Mainstream Media Continues With Pentagon Lie

by: Rusty5329

Fri Jul 31, 2009 at 04:00 PM EDT

The Global War on Fringe People

by: Isaac Smith

Wed Oct 08, 2008 at 03:25 PM EDT

So the latest news in the Maryland State Police spying scandal is that the program had apparently designated 53 nonviolent activists as terrorists, and had their names put on state and federal terrorist watch lists. The thing that grabbed my attention most, however, is the degree to which current and former MSP officials are digging in their heels on this matter:

The former state police superintendent who authorized the operation, Thomas E. Hutchins, defended the program in testimony yesterday. Hutchins said the program was a bulwark against potential violence and called the activists "fringe people."

I find this kind of funny, actually, given that the activists targeted were protesting the death penalty and the Iraq War, and that recent polls have shown that a plurality of Marylanders favor life without parole over the death penalty, and that the Iraq War is unpopular around the country. (I couldn't find any Maryland-specific polling, but I would be suprised if support for the Iraq War were stronger here than elsewhere.) If Hutchins wants to claim that large swathes of Marylanders are "fringe people," then I'm glad he's no longer running the Maryland State Police. Maybe he's been reading too much Brian Griffiths.

On a more serious note, I want to add that it's not just disturbing that the State Police abused their power so egregiously, it's also counterproductive to the goals of legitimate counterterrorism operations. While it might seem intuitive that casting a broader net of surveillance will help police catch any potential terrorists, it's more likely to come up with frankly useless information, like the activities of anti-death penalty protesters. In fact, the only valid reason to engage in such pervasive surveillance is to act as a form of intimidation of political dissidents, as was done in East Germany and other authoritarian regimes. Matt Yglesias made a similar point with respect to torture:

On 9/11, for example, various elements of the FBI and the intelligence community already had all the information that would have been necessary to foil the plot. The trouble was that no one person had all that information, because everyone was busy looking at other things. New processes -- pervasive surveillance, relaxed standards of evidence, statements acquired through torture -- that increase the quantity of intelligence by reducing its quality make things harder, not easier.

More information, conversely, simply tends to reconfirm what the powers that be already think they know. Key actors in the Bush administration were convinced that Saddam Hussein had advanced weapons of mass destruction programs. And by squeezing every possible bit of information out of every al-Qaeda captive and every Iraqi defector on hand, they were able to find their "proof." If you relax your standards enough and look hard enough, in other words, you'll be able to find information to justify just about any conclusion you like. The trouble is that the conclusions you like aren't going to be the conclusions that are accurate. The upshot was a gigantic mistake for which the country has paid -- and continues to pay -- a steep price. In the world of intelligence, in other words, less is usually more.

Newsweek on the Calvo Raid

by: Isaac Smith

Thu Aug 21, 2008 at 01:39 PM EDT

Patti Davis of Newsweek writes about the Prince George's police shooting of Cheye Calvo's dogs, connecting it with the troubled state of mind of many Americans today. Here's her conclusion:

You need to imagine all these things because, in a way, we all live in that house. It's called our country, and this is what's starting to happen here.

Prince George's official country Web site defines itself as "a county of livable communities." That's what we all wish for--a livable community, a home where we feel safe. We want to feel that if the bad guys come, we can call the police and they will be the good guys. We want to believe that if we're innocent, armed men with government badges won't handcuff us and shoot our pets and wave their weapons in our faces.

But more and more of us don't believe that.

The next president will not only have to deal with the economy, with global warming, with wars in other countries … he will have to deal with fear and rage at home. A country does not only lose itself by what happens on other shores; it loses itself in living rooms, kitchens, backyards. America will lose itself when we look around us and nothing feels like home anymore.

Read the whole thing.

Brian Frosh on State Police Spying

by: Eric Luedtke

Thu Aug 14, 2008 at 07:19 PM EDT

From Senator Brian Frosh's latest constituent e-mail:

When the Judicial Proceedings Committee is convened in September, our role will be twofold. First, we will hear from witnesses and review documents to help us determine what actually happened.

    We will then determine if a policy response is warranted. If it is, we will craft legislation to be considered during the 2009 legislative session, which begins in January.

