The New Furor over FISA "Reform"

To review this post on Newstrust, go here. Sabrina Pacifici's edited version of this piece will appear on LLRX. An archive of my articles is here.

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“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”--Fourth Amendment , The U.S. Constitution

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October 26 marks the sixth anniversary of the PATRIOT Act. On October 9, Representative Rush Holt (D-NJ) argued, “What separates our government from the totalitarian ones we despise is that they spy on their citizens in the name of national security.”

Holt was speaking of his efforts in the House Intelligence Committee to repeal August’s hurriedly enacted “update” of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the Protect America Act (PPA) with its six-month sunset clause. Holt’s FISA Modernization Act of 2007 (H.R. 3782) would repeal the PAA and restore the requirement for individualized warrants for wiretapping Americans. Pressure from the White House and heavy lobbying from telecommunications companies had civil libertarians saying that demands for secrecy and bypassing even the FISA court would weaken the Fourth Amendment.

John Conyers (D-MI) introduced the principal House rewrite of PPA, the RESTORE Act (H.R. 3773) on October 9. The acronym stands for “Responsible Electronic Surveillance that is Overseen, Reviewed, and Effective.” It had been marked up and reported by the Judiciary Committee Conyers chairs with three amendments by October 10 and by the Intelligence Committee with an additional three amendments that same day.

The measure troubled the American Civil Liberties Union for its inclusion of long-term program warrants that name neither the targets of the search, the facilities that will be accessed, nor what is going to be seized. Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office, said that such warrants are “the 21st century version of King George’s heavy-handed intrusions on individual privacy. We would not tolerate allowing government agents to sit in our living rooms recording our personal conversations. We should not permit it simply because the government now has the capacity monitor remotely and without our knowledge.”

The ACLU, as well as the Bill of Rights Defense Committee preferred Holt’s bill, which never made it to the House floor. Holt was able, however, to add the changes during the committee markup which would:

• Require the Bush administration to “fully inform” Congress on all surveillance programs conducted since 9/11.
• Increase the number of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) judges from 11 to 15; provide additional personnel to both the FISC and government agencies responsible for making and processing FISA applications; and create an electronic filing, sharing, and document management system for handling this highly classified data. The amendment would also mandate training in the FISA process.
• Require the Court to review and approve not only the targeting procedures and guidelines required under this Act, but also the application of those guidelines.
• Clarify that Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is the sole statutory basis for domestic surveillance.
  

The RESTORE Act did not include the immunity Bush demanded for the telecommunications companies which had cooperated in his warrantless surveillance, although the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee, Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) had offered a failed amendment to do so and to permanently extend the PPA act. Bush threatened a veto of RETORE without immunity, saying that the companies acted in good faith, believing that they were following the law.

A May 11, 2006 USA Today article,

NSA has massive database of Americans’ phone calls,” makes one wonder why these companies complied when “Qwest refused to help the NSA…. According to multiple sources…because it was uneasy about the legal implications of handing over customer information to the government without warrants.

And while President Bush has always justified his need for warrantless surveillance on the events of September 11, 2001, the October 11 publication of redacted documents in an insider trading case against former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio indicated confirmation of his meeting with the NSA on February 27, 2001 (see CIPA document 9, page 4) at which time Nacchio raised questions about the legality of a request to his company.

Scott Horton (bio, email), a NYC human rights attorney and lecturer at Columbia Law School, has concluded October 14 in "Quest, Another Political Prosecution ?" that "in light of the current disclosures, however, the question is exactly what secrets the court and the Government are trying to conceal? Using alleged national security concerns to deprive a criminal defendant of a robust defense undermines confidence in the entire legal process, and gives rise to an appearance of a court and government participating in a vendetta instead of administering justice. Certainly these disclosures suggest improper conduct on the part of the Government: first, that the contract award process was skewered to punish Qwest and its shareholders because of Nacchio’s views—which were, in the view of most U.S. legal professionals, entirely correct. And second, they raise a fair issue whether the prosecution itself was not launched as an act of retaliatory malice. At this point, the number of such politically directed prosecutions is growing, and the Nacchio case may well be just another example. Of course the Nacchio case went to trial before evidence had come to the surface that detailed just how pervasive and entrenched the phenomenon of polticially dictated prosecutions was.

