Prairie Weather

Senate immigration bill appears to have plenty support

... Even without the vote of John Cornyn who wants to add an amendment insisting on a complicated assurance of "border security."

Democrats have signaled in recent days that they’ll be satisfied if they don’t get a supermajority of more than 70 votes, a goal of Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), who believes it would give House Republicans political cover to support comprehensive immigration reform.

Reid has told Schumer not to worry about the political calculus in the House.

“I have talked to my four Democrats [on] the Gang of Eight and I have told them, ‘Concentrate on the Senate. Don’t at this stage worry about what’s going to happen in the House,’ ” Reid told reporters Tuesday.

It will now be more difficult to reach the 70-vote mark, even though Graham predicted in an NBC interview Sunday that the Senate legislation will pass with “plus 70 votes.”

Democrats can count on about 10 Republicans to vote for the bill, but that gets them to 64 votes for final passage. ...The Hill

The CBO's report on what the bill would do to bring down the deficit has certainly helped the bill's passage.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated on Tuesday that passage of the Senate’s comprehensive immigration bill, known as S.744, would decrease federal budget deficits by $197 billion over a ten year period between 2014 to 2023. It also estimates that 8 million undocumented immigrants would be legalized.

Between 2024 and 2033, the CBO estimates that the federal budget deficits would be cut by $700 billion.

The CBO’s estimate blasts the conservative argument that immigration reform is costly out of the water. The report contradicts the $6 trillion cost estimate used by conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation, who as far back as 2007 have been successful in helping to derail immigration reform efforts. ...Think Progress

Senate Republicans are left with no way to fight the analysis from the CBO.  So they're opting for yet another long, lonely trip down De Nile.

That’s a pretty unambiguously good score from Congress’s budget keepers. It’s a better score, frankly, than many pro-reform offices on the Hill were expecting. On Tuesday morning they were fretting about the CBO score and prepping responses to possible bad news. By Tuesday evening they were breaking out the champagne and clicking send on celebratory press releases.

Does it assure the bill’s smooth passage? Of course not. But it helps the bill on the margin. And it avoids the possible catastrophe of a bad score. “This gives Republicans who wanted to support it anyway one more reason to support it,” says an aide to the Republican Senate leadership. “It could’ve been a big setback, now it’s a mild positive.”

The score is good enough that opponents of the bill are simply warning their colleagues against believing it. “The bill’s drafters relied on the same scoring gimmicks used by the Obamacare drafters to conceal its true cost from taxpayers and to manipulate the CBO score,” wrote Sen. Jeff Sessions in a statement. ...Ezra Klein, WaPo

Congress is not "of the people, by the people" and most definitely not "for the people"

The Founders created a system of checks and balances. Those overseeing the nation’s spying have switched to a system of cheers and bouquets.

This was the impression given by members of the House intelligence committee as they held an open-to-the-public hearing Tuesday on the National Security Agency’s snooping into Americans’ phone and Internet records. ...Dana Milbank, WaPo

When "gone to Washington" means "turned against the people," we're in trouble.  But how else would you describe Congress's attitude?  Not just on a one-time basis, but day in and day out. 

Congressional overseers have become apologists, assuring the public that the programs are “legal, court-approved and subject to an extensive oversight regime,” as [committee chair] Rogers put it.

“This is very important that we get the message out to the American public that what we do is legal,” Ruppersberger concurred. To that end, he asked Alexander about “unfortunate” criticism of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court as weak because it rarely turns down a government request.

“Do you feel in any way that the FISA court is a rubber stamp?” Ruppersberger asked.

“I do not,” Alexander replied. “The federal judges on that court are superb.”

When the executive branch thinks those checking its power are “superb,” it’s time for rebalancing. ...Dana Milbank, WaPo

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Not a whole lot to can be expected by the people from their president either, according  to former Time correspondent and columnist, Jack White.

... The next thing you know, we may be up to our necks in another bloody and horrifically expensive Middle Eastern conflict that, as my Washington Post colleague Eugene Robinson warns, "will not end well."

