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Free weekday coverage on current issues
August 20, 2007
Headlines - New CRS Reports on Iran, Iraq, Enemy Combatant Detainees, Pakistan
- White House Fails to Comply With Subpoenas on Domestic Surveillance Program
- DOD OIG Audit of Missile Defense Agency Purchases
- Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation Seeks to Create Free Archive of Federal and State Cases
- GAO Launches Web Site Improvements
- Department of State Declassification Plan, 2004
- Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate Seeks Shoe Screener System
- Executive Order: Facilitation of Hunting Heritage and Wildlife Conservation
- UCSC's Open Archive of Congressional Proceedings
- University of Michigan Study Tracks Growing Income Gap Among American Families
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 New CRS Reports on Iran, Iraq, Enemy Combatant Detainees, Pakistan White House Fails to Comply With Subpoenas on Domestic Surveillance Program Follow up to previous posting on the government's domestic surveillance program, today's Statement of Senator Patrick Leahy, Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee, On The Bush Administration's Failure To Comply With Subpoenas For Warrantless Wiretapping Documents, August 20, 2007: "Today was the deadline for the Administration to comply with the Judiciary Committee's subpoenas for documents related to the legal justifications for and President's authorization of the warrantless wiretapping program. The Administration failed to adequately comply, despite our granting an extension of more than a month past the original return date. The Administration has produced no documents, no adequate basis for noncompliance, no privilege claims, and no complete privilege log." Related news and government documents: ACLU: "In an unprecedented order, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) has required the U.S. government to respond to a request it received last week by the American Civil Liberties Union for orders and legal papers discussing the scope of the government's authority to engage in the secret wiretapping of Americans. According to the FISC's order, the ACLU's request "warrants further briefing," and the government must respond to it by August 31. The court has said that any reply by the ACLU must be filed by September 14...A copy of the FISA court order, the ACLU's motion to the FISC, as well as information about the ACLU's lawsuit against the NSA and other related materials are available here." Press release: "Representative Edward J. Markey (D-MA), Chairman of the Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee and a senior member of the House Homeland Security Committee... wrote [August 16, 2007] to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff seeking answers in response to reports that the Bush Administration will undertake an unprecedented expansion in the use of advanced spy satellites for surveillance of Americans." WSJ: U.S. to Expand Domestic Use Of Spy Satellites FAS: Unclassified study on intelligence capabilites for domestic surveillance programs: Civil Applications Committee (CAC) Blue Ribbon Study, Independent Study Group Final Report, September 2005 Internet Archive: Judicial Proceeding, Domestice Surveillance Program, U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, San Francisco, California, ID: 200464 - 08/15/2007 (Recorded and Copied from C-SPAN and Uploaded to the Internet Archive): "U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco heard oral arguments in two cases on the government's warrantless wiretapping program. The Court will decide whether or not to dismiss the two cases under the "state secrets" privilege, which bars the presentation of evidence in court that could threaten national security. Lower court judges in both cases rejected the government's attempts to get the cases dismissed. The plaintiffs in Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, Inc. v. Bush are an Oregon branch of a Saudi charity that has been investigated for alleged terrorist ties. They argue that they have a top-secret document proving they were a direct target of National Security Agency surveillance. Hepting v. AT&T is a class action on behalf of a group of AT&T customers who allege that the company intercepted their phone calls and electronic mail, then disclosed the information to the NSA."
DOD OIG Audit of Missile Defense Agency Purchases Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General -- Audit, Missile Defense Agency Purchases for and from Governmental Sources - Report No. D-2007-117 (50 pages PDF) - Project No. D2006-D000FH-0160.000, Date: August 20, 2007. Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation Seeks to Create Free Archive of Federal and State Cases Public.Resource.Org, In Re: State and Federal Cases and Codes [the current source material is ultrafiche]: "The short-term goal is the creation of an unencumbered full-text repository of the Federal Reporter, the Federal Supplement, and the Federal Appendix. The medium-term goal is the creation of an unencumbered full-text repository of all state and federal cases and codes." See also: New York Times, A Quest to Get More Court Rulings Online, and Free (thanks James S. Tyre) GAO Launches Web Site Improvements "The Government Accountability Office (GAO) today unveiled its newly redesigned Web site, www.gao.gov. The updated site makes the agency's work easier to find, and it better explains what GAO is and what it does. New features on the homepage include a prominent dynamic display of GAO's latest products, a streamlined "In the Spotlight" section, and a new "Key References" section with links for site visitors." Department of State Declassification Plan, 2004 Via FAS, Department of State Declassification Plan 2004 Update and FY05-07 Projections, 13 pages, PDF. "prepared pursuant to... Executive Order 12958 [Classified National Security Information, as Amended]...The Order and Directive required executive branch agencies to institutionalize the declassification of permanent, classified records and establish an implementation date of December 31, 2006 for the introduction of automatic declassification whether or not records had been reviewed for declassification prior to becoming 25 years old." Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate Seeks Shoe Screener System Shoe Screener System: "The Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate (DHS/S&T) is interested in identifying potential vendors with prototype Shoe Screener systems for Government-conducted laboratory assessment. TSA is interested in establishing a Qualified Products Listing (QPL) as a method to regulate equipment used in Registered Traveler (RT) services provided by a commercial security provider to supplement and/or expedite passenger processing through airport checkpoints...The system should be capable of detecting explosives, either concealed in shoes or traces of explosives on passenger shoes or legs to a height of 18 inches from the floor without the passenger having to remove their shoes." [via Wired] Executive Order: Facilitation of Hunting Heritage and Wildlife Conservation Executive Order: Facilitation of Hunting Heritage and Wildlife Conservation, August 17, 2007: "...Federal agencies shall, consistent with agency missions: (c) Manage wildlife and wildlife habitats on public lands in a manner that expands and enhances hunting opportunities, including through the use of hunting in wildlife management planning...(e)...foster healthy and productive populations of game species and appropriate opportunities for the public to hunt those species..." UCSC's Open Archive of Congressional Proceedings " Metavid, hosted by The University of California at Santa Cruz, is a project which seeks to capture, stream, archive and facilitate real-time collective [re]mediation of legislative proceedings. Metavid makes use of entirely free and open source software and video codecs to make both the footage and the architecture of the site available, accessible and recontextualizable." "Metavid was created by Michael Dale and Abram Stern last year as their thesis project in UC Santa Cruz's new Digital Arts and New Media (DANM) graduate program. Using public domain video feed from C-SPAN, Metavid makes video archives of congressional floor proceedings on the web, searchable according to who said what, and indexed, so that users can easily link to any moment of dialogue." University of Michigan Study Tracks Growing Income Gap Among American Families Press release: "The rich really are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, a new University of Michigan study shows. The study—the most recent available analysis of long-term wealth trends among U.S. households is based on data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, conducted by the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR) since 1968. Over the last 20 years, the net worth of the top two percentile of American families nearly doubled, from $1,071,000 in 1984 to $2,100,500 in 2005. But the poorest quarter of American families lost ground over the same period, with their 2005 net worth below their 1984 net worth, measured in constant 2005 dollars." Data and Documentation
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