I have no view of whether Nacchio is guilty or innocent of the charges brought. But the way they were brought and their timing now seems very disturbing.

Whose interests are protected when a Republican judge excludes evidence that suggests wrongdoing on the part of a Republican administration? Certainly not the most fundamental interest. That is injustice.

Jack M. Balkan (bio, email) is the Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment at Yale Law School and founder and director of its Information Society Project, which studies the implications of the Internet, telecommunications, and the new information technologies on law and society. October 14, he argued in "It's the Secrets Stupid: Why the FISA Immunity Debate is Important," that

the President wants legal assurances that nobody will have incentives to reveal what his subordinates did and what he asked the telecom companies to do. Retroactive immunity helps insure that these issues will never come to light in any court of law.

October 14, as RESTORE was about to come to a vote, Pete Hoekstra cited the delay in surveillance when three American soldiers kidnapped in Iraq in May.

Former FBI whistleblower Mike German, who worked on cases of domestic terrorism before joining the ACLU Washington Legislative Office as Policy Counsel on National Security, Immigration and Privacy in 2006, contradicted Hoekstra in an article by the conservative Cybercast News Service,

It is shameful of the administration to put families of soldiers in a political argument. There is no loophole to be closed....FISA has never restricted the military or NSA (National Security Agency) from conducting surveillance from foreign soil. They know if they are sitting in Iraq they don't have to come back to FISA.

German noted that the military waited three days after the kidnapping before seeking approval from the NSA, the Department of Justice (DoJ), and former Attorney General Gonzales and filing for a warrant.

Talking Point Memo’s Spencer Ackerman had reported on September 20 from an unnamed source:

To get an emergency warrant, you just have to believe the facts support the application that someone is an agent of a foreign power….That takes approximately five seconds to establish if you're going after an Iraqi insurgent.

But, Ackerman writes, the source indicated that

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was out of town; Deputy AG Paul McNulty had resigned already; Solicitor General Paul Clement ‘had left the building’; and the other responsible official, Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein was not yet authorized to approve the emergency order.

The Democratic leadership pulled the RESTORE Act on October 17, after maneuvering by Eric Cantor (R-VA) threatened to scuttle the bill. Pamela Hess of the Associated Press wrote on October 17,

The amendment would have said nothing in the bill could limit surveillance of Osama bin Laden and terrorist organizations. While the Democratic bill, in fact, allows the unfettered surveillance of such groups, voting against it could make it seem as though a member of Congress were against spying on al-Qaida.

Passage of the amendment would have sent the bill back to committee, effectively killing it. Democrats believed they were short of the votes needed to defeat the move.

The Senate Intelligence Committee marked up its bill, the FISA Amendment Act of 2007 on October 18, after insisting on a review of administration documents regarding the domestic spying. According to an October 20 New York Times article, “Wiretapping Compromise was months in the making,”

The House Intelligence Committee, and the Judiciary Committees of both the Senate and the House, have not been allowed to see the secret documents: President Bush’s orders authorizing the program, and Justice Department opinions laying out its legal basis….Dana Perino, the White House press secretary, said Friday that the Senate Intelligence Committee had gained access to the documents only after its leaders had indicated that they would grant immunity to the phone and Internet companies. ‘To the extent of anyone else being able to see the documents, Ms. Perino said, “I think that we’ll wait and see who else is willing to include that provision…"

While committee chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) found the documents sufficient to include retroactive immunity for the telecoms, he had expressed doubts about the surveillance program in a handwritten letter in 2003 to Vice President Cheney, stating that he was not a lawyer and had been prevented from consulting with counsel.