What troubles me most about this slide into another potential disaster is what it tells us about Obama's lack of political strength. Less than six months into his second term, his presidency appears to be dead in the water.

The malaise extends far beyond foreign policy. Obama is playing defense on every front. ...White, The Root

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Poor Obama. But how much does this dip in popularity have to do with anything?

Well, it does have consequences.

A simple model of House election outcomes constructed by political scientist Gary Jacobson shows that the share of seats controlled by the president's party depends in part on presidential approval.... Obviously, other factors matter too. But a less popular president certainly provides headwinds for Democratic candidates."

"Second, it matters for the 2016 election. Of course, that's a long way away, and a lot can happen between now and then. But again, simple forecasting models show that, controlling for other factors, the incumbent party does better when the incumbent president is popular." ...John Sides, Monkey Cage - h/t Political Wire

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Obama's fate -- at this point -- will depend to a large extent on his response to our unease about government secrecy.  There is substantial --and growing -- support for public hearings on NSA.

A new Post poll finds that 65 percent of Americans want Congress to hold public hearings on the NSA programs. This is supported by large majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents, and large majorities of liberals, moderates and conservatives. This, even though the poll also finds that a solid majority supports the programs themselves. These things are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, one could argue that support for more public disclosure, at a minimum, is the truly “balanced” view here.

Now, perhaps there are procedural or process reasons that explain why declassification is not as easy for the President himself to pursue as civil libertarians think it is. But as the New York Times editorial board notes this morning, even if this is true, there is no reason why Obama can’t voice support for the bill being pushed by a number of Senators that would compel the declassification of these opinions, or summaries of them. ...Greg Sargent, WaPo

Federal agents do no wrong

... The F.B.I. narrative describes a lengthy chase of Mr. Schultz’s car after agents turned on their siren at an intersection, bolstering an impression that it was reasonable for Agent Braga to fear that Mr. Schultz was a dangerous fugitive. The narrative spends a full page describing this moment in great detail, saying that the car “rapidly accelerated” and that one agent shouted for it to stop “over and over again.” It cites another agent as estimating that the car stopped “approximately 100 yards” from the intersection. By contrast, the police report describes this moment in a short, skeptical paragraph. ... a crash reconstruction specialist hired for the lawsuit estimated that the car had reached a maximum speed of 12 miles per hour ...NYT

For Agent Braga, this was hardly the first time he'd used his gun rather than his brain or,  god knows, any restraint. Even so, the grand jury decided to let it pass.  That seems to be the norm.  Not just on TV -- in real life.

It's creepy to think about how "justified" federal agents are.  Most of the time their actions appear to get a pass no matter what.  As it turns out, "suspects" are guilty even without a trial.  Doesn't the use of the word "suspect" indicate or lead to prejudgment on the part of the Bureau?  Agents are, of course, just doing their job.  Which is bound to be the result because the investigations are always internal.

... From 1993 to early 2011, F.B.I. agents fatally shot about 70 “subjects” and wounded about 80 others — and every one of those episodes was deemed justified, according to interviews and internal F.B.I. records obtained by The New York Times through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.....NYT

When a Chechen turned up dead while be questioned by federal agents, the local police took a hands-off approach.  They let it pass.

Critics say the fact that for at least two decades no agent has been disciplined for any instance of deliberately shooting someone raises questions about the credibility of the bureau’s internal investigations. ...NYT

It does, doesn't it?   But not, apparently, inside the FBI.  It makes its own decisions, internally, about whether an "incident" has been the fault of one of its agents. In the end, the real guilt lies with the agency itself. 

Lately, there have been incidents so questionable -- incidents about which agents clearly lied in their reports -- that the Bureau may finally have to do something about it.  Maybe.

Should suckers expect freedom?

If you look at the reactions of many commenters on reports about Edward Snowden, you'd have to conclude from their knee-jerk response that they have made up their minds -- having only the government and media reports -- that Snowden should not have done what he did, is guilty, and should be executed for treason.  This not  only tells us (nothing new) that people and particularly people who don't trust big government are nonetheless earnest consumers of government and media. 

