF/OIF veterans did not receive initial outreach letters because C&P Service staff made incorrect ineligibility determinations (36,968 National Guard and Reserve veterans), did not obtain Certificates of Release or Discharge from Active Duty (DD-214s) information from DOD (22,879 veterans), and did not follow-up on letters returned as undeliverable (6,006 veterans).

Providing Special Outreach. Title 38 of the U.S. Code requires VBA to perform special outreach, in person or by telephone, for veterans who do not have a high school diploma or equivalent. C&P Service staff stated that they did not identify and provide the 3,274 OEF/OIF veterans special outreach because it was not required by VBA policies and procedures.

Conclusion

VBA controls needed strengthening to ensure transition assistance meets the needs of OEF/OIF service members and veterans. Controls over VARO processing of seriously disabled OEF/OIF veterans’ compensation claims needed strengthening to reduce claim-processing delays. In addition, controls over outreach needed strengthening to ensure VBA informs service members and veterans of available VBA benefits that can ease their transition to civilian life. VBA implementation of the following recommendations will address the transition control deficiencies identified during the audit and help ensure a smooth transition for the men and women who have made sacrifices in defense of freedom, not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also throughout the world.

Recommendations

1. We recommended the Acting Under Secretary for Benefits obtain U.S. Army Surgeon General reports that include the injury and illness classification codes necessary to identify seriously disabled service members until VBA fully implements VTA.

2. We recommended the Acting Under Secretary for Benefits develop improved monitoring mechanisms to ensure VAROs promptly process seriously disabled OEF/OIF veterans’ compensation claims.

3. We recommended the Acting Under Secretary for Benefits pursue an agreement with DOD requiring service members to attend a VBA TAP briefing prior to discharge.

4. We recommended the Acting Under Secretary for Benefits develop a mechanism to obtain the VBA TAP briefing participation data necessary to calculate and monitor annual service member briefing participation rates.

5. We recommended the Acting Under Secretary for Benefits establish policies and procedures that clearly describe minimum benefit eligibility requirements and implement controls for ensuring the accuracy of eligibility determinations.

6. We recommended the Acting Under Secretary for Benefits develop a mechanism to obtain the DD-214 information needed to identify discharged veterans who should receive outreach letters.

7. We recommended the Acting Under Secretary for Benefits establish policies and procedures that require staff to follow-up on initial outreach letters returned as undeliverable.

8. We recommended the Acting Under Secretary for Benefits establish policies and procedures that require staff to provide special outreach to veterans who do not have a high school diploma or equivalent.

Posted in Veterans for Common Sense News | Comments Off on VAOIG Report: VA Falls Short When Processing Claims of Seriously Disabled OEF/OIF Vets

Obama Plans to Visit Oft-Targeted Israeli Town

Posted on July 22, 2008 by Team VCS

July 22, 2008, Aman, Jordan – Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama intends to visit a southern Israeli town that is a frequent target of rockets fired by Palestinian militants in Gaza, campaign aides accompanying him on his Mideast trip said Tuesday.

The stop in Sderot is part of a crowded day of events on Wednesday in which the Illinois senator has also arranged to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah on the West Bank and with Israeli leaders.

Obama is on a weeklong trip of Afghanistan, the Middle East and Europe. He arrived in Jordan on Tuesday for talks with King Abdullah after a two-day tour of Iraq.

Susan Rice, a foreign policy adviser, said Obama wanted to go to Sderot because it is a “place in which Israel’s security is every day at risk and threatened. And Sen. Obama will have the opportunity to see that first hand and get a very personal feel for the everyday” difficulties. His schedule indicates he intends to spend slightly more than an hour there.

In Jerusalem on Tuesday, an Israeli civilian shot and killed a Palestinian man who had rammed a construction vehicle into cars and a bus near the downtown hotel where Obama was scheduled to stay later in the day. At least four people were injured in the attack, which resembled a deadly vehicle assault that took place in the city earlier this month.

Obama’s trip to Iraq and Afghanistan was an official congressional trip, paid for with federal funds. The balance of his travels are financed by his presidential campaign.

The Illinois Democrat is working to shore up support among American Jewish voters, many of whom supported Hillary Rodham Clinton in the battle for the party’s presidential nomination, and some of whom have questioned his commitment to Israel.

Obama’s schedule for Wednesday also includes a visit to Yad Vashem, the Israeli memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. Aides said a stop at the Western Wall, one of the holiest places in Judaism, was also a possibility.

In addition to Abbas, Obama’s meeting list for the day includes Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and members of his Cabinet as well as Benjamin Netanyahu, head of the opposition Likud party and a former prime minister.

Posted in Veterans for Common Sense News | Comments Off on Obama Plans to Visit Oft-Targeted Israeli Town

Editorial Column: ‘Justifying’ Torture, Two Big Lies

Posted on July 22, 2008 by Team VCS

July 19, 2008 – One can assume that former Attorney General John Ashcroft didn’t mean it to be funny, but his testimony on Thursday before the House Judiciary Committee might strike one as hilarious, were it not for the issue at hand – torture.

Ashcroft is the Attorney General who approved torture before he disapproved it, but committee members spared him accusations of flip-flopping.

He explained that he initially blessed the infamous torture memoranda drafted by Justice Department lawyer John Yoo and others in mid-2002 because he (Ashcroft) believed it imperative to afford the President “the benefit of genuine doubt” regarding how to protect American lives in the “war on terror.”

But Ashcroft added that, despite this, when concerns about that earlier guidance for interrogations were brought to his attention, changing his mind “was not a hard decision for me.” A very flexible Attorney General.

“The benefit of genuine doubt?” Perhaps Ashcroft thought that this genteel way of looking at things would appeal to the poorly led, motley group calling itself the House Committee on the Judiciary, chaired by Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan.

But the rest of us, whose time does not expire in five minutes, cannot buy his defense of torture.  For it is based on two demonstrable lies.

Lie Number One

According to Ashcroft, “The administration’s overriding goal…was to do everything in its power and within the limits of the law…to keep this country safe from terrorist attack.”

His is merely the latest in a string of torture-exculpating statements adduced to document a myth; namely, that the Bush administration, having failed to prevent the attacks of 9/11, pulled out all the stops to keep us safe from a second attack; and that one of the necessary measures introduced was torture.

It was a situational thing, you see. But even that explanation does not survive close scrutiny.

First, for those with a strong stomach, a sample of recent statements; then proof of their transparency in aiming to create an exculpatory myth:

— On May 22, 2008, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice publicly discussed the use of enhanced interrogation techniques: “After Sept. 11, whatever was legal in the face of not just the attacks of Sept. 11, but the anthrax attacks that happened, we were in an environment in which saving America from the next attack was paramount.”

