The AIPAC Caucus

The Nation 58 minutes ago

The Nation -- The night before Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) addressed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's (AIPAC) annual conference, House Democrats removed language from an Iraq supplemental bill that would have prevented President Bush from attacking Iran without Congressional approval.

"Conservative Democrats as well as lawmakers concerned about the possible impact on Israel had argued for the change in strategy," the Associated Press reported. "Opposition to the Iran language from conservative Blue Dogs had threatened to sink the spending plan," added National Journal's Congress Daily.

Hawkish "pro-Israel" organizations, on the Jewish and Christian right, have been leading advocates of a more confrontational Iran policy. Thousands of supporters are in town for AIPAC's star-studded convention, which as usual drew half of the Senate and a third of the House, including members of both parties' leadership.

The effort to remove the Iran language was spearheaded by Congressman Allen Boyd (the only Democrat to support the privatization of Social Security in 2005). In addition to supporting the White House line on Iran, the Blue Dogs want to give Bush a waiver to keep US troops in Iraq indefinitely. Appeasing the Blue Dogs could hurt Pelosi with the progressive wing of her caucus, which is already weary about the supplemental.

Rep. Jim McDermott (news, bio, voting record), sponsor of the Iran provision, says he wants to see the final version of the bill before deciding how to vote. That's also the position of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

But there is much unease. By acquiescing to the White House, many rank-and-file Democrats believe their leadership is missing a major opportunity to end one war and prevent another. The leading proponent of reigning in the Bush Administration on Iran is Senator Jim Webb. You'd think that Webb would be the ideal person to speak for the party on national security matters. The Blue Dogs and the AIPAC caucus apparently disagree.

Homeland 'Security' Back in the 'Vast Privacy Violations' Business

Homeland Security revives supersnoop
By Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published March 8, 2007

Homeland Security officials are testing a supersnoop computer system that sifts through personal information on U.S. citizens to detect possible terrorist attacks, prompting concerns from lawmakers who have called for investigations.

The system uses the same data-mining process that was developed by the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness (TIA) project that was banned by Congress in 2003 because of vast privacy violations.

A Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigation of the project called ADVISE -- Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight and Semantic Enhancement -- was requested by Rep. David R. Obey, Wisconsin Democrat and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

The investigation focuses on whether the program violates privacy laws, and the findings will be released after completion of the Iraq war supplemental spending bill, possibly as early as this week, a panel aide said.

The ADVISE and TIA data-mining projects rely on personal data to track individual behavior and consumer transactions to develop computer algorithms that create a pattern that some behavioral scientists say can predict terrorist behavior.

Data can include credit-card purchases, telephone or Internet details, medical records, travel and banking information.

Privacy concerns prompted lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to introduce legislation in January to require that government agencies disclose data-mining practices in regular reports to Congress.

"A serious discussion on the implications of data-mining programs is long overdue," Sen. Russ Feingold, Wisconsin Democrat and a sponsor of the bill, said yesterday. Sen. John E. Sununu, New Hampshire Republican, is also a bill sponsor.

"Many Americans are understandably concerned about the idea of secret government programs analyzing their personal information. Congress needs to know more about the operational aspects and privacy implications of data-mining programs before these programs are allowed to go forward," Mr. Feingold said.
A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security did not return a call for comment.

Congress also tucked language inside Homeland Security's spending bill in September requiring an investigation by the agency's inspector general, but allowed $40 million in funding to go forward in this year's budget.

"The ADVISE program is designed to extract relationships and correlations from large amounts of data to produce actionable intelligence on terrorists," the spending bill said. "A prototype is currently available to analysts in Intelligence and Analysis using departmental and other data, including some on U.S. citizens."

According to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report in March 2003, TIA planned "to use data mining technologies to sift through personal transactions in electronic data to find patterns and associations connected to terrorist threats and activities."

"Recent increased awareness about the existence of the TIA project provoked expressions of concern about the potential for the invasion of privacy of law-abiding citizens by the government, and about the direction of the project by John Poindexter, a central figure in the Iran-Contra affair," the CRS report said.

"While the law enforcement and intelligence communities argue that more sophisticated information gathering techniques are essential to combat today's sophisticated terrorists, civil libertarians worry that the government's increased capability to assemble information will result in increased and unchecked government power, and the erosion of individual privacy," the report said.

ADVISE was initiated in 2003 following the demise of the TIA project.

The new system includes data-mining tools to digest "massive quantities of information from many different sources" to find "hidden relationships in the data," according to a 2004 report by Sandia National Laboratories and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on a Homeland Security workshop that outlined this and other technology under development.

The technology is expected to analyze more than 3 million "relationships" or connections per hour, says the report, which included an example of how friends, family members, locations and workplaces can be linked by pinging the data.

Pelosi appoints

Editor's Note: I am moving over to the other blog.
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Jan 25, 2006

By W. Rolley

It seems to me that all of the discussion here about Ellen Tauscher is a real waste of time and energy and only serves to support the concept of an idealogical orthodoxy. If that were truly the case, then there are much better targets that Tauscher, and from right here in the Bay Area.

I would put Tom Lantos, the new Chariman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs at the top of the list. This Committee was previously known called "International Relations". Gary Leupp at Counterpunch, described Lantos as "probably the most virulent Zionist in the entire Congress" and considers him a Neo-Con of the top (read dangerous) order.

I am not anti-Israel. I firmly believe that the US should try to recapture the moral high ground it once had and which the current administration as squandered with such lack of (insight, intelligence, compassion, honor, take your pick). Such a position would be to address the nuclear question with Iran by stating we will not provide aid to any country that is not a signatory to the Nuclear Arms Limitation Treaty. (That includes both Israel and Iran).

Tauscher was an easy target. A self-identified blue dog Democrat, she is never going to be the person that will appeal to the members of this list. However, one needs to remember that this is a conservative district. That Tauscher was the first Democrat to win there in a long time. And, she is no where near as "dangerous" as Lantos.

The appointment of Lantos to this powerful committee chairmanship signaled to the entire world that the Democrats are not ready for any change regarding Middle East Policies. We will continue the support for whatever Israel wants to do, as we did in Lebanon where they destroyed a country and built Hezbollah into an even greater power, as evidenced by their latest general strike.

If we want to make real change in Washington, it is not be targeting blue dog Democrats like Tauscher, but by curtailing the power of Democratic Neo-Cons like Lantos. This is not a case of "he works for us." We know that Lantos works for Israel.

I personally much prefer the call for an even handed policy in the Middle East. That is what is truly in the National Interest.