Even  when three former NSA whistleblowers corroborate Snowden's account of NSA overreach.  They, too, come in  for random mudslinging. 

Still, they tried to do the right thing: "... They blew the whistle in the way Snowden's critics suggest he should have done. Their method didn't get through to the members of Congress who are saying, in the wake of the Snowden leak, that they had no idea what was going on..."  That's from Conor Friedersdorf who goes on to enumerate the points the three former whistleblowers made.

• His disclosures did not cause grave damage to national security.

• What Snowden discovered is "material evidence of an institutional crime."

• As a system administrator, Snowden "could go on the network or go into any file or any system and change it or add to it or whatever, just to make sure -- because he would be responsible to get it back up and running if, in fact, it failed. So that meant he had access to go in and put anything. That's why he said, I think, 'I can even target the president or a judge.' If he knew their phone numbers or attributes, he could insert them into the target list which would be distributed worldwide. And then it would be collected, yeah, that's right. As a super-user, he could do that."

• "The idea that we have robust checks and balances on this is a myth."

• Congressional overseers "have no real way of seeing into what these agencies are doing. They are totally dependent on the agencies briefing them on programs, telling them what they are doing."

• Lawmakers "don't really don't understand what the NSA does and how it operates. Even when they get briefings, they still don't understand."

• Asked what Edward Snowden should expect to happen to him, one of the men, William Binney, answered, "first tortured, then maybe even rendered and tortured and then incarcerated and then tried and incarcerated or even executed." Interesting that this is what a whistleblower thinks the U.S. government will do to a citizen. The abuse of Bradley Manning worked.

• "There is no path for intelligence-community whistle-blowers who know wrong is being done. There is none. It's a toss of the coin, and the odds are you are going to be hammered."

So now  we know.  Snowden wasn't some little underachiever throwing his weight around but without rank.  He was a system administrator with a fair amount of access and knowledge.  In the end, this is about government crime, not whistleblower "treason."  We're in trouble if we accept the story government and media are throwing at us.  Congress has no (and is responsible for not insisting on) oversight capability.  And, as a result, we are all going to be hammered.

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Update:  We are not allowed to ask how the Senate Intelligence Committee operates, according to a report from the Federation of American Scientists' Secrecy Project, via its "Secrecy News" blog.

... The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has blocked its former general counsel, Vicki Divoll, from speaking to Talking Points Memo (TPM) on the record about how the Committee functions.

“TPM was reporting a story based on interviews with members of Congress and current and former aides about the successes and pitfalls of intelligence oversight on Capitol Hill,” wrote Brian Beutler of TPM DC.

“The goal was to answer some basic questions for readers: How does a classified process differ from public oversight? What challenges do the combination of government secrecy, classified briefings, and strict committee protocols present to legislators trying to control the nation’s sprawling intelligence apparatus?”

A Committee spokesman told TPM that this kind of information was “committee sensitive” and that therefore Ms. Divoll’s remarks on the subject should not be made public. ...Secrecy News

Steven Aftergood goes on  to remind us that 'twas not always thus.  Twenty years ago the staff could talk.  But the institution -- as generally happens -- now operates to preserve itself to a far greater extent than it serves us. 

That, of course, is true of the entire government. Even the relationship of citizen to government is subject to the same pull.  Not to forget marriages.  

Perhaps it's time for us to rise, turn  towards Washington (to the east?) and say, three times, "I divorce you," and choose some new partners.

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The National Security Agency director on Tuesday vigorously defended two formerly secret surveillance programs as having foiled more than 50 terrorist plots, including a plan to blow up the New York Stock Exchange.

The programs are “the best counterterrorism tools that we have to go after these guys,” said NSA chief Gen. Keith Alexander, flanked by other top law and intelligence officials. “We can’t lose those capabilities.” ...Detroit News

Well.  Now we don't have to worry.

Since when is a drone protected by "free speech"?