— On June 5, 2008, CIA Director Michael Hayden told Jim Angle of Fox News that it was fear of an imminent attack that led to the controversial interrogation practices – including waterboarding, which Hayden referred to as a “high-end interrogation technique.”

“Keep in mind…you have the nation suffering, reeling from a recent attack in which 3,000 citizens had been killed, until it was the collective judgment of the American government that these techniques would be appropriate and lawful in these circumstances.”

— On June 26, 2008, testifying before the Conyers committee, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff David Addington added, with some flair: “Smoke was still rising…3,000 Americans were just killed.” Dana Milbank of the Washington Post used the quote to show how Addington “justified his legal reasoning” regarding enhanced interrogation techniques.

Since members of the Judiciary Committee did little to expose the myth, let us try to help.

Selective Urgency

The sense of pressing urgency conjured up by Bush administration folks to justify torture does not square with Coleen Rowley’s direct personal experience in the FBI.

As some will remember, the FBI’s joint terrorism task force in Minneapolis had detained Zacarias Moussaoui on Aug. 16, 2001. Flight school pilots acting as whistleblowers had notified the FBI, against the wishes of their airline employer, of detailed information making Moussaoui the most suspicious student they had ever encountered.

French intelligence soon supplied further background confirming Moussaoui’s fighting for a “foreign power” – Chechnyan rebels, whose leader was connected to al-Qaeda. By Aug. 23, the case was deemed so suspicious, it went all the way to the top of the intelligence community, to Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, in a PowerPoint presentation entitled: “Islamic Extremist Learns to Fly.”

As Rowley revealed in her letter of May 21, 2002, to FBI Director Robert Mueller, there was considerable frustration in her FBI unit in Minneapolis over the inability of FBI headquarters to get its act together and present these facts pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to obtain the secret FISA Court’s permission to search Moussaoui’s personal effects and laptop computer in the days before 9-11.

Odd Reactions

But once the attacks took place on 9-11, confirming the Minneapolis FBI unit’s worst fears and finally overcoming FBI Headquarters’ reluctance to conduct further searches of Moussaoui’s belongings, there was still little sense of urgency.

At that point, Moussaoui sat atop the list of prime sources for information about any “second wave” of attacks. But the Justice Department persisted in its refusal to allow agents to attempt to interview Moussaoui even after the attacks.

During the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001, the acting U.S. Attorney denied the unit permission to interview Moussaoui.

Rowley – having seen what just had transpired due, at least in part, to the FBI unit having accepted No for an answer in August – decided to go a rung higher by calling Justice officials in the FBI’s Command Post in Washington on the morning of Sept. 12.

In that conversation, Rowley repeatedly drew attention to the Supreme Court decision (New York v Quarles, 467 U.S. 649, 1984) granting an “exigent-circumstances” exception to the Miranda rule in cases where an interview is judged necessary to protect public safety.

Rowley was told by Justice Department officials that “no such public emergency existed.” This is what Rowley encountered on 9/11 and 9/12.

Moussaoui remained the only al-Qaeda terrorist in custody for many months, but the Justice Department’s ban on interviewing him remained in place – at huge potential cost by forfeiting the possibility of acquiring information on other terrorist activities about which Moussaoui was very probably aware.

This is not merely theoretical. It appears that Moussaoui almost certainly was acquainted with Richard Reid, the “shoe bomber” who on Dec. 22, 2001, almost succeeded in blowing up American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami with nearly 200 people aboard. 

So, in Rowley’s May 21, 2002, letter to FBI Director Mueller, she reminded him that if, as he claimed, priority was now being given to prevention over prosecution, the FBI needed to explore how to apply the Quarles “public safety” exception.

Rowley also reminded Mueller that Minneapolis had not only been prevented from further investigation of Moussaoui before 9/11 but also was prohibited from interviewing him after the attacks on that day.

Muzzling Moussaoui

Rowley tried again in early July 2002, after learning that Moussaoui was hinting he wanted to talk. She called then-Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff to note the opportunity missed by not interviewing Moussaoui – particularly in view of the suggestive information found on his laptop computer regarding crop dusting and wind currents.

Chertoff was not available; one of his assistants gave Rowley the brush-off.

Rowley’s last try came on Feb. 26, 2003, when she wrote the following as part of a longer letter to Director Mueller:

“If, as you have said, ‘prevention of another terrorist attack remains the FBI’s top priority,’ why is it that we have not attempted to interview Zacarias Moussaoui, the only suspect in U.S. custody charged with having a direct hand in the horror of 9/11?… Moussaoui almost certainly would know of other al-Qaeda contacts, possibly in the U.S., and would also be able to alert us to the motive behind his and Mohammed Atta’s interest in crop dusting.

“Similarly, there is the question as to why little or no apparent effort has been made to interview convicted terrorist Richard Reid, who obviously depended upon other al-Qaeda operatives in fashioning his shoe explosive. Nor have possible links between Moussaoui and Reid been fully investigated…

“In short … lack of follow-through with regard to Moussaoui and Reid gives a hollow ring to our ‘top priority.'”

It may be that Mueller, too, felt powerless at that point but, for whatever reason, he did not respond.

In sum, Rowley’s personal experience, and lots else, persuaded her that the please-understand-we-were-just-doing-all-we-could-to-prevent-a-second-wave-of-attacks excuse for torture is bogus – an outrageous lie.

The time is far past when the President and his torture apprentices should be accorded “the benefit of genuine doubt,” to quote again from Ashcroft’s testimony.

(Remember, too, that in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush allowed prominent Saudis, including members of Osama bin Laden’s family, to be whisked out of the United States aboard private jets after only cursory interviews with the FBI.)

The Real Reasons Behind Torture?

What, then, accounts for the descent into Inquisition practices of waterboarding and other torture techniques? What accounts for the bizarre decision to round up a whole bunch of people with no provable attachment to terrorism, designate them terrorist suspects, herd them into prisons in New York, New Jersey, Afghanistan, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and God knows where else, where they could be – and were – abused?

What accounts for the blithe departure from international and national law – not to mention time-honored civilized procedures for dealing with prisoners and detainees?

What accounts for the marginalization of those military, FBI and other professionals who warned that torture is not only a war crime but also that it doesn’t yield reliable information – that, rather, it is the very best recruiting tool for terrorists?

We suggest four reasons why I-don’t-care-what-the-international-lawyers-say George Bush and dark-side Dick Cheney opted for torture:

1 — Deceit: Granted, torture does not yield truthful information. It can, though, be an excellent way to obtain the untruthful information you may wish to acquire. All you really need to know is what you want the victims to “confess” to and torture them, or render them abroad to “friendly” intelligence services toward the same end.