    Our committee's work, coupled with the report being prepared by Mr. Sachs, will give us a fuller picture of the undercover activity and provide lawmakers with a better sense of what, if any, changes in the law are required. I am certain that we will be able to ensure that Maryland continues to have effective law enforcement while our cherished civil liberties, freedom of speech and freedom of association, remain protected.

Frosh references elsewhere in his e-mail this op-ed by Senator Jamie Raskin, which I had missed but which is worth a read. Raskin:

The sad thing about this episode is that the reports filed by the agents seem resigned and guilty, as if they knew their whole detail was wrong in the first place. Now, alas, the wheel of investigation turns to them, the inevitable result of political authorities injecting the paranoid style into government. Let us treat them fairly but reassert some basic constitutional values here. Citizens should never have to fear that their political activism will be treated like a homeland security threat.

Spying Scandal Could Cost State $4.5 Million

by: Eric Luedtke

Sat Aug 09, 2008 at 10:50 AM EDT

Blair Lee Reads Blogs, Recites Anti-O'Malley Talking Points

by: Eric Luedtke

Sat Aug 02, 2008 at 10:08 AM EDT

In another column slapping around Adam Pagnucco for his writings on the state police spying scandal, Blair Lee admitted by the by that he reads the state's political blogs. Which is interesting, but would be a lot more entertaining if he started commenting on FSP. Lee and Robb_Black having a flame war would make my day. The premise of his column is that Adam wasn't fair in attacking Ehrlich over the spying scandal, because he didn't go after O'Malley as well.

In support of which, Lee cites O'Malley's actions as Mayor that resulted in the NAACP and ACLU lawsuits. Which is old, old news, and has been a right wing talking point since the spying story broke. The only reason people are bringing it up now is in defense of Ehrlich, saying, "See! See! Martin did it too!" It's a distraction from the current case. And it doesn't change the facts: the Sachs investigation should look at every aspect of the spying, including what happened during both the Ehrlich and O'Malley administrations, and legislation should be passed to prevent any future violations. This stupid back and forth about who is trying to politicize the scandal needs to end.

Almost every time I read one of Lee's columns, I finish disappointed. I expect to see moderation, but often end up with pretty much exactly what's on Red Maryland, albeit dressed up in nicer clothes.

The State Police Spying Program and Terrorism

by: Isaac Smith

Thu Jul 31, 2008 at 01:28 AM EDT

In a letter to the Washington Post Sunday (no link), Sen. Jamie Raskin says:

Like most Americans, I had assumed that the billions of dollars in federal homeland security funds channeled to the states went to monitor al-Qaeda sleeper cells planning terrorist attacks, or extremists who blow up health clinics or federal buildings. It never dawned on me that tax dollars collected during Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich's time in office could be paying for agents to infiltrate Quaker peace groups and anti-death penalty activists in Maryland.

It seems to me that one way to explain why the State Police became so interested in groups that posed no threat to public safety lies in the post-9/11 security environment. Essentially, in order to head off another al-Qaeda attack, the Bush administration and Congress started throwing tons of money at counterterrorism programs, and didn't give much thought to where the money was going. This has led to, among other thing, some egregious instances of waste and misspending in the Department of Homeland Security, particularly in parts of the country where the chance of a terrorist attack is slim to nil.

More generally, the shock and horror of 9/11 put a lot of people in a state of always trying to anticipate the next terrorist attack, as if the US were becoming like Israel, i.e., continually plagued by attacks and bombings. In fact, it seems that the 9/11 plot was more the exception than the rule; most of the terrorism plots in the US that have been uncovered since then were the products of, shall we say, less than stellar minds. Nevertheless, the possibility of another terrorist attack resulting in mass casualties is enough to encourage law enforcement agencies to look for potential threats in even the most remote areas. As security expert Bruce Schneier has pointed out, highly improbable events like terrorism tend to make us react irrationally; humans are pattern-making creatures, and so we're desperate to fold the unexpected into our existing mental framework, even if it doesn't make sense. Hence, for example, the ban on carrying liquids onto airplanes.