... Drones are cheap, light and don’t require a pilot, they can be put in the air for a fraction of the cost of a traditional airplane. That has created new opportunities for everyone from real estate firms to oil and gas companies to PETA  – anyone, in fact, who might have use for an eye-in-the-sky, but doesn’t have the money to hire a pilot and a plane. ...Timothy Lee, WaPo

Okay.  So in comes some form of regulation, with considerable support from rooftop and backyard "naturists,"  along with animal abusers who don't want PETA's drones watching them. So individual states are passing their own laws restricting the use of drones.

Then in comes the 1st Amendment, pointing its quivering forefinger at the Texas legislature -- one of several state legislatures drafting laws on the use of drones

Margot Kaminski, a scholar at Yale Law School, describes the Texas approach to regulating privately operated drones as “kind of a disaster.” She warns that regulations of private drone use could raise First Amendment problems. ...Timothy Lee, WaPo

The "free speech" amendment?  At first glance, that seems to be a stretch, at best.  But it isn't.

For example, “if you have a news organization hovering over a protest and videoing cops beating protesters, that’s really valuable for the First Amendment,” she says. The courts have already said that private citizens have a First Amendment right to video-record the activities of public officials. The same reasoning suggests that aerial recording of police conduct would be constitutionally protected.

But while Kaminski is critical of the kinds of prohibitions enacted in Texas and Idaho, she doesn’t favor the federal government preempting them. Instead, she argues the state-by-state trial-and-error process is necessary for the nation to navigate the complexities of drone regulation. She worries that federal legislation would strike the wrong balance, imposing a poorly crafted law on the entire country. ...Timothy Lee, WaPo

Congress "impose a poorly crafted law on the entire country"? 

Nah.  That would never happen.

And in Texas -- believe me -- we have special knowledge of these matters

As the House of Representatives prepares on Tuesday to consider huge legislative restrictions on a woman’s right to choose, one GOP congressman is using the idea that fetuses can masturbate to argue for more abortion restrictions.

On Monday evening, Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX), an Ob/Gyn by trade, told his colleagues to, “Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful”:

They stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to believe that they could feel pain?

We're grateful to Think Progress for its vigilance.

Snowden had no secrets

This conversation between interviewer Bob Garfield and Joe Mullin, tech editor of Ars Technica, was aired a few days ago by WNYC's "On the Media."

BOB GARFIELD:  On Wednesday, journalists discovered that Snowden was an avid poster on Ars Technica’s user forums. For more than ten years, he corresponded under the name "The TrueHOOHA,” a handle he’d used elsewhere online, as well. Mullin has been reading Snowden's posts, which, taken as a whole, trace the thinking of a precocious teenager into a tech savvy geek, into an opinionated adult, seeking and offering help along the way. From the beginning, Mullin says, Snowden seemed at home in the Ars tribe. It's a place where “nerd” isn’t exactly an epithet.

JOE MULLIN:  He definitely self-identified as a nerd. He was proud of it. He talked about how he wanted to make a gamer name for himself and that that gamer name would be “WolfkingAwesomefox.” And he wanted other gamers to do it too. He wanted to learn how to surf the Internet anonymously. He wanted to learn how to build a Web server.

BOB GARFIELD:  And he posted on things that really had nothing to do with technology. Can you give me a small sampling of what you ran across as you went back to the writings of the "The TrueHOOHA”?

JOE MULLIN:  Sure. He joined our forums in 2001 when he could have been about 17, according to the timeline we have. As early as 2003, he was talking with one of our writers and our editor-in-chief Ken Fisher, and he was talking about his own agnosticism and sort of the nature of freedom, waxing philosophical.

BOB GARFIELD:  But he also gave some clues as to his view of the emerging security state. Can you give me some examples?

JOE MULLIN:  As early as 2006, he would make jokes. There was a user on a forum who was asking about a strange noise that his Xbox 360 gaming console was making, and Snowden, as “HOOHA” said, oh, that’s the NSA’s new surveillance program. And, of course, now we know he was probably working in the government in some capacity at that time. So he was sort of making jokes with our users about the government watching you, while he was working for the government.

