Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 16. Juni 2004 / Time Line June 16, 2004
Version 3.006/16/2004
Stop the Secret Expansion of the USA PATRIOT Act!
By: Sylvia Brinton
Next Wednesday, June 16th, the House Intelligence Committee is
expected to consider expanding the USA PATRIOT Act by slipping
portions of the Anti-Terrorism Intelligence Tools Improvement Act
of 2003, HR 3179, into the Intelligence Authorization Act for
Fiscal Year 2005. HR 3179 includes the following provisions from
the leaked Justice Department draft of the Homeland Security
Enhancement Act, AKA "Patriot II":
-- A "lone wolf" provision that applies the Patriot Act's
surveillance and investigation provisions to persons acting alone.
(The Senate has already passed this as a stand-alone bill.)
-- Penalties for failure to cooperate with overbroad powers for the
FBI to issue secret National Security Letters (NSLs) requesting
private information, with no checks and balances
-- Secret use of information from NSLs in immigration proceedings,
which would deny immigrants their fifth and fourteenth amendment
protections from being "deprived of life, liberty, or property,
without due process of law."
There is no evidence that the FBI needs these provisions.
Furthermore, it is too early to consider expanding the USA PATRIOT
Act. We have not yet had adequate congressional oversight of how
the government is using the surveillance provisions of the PATRIOT
Act. Some provisions of the PATRIOT Act are set to expire at the
end of 2005, so Congress will need to review them next year -- when
all of these issues can be publicly debated and analyzed.
The intelligence authorization bill generally contains many
important provisions, and it must pass every year, so it is
difficult for members of Congress to vote against it even if it
contains some provisions they oppose. Therefore, it is critical to
stop the inclusion of HR 3179 in committee.
Last year, Reps. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and Porter Goss (R-FL)
introduced HR 3179, a bill that would expand the FBI's ability to
obtain records without a court order and wiretap people without
meeting normal constitutional standards. After various
organizations voiced opposition to the bill, the House Judiciary
Committee held a hearing on HR 3179 last month, where former Rep.
Bob Barr (R-GA) testified against the bill.
After the hearing, it was reported that Rep. Goss, who is the Chair
of the House Intelligence Committee, was likely to tack the
provisions of HR 3179 onto the annual intelligence authorization
bill, which his committee debates and votes on behind closed
doors.
You may recall that last December, another section from PATRIOT II,
which expanded the FBI's ability to use secret National Security
Letters, was tacked on to the Intelligence Authorization Act of
2004 without the knowledge of most members of Congress. It was
passed, and President Bush signed the bill on Saturday, December
13, the day of Saddam Hussein's capture by U.S. forces in Iraq.
Texas Congressman Ron Paul called the tactic "a stealth enactment
of the enormously unpopular 'Patriot II' legislation."
06/16/2004
Highlight Cheney's Corruption -- Starting TOMORROW
By: Eli Pariser
Just this morning, the L.A. Times released a new Halliburton
bombshell: it's now clear that over the protests of an Army
official, Vice President Cheney's office helped ensure that
Cheney's old company Halliburton would receive a $7 billion no-bid
contract for rebuilding Iraq. Faced with a choice between serving
our troops and helping out his corporate buddies, Cheney chose the
latter. The timing for our new ad exposing how Halliburton and Bush
administration officials took taxpayers for a ride couldn't be
better.
And starting tomorrow, Congress will be holding hearings on whether
Halliburton used its close ties to administration officials to get
sweetheart deals, shortchanging both our troops and U.S. taxpayers.
Since Thursday afternoon, we've already raised about $420,000 to
air the ad. But in order to get the ad in front of swing-state
voters for a week starting tomorrow, we'll need to raise about $1.1
million. Together, if we all pitch in what we can, we can make it
happen.
06/16/2004
Halliburton's billing system for work in Iraq hit by audit :
Weak oversight of subcontractors, invoice woes cited
By Reuters
WASHINGTON -- Pentagon auditors have found "deficiencies" in
Halliburton's billing system for billions of dollars worth of work
in Iraq, according to a military audit released by a Democratic
lawmaker yesterday.
The audit on Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root, the US
military's biggest contractor in Iraq, was released by California
Representative Henry Waxman to back up claims of misuse of US
taxpayer funds in Iraq by the Texas firm, which was run by Dick
Cheney from 1995 to 2000, before he was elected vice president of
the United States.
The May 13 audit report cited "system deficiencies" that resulted
in invoicing misstatements and said a follow-up audit would be done
in six months to see whether corrective action had been taken.
The Defense Contract Audit Agency is doing several other reports,
covering issues such as a dispute over prices charged to the
military for food delivered to troops.
In addition, investigators are looking into whether Kellogg Brown
and Root overcharged for fuel.
The May audit also said the company did not have adequate controls
over subcontractors' bills, and criticized it for inadequate
oversight of subcontractors' work.
06/16/2004
Iraks olieeksport stoppes ved sabotage, skriver Reuters.
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