One case that speaks volumes is that of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, who was captured and rendered to Egypt, where, under torture, he told his interrogators precisely what they wanted to hear.

According to the Defense Intelligence Agency, al-Libi had been identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements to prove that Iraq trained al-Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons.

Without mentioning al-Libi by name, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell and other administration officials repeatedly cited information from his interrogation as credible evidence that Iraq was training al-Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons.

So torture can indeed provide the information you may want to have to grease the skids for war. Al-Libi was practically the poster boy for the Cheney/Bush torture regime; that is, until he publicly recanted and explained that he only told his interrogators what he thought would stop the torture.

2 — Sadism: Cheney’s open advocacy of waterboarding speaks volumes, but what about the President? Sad to say, as psychiatrist Justin Frank, author of Bush on the Couch, has noted:
 
“Bush’s certitude that he is right gives him carte blanche for destructive behavior. He has always had a sadistic streak: from blowing up frogs, to shooting his siblings with a BB gun, to branding fraternity pledges with white-hot coat hangers (explaining that the resulting wound was ‘only a cigarette burn’)…

“His comfort with cruelty is one reason he can be so jocular…Instead of seeing a President in anguish, we watch him publicly joking about the absence of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ in Iraq, in the vain search for which so many young Americans died.”

3 — Intimidation: Are you perhaps in some “shock and awe” at the prospect of the President designating you an “enemy combatant” and sending you off to the Navy brig in South Carolina for an indefinite stay? He now has court approval to do precisely that, and we are proceeding on faith that this joint article will not bring us “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

Indefinite imprisonment is bad enough, but with the fringe benefit of the kind of torture suffered by Jose Padilla? Well, let us just say that the open advocacy of waterboarding and other “harsh” methods may, just may, be aimed at throwing the fear of Cheney into us, as a way of dissuading those of us who still believe in the Constitution from attempting to hold accountable those who break the law.

4 — Because We Can: Lord Acton was, of course, right. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. And closeness to it does the same.

Guided by the principle of an unaccountable unitary executive – not to mention the writings of torture apologist Alan Dershowitz, the acting performances of the torture evangelists on Scalia’s TV favorite, Fox’s “24,” and using the fear factor to a fare-thee-well – torture has become the bellwether of exclusive dominant power.

The very transparency of the excuses for torture serves to demonstrate that this kind of power is in place, and is not to be questioned.

Lie Number 2: Torture Saves Lives

It was hard to know whether to laugh or to cry. John Ashcroft insisting that according to “the reports I have heard, and I have no reason to disbelieve them, these techniques are very valuable.”

Ashcroft’s source? He indicated that it is none other than former CIA Director George Tenet, who wrecked the CIA by creating a Gestapo in the operations directorate and cultivating fawning boot-lickers among managers of analysis.

To say Tenet’s reputation for truthfulness leaves much to be desired would be the kind of self-evident revelation that CIA analysts were accustomed to assigning to their tongue-in-cheek “Great Moments in Intelligence” file.

It is, nonetheless, the White House line. Not only Ashcroft and Hayden, but also David Addington and John Yoo rang changes on the theme in their recent testimony before the aging Conyers.

Both Addington and Yoo argued that harsh interrogation methods had been crucial in preventing another terrorist attack on the U.S. after 9/11.

On Thursday, Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee picked up the theme, arguing that waterboarding and other harsh tactics yielded information that saved lives.

Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-California: “Had we not used those, would the probability of another attack not only be a probability but a certainty?”

Ashcroft:  “It could well have been.”

Have you, finally, no shame, Mr. Ashcroft? There is not a scintilla of evidence to support that claim. And, again, we are far past the point where the President and his torture apprentices merit “the benefit of genuine doubt.” Not the way they continue to play fast and loose with the truth. 

Quod Est Veritas?

Here it is the President himself, with his remarkable contempt for truth, who sets the tone.

Dr. Frank points out that contempt itself is a defense, a form of self-protection of Bush’s belief system, in which he clings to his beliefs as if they were well researched facts: “Bush’s pathology is a patchwork of false beliefs and incomplete information woven into what he asserts is the whole truth.”

And Cheney, Fox News, and the rest of the fawning corporate media (FCM) follow suit. What is truth? Go ask Pontius Bush.

Trouble is, the truth usually gets out, and the President is beginning to squirm. One highly disturbing fact, from the President’s point of view, emerged Thursday in the questioning of Ashcroft by Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-New York.

Nadler noted that “high-value” detainee Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded after his arrest in March 2002, and Nadler asked Ashcroft whether that happened before the memos from John Yoo justifying such activity were drafted. Ashcroft said he didn’t know.

Nadler, at least, had done some homework. The videotapes of Zubaydah’s interrogation were among those destroyed by the CIA, for obvious reasons. Nadler is really asking on whose authority Zubaydah was waterboarded, since Addington and Yoo had not yet completed their ex-post-facto legal acrobatics.

The congressman knows the answer. The reason that CIA interrogators felt comfortable waterboarding is quite simply that the President of the United States cleared the way for such techniques with his Action Memorandum of Feb. 7, 2002.

When FBI agents were taken off the job of interrogating Zubaydah and became aware of the “techniques” being applied by their CIA colleagues, they questioned their use. They were told by CIA interrogators at the scene that the methods were approved “at the highest levels” and that no one would get in any trouble.

But what about the main contention of Lie Number Two? Has torture saved lives? Milt Bearden, a 30-year veteran of CIA’s operations directorate who rose to the most senior managerial ranks, doesn’t believe it for a minute:

“The administration’s claims of having ‘saved thousands of Americans’ can be dismissed out of hand because credible evidence has never been offered – not even an authoritative leak of any major terrorist operation interdicted based on information gathered from these interrogations in the past seven years. … It is irresponsible for any administration not to tell a credible story that would convince critics at home and abroad that this torture has served some useful purpose.”

Bearden said professionals he describes as the “old hands” in the CIA, the ones who know something of interrogation and intelligence, don’t believe administration claims. Worse still, they say, torture is counterproductive:

“This is not just because the old hands overwhelmingly believe that torture doesn’t work – it doesn’t – but also because they know that torture creates more terrorists and fosters more acts of terror than it could possibly neutralize.”

Bearden argues that if the claims of the Bush White House were true, it ought to stop hiding always behind the readily adduced need to protect sources and methods. He notes that in 1986 after the U. S. bombed Libya in retaliation for a Libyan operation that killed U.S. servicemen in Berlin, there was worldwide skepticism and consternation.