In 2010, Snowden sort of responded to another Ars user’s question about a piece of equipment built by Cisco. There was a discussion about a security flaw in a piece of Cisco equipment. The flaw was related to a backdoor that had been built so that the government could use this equipment for wiretapping, in some sense. He wrote, “It really concerns me how little this sort of corporate behavior bothers those outside of technology circles. Society seems to have developed an unquestioning obedience towards spooky types.”

BOB GARFIELD:  It pains me and almost shames me to ask you this question, but having read all this stuff, have you seen anything that would answer, for anybody who’s asked ‘til now, Ed Snowden, hero or villain? And, by the way, does it matter?

JOE MULLIN:  I think people who look at his history on Ars and the many statements he left on our site are gonna see someone who comes off as a pretty regular guy. He was a young guy who sometimes said stuff that was off the cuff about girls and about what he was into.

But, I think for the half of the country that sees him as a hero, it is gonna humanize him and it doesn't make him look like a bad guy. And for the half of the country that sees him as a villain, I don’t know that it’ll necessarily change their minds either.

BOB GARFIELD:  There is one thing I do have to ask you about this. Edward Snowden wasn’t writing under the name Edward Snowden. He was using this handle "The TrueHOOHA.” And he's been kind of outed. [LAUGHS] It’s – there’s, I guess, some irony in the fact that he wished to remain anonymous and through forces beyond his control no longer is. It's almost too pat. Have have given that any thought?

JOE MULLIN:  We certainly have. You know, Snowden was a person  who knew what he was doing and was prepared for a blizzard of publicity about him, once he leaked. You know, while he was anonymous, I think the Edward Snowden today absolutely knows that he has an online life - he had a life for over a decade – and that people are going to notice it and that the media is going to see it and that the government will also see it.

You know, he wasn’t that anonymous, when you look at what he posted on Ars. He gave so much detail about his life – his age, his employer, where he was living at different times, different jobs he’s had, and then he also posted photos of himself. So we have Ars members that keep a very low profile, and he really wasn’t one of them!

When a hill turns out to be a pile...

Seems to me that we're going to have to get used to giving up on "clear-cut solutions" or "clear-cut" anything.  For a start (this'll come as a surprise to very few) we Americans are neither liberal nor conservative.  These days Americans like to think of themselves as conservative while, in fact,  even conservatives embrace much of liberalism.  Many, in fact, like being easy on themselves while being pretty authoritarian towards everyone else.  Women and minorities tend to be their enemies.  In American, then, it's about allowing choice for oneself while demanding constraints for others. 

Let America be free!  However, "hopefully" America will control, dominate, export its values  (you choose your own words here) to all other nations, none of which knows how to govern as well as we do.  No, not even the Swedes though the crazy left in America thinks Swedes may be smarter than we are at self-governance. But Americans -- also for decades -- have had policies ensuring libertarianism at home and dictatorship in other countries.

How do I know this about America?  Well, there's history, and then I check out The Hill now and then to stay up-to-date.  Tip:  if you can't find outrageous reporting among the paid reporters, check out the comments!

So let's check out what The Hill has on Obama today.  They admit (claim?) that  they can't figure out who he is. 

Is he the dyed-in-the-wool liberal that his biggest supporters and critics suggest? Or is he a pragmatic, even cynical, politician who cares more for his popularity than taking risks for his ideological goals or living up to his rhetoric? ...The Hill

Guys, you've watched him being a senator for four years and a president for five and you haven't figured it out yet?  Seems to me he is, like most Americans (and even most politicians) a mixture of attitudes and opinions. He doesn't (can't and is supposed to) govern all  by himself.  A huge part of what he (or anyone) does is made up of compromise with reality. Reality abhors purity and clarity.

The Hill is uneasy with "conflicting interpretations" and wants simple,  clear explanations and, Aw jeez, the Hill complains, "Obama has provided evidence to support conflicting interpretations..." 

