From Information Clearing House
By William Fisher

Last March, the U.S. Congress passed legislation requiring Justice Department officials to give them reports by certain dates on how the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is using the USA Patriot Act to search homes and secretly seize papers.

But when President George W. Bush signed the measure into law, he added a “signing statement”. The statement said the president can order Justice Department officials to withhold any information from Congress if he decides it could impair national security or executive branch operations.

Late last year, Congress approved legislation declaring that U.S. interrogators cannot torture prisoners or otherwise subject them to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. But President Bush’s signing statement said the president, as commander in chief, can waive the torture ban if he decides that harsh interrogation techniques will assist in preventing terrorist attacks.

These are but two examples of more than 100 signing statements containing over 500 constitutional challenges President Bush has added to new laws passed by the Congress — many times more than any of his predecessors.

Read more Constitution

From The LA Times
By Rosa Brooks

The supreme court on Thursday dealt the Bush administration a stinging rebuke, declaring in Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld that military commissions for trying terrorist suspects violate both U.S. military law and the Geneva Convention.

But the real blockbuster in the Hamdan decision is the court’s holding that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention applies to the conflict with Al Qaeda — a holding that makes high-ranking Bush administration officials potentially subject to prosecution under the federal War Crimes Act.

The provisions of the Geneva Convention were intended to protect noncombatants — including prisoners — in times of armed conflict. But as the administration has repeatedly noted, most of these protections apply only to conflicts between states. Because Al Qaeda is not a state, the administration argued that the Geneva Convention didn’t apply to the war on terror. These assertions gave the administration’s arguments about the legal framework for fighting terrorism a through-the-looking-glass quality. On the one hand, the administration argued that the struggle against terrorism was a war, subject only to the law of war, not U.S. criminal or constitutional law. On the other hand, the administration said the Geneva Convention didn’t apply to the war with Al Qaeda, which put the war on terror in an anything-goes legal limbo.

Read more War Crimses

From The Asia Times
By Peter Kiernan

High oil prices, political instability in oil-producing states, the rise of energy-hungry China, jihadist terrorism and the return of “resource nationalism” are factors constantly cited in Washington these days as evidence that national security is being undermined by unrestrained consumption of oil. Petroleum, once seen as the energy source that fueled the “American century”, has more recently been interpreted by some legislators, policymakers and pundits as the Achilles’ heel of global dominance.

Daily op-ed pieces, many in fact written by neo-conservatives, state that US dependence on imported oil strengthens assertive petro-states that work against America’s interests, bankrolls jihadist terrorism, and allows producers to leverage their market power now that prices are high. Others warn of Chinese energy “mercantilism” sowing the seeds of conflict between the United States and China.

This year President George W Bush said in his State of the Union address that “America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world”. He then pledged to make US dependence on the Middle East a “thing of the past” by promoting alternative fuels - to rapturous bipartisan applause. Not since the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo and price hike has US oil consumption generated such concern.

Read more Addiction

From BBC News
By Paul Reynolds

The US Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay perhaps heralds the beginning of what will be a long-drawn out endgame for the camp.

Ironically, the ruling might make this endgame even longer, because the likely outcome is that the Bush administration will have to get an agreement with Congress on how to try those suspects who would otherwise have faced the tribunals - or “commissions” as they are called.

It may be that a new form of commission will be set up, one that more closely complies with the rules of the US military justice code.

This is the route advocated by Justice Stevens, who wrote the majority opinion. The rules as currently drawn up, he declared, were “illegal”.

By that he meant that the safeguards available in the military code for a court martial were superior to those available under a commission. And he slapped down the executive’s right to make such rules by itself.

But getting congressional agreement will take time.

Read More Endgame

From Federal Times
By Rick Maze

The surprise announcement that an informant turned over stolen computer equipment containing personal information on about 28.7 million military members and veterans to the FBI has not ended the controversy over data security at the Veterans Affairs Department.

