I'm watching Al Jazeera interviewing Michael Chertoff [UPDATE]

holy crap...! hard questions all about guantánamo, geneva convention, endless detention, torture, etc., etc...! chertoff is only offering slippery non-answers and standard talking points... i'll see if i can get the youtube clip...

[UPDATE]

a-HA...! GOT it...! you simply MUST watch this... see how a REAL interviewer, sami zeidan, conducts an interview...

Talk to Jazeera - Michael Chertoff - 27 May 08
Part 1



Talk to Jazeera - Michael Chertoff - 27 May 08
Part 2

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Fear-mongering jerk

michael chertoff, asshole...

"If you're asking me what keeps me up at night or what I most worry about -- in the short term, obviously, you worry about homegrown terrorists or somebody coming in with an explosive device or the kind of act of violence or terror that we've actually seen occasionally carried out in this country by people who are simply nuts or like a Timothy McVeigh." Chertoff told WTOP news.

"But in the longer run, in terms of something that would really be earth-shattering, the kinds of things I'm worried about are a nuclear or a dirty bomb attack or a nuclear or biological attack." Chertoff continued, citing the motive of toppling the already teetering US economy.

The threat from "Al Qaeda" is not over, Chertoff is at pains to remind us, "Just look at what's happened in the last year." he adds, referring to the fact that two men, since proven to be totally unconnected to "Al Qaeda", set a jeep on fire and drove it towards Glasgow airport in Scotland last August.

"earth-shattering..." i bet even the thought of something like that turns him on...

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"This is a more secure system that improves safety for everybody"

liar, liar, liar... it's another step carefully designed to inure us to omnipresent surveillance and the blooming of the full-tilt boogie police state...

Foreigners who entered the United States at Dulles airport, near Washington, were required to give officials 10 fingerprints instead of two, as new security measures were rolled out Monday.

"This is a more secure system that improves safety for everybody," Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff told a news conference at the airport.

Most foreigners aged between 14 and 79 who travel to the United States have been required since 2004 to provide the prints of two fingers and a digital photograph to US officials, either when they apply for a visa or arrive in the United States.

The data are checked against a watch list of criminals, known or suspected terrorists, and people who have violated the tough immigration laws in the United States, a statement issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said.

By increasing the number of required fingerprints from two to 10, the DHS hopes to enhance security and improve the accuracy of checking a traveler's fingerprints against the watch list, which includes data supplied by the FBI, homeland security, defense department and other US government agencies.

"the data are checked against a 'watch list'" is patent crap... sure, the data may WELL be checked against a list, but the data WILL ALSO BE RETAINED and used to create EVEN MORE LISTS that will be carefully analyzed to reveal who is traveling to where, from where, when, how often, and then added to all of the data ALREADY being collected on persons arriving on international flights, to create a extremely sophisticated profile of each individual, down to the least little bit and byte...

so what, you might ask, do they intend to do with all this information...? well, for one thing, they will use it to prevent individuals who have been deemed "undesirable" from EVEN BOARDING a flight to the united states in the first place, thus eliminating all the muss and fuss (and unpleasant publicity) of turning someone back at immigration, insuring that one and all become highly cognizant of the power of a government to restrict freedom of travel, and, certainly not least, to keep all of us in a state of perpetual awareness that ANYTHING and EVERYTHING we do is visible to those in "authority"... liking it so far...?

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Want a piece of taxpayers' money? Who ya gonna call? DHS!

more from robert greenwald and brave new films at homelandsecurityforsale.org...

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Another little-reported power to screw us and the planet over

how many more of these little gems are tucked away in the baskets of legislation that's been passed since the bush coup d'etat...?

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has used his power to bypass environmental laws so he can restart construction of a fence on the Arizona-Mexico border.

Chertoff's action made public on Monday allows construction to go forward on about seven miles of fence in the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area near Naco, Arizona.

Work on nearly two miles of the fence has been suspended since Oct. 10. On that day, a judge ordered a delay on its construction.

She ruled the federal government had not fully studied the environmental impact of the fence.

Congress gave Chertoff the power to waive environmental and other laws to build border barriers when it passed the REAL ID Act in 2005.

the real id act...? no shit... who woulda thunk it...?

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The border fence protects the environment

from those scummy, litterbug, illegal immigrants who are leaving their families behind and risking their lives trying to find a better life...

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Monday defended the construction of a fence along the southwest border, saying it's actually better for the environment than what happens when people illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico line.

"Illegal migrants really degrade the environment. I've seen pictures of human waste, garbage, discarded bottles and other human artifact in pristine areas," Chertoff said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "And believe me, that is the worst thing you can do to the environment."

there's one thing that officials in the bush administration have in common... they all have the sensitivity and compassion of a goddamed toilet seat...

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Patrick Fitzgerald - not Chertoff - for AG

just sayin'...

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Gonzo out

so, now what...? chertoff...?