The Reagan administration decided it owed the world an explanation and decided it would be worth sacrificing a very sensitive method; namely, the ability to intercept Libyan encoded messages. Ironically, the Libyan message made public spoke of the successful operation, “without leaving a trace behind.”

Frittering Five Minutes With Feith

One might ask why Conyers has not thought of inviting experienced professionals like Milt Bearden to testify.

One might also ask why Conyers continues to let people like Addington, Yoo, Douglas Feith, and now Ashcroft make a mockery of the committee’s attempts to hold hearings on these historically important issues.

How painful it is to watch as the Bush administration’s witnesses quibble about semantics, make sweeping assertions of executive privilege, and run out the five-minute clock on each congressman’s questions.

Impeachment is what the Founders envisioned for the situation we face at present.

Quick, someone download for Congressman Conyers the President’s Action Memorandum of Feb. 7, 2002, which provided the loophole through which George Tenet and Donald Rumsfeld drove the Mack truck of torture.

That memo is all you need, John. It is signed at the bottom with felt-pen strokes one and half inches high. If that’s not good enough for the Judiciary Committee chairman, then please let members and staff go home for an early vacation and spare all of us further humiliation.

Posted in Veterans for Common Sense News | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Editorial Column: ‘Justifying’ Torture, Two Big Lies

Rep. Ackerman Defends Iran Sanctions Measure, But Critics Call it An Act of War

Posted on July 22, 2008 by Team VCS

July 21, 2008 – Two weeks ago, Rep. Gary Ackerman, the Democrat from New York, delivered an impassioned speech on the House floor defending a controversial resolution he co-sponsored calling on President George W. Bush “to increase economic, political and diplomatic pressure on Iran.”

Since May, when the resolution was introduced, 247 members of Congress have signed on as co-sponsors, including numerous Democrats who are staunch critics of the Bush administration’s prewar Iraq intelligence. Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., introduced a companion resolution in the Senate on June 2 that is also on the fast track toward approval.

The non-binding resolution, H. Con. Res 362, was introduced just days before the annual American Israel Public Affairs policy meeting in which Iran was the main topic. AIPAC has lobbied Congress heavily to implement sanctions against Iran in language nearly identical to the provisions outlined in Ackerman’s House resolution.

Progressive activists and policy analysts have criticized Ackerman and many of his Democratic colleagues claiming they have adopted a hawkish stance against Tehran due in large part to pressure from AIPAC.

Carah Ong, the Iran policy analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, said in an interview that Congressional Democrats want to prove they are tough on national security and are using Iran as their “scapegoat.”

“Democrats are talking tougher on Iran because they perceive it as a political necessity in my opinion,” she said.

But she said that sort of political posturing could backfire.

Ackerman’s “resolution could provide political cover if this administration decides to take action against Iran,” Ong said. “It doesn’t help in terms of trying to deal with Iran when you have an administration advocating attacks against Iran.”

The United Nations has imposed three sets of sanctions against Iran over its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment. The U.S. and the and the European Union have implemented sanctions against Iran’s banks. Iran, meanwhile has vehemently denied that it is pursuing a nuclear weapons program. Iranian officials have said its uranium enrichment program is to meet the country’s growing demand for energy.

Washington lawmakers, however, aren’t buying it.

They are responding to the impasse with several resolutions and bills intended to pressure the Iranian regime to abandon its nuclear activities.

The most notable of the measures currently working its way through Congress is H. Con. Res 362 introduced in May by Ackerman.

Critics of the resolution say it’s tantamount to declaring an act of war against Iran due to the fact that many of the provisions cannot be enforced without military intervention.

H. Con. Res. 362 “demands that the President initiate an international effort to immediately and dramatically increase the economic, political, and diplomatic pressure on Iran to verifiably suspend its nuclear enrichment activities by, inter alia, prohibiting the export to Iran of all refined petroleum products; imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran; and prohibiting the international movement of all Iranian officials not involved in negotiating the suspension of Iran’s nuclear program.”

Indeed, two weeks ago, three retired military officials urged Congress to abandon its support for H. Con Res 362 stating that the measure is “poorly conceived, poorly timed, and potentially dangerous.”

“The language demanding the President initiate an international effort “prohibiting the export to Iran of all refined petroleum products; imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran,” is of particular concern because despite the protestations of its sponsors, we believe that implementation of inspections of this nature could not be accomplished without a blockade or the use of force,” said the July 10 letter signed by U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan, Former Assistant Secretary of Defense Lawrence Korb, and U.S. Army Lt. General Robert G. Gard, Jr., currently the chairman of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

They added that Ackerman and his Republican co-sponsor, Congressman Mike Pence, R-Ind., had drafted the resolution in such a way that “immense military resources would be required to implement such inspections of cargo moving through the seas, on the ground, and in the air.”

“The international community has shown no willingness to join in such an activity. Without a Security Council Resolution, implementation of these measures could be construed as an act of war,” their letter said. “Implementation of measures called for in the resolution could complicate our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and could cause oil prices to soar.”

Ackerman, in a July 9 statement during a meeting of House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, said, “assertions that the resolution constitutes a declaration of war are just absurd.”

“It is with puzzlement that I find that some have described a non-binding resolution that I have introduced, along with Mr. Pence and cosponsored by a majority of the House… as a resolution declaring war and calling for a naval blockade,” Ackerman said. “Nothing could be further from the truth or my intent.”

“As my colleagues know, [the resolution] doesn’t get presented to the President, and it doesn’t get signed, and it thus does not either become law or have the force of law. It’s the sense of Congress. The final whereas clause of the resolution states as explicitly as the English language will allow, “Whereas nothing in this resolution shall be construed as an authorization of the use of force against Iran.” Since a naval blockade is by definition the use of force, the language of this resolution renders the prospect of a naval blockade simply out of the question. This resolution should not be the straw man that some would seek…Put simply, the only way to find a blockade or a declaration of war in the text of H. Con. Res. 362 is to insert them by the amending power of imagination alone.”

But the retired military officials said the resolution does not have to include clear-cut language declaring war against Iran for it to be interpreted that way.

“The sponsors argue that H. Con. Res. 362 as a concurrent resolution does not have the force of law, which is true, but it clearly risks sending a message to the Iranians, the Bush Administration, and the world that Congress supports a more belligerent policy toward, and, potentially, belligerent actions against, Iran,” the letter signed by the retires military officials says.

Implementation and Interpretation

Ong said she queried several international and constitutional lawyers to get their interpretation on Ackerman’s resolution. She said the responses she received were mixed, but all agreed that comes down to how the resolution would be interpreted and implemented.