Another Intelligence Committee member, Russ Feingold (D-WI), who is in contrast to Rockefeller a former practicing attorney, voted against the measure on October 18, along with Ron Wyden (D-OR), and issued this statement:

The documents made available by the White House for the first time this week only further demonstrate that the program was illegal and that there is no basis for granting retroactive immunity to those who allegedly cooperated. The one silver lining of the flawed FISA bill passed in August was that it had a 6-month expiration date. It would be shameful to miss this opportunity to fix the law. It is time for Congress to stand up for the rights of Americans and to defend the Constitution and the rule of law.

The measure is slated to go before the Senate Judiciary Committee and its chairman, Patrick

Leahy (D-VT), expressed reservations about immunity, according to The Hill:\ [Administration officials] know that it was illegal conduct and that there is no saving grace for the president to say, ‘Well, I was acting with authority….Otherwise there wouldn't be so much pressure on us to immunize illegal conduct by either people acting within our government or within the private industry.

Chris Dodd (D-CT) stepped into the fray against immunity, saying that he would put a hold on the measure. After rumors circulated that Senate Majority Leader Reid (D-NV) would not honor the hold, his presidential campaign emailed supporters,

Just last night, we heard there are plans to disregard Senator Dodd's intention to place a hold on a FISA bill that includes amnesty for telecommunications companies. That would be a pretty extraordinary move, but…if the hold is not honored, he is prepared to go to the Senate floor and filibuster.

Joe Biden (D-RI), another Senator running for the presidential nomination succinctly answered a question in an October 19 Washington Post online chat session with readers as follows:

San Francisco: Will you join Sen. Chris Dodd's hold and proposed filibuster on any FISA bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecoms? Thanks for joining us for this chat today, Sen. Biden, and thanks for the leadership you provide the Democratic Party and America.

Sen. Joe Biden: Yes

Presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama emailed Greg Sargent at TRP Electrion Central opposing immunity, but not explaining what steps he would take:

I have consistently opposed this Administration's efforts to use debates about our national security to expand its own power, whether that was on the Iraq war, or on its power grab to curb our civil liberties through domestic surveillance programs. It is time to restore oversight and accountability in the FISA program, and this proposal -- with an unprecedented grant of retroactive immunity -- is not the place to start.

Feingold issued a second statement on October 19:

If the bill that ultimately reaches the Senate floor includes immunity and does not adequately protect the privacy of Americans, I will fight it vigorously with every tool at my disposal.

If Congress passes a bill containing retroactive immunity, it will abort suits, such as the Electric Frontier Foundation’s (EFF) Hepting v. ATT. In that case, both AT&T and the government unsuccessfully moved to dismiss the case. As the Electronic Privacy Information Center summarizes: “AT&T argued that it should be immune from suit because it was following government directives. The government argued that the case would reveal "state secrets," which would harm national security. In July 2006, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker [a George H. W. Bush appointee] issued a decision denying both motions. In dismissing AT&T immunity claims, Judge Walker said that AT&T could not have reasonably believed that the alleged surveillance activity was legal. In rejecting the government's secrecy argument, Judge Walker stated:

The compromise between liberty and security remains a difficult one. But dismissing this case at the outset would sacrifice liberty for no apparent enhancement of security.

On October 17, the EFF filed a related Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit seeking expedited processing and release of records from the Director of National Intelligence, concerning the agency’s

efforts to push for changes to federal surveillance law and ensure that telecommunications companies are not held responsible for their role in warrantless government surveillance activities.

In a press release. The organization , EFF Staff Attorney Marcia Hofmann (email) said,

Congress is debating amnesty for the telecoms right now -- amnesty that could imperil judicial review of a very controversial government program, as well as threaten class-action lawsuits that impact millions of Americans....We deserve to know what kind of lobbying has gone on behind the scenes before lawmakers make this critical decision.

EFF also filed on September 25 against the Department of Justice for withholding records on telecom lobbying (news release) and has launched a campaign for citizens to contact legislators. See: http://www.stopthespying.org/ .