VA Secretary James Nicholson announced June 29 that a laptop and data storage devices stolen in a May 3 robbery from the Maryland home of a VA employee had been recovered, with indications that the personnel records had not been copied or compromised.
But just minutes later, Nicholson admitted to the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee that other unannounced instances of missing personal data have cropped up recently.
In May, for example, a backup disk containing legal records of about 16,538 veterans was found missing in Indianapolis. And last year in Minneapolis, a computer containing personal information on about 60 veterans was stolen from the trunk of a rental car.

In both cases, veterans whose information is missing and possibly compromised are being individually informed, Nicholson said.

Read More Missing

From Telegraph UK

It is natural that the Bush Administration should regard yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling on the Guantánamo military commissions as a severe blow to its fight against terrorism. Yet the justices’ decision opens the way to closing down a prison camp that has done Washington untold diplomatic harm in that campaign. Now that the tribunals have been judged as violating the Geneva Conventions and American military rules, there is no point in holding terrorist suspects in an indefinite legal limbo at the eastern end of Cuba. It would be better either to release them or transfer them to face justice in America.

There the prospects for the Administration, bringing charges before a court martial or a normal criminal court, are not inviting. For that reason, George W. Bush has seized on a separate opinion, written by Justice Stephen Breyer, which apparently invites him to try to get a new law through Congress. It is not certain whether the Senate and House will oblige a much weakened President, although in his favour is members’ fear of being seen to be soft on terrorism as mid-term elections approach

Read More Guantanamo

From The Times UK

The American army in Iraq suffered a fresh blow to its image today as it emerged that five soldiers were being investigated for allegedly raping a woman and then murdering her and three members of her family.

The soldiers are accused of burning their alleged victim’s body, according to sources quoted by the AP news agency.

Major General James Thurman, commander of coalition troops in Baghdad, has ordered a criminal investigation into the alleged killing of the family of four in Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad, in March.

The entire investigation will encompass everything that could have happened that evening. We’re not releasing any specifics of an ongoing investigation,” said military spokesman Major Todd Breasseale.

Read More Rape

From Metro News Canada
By Mark John

The United States rejected on Friday Iranian calls for more time to study an offer of incentives to curb its nuclear fuel program, insisting Tehran must respond by a G8 deadline next week.

The Group of Eight industrialized nations told Iran on Thursday they wanted a “clear and substantive response” on July 5 to an offer of incentives to stop enriching uranium. But two Iranian officials immediately declared more time was needed.

A Western diplomat familiar with the issue said the Islamic Republic was unlikely to give a firm answer but that if one did not arrive by July 12, when major power foreign ministers next meet, U.N. Security Council action would loom.

Read More Time

From Yahoo News
By Tom Ashby

Crude oil seeping from a gnarled steel wellhead forms a lake the size of a soccer field near the Nigerian village of Kegbara-Dere, but these oil fields have not exported a drop in 13 years.

The Ogoni tribe kicked Royal Dutch Shell out of this part of the Niger Delta in 1993 protesting that they had received nothing in return for four decades of oil production. Today, the same grievances are fueling a revolt across the entire oil heartland of Africa’s largest producer.

Oil is the mainstay of the Nigerian economy, but has done little for the rural communities of Nigeria’s far south where it is extracted.

Read More Revolt

From The NY Times
By Judith Warner

So Muhammad Ali has now gotten into the anti-child-obesity business, with a new line of utterly vile-sounding snacks aimed at weaning our nation’s youth off cookies, chips and other tasty treats and turning them on to vitamin- and fiber-fortified ersatz “finger foods” with flavors like “coleslaw” and “buffalo wings.”

I wish him the best of luck.

But, at the risk of somehow sounding less than enthusiastic about fighting youth fat, I would like to hazard the suggestion that replacing good-tasting-yet-unhealthy food with unappealing bite-sized morsels of virtue is probably not the best way to combat overeating.

For one thing, there’s no surer way to set off a craving for triple fudge brownies in kids (or adults) than to feed them a steady stream of diet foods. Therapists who work with compulsive overeaters have taught for decades that there’s nothing worse for people with appetite control issues than banning certain foods or labeling them as “bad.” Read the rest of this entry »