The Report to Congress on the Situation in Iraq (released Sept 10, 2007) was the two-part report released by U.S. Army general David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker on progress by the Iraqi government in the ongoing Iraq War.

Report to Congress on the Situation in Iraq - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In my two years in the government, I witnessed top officials and bureaucrats in the White House and throughout the administration openly worrying that investigators acting with the benefit of hindsight in a different political environment would impose criminal penalties on heat-of-battle judgment calls. These men and women did not believe they were breaking the law, and indeed they took extraordinary steps to ensure that they didn't. But they worried nonetheless because they would be judged in an atmosphere different from when they acted, because the criminal investigative process is mysterious and scary, because lawyers' fees can cause devastating financial losses, and because an investigation can produce reputation-ruining dishonor and possibly end one's career, even if you emerge "innocent."

Why, then, do they even come close to the legal line? Why risk reputation, fortune, and perhaps liberty? Why not play it safe? Many counterterrorism officials did play it safe before 9/11, when the criminalization of war and intelligence contributed to the paralyzing risk aversion that pervaded the White House and the intelligence community. The 9/11 attacks, however, made playing it safe no longer feasible. . . .

On the other hand:

I deplored the way the White House went about fixing the problem. "We're one bomb away form getting rid of that obnoxious [FISA] court," Addington had told me in his typically sarcastic style during a tense White House meeting in February of 2004.

After 9/11 they and other top officials in the administration dealt with FISA they way they dealt with other laws they didn't like: they blew through them in secret based on flimsy legal opinions that they guarded closely so no one could question the legal basis for the operations.

These are both from the same book. More.

Two views of Bush Administration Civil Liberties Policy

Congressman Brian Baird (D-3 Vancouver, Washington) hosted a town hall tonight at Fort Vancouver High School. It was Baird’s first appearance in front of his constituents since reversing his position on the war. ALTHOUGH he’s been an adamant critic of the war—he voted against the war and the surge—he announced last week that he thinks the surge is working and he wants to give it time.

He spoke in a high school auditorium that was packed with at least 500 people who were overwhelmingly vocal in their opposition to Baird’s new stance. There were also protesters outside calling for Baird to resign.

I also talked to several people as they left the auditorium and asked them if they found Baird—who was there to explain his new position—to be persuasive. To a person, everyone shook their head “no way,” including Doris Holmes, active member of the 18th district Democrats, who said, “He lied. He’s toeing the Bush party line. I can’t believe he’s a Democrat.”

You can follow links through to Baird's editorial if you wish. The bottom line is that this sort of thinking simply isn't allowed in the Democratic party. "I have committed even before setting pen to paper the essential crime that contains all others unto itself."

Rep. Baird Gets Blasted for Iraq war views

The humble mosque would soon move to a hilltop headquarters in Ashland, thanks to financial support from a Saudi Arabian charity known as the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, which has since been shut down by U.S. and Saudi authorities for alleged terror ties. Lawyers for Al-Haramain have denied those charges and have filed suit against the U.S. government seeking to have its name cleared.

"What I didn't expect was that over time my ideas would fall into line with theirs," he said. "I wasn't to shake hands with women. I wasn't to pet a dog. I wasn't to wear shorts that came up above my knees. But conversely, my pants legs couldn't be too long."

In 1999 he left his job at Al-Haramain for law school at New York University. Away from his co-workers, he was free to question the radical doctrines he'd learned in Oregon and meet with others about spirituality, including Christians. A year later, he converted to Christianity and was eventually baptized in the Baptist church.

It was a decision he took extremely seriously because he said his colleagues at Al-Haramain had preached that leaving Islam was punishable by death.

This is the same Al-Haramain that joined the EFF v. AT&T fracas.

Radical Islam in America

What would Thoreau do?

BoingBoing's brief sarcasm about the NYPD quote is worth noting.

Boing Boing: Starbucks, Borders, jail: all

When suspected Al Qaeda operative Jose Padilla was whisked from the criminal justice system to military custody in June 2002, it was done for a key purpose – to break his will to remain silent.