One unidentified international attorney told Ong “it is difficult to see how ships ‘entering’ Iran could be subjected to ‘stringent inspection’ without the use of force.”

“Here the concurrent resolution is asking the President to do something which cannot possibly be done effectively without the use of force while disclaiming that it authorizes the use of force. Nice try, but no cigar,” the international attorney told Ong, according to a copy of their exchange Ong posted on her blog, Iran Nuclear Watch.

“If the US were to do unilaterally what clause 3 of H. Con. Res. 362 demands, it would clearly be a violation of international law on any number of grounds, the main one being the principle of freedom of the seas. But it doesn’t do that; it only asks the President ‘to initiate an international effort.’ If that effort were successful and the Security Council passed a resolution calling on all UN members to implement clause 3 as a threat to the peace under Ch. VII of the UN Charter, that could conceivably be legal, since the International Court of Justice has ruled in the Libyan case that anything the Security Council does is legal. But I don’t see that happening.

“The same thing goes for the sanctions called for in Clause 2, i.e. they would constitute violations of the international law if applied unilaterally by the US. That, however, is something the US could do unilaterally, since it wouldn’t require a Security Council resolution and the US doesn’t give a damn about international law. It would merely require an extension of the Iran Sanctions Act,” the lawyer said, according to Ong.

Fanning the Flames

Lawrence Wilkerson, the chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, agreed. He said Ackerman’s resolution would only lead to further conflict with Iran.

In an interview June 7 with the Real News Network, Wilkerson said, “Iran has already gained the regional power that these resolutions seek to prevent, leaving diplomatic engagement the only way to proceed.”

“Demographically, militarily, every way you want to measure hegemony, Iran is the dominant power in the Persian Gulf,” he said. “Therefore we’ve got to come to recognize that, we’ve got to deal with that and hope we can shape that to a responsible role in the gulf and the region, and ultimately in the world. The only way you do that is through diplomacy.”

Ong, the Iran policy analyst, said that one of the troubling aspects of Ackerman’s resolution is that it “cherry-picked” the findings of the November 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) and the International Atomic Energy Agency to make the case that Iran is actively pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

The resolution states as fact that “the IAEA has confirmed such illicit covert nuclear activities as the importation of uranium hexafluoride, construction of a uranium enrichment facility, experimentation with plutonium, importation of centrifuge technology, construction of centrifuges, and importation of designs to convert highly enriched uranium gas into metal and shape it into the core of a nuclear weapon; Iran continues to expand the number of centrifuges at its enrichment facility, as made evident by its announced intention to begin installation of 6,000 advanced centrifuges to enrich uranium, in defiance of binding United Nations Security Council resolutions demanding Iran suspend enrichment activities; The November 2007 National Intelligence Estimate reported that Iran was secretly working on the design and manufacture of a nuclear warhead until at least 2003, but that Iran could have enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon as soon as late 2009.”

The NIE concluded that Iran had abandoned its covert nuclear weapons program in 2003, a fact not mentioned in Ackerman’s resolution.

Moreover, Ackerman’s resolution does not cite of a key finding in the NIE, which said “Some combination of threats of intensified international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways, might – if perceived by Iran’s leaders as credible – prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons program.

The resolution also ignores the findings of IAEA Director Mohammed ElBaradei, who has consistently said there is no evidence to support claims that Iran is diverting nuclear materials for a weapons program.

H. Con. Res. 362 fails to reflect a key finding of the November 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, which concluded that

IAEA Report Not Reviewed

Scott Ritter, the former United Nations chief weapons inspector in Iraq, has been highly critical of how Congress has characterized an IAEA report issued in May on Iran’s uranium enrichment program, which AIPAC and the Bush administration held up that as smoking-gun evidence that Iran is a grave threat to the United States and Israel.

Ritter said lawmakers have not thoroughly reviewed the report’s findings.

“We have a situation where the IAEA has published several technical reports all of which state there is no evidence Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program. None. Zero,” Ritter said in an interview. “Information has been provided to the IAEA by member nations, intelligence information. Now the IAEA has to be very circumspect when it says this but we all know that it’s basically intelligence provided to the agency by the United States of America, a nation openly hostile to Iran, a nation that has a track record of fabricating, exaggerating, and misrepresenting intelligence data. The data that’s been provided to the IAEA has derived from a laptop computer which even the IAEA claims is of questionable providence.”

Ritter said that because the United States has such a dominating role in the United Nations Security Council and in the Board of Governors the IAEA couldn’t ignore the information it receives from the United States about Iran.

“The IAEA can’t go to Iran with information that isn’t serious. So they say it’s serious and it needs to be investigated. So they go to Iran and the Iranians say, correctly so, ‘this is bullshit.’ You’re basically serving as a front to the CIA. The CIA is asking intelligence based questions about issues that are not relevant to the safeguards agreement, which, by the way, is the legally binding mandate that gives the IAEA the authority to do its work in Iran. You have to read the small print.

“The IAEA acknowledges that what it’s asking Iran to answer has nothing to do with its mandate of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. It is related to Security Council resolutions calling for the suspension of uranium and an investigation into a nuclear weapons program but the bottom line is what the IAEA has said is that Iran has not been forthcoming and Iran is saying it’s not their job to answer the CIA’s questions. So the IAEA reports that Iran is not being forthcoming on these issues and now it’s unnamed diplomats, i.e. American and British diplomats, who say they are very concerned because Iran’s refusal to cooperate only reinforces their concern that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

“This is purely CIA instigated tripe. When we get down to the nuts and bolts of the technical question of Iran’s uranium enrichment program and whether or not there’s any infrastructure in Iran that supports a nuclear weapons program and the IAEA technical find says there is none,” Ritter said.

Langugage Under Scrutiny

Ambassador William H. Luers, president of the United Nations Association of the USA, issued a statement July 9 opposing H. Con. Res. 362 stating that while his organization “recognizes” that Iran is not in compliance with U.N. Security Council resolutions regarding its nuclear program the resolution, as written, “can be construed to authorize forcible actions that violate fundamental principles of international law.”

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman, D-CA, said the concerns of policy analysts have led him to take the position that the resolution won’t move through his committee until the language is changed so as not to be construed as authorizing a military strike against Iran.

But the resolution may not be marked up in Berman’s committee if it gains enough co-sponsors. In that scenario, the resolution would go directly to the floor for a vote, likely on suspension, meaning no amendments and it has two-thirds of members of Congress co-sponsoring.

However, some congressional aides have indicated that is unlikely to happen prior to the August recess.

Wexler Withdraws Support

Still, Ong said the widespread support for H. Con Res 362 leads her to believe that it’s unlikely “the bill’s co-sponsors really know what they’ve signed onto.”