What does this mean for the State Police spying program? I suppose you could argue that it was the result of too much anti-terrorism money (and attention to fighting terrorism) has been chasing too few actual threats; thus, anti-death penalty and anti-war groups are inflated into groups of interests to law enforcement. That doesn't answer the question, however, of why just those groups were targeted. Finding that out ought to be the first thing any investigation into the surveillance program pursues.

None of this, of course, is meant to diminish the threat of terrorism in the US, and we should consider ourselves lucky that another 9/11-style attack hasn't occurred yet. But it's worth reminding ourselves that this particular issue with the Maryland State Police happened within a broader context, in which security priorities across the country have been skewed from what a more rational look at the situation would suggest. Why, for example, has the Bush administration been so aggressive about expanded surveillance powers and legalizing torture, but comparatively blasé about port and rail security? Or for improving language skills for intelligence operatives? Given the money (and lives) at stake, thinking strategically about how to combat terrorism is something our leaders need to be doing more.

ACLU Continues to Call for the Full Story to Be Told on State Police Spying

by: Eric Luedtke

Wed Jul 30, 2008 at 11:26 AM EDT

In a press release last Friday, which I just got a hold of today, the Maryland ACLU calls into question a number of details about State Police Superintendant Terrence Sheridan's statements to the press concerning the state police spyng scandal. It also seems, according to the ACLU, that the spying was occuring earlier than the State Police have admitted. The ACLU's right on the ball in insisting on:

a. A full and thorough investigation of the spying, and why the State Police thought it necessary to add peaceful citizens groups and activists to federal criminal databases.

b. Strict and clear rules, preferably legislation, placing controls of future State Police investigations to prevent this sort of thing from ever happening again.

The full release is included after the fold.

They're also calling for activist groups to assist them in further Freedom of Information Act requests:

Have you ever organized a demonstration, rally, or march? Will YOUR GROUP join with us to seek the truth? We ask that each group who contacts us do the following: 

• Designate a SINGLE contact person
• Provide us with the names of key individual activists who could potentially be listed in surveillance records

Send an email to nospying@aclu-md.org or call 410-889-8555.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Brian Frosh on Kojo Nnamdi About State Police Spying

by: Eric Luedtke

Fri Jul 25, 2008 at 02:37 PM EDT

Senator Brian Frosh, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, went on the Kojo Nnamdi Show to talk about what Blair Lee has now dubbed 'spygate' (link to the show, Frosh starts about 16 minutes in). Although whichever Red Maryland blogger it was that had a hissy about me calling the whole situation Nixonian won't be happy, because one of the journalists on the show suggests the same thing.

By the way, if you read through Lee's column that I linked above, you'll see he calls Adam Pagnucco of Maryland Politics Watch to task for titling his postings on the issue "Ehrlich's Secret Police." Like conservative bloggers, Lee seems less concerned about the fact that civil liberties of citizens were violated than about the possibility of the scandal being hung around Ehrlich's neck. Let's make this simple. If Ehrlich ordered the spying for partisan purposes, he was criminal. If he knew about it but didn't stop it, he was negligent. If he didn't know that a major state agency was playing games with the first amendment, he was incompetent. None of them is a very good thing for Ehrlich. The buck stops with Bob.

Frosh also comments on Senator Currie's case, mentioning that there is a state law banning legislators from lobbying. It seems in that case that the situation is fairly clear-cut. And he has some interesting comments on slots as well.

O'Malley Statement on Police Spying Program

by: Isaac Smith

Fri Jul 18, 2008 at 10:16 PM EDT

PolitickerMD:

“While these events happened in 2005 and 2006 under the previous administration, the Maryland State Police, under the O'Malley-Brown Administration, does not and will not use public resources to target or monitor peaceful activities where Maryland citizens are exercising their First Amendment rights,” O’Malley said in a statement.

He continued: “The State Police and other law enforcement agencies have an obligation to take seriously and investigate all potential threats to public safety consistent with state and federal law, including the Criminal Intelligence Systems Operating Policies contained at 28 Code of Federal Regulations Part 23. But where there is no evidence of a potential public threat, illegal activity or criminal wrongdoing, all investigatory or intelligence gathering activities shall cease.”

Good to hear. It also appears that the Maryland State Police did the surveillance without Bob Ehrlich's knowledge, which is perhaps even more disturbing.