Obama came to power on the strength of his opposition to war in Iraq but is now poised to intervene in the civil war in Syria. ...The Hill

Wasn't The  Hill complaining just yesterday that Obama seemed reluctant to intervene in Syria?  Seems to me we have the first president in over three decades who really, really wants to avoid more American involvement in war and thinks once, twice, three times before pressing any buttons.

“President Obama has always been instinctively careful. And while he has progressive values, he’s pursued them in a careful and pragmatic way that has left his base feeling unenthusiastic [and] dispirited,” said Cal Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University. ...The Hill

There are a lot of liberals who continue to believe that "careful and pragmatic" is exactly what's needed, recognizing, as many of us do, that our ideals are goals, not strategies.  Obama, perhaps the most mature and grounded person we've had in charge for a long time, knows the difference.  There is a tiny hint that The Hill may understand that.

Observers say the either-or choice between Obama the ideologue and Obama the pragmatist is simplistic and misleading. They say he is both: His principles on domestic issues in particular are on the left, but he is willing to bend those principles to rack up achievements and burnish his legacy. ...The Hill

"Rack up" and "burnish"?  That sounds more like something Oliver North and Dick Cheney were doing in the back rooms of the White House during successive Republican administrations.  In fact, it sounds a lot like the torture Obama's predecessor was ordering in Gitmo and secret CIA prisons.

Just not doing it

... The leaked court document ordering Verizon to turn over all call data revealed, the NSA is authorized to collect "geolocational" information, such as the location of the nearest cellphone tower used to place a call. While that data would obviously be useful in a criminal investigation, officials say it isn't valuable enough for intelligence purposes to justify the effort required to use it. To be clear, the government isn't concerned about violating Americans' privacy by recording our movements, it's just too much work to keep tabs on all of us.  ...Margaret Hartman, Daily Intel

Self-restraint?  Is that what we'd describe as a contemporary American "value"?  I haven't noticed a whole lot of restraint lately but maybe I'm missing something.  Sometimes we talk about "boundaries," often looking at it from our own point of view:  someone didn't respect our boundaries.  But we don't like to look at it in terms of restraining oneself.  Isn't America really about "having it all"?

If you leave the keys in the ignition, you really can't fault a passerby for stealing  your car?  If you wear those clothes on these streets at this time of day, you really can't complain about being robbed or raped?

Can you imagine a government refusing to use the power it has?  That some rinky-dink "secret" court (even less answerable to We The People than the Supremes!) would be effective in imposing constraints?  Maybe that would be "too much work." 

Trust, American-style

WALLACE: So what right do you think the American people have to know what government is doing?

CHENEY: Well, they get to vote for senior officials, like the President of the United States, or like the senior officials in Congress. And you have to have some trust in them. ...Fox News via Think Progress

Oh yeah?

As Think Progress goes on to point out, Cheney's "false statements helped propel the United States into an eight year war in Iraq."

Trust.  Verify.  If Cheney were (seriously) in federal prison for concocting an elaborate lie that killed thousands, I think our trust could now be expected.  But he's not.  Both sides, not excluding President Obama, share the responsibility for not dealing properly with high crimes.

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"Verify" is not something the leaders of our alleged free country are willing to allow.  The whole truth and nothing but comes from Greg Sargent:

President Obama says he welcomes a “debate” over the NSA surveillance programs and, more broadly, over the proper balance between national security on the one hand and civil liberties and the right to privacy on the other. However, the level of secrecy shrouding these programs makes any serious debate abut them virtually impossible.

But couldn’t the Obama administration declassify the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) opinions that make this surveillance possible if it wanted to?

The answer is Yes, according to Michelle Richardson, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. “It’s totally within the administration’s control to declassify these opinions, after redactions, if necessary,” Richardson says. “So there could actually be an informed debate about the legal basis for this sort of data collection.” ...PlumLine,WaPo

Two senators are working on it.  How much are you willing to bet we'll get that declassification?  Huh?  What?  Speak up, there!