A report of the Congressional Research Service:

The Fourth Amendment generally requires a warrant to support most searches and seizures conducted by the government. Federal courts have long recognized that there are many exceptions to this general presumption, one of which is the border search exception. The border search exception permits government officials, in most “routine” circumstances, to conduct searches with no suspicion of wrongdoing whatsoever. On the other hand, in some “non-routine” and particularly invasive situations, customs officials are required to have “reasonable suspicion” in order to conduct a search. Several federal courts have recently applied the border search exception to situations in which customs officials conducted searches of laptops and other electronic storage devices at the border. Though the federal courts have universally held that the border search exception applies to laptop searches conducted at the border, the degree of cause required to support the search has not been established. Though some federal appellate courts do not appear to require any degree of suspicion to justify a search, one federal district court stated categorically that all laptop searches conducted at the border require at least reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.

Border Searches of Laptops and Other Electronic Storage Devices

This presentation updates the analysis of current defense plans contained in the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO’s) April 2007 Web document The Long-Term Implications of Current Defense Plans: Detailed Update for Fiscal Year 2007 to account for changes incorporated in the President’s budget for fiscal year 2008 and in the 2008 Future Years Defense Program (FYDP).

The presentation provides additional data not found in CBO’s December 2007 publication The Long-Term Implications of Current Defense Plans: Summary Update for Fiscal Year 2008. Both of those documents respond to standing requests from the Senate Budget Committee.

This presentation does not incorporate changes to the FYDP resulting from Congressional action on the President’s 2008 budget request.

Charts in this detailed update use the concepts “steady state” and “half-life” for the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) investment plans and weapon systems. Those concepts and how CBO estimates their values are explained more fully in Appendix A at the end of the presentation.

The updated displays in this presentation differ in some instances from those in previous presentations. In some cases, CBO has altered the display format to include additional historical data; in other cases, it has revised its historical database of procurement quantities and funding, as well as its projections of the inventories of weapon systems that the military services plan to sustain. CBO also, in some instances, departs from previous presentations by using different color schemes for the displays.

All budgetary projections in this presentation are in billions of 2008 dollars of total obligational authority, and all years are federal fiscal years. Numbers in the text may not sum to totals because of rounding. See Appendix B at the end of the presentation for an explanation of selected acronyms and abbreviations.

The text accompanying the charts composing this Web document assumes that the reader is familiar with DoD programs and their content.

The Long-Term Implications of Current Defense Plans: Detailed Update for Fiscal Year 2008

There has been a firestorm about the war inside the Pentagon. It’s been raging for several months now, but the mainstream media, which can find plenty of space to report on Hollywood starlets and their substance-abuse problems, and any candidate’s garbled lines on the campaign stump, can’t find its way fit to report a single line on this.

Yet the smoke from this firestorm has been everywhere. Why did Admiral James Fallon suddenly resign following the publication of a portrait piece on him in Esquire? The word spread about the media, which covered this, as usually, dismissively as “another personnel flap.” In their reporting, it had something to do with the CENTCOM commander’s opposition to launching a new war against Iran.

When I tested this with my Pentagon sources, I was told “wrong.”

The War Over the War Inside the Pentagon

Julian Sanchez:

As the battle over reforms to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act rages in Congress, civil libertarians warn that legislation sought by the White House could enable spying on "ordinary Americans." Others, like Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), counter that only those with an "irrational fear of government" believe that "our country's intelligence analysts are more concerned with random innocent Americans than foreign terrorists overseas."

But focusing on the privacy of the average Joe in this way obscures the deeper threat that warrantless wiretaps pose to a democratic society. Without meaningful oversight, presidents and intelligence agencies can -- and repeatedly have -- abused their surveillance authority to spy on political enemies and dissenters.

Wiretapping's true danger

In conclusion, we believe the FBI and the Department have made significant progress in implementing the recommendations from our first NSL report and in adopting other corrective actions to address problems we and the FBI identified in the use of national security letters. We also found that the FBI has devoted significant energy, time, and resources toward ensuring that its field managers and agents understand the seriousness of the FBI’s shortcomings in its use of NSLs and their responsibility for correcting these deficiencies.
…
However, because only a year has passed since the OIG’s first NSL report was released and some measures are not fully implemented, we also believe it is too early to definitively state whether the new systems and controls developed by the FBI and the Department will eliminate fully the problems with the uses of NSLs that we and the FBI have identified. We believe the FBI must implement all of our recommendations in the first NSL report, demonstrate sustained commitment to the steps it has taken and committed to take to improve compliance, implement additional recommendations in this second report, consider additional measures to enhance privacy protections for NSL-derived information, and remain vigilant in holding FBI personnel accountable for properly preparing and approving NSLs and for handling responsive records appropriately.

See also, Response to DOJ Inspector General’s Review of FBI’s Use of National Security Letters & Corrective Actions.