For a month, agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had been questioning Padilla in New York City under the rules of the criminal justice system. They wanted to know about his alleged involvement in a plot to detonate a radiological "dirty bomb" in the US. Padilla had nothing to say. Now, military interrogators were about to turn up the heat....

In essence, experts say, the US government was trying to break Padilla's silence by plunging him into a mental twilight zone...

The Soviets used isolation and sensory deprivation to identify and discredit political dissidents. US prisoners of war confessed to nonexistent war crimes in the Korean War after similar treatment.

In other words, the U.S. Government attempted to torture a confession out of a U.S. Citizen when he refused to admit to a crime that didn't occur. An admission which would have been in the political interest of the Administration, as it would justify the fear of a nuclear threat from Al'Queda, and demonstrate that the Justice Department was putting a stop to it. Paradoxically, the threat from this particular sort of weapon is mostly psychological. If the Administration were interested in defusing it as a real threat they would do so by educating people about the actual effects of such an attack rather than making misleading statements.
Recall this statement by a judge who was on the Republican Party's short list for Supreme Court nomination until he committed political suicide by issuing this ruling:

The government surely must understand... its actions have left... the impression that Padilla may have been held for these years... by mistake...

Yes, it appears he was held "by mistake." He was held, in my opinion, illegally. And he was destroyed...

"It is clear from examining Mr. Padilla that [the point of irreversible psychological damage] was surpassed."

The actual evidence against him seems to consist entirely of this form. Personally, I think a star recruit would have had more to say on this form. A star recruit probably would have indicated more religious knowledge, might have had some military experience, might have listed a skill other than carpentry, might have indicated an... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

They really did shred the Constitution over a paranoid fantasy...

Our Behavior Detection teams routinely -- and quietly -- identify problem people just through observable behavior cues. More than 150 people have been identified by our teams, turned over to law enforcement, and subsequently arrested... We publicize non-terrorist-related successes like a murder suspect caught in Minneapolis and a bank robber caught in Philadelphia.

One individual, identified by a TSO in late May and not allowed to fly, was killed in a police shoot-out five days later.

PreCrime Works!

Schneier on Security: Conversation with Kip Hawley, TSA Administrator (Part 4)

BS: I don't want to even think about how much C4 I can strap to my legs and walk through your magnetometers. Or search the Internet for "BeerBelly." It's a device you can strap to your chest to smuggle beer into stadiums, but you can also use it smuggle 40 ounces of dangerous liquid explosive onto planes. The magnetometer won't detect it. Your secondary screening wandings won't detect it. Why aren't you making us all take our shirts off? Will you have to find a printout of the webpage in some terrorist safe house? Or will someone actually have to try it? If that doesn't bother you, search the Internet for "cell phone gun."

I think they'd notice both of these things. Thats why you show your boarding pass to the guy on the other side of the magnetometer. He's not really looking at the boarding pass. Lots of interesting hyperlinks in this one though. Don't miss the Wine Rack. Ladies, now security screeners have an excuse for staring at your chest!

Schneier on Security: Conversation with Kip Hawley, TSA Administrator (Part 2)

Kip Hawley: Screening ideas are indeed thought up by the Office for Annoying Air Travelers and vetted through the Directorate for Confusion and Complexity, and then we review them to insure that there are sufficient unintended irritating consequences so that the blogosphere is constantly fueled.

He actually said that. The purpose of the TSA is to fuel the blogosphere. They annoy you with unreasonable travel regulations in order to get you to talk about it on the Internet, which helps drive ad revenue and ultimately leads to greater consumption of consumer products, which, of course, causes increased incomes, and therefore, tax revenue, which the TSA spends on new annoyances. Its called Keynesian economics, bitches!

Schneier on Security: Conversation with Kip Hawley, TSA Administrator (Part 1)

You've always knew it, I've always speculated on it, now I can finally provide a decent screenshot of cyber jihadist's howto recommending and taking the average reader step by step through the process of obtaining and using TOR.

This blog has a large number of posts on Jihadist internet security tools and tactics. Apparently they wrote their own encryption tool, which is universally stupid...

Dancho Danchev - Mind Streams of Information Security Knowledge: Cyber Jihadists' and TOR