Embattled Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has resigned from his post, according to an administration official, ending a controversial cabinet tenure that included clashes with Congress over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys and the scope of efforts to spy on U.S. citizens.

The official said Gonzales submitted a letter on Friday saying he had decided to step down, but the announcement was withheld until he met with President Bush at the president's Crawford ranch. His resignation will be announced later today, the official said.

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Let Gonzo stay, he's doing more good where he is

so, we trade one sneaky, lying, no-good, son-of-a-bitch for another...? color me not interested...

Might there be some trading up at the Justice Department? According to U.S. News and World Report, "buzz among top Bushies is that beleaguered Attorney General Alberto Gonzales finally plans to depart and will be replaced by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff."

either one of them is an anchor around bush's neck, but i suspect gonzo might have a better chance of dragging george under than chertoff... let gonzo stay, i say...

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USS Enterprise to be target of false flag operation?

here's something that hadn't crossed my mind... certainly i had thought of the possibility of a staged "incident" sparking a u.s. attack, but with the enterprise due to arrive in the gulf soon (earlier post here), this bears some consideration...

It was suggested a year ago, that the USS Enterprise was a likely “false flag” target to provide the Bush administration with an excuse to attack Iran. The ship’s last spell in the Gulf passed without incident (let’s hope it will again), but it is now returning to apparently replace the USS Nimitz.

The USS Enterprise is due to be decommissioned in 2014-2015 and is the oldest aircraft carrier in the fleet (launched in 1960), so one could say it is “expendable” on the grounds of age. But what other reasons are there to believe that a carrier might be a possible target for a “new” 9/11?

[...]

A great deal of pressure has been placed on Iran (because of its nuclear program etc) and it is often accused of having links with Al-Qaeda and supporting insurgents in Iraq, a view that the Bush administration would like the world to adopt. But after the lies told before the invasion of Iraq, something more convincing would be required before any action is taken against Iran.

The sinking of an old aircraft carrier (with a crew of 5,000) might be sufficient, especially if we are told that Iran “allegedly” had some involvement in it (maybe a missile attack?). But who could say for sure whether such a missile was launched from Iran, or some remote area in Iraq?

an "incident" of that magnitude, the sinking of an aircraft carrier and the incredible loss of life that would go with it, would surely fulfill the dire predictions of paul craig roberts... i'm sure it's also the wet dream of folks like santorum, cheney and chertoff... the country would descend into total and complete shock, the dogs of war would immediately be unleashed, and any skeptical or dissenting voices would be silenced and probably arrested for treason... just one more item to add to the list of horrifying possibilities posed by our criminal president and his compadres...

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"We cannot and will not turn this country into a police state."

the post title is taken from the closing remarks of keith olbermann's special comment on michael chertoff last night...

crooks and liars has the video clip...

(thanks to casey...)

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The North American Future 2025 Project and The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America

brought to you by the governments of canada, mexico, and the united states, and your good friends at the center for strategic and international studies...

the executive summary [PDF]...



the project...



the u.s. government portion of the project is called The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America and has its own website... the key players in the u.s. effort - michael chertoff, condolleeza rice, and carlos gutierrez - are listed in this org chart [PDF]... (click on image for full-size version...)



just take a few moments to absorb what's being proposed... then sit back and wait for september which is when the final report will be presented to congress...

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Update on Gitmo

well, it was a mildly uplifting thought for a fleeting moment...

“No decisions on the future of Guantanamo Bay are imminent, and there will not be a White House meeting tomorrow,” White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said in response to a report by the Associated Press.

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Closing Gitmo would defeat the entire purpose

if this does indeed happen, it's going to remove the primary reason why detainees have been held outside the u.s. - the excuse that u.s. law does not apply in a place like guantánamo... there will be some serious implications arising from a decision to close gitmo, all of them, i hope, favorable to restoring our historic and enormously important system of justice... and i hope the first thing that gets restored is habeas corpus...

The Bush administration is nearing a decision to close the Guantánamo Bay detention facility and move the terror suspects there to military prisons elsewhere, The Associated Press has learned.

President Bush's national security and legal advisers are expected to discuss the move at the White House on Friday and, for the first time, it appears a consensus is developing, senior administration officials said Thursday.

The advisers will consider a new proposal to shut the center and transfer detainees to one or more Defense Department facilities, including the maximum security military prison at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, where they could face trial, said the officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing internal deliberations.

Officials familiar with the agenda of the Friday meeting said Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Peter Pace were expected to attend.

It was not immediately clear if the meeting would result in a final recommendation to Bush.

i posted this back in february on the basic purpose of guantánamo...

The whole purpose of setting up Guantánamo Bay is for torture. Why do this? Because you want to escape the rule of law. There is only one thing that you want to escape the rule of law to do, and that is to question people coercively—what some people call torture. Guantánamo and the military commissions are implements for breaking the law.

—Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift, January 2007, to the author, Marie Brenner, in the article, Taking on Guantánamo, Vanity Fair, March 2007.

does closing gitmo mean we're not going to torture any more...?

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"This White House thinks its base is stupid." Now you know what it feels like, people.

the far-right, wingnut, ultra-conservative base wakes up to find out what the liberals and progressives have been subject to the past six and one-half years... and, of all people to point this out, peggy noonan, the crazed wsj op-ed writer...

The White House doesn't need its traditional supporters anymore, because its problems are way beyond being solved by the base. And the people in the administration don't even much like the base. Desperate straits have left them liberated, and they are acting out their disdain. Leading Democrats often think their base is slightly mad but at least their heart is in the right place. This White House thinks its base is stupid and that its heart is in the wrong place.

For almost three years, arguably longer, conservative Bush supporters have felt like sufferers of battered wife syndrome. You don't like endless gushing spending, the kind that assumes a high and unstoppable affluence will always exist, and the tax receipts will always flow in? Too bad! You don't like expanding governmental authority and power? Too bad. You think the war was wrong or is wrong? Too bad.

[...]

The president has taken to suggesting that opponents of his immigration bill are unpatriotic--they "don't want to do what's right for America." His ally Sen. Lindsey Graham has said, "We're gonna tell the bigots to shut up." On Fox last weekend he vowed to "push back." Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff suggested opponents would prefer illegal immigrants be killed; Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said those who oppose the bill want "mass deportation." Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson said those who oppose the bill are "anti-immigrant" and suggested they suffer from "rage" and "national chauvinism."

while ms. noonan may not have truly seen the light, she's at least screwed her head back on tight enough to be able to take some steps in that direction...

Now conservatives and Republicans are going to have to win back their party. They are going to have to break from those who have already broken from them. This will require courage, serious thinking and an ability to do what psychologists used to call letting go. This will be painful, but it's time. It's more than time.

the temptation is to indulge in schadenfreude... well, more than indulge, more like positively revel... but that would be to make light of the situation... bush and his criminal compadres have cynically wooed, used, and manipulated the conservative base, a base they have shown they don't even like or trust, and now the base is waking up, and it looks like the immigration bill is what finally tipped over the apple cart... too bad it took so long...

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U.S. to Europe: pull the data directly from the airlines' computer servers and store the information for 99 years

an interesting battle over privacy is shaping up...

The post-Sept. 11 flight data sharing agreement between the US and EU expires in July. But a new agreement is nowhere in sight. The Americans want to know even more, and the Europeans want to tell them even less.

the u.s., in response to perceived resistance, even sent chertoff to talk to the european parliament...

It was his first opportunity to address the European Parliament about an issue that is extremely contentious in Europe: How much information should US authorities be given about travellers from EU countries flying to the US?

small wonder there's resistance...

The Americans' dream agreement would allow them to pull the data directly from the airlines' computer servers and store the information for 99 years.

but, these days, what with one thing and another, the u.s. is about as popular as a turd in a punchbowl...

[T]he session repeatedly turned into an obscure, would-be trial about the US's many lapses over the past years: From Abu Ghraib and illegal kidnappings by the CIA to gun laws, every gripe was fair game.

and, naturally, we have the patented bushco stonewall...

Chertoff ignored just as many questions as he answered.

so far, little progress is being made...

[Center-left parliamentarian Wolfgang Kreissl-Dörfle's] main criticism was that the US is basically blackmailing Europe. In his view, Washington is forcing a simple alternative on the EU states: "My way or the highway." That is not, he says, the way to a solution, even if the deadline looms.

but, hey, wolfgang, that's the way they operate domestically too...

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Gonzo's replacement...? Why, Patrick Fitzgerald, of COURSE...!

look at this list of LOSERS...!

Republican officials operating at the behest of the White House have begun seeking a possible successor to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, whose support among GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill has collapsed, according to party sources familiar with the discussions.

Among the names floated Monday by administration officials are Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and White House anti-terrorism coordinator Frances Townsend. Former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson is a White House prospect. So is former solicitor general Theodore B. Olson, but sources were unsure if he would want the job.

Republican sources also disclosed that it is now a virtual certainty that Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty, whose incomplete and inaccurate congressional testimony about the prosecutors helped precipitate the crisis, will also resign shortly. Officials were debating whether Gonzales and McNulty should depart at the same time or whether McNulty should go a day or two after Gonzales.

puh-l-e-e-e-e-eze... Chertoff...? Townsend...? we don't need more litmus-tested bush toadies...

the other day, i noted this post from jeralyn...

CBS legal analyst and author of the Washington Post's Bench Conference blog makes the case today for replacing Attorney General Alberto Gonzales with Patrick Fitzgerald.

if bush wants anyone to believe that he's serious about the integrity of the justice department, the attorney general, and the us attorneys, he couldn't do better than patrick fitzgerald... ah, well... we know he isn't serious...

(thanks to TPMmuckraker...)

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