“I don’t believe most members of Congress read the language of the resolution,” Ong said. “If they did they would have realized that it’s sloppily written.”

Congressman Robert Wexler, D-Fla., appears to have been one of the lawmakers who fit that description.

Wexler’s support for a resolution seen as leading to increased tensions with Iran contradicted the congressman’s support for diplomatic talks with the Iranian government on the nuclear issue and surprised many of the lawmaker’s strongest supporters in the progressive community.

Moreover, Wexler had been the first Representative to sign on as a co-sponsor to Ohio Democrat Dennis Kucinich’s articles of impeachment against President Bush. Earlier this year, Wexler called for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney for using bogus intelligence to win support for a war against Iraq.

On July 9, however, the same day Ackerman took to the House floor to defend H. Con. Res. 362, Wexler suddenly changed his position on the resolution.

“Over the past several weeks, there has been a growing debate in Congress, the blogosphere and throughout the media about a controversial non-binding resolution (House Concurrent Resolution 362), which expresses the sense of Congress regarding the threat Iran’s nuclear pursuit poses to international peace, stability in the Middle East, and the vital national security interests of the United States,” Wexler wrote in a column published in The Huffington Post.

“In the coming weeks, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, of which I am a member, may vote on House Concurrent Resolution 362. Given my growing concerns regarding this resolution, including its failure to advocate for direct American engagement with Tehran and open language that could lead to a US blockade of Iran, I will lead an effort to make changes to this resolution before it comes to the Foreign Affairs committee for a vote. Despite being a cosponsor of this resolution — these changes will ultimately determine whether or not I will continue to support H. Con. Res. 362.

“My rationale for originally supporting H. Con. Res. 362… was to urge the Bush administration to pursue a policy to place additional economic, political and diplomatic pressure on Iran as part of an international endeavor to prevent Tehran from moving forward on its nuclear program,” Wexler wrote. “It is clear that despite carefully worded language in H. Con. Res. 362 that “nothing in this resolution should be construed as an authorization of the use of force against Iran” that many Americans across the country continue to express real concerns that sections of this resolution will be interpreted by President Bush as “a green light” to use force against Iran.

“To that end, I am not willing to leave even the “slightest crack” open for this president to unilaterally set this nation down another disastrous path of war in Iran. Therefore, I am preparing to offer amendments to H. Con. Res. 362 and articulate a responsible policy that places America in the strongest possible diplomatic position to thwart Iran’s nuclear program and the difficult security challenges we face.”

Act of War

Cyrus Bina, a professor of Economics at the University of Minnesota, author of the book “The Economics of the Oil Crisis,” and Sam Gardiner, a retired Air Force colonel, who taught strategy and military operations at the National War College, said H. Con. Res. 362 could also roil oil markets and lead to sky-high gasoline prices.

“By recommending a naval blockade in the Persian Gulf, Congress could likely be responsible for oil prices approaching $200 a barrel, which translates to nearly $7.50 a gallon of gas,” Bina and Gardiner wrote in a July 5 Op-Ed published in the ultra conservative Washington Times. “If [Congress passes] this resolution, [it] will make a bad situation worse not only for the American economy, but also for stability in Middle East. Among factors contributing to short-term oil prices are supply and demand, market speculation and the value of the dollar. Risk of a natural or political catastrophe jeopardizes the production and flow of oil which also plays a major role in the price Americans will have to pay at the pump.”

The authors added that Ackerman and other lawmakers who are backing the resolution claim sanctions and diplomacy have failed and “the naval blockade is the next step short of war.”

“They are wrong on both counts: Proper diplomacy – direct talks between the U.S. and Iran – has neither failed nor succeeded, because it has yet to be tried,” Bina and Gardiner wrote. “And the blockade is not a step short of war; it is war.”

Posted in Gulf War Updates, Veterans for Common Sense News | Tagged | Comments Off on Rep. Ackerman Defends Iran Sanctions Measure, But Critics Call it An Act of War

July 22 Veteran Voting Rights: Congress Fights for Veterans, Senators Introduce Bill to Restore Veteran Voting Registration at VA Facilities

Posted on July 22, 2008 by Team VCS

New legislation would give veterans access to voter registration services at VA facilities

July 22, 2008 – U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) today introduced a bill to require the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide voter registration services to veterans in the department’s care.
 
The senators introduced the legislation after receiving a response from Veterans Affairs Secretary James B. Peake earlier this month, again denying the senators’ request that Secretary Peake designate VA facilities as voter registration agencies. Senators Harry Reid (D-NV), Barack Obama (D-Ill), Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Patty Murray (D-WA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) are co-sponsors.
 
“This is about giving those who have fought to spread democracy and freedom the right to exercise that freedom in the voting booth,” Senator Feinstein said.  “I believe the cost of providing voter materials is minimal. And given the sacrifices that these men and woman have made, providing easy access to voter registration services is the very least we can do.”
 
“It shouldn’t have taken a legislative solution to fix a bureaucratic problem, but that’s what it’s come down to in the name of common sense and patriotism,” Senator Kerry said.  “Making it easier not harder for veterans to vote is the least we can do in our democracy for those who fought for democracy around the globe. The cost of getting these voter materials to veterans is tiny, but its meaning is bigger than any of us.”
 
“We must make it as easy as possible for all people to vote, especially the men and women who have defended that freedom for the rest of us,” Senator Reid said.  “I urge my colleagues to support this important, common sense legislation that provides veterans easy access to the voting process.”
 
“Our nation’s service members and veterans have sacrificed so much for our country on the battlefield that we cannot allow them to fight another battle here at home for the benefits and rights they deserve,” said Senator Obama.  “Whether Americans are abroad serving in the Armed Forces, or recovering and living in VA facilities, it is critical that we ensure these brave men and women can exercise their right to vote.  It is unacceptable that some veterans in VA facilities are not allowed access to voter registration services.  I am proud to join Senators Feinstein and Kerry in their efforts to reverse the VA’s current policies, and I urge my colleagues to support this legislation and quickly move it forward.”
 
“Voting is a basic right for all Americans, and we should do what we can to remove obstacles to the right to vote, particularly for those who have served this country in uniform.  This legislation will help ensure that the men and women who have fought to secure our nation will have their voices heard as part of our democracy,” said Senator Clinton.
 
“The nation’s disabled veterans have given extraordinary service to our country and they deserve our efforts to provide the necessary help to ensure their full participation in our democracy,” Senator Leahy said. “I hope the Senate quickly passes this important bill, and that the House and the President will act quickly so these steps can be enacted in time for the upcoming national elections.”
 