A Review of the FBI’s Use of National Security Letters: Assessment of Corrective Actions and Examination of NSL Usage

Kentucky Representative Tim Couch filed a bill this week to make anonymous posting online illegal.

The bill would require anyone who contributes to a website to register their real name, address and e-mail address with that site.

Their full name would be used anytime a comment is posted.

If the bill becomes law, the website operator would have to pay if someone was allowed to post anonymously on their site. The fine would be five-hundred dollars for a first offense and one-thousand dollars for each offense after that.

Kentucky Lawmaker Wants to Make Anonymous Internet Posting Illegal

He certainly had no choice but to resign (as he did on March 12th) if, as it seems, he broke the law. But that still leaves the bigger question of whether the law is an ass.

From the archive:

Human nature is what it is, and I was rewarded and promoted for understanding human nature. But until this Administration it had been possible to believe that by upholding the policies of my president I was also upholding the interests of the American people and the world. I believe it no longer.

Mr. Secretary, I have enormous respect for your character and ability. But your loyalty to the President goes too far.

The hypocrites' club | Lexington @ Economist

Studs Terkel, in the Chicago Tribune:

The Bush administration and its acolytes now claim that we must give giant telecoms amnesty for breaking the law, or else those telecoms will no longer cooperate with the government in spying efforts that help protect America. The truth is that telecoms do not need a special deal. These companies have immunity from lawsuits for turning over customer records to the government if they do so in conformity with existing law. But, in this instance, the telephone companies knowingly violated that law. If we give them a free pass this time, won't the telephone companies feel free to violate the laws protecting our privacy in the future?

Congress is supposed to act to protect the rights of American citizens, not sacrifice those rights to large corporate entities. The House and Senate should resist the bullying tactics of the Bush White House and ensure that we have our day in court to vindicate our rights and reveal any illegality engaged in by the telecoms. We need to know about the Bush White House's secret program.

From the archive:

Outsiders sometimes find it tempting to dismiss such wheel-spinning as bureaucratic silliness, but I believe that the Judiciary Committee will find, if it is willing to persist, that within the large pointless program there exists a small, sharply focused program that delivers something the White House really wants. This it will never confess willingly.

Why we sued the phone company

The Senate Appropriations Committee held a hearing today to examine the endemic waste, fraud and abuse that has resulted in the squandering of billions of American tax dollars in Iraq. With the cost of the war in Iraq projected to surpass $605 billion this year, the members of the committee heard a wide range of testimony from four witnesses who discussed how American funds are being spent and to what benefit. Testifying before the Committee were: The Honorable David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States; The Honorable Claude M. Kicklighter, Inspector General, Department of Defense; Stuart W. Bowen, Jr., Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction; and The Honorable Judge Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, Former Commissioner, Commission on Public Integrity, Republic of Iraq.

Major highlights of the hearing were as follows:

1. Fraud, waste, abuse and corruption in U.S. contracts in Iraq and within the Iraqi government were characterized by all witnesses as “significant,” “widespread,” “rampant,” and costing the United States taxpayers billions of dollars.
2. The Iraqi government’s ability to spend their budgeted funds has not improved and, in fact, most of it has not been spent. Iraq has a budget surplus while the United States this year will have one of the largest budget deficits in history due in part to the large amount of money we are spending on the war and failed reconstruction efforts in Iraq
3. U.S. government oversight has been lacking. Administration efforts to prosecute individuals responsible for the waste or theft of billions of taxpayer dollars have been grossly insufficient. Efforts need strengthening.
4. Corruption in Iraqi oil production is rampant and is feeding the insurgency which in turn is attacking U.S. troops.
5. Fraud, waste, abuse and corruption in Iraq have resulted in a situation in which reconstruction is stymied - oil production still has not exceeded pre-war levels, and water and power are still not available to most Iraqis. At the same time, Americans are paying record prices at the gas pump.
6. Poor accountability has resulted in thousands of weapons provided by the United States to the Iraqi security forces being stolen, looted, or otherwise provided to insurgents and militias to use against U.S. troops. In one case alone, 190,000 pistols and rifles turned over to Iraq cannot be accounted for.
7. The U.S. Department of State has balked at implementing GAO recommendations to develop strategic and integrated accountability measures.
8. Several witnesses’ recommendations regarding war profiteering and contract accountability legislation were made that need to be carefully considered.
9. The former head of the Iraqi Commission on Public Integrity reported that $11 million in U.S. funds (cash) given to him with no benchmarks or restrictions to establish an Iraqi Academy of Integrity were seized by Iraqi officials; the money has not been accounted for.
10. The most effective way to fight al-Qaeda and other insurgents in Iraq is to cut off their funding by implementing strict accountability measures over all monies - U.S. and Iraqi.

Senate Appropriations Committee Examines Waste, Fraud and Abuse of American Tax Dollars in Iraq

Testimony presented before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Subcommittee on Domestic Policy on March 12, 2008.

What Research Tells Us About the Reasonableness of the Current Priorities of National Drug Control