“It’s always the case that the more participation we have in our elections, the better. But we have a special obligation to ensure our veterans have unfettered access to the polls. This is a simple step that will help our service members exercise the very freedoms they help defend,” Senator Schumer said.
 
“The right to vote is at the very heart of the democracy that our nation’s veterans have fought so hard to protect,” Senator Murray said.  “The VA knows first-hand how much our veterans have sacrificed and should make every attempt to make voting easier – not harder – for them.  This legislation breaks down barriers to voting for our veterans and helps keep our commitment to protect the rights of those who have fought for us.”
 
“Our nation’s veterans have selflessly answered the call to serve. After being wounded defending our freedoms, many now require care at VA facilities,” said Senator Wyden. “We should be making it easier for them to exercise their right to vote – not harder. This bill will right that wrong.”
 
Specifically, the legislation would:
•        Require the VA to make voter registration services available at VA facilities in states that request it, in accordance with the National Voter Registration Act.  These services include providing voter registration forms, answering questions on registration issues and assisting with submitting voter registration forms.
•        Require the VA to assist veterans at facilities to receive and use absentee ballots if they choose to vote absentee. 
•        Allow non-partisan groups and election officials to provide voter information and registration information to veterans.
•        Require an annual report to Congress from the Department of Veterans Affairs on progress related to this legislation.
 
The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 requires states to offer voter registration opportunities at all offices that provide public assistance, services to the disabled and at all motor vehicle offices. The Act also allows federal agencies to provide voter registration opportunities.
 
Background
 
Many veterans live at VA facilities and some, especially those who are disabled, find it difficult to travel off-campus for services including voter registration. However, a federal appeals court recently ruled that voter registration groups do not have the right to register veterans on the grounds of VA facilities.
 
In light of the court decision, Senators Feinstein and Kerry wrote a letter in March to Veterans Affairs Secretary James B. Peake to find ways to ensure that all veterans have access to voter registration materials and identify the policies they have in place to support voter registration.
 
On April 25, the Department of Veterans Affairs issued a directive that required all VA facilities to develop comprehensive voter registration plans to assist veterans in voting. It also required the VA to publicly post voter registration information for veteran facility inpatients and required that VA facilities provide absentee voter applications if patients cannot leave the facility.
 
In May, the Department of Veterans Affairs withdrew that directive, and issued a new directive that introduced a broad prohibition against organizations conducting voter registration drives at VA facilities, including state and local election officials.
 
In response, the senators wrote a letter to Secretary Peake, saying the new policy could discourage involvement from non-partisan groups such as veterans service organizations and the League of Women Voters in helping veterans to vote.
 
Just prior to July 4, Connecticut’s Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz attempted to provide voter information and register residents at a West Haven Veterans Affairs facility.  Secretary Bysiewicz was denied entry to the VA facility under the VA’s directive.  Instead she sought to register veterans leaving the facility.  One such veteran who was registered to vote by the Secretary was Martin Onieal, 92, a World War II veteran.  Mr. Onieal told her “There was nobody here to do this last year.” 
 
Earlier this month, Senators Feinstein and Kerry along with Senator Daniel K. Akaka (D-HI) again wrote a letter to Secretary Peake to find ways to ensure that all veterans have access to voter registration materials and identify the policies they have in place to support voter registration.
 
Last week, Secretary Peake wrote back to the senators, denying their request to designate VA facilities as voter registration agencies. The senators today proposed the legislation in the wake of that denial.

Posted in Veterans for Common Sense News | Tagged | Comments Off on July 22 Veteran Voting Rights: Congress Fights for Veterans, Senators Introduce Bill to Restore Veteran Voting Registration at VA Facilities

VA Announces Faith-Based Meeting at White House

Posted on July 21, 2008 by Team VCS

July 18, 2008, Washington, DC – On Tuesday, July 22, 2008, the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI), joined by U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs James B. Peake, will convene a Compassion in Action roundtable titled, “Serving Those Who Have Served: The Vital Role of Faith- Based and Community Organizations.” Hosted by OFBCI Director Jay Hein, the Roundtable will focus on innovative and effective policies, programs and partnerships that address the needs of America’s veterans, highlighting the vital role of faith-based and community organizations in these efforts.

A complete Compassion in Action Roundtable agenda is attached.

TUESDAY, JULY 22, 2008

WHO: Jay Hein, Director, White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives

The Honorable James B. Peake, U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs

WHAT: White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives

Compassion in Action roundtable

WHERE: The White House

Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB)

Room 450

WHEN: Tuesday, July 22, 2008

10:30 a.m. – 12:45 p.m. EDT

Members of the press should arrive at the Northwest Appointment Gate by 10 a.m. EDT to ensure entry.

NOTE: Members of the press who do not have a White House press credential must fax his or her name (as it appears on his or her driver’s license), Social Security number and date of birth on company letterhead to (202) 456-7019 no later than 6 p.m. on Monday, July 21, 2008. For additional credentialing or logistical questions, please call (202) 456-7348.

Serving Those Who Have Served: The Vital Role of Faith-Based and Community Organizations

10:30 a.m. Welcome and Introduction

Jay Hein, Deputy Assistant to the President and Director

White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives

10:40 a.m. Keynote Remarks

James B. Peake, M.D.

Secretary of Veterans Affairs

10:55 a.m. Veterans’ Needs and Solutions

Moderator: Chaplain A. Keith Ethridge, Acting Director, National Chaplain Center, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

Panelist: Laura Balun, Director, Voluntary Service Office, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

Panelist: Craig Dykstra, Senior Vice President of Religion, Lilly Endowment

Panelist: Katherine Dunlap, Coordinator, McGuire Outreach Ministry

11:35 a.m. Snapshot of Success

Mark Johnston, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Special Needs Programs, Office of Community Planning and Development, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

John McWilliam, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Veterans’ Employment and Training, U.S. Department of Labor

Milton Brown, Service Recipient, Maryland Center for Veterans Education and Training

11:50 a.m. Services and Partnership Successes

Moderator: Pete Dougherty, Acting Assistant Deputy Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

Panelist: Reverend Michael M. Boland, Administrator, President and CEO,

Catholic Charities, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago

Panelist: Anne Rea, Chief of Operations for Adult Services, Way Station

Panelist: Ruth Fanning, Director, Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment Service, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

Panelist: Jim Gibbons, President and CEO, Goodwill Industries International

12:40 p.m. Call to Action

Mike Vogel, Chairman, 2008 National Salute to Hospitalized Veterans

Posted in Veterans for Common Sense News | Comments Off on VA Announces Faith-Based Meeting at White House

Collegiate Vets Say Campus Needs Often Unmet

Posted on July 21, 2008 by Team VCS

July 21, 2008, Champaign, IL – Nothing Derek Blumke saw during three Air Force tours in Afghanistan prepared him for college life.

That was obvious to him during one of his first calls to the University of Michigan, when employees told him they couldn’t answer his questions because he wasn’t yet a student. Later, he found himself wandering the Ann Arbor campus trying to figure out how to use his military benefits to pay tuition.

“I was frustrated and angry and disappointed,” said Blumke, 26, a former gunship maintenance supervisor who’s now a senior studying political science and psychology at Michigan. “That frustration and anger turned into motivation. You don’t want me here? OK, fine. I WILL come here.”

As veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq return to campus, many are finding that colleges and universities are only beginning to figure out how to help soldiers, sailors and others transition back to civilian, social and academic life.

Many need help with paperwork. Others seek emotional and psychological support. And others struggle to fit into the social fabric of a campus where their classmates often are much younger.

“Obviously, nobody goes to combat and comes back the same person,” said Bob Wallace, director of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and a Marine veteran of Vietnam. “With multiple problems that we’re seeing, there is a stress on people.”

There are no firm statistics on the number of veterans attending colleges and universities, because some attend without benefit of the GI bill. According to the Veterans Administration, about 250,000 veterans are using the benefit.

But with more people returning from conflict than at any time since the Vietnam War — along with a new, more generous GI bill — the number of college-bound vets is expected to swell.

And universities are beginning to respond to their needs.

The University of Colorado at Boulder has an Office of Veterans Affairs to recruit vets and serve as their point of contact. The university tells vets it can help answer questions on anything from tuition to housing — and refer them for counseling help or to off-campus vets groups.

“United States colleges and universities are going to be looking at students coming in with mental problems,” said R. L. Whidmann, an English professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder and immediate past chairman of the school’s faculty council. “We have to serve this population and serve this population well.”

At Michigan, Blumke — president of a national students vets group, the Student Veterans of America — said the university recently began offering a single point person on campus to answer questions, such as how to take advantage of education benefits provided by the military and transfer credits from courses taken before their service. It also can tell them where to get psychological help.

He also recommends that, like Michigan, schools set up veterans councils — groups of student vets who can help schools identify problems that should be addressed.

Absent such services, many returning veterans have begun banding together to help each other.

Megan Upperman dropped most of her classes during one of her first semesters at Southern Illinois University after she found it difficult to make the transition back to civilian life.

Upperman, who served in Iraq in 2004 in Army National Guard supply convoys, said she was uncharacteristically edgy for six or eight months after her return, still in what she called the state of “hyper overdrive” she’d lived in while riding up and down the roads of a country at war.

“At the drop of a dime, I’d just get upset over something that was ridiculous,” said Upperman, 23, a senior earning a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology.

At the urging of a boyfriend, she enrolled in counseling through the Veterans Affairs Department.

She also helped start an on-campus veterans group, Cougar Vets, to help other veterans find answers to simple questions — how to use military benefits like the GI Bill, for example — and to link them with other people who’ve had similar experiences.

At Eastern Illinois University, Army veteran Eric Hiltner and other veterans resurrected a defunct informal fraternity for Army vets called the Black Knights, building their own social and support network.

Hiltner, a 24-year-old journalism student who served in Iraq, found it more comfortable to socialize with other veterans than many of the other students on campus.

“They’re sitting there (saying), “I haven’t seen my dog in two weeks,”‘ Hiltner said with a weary laugh. “I’m going, ‘I’ve gone two and a half years without seeing my family.”‘

Andy King, the director of counseling services at the Edwardsville campus of Southern Illinois, said such groups are a good way for veterans to help themselves.

King helped Upperman and others start Cougar Vets about a year ago after hearing a warning at a conference from a Vietnam veteran about the influx of combat vets campuses could expect.

Not all want to be part of a vets group, King says, but many take comfort in knowing their experience isn’t unique.

“It should provide some normalization and validation for what it’s like to be sometimes a 23-year-old college freshman who’s seen some pretty horrible stuff, but yet you’re sitting in a freshman English course with a bunch of 18-year-olds who haven’t seen anything,” King said.

At Michigan, Blumke says he’s begun working with the university’s Depression Center on outreach programs for vets on and off campuses.

Dr. John Greden, director of the center, said he hopes to set up pilot sites at other campuses to test ideas ranging from mobile units that travel and offer counseling for vets to training veterans to conduct their own peer counseling.

The ideas, though, work best when campuses make them their own, he said — something vets like Blumke are often good at prodding schools to do.

“I think as a society we’ve got to really bend over backwards to make their local community responsible for helping (veterans),” Greden said. “And for those who are students, the university is part of their local community.

Posted in Veterans for Common Sense News | Comments Off on Collegiate Vets Say Campus Needs Often Unmet

Hospital Cutbacks Spark Outrage Among Veterans

Posted on July 21, 2008 by Team VCS

July 20, 2008 – Colorado veterans who want their own hospital rallied near the state Capitol on Sunday, incensed by a recently released report that shows potential budget overruns led Veterans Affairs officials to scale back plans for an Aurora medical facility.

The cutbacks announced in April left the embattled medical center at the Fitzsimons campus – originally envisioned as a self-sufficient hospital – sharing space and resources with the University of Colorado. The impact on services is unclear, but it first appeared the hospital would serve fewer spinal cord injury patients.

Veterans and congressional leaders pointed out Sunday that years of delays and revisions have helped inflate construction costs for their ideal hospital to more than $1 billion. The scaled-back version apparently meets the more than $700 million budget.

“For veterans in the Rocky Mountain region to have . . . rented space in someone else’s hospital is inconceivable,” said National Foreign Legion Commander Tom Bock. “We’ve got to make sure this plan . . . builds us a stand-alone hospital.”

The VA declined to comment beyond the letter Secretary James Peake sent Colorado congressmen with the report.

In it, Peake says veterans will be better served by improvements to satellite clinics, home care and telecare programs than a costly hospital in the metro area.

Leasing beds rather than building a new hospital could “become a pivot point for future” facilities, according to the VA’s report.

The agency and the Bush Administration have been mulling whether to continue providing in-house care for veterans or contracting services to outside companies.

The report provides an overview of a $4 million study the VA conducted on Fitzsimons and completed in January without sharing details with veterans groups or lawmakers – a move that angered Colorado’s delegation.

Congress has already set aside $168 million for the project and could approve another $769 million this year.

Fitzsimons would serve nearly 500,000 veterans from Colorado, as well as those from Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska and Montana.

Posted in Veterans for Common Sense News | Comments Off on Hospital Cutbacks Spark Outrage Among Veterans