A partial transcript of an interview with Cindy Cohn, EFF’s lead counsel for Hepting by attorney Glenn Greenwald can be found posted in his blog entry of October 16. Greenwald has also posted an analysis of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s 1965 opposition to retroactive immunity for industry and an excerpt from an August interview with Chris Dodd regarding the assault on the Constitution.

While some reporters in the mainstream media, such as the AP’s Hess, have depicted objections to the PPA versus support, as a left-right issue, conserative groups such as the Cato Institute, the John Birch Society and The American Freedom Agenda opposed that bill. And according to Scott Horton, a member of the New York City Bar Association, that group which includes corporate and telecommunications experts, sent a letter via its president, Barry Kamins to the House leadership October 16 holding that the PPA should expire because it has undermined the core protections of FISA. Kamins also opposed telecom immunity, writing,

There is simply no lawful basis for the Administration’s demand for such absolute immunity. It would encourage a culture of impunity for unlawful conduct that is entirely unacceptable.

I have been in touch with the Bar and the letter will be posted here soon. Until then, I've provided the relevant paragraph below in its entirety, with the sentence cited by Horton highlighted. It's interesting to note that the companies already had a means of relief, but were not willing to take it--a court order or a clearance from the Attorney General. As you may remember, at the time, the Attorney General was the conservative John Ashcroft, who had strenuously objected to the surviellance program, even while hospitalized, as depicted in the recent Frontline program, Cheney's Law and also reflected in his comments to Arlen Spector (R-PA) in the Judciary Committee (will provide that link when I find it):

Finally, the Association also strongly opposes any effort to give immunity from liability to telecommunications companies that have allegedly cooperated in the past with the Administration’s unauthorized and probably unlawful warrantless surveillance program. There is simply no lawful basis for the Administration’s demand for such absolute immunity. It would encourage a culture of impunity for unlawful conduct that is entirely unacceptable, undermine the rule of law, and seriously erode incentives for future compliance with the law. There is no unfairness in permitting lawsuits against the telecommunications companies to go forward, because these companies have always had a safety-valve to escape liability if asked to cooperate with a government surveillance program. Under 18 U.S.C. §2511(2)(a)(ii), the telecommunications companies were already entitled to immunity from suit as long as they received either a court order directing them to provide assistance or obtained a certification by the Attorney General or his designee "that no warrant or court order is required by law, that all statutory requirements have been met, and that the specified assistance is required." Id. Given the pre-existing availability of this carefully tailored immunity provision, the grant of amnesty now would reward only manifest failures to abide by the law. Any telecommunications company that failed to observe this express and unequivocal legal requirement, and failed to seek assurance that its conduct was legal over the years during which the surveillance allegedly occurred, has no legitimate cause for complaint, and should be held accountable for its unlawful conduct.

In addition, the Constitution Project’s Liberty and Security Committee, which spans the political spectrum from Paul Weyrich and Grover Norquist to John Podesta and David Cole advised Congress in an October 4 statement that,

many of the amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) contained in the recently enacted Protect America Act (Pub. L. 110-55) are unnecessarily overbroad, undermine our constitutional system of checks and balances, and fail to sufficiently protect the privacy of the communications of Americans” and urged “Congress “not to reauthorize these overbroad and harmful provisions.

On May 31 the Committee had issued a paper, "Reforming the State Secrets Privilege" and also filed an amicus brief for Khaled el-Masri, as did the American Bar Association.

El-Masri, you may recall, is a German citizen of Lebanese descent who sued CIA Director George Tennet et. al., saying that while vacationing in Macedonia he ended up a victim of extraorinary rendition--kidnapped, detained and tortured in a secret overseas prison. The December 7, 2005 Washington Post reported that German Chancellor Angela Merkel had announced after meeting with Condoleeza Rice that the administration admitted it mistakenly abducted him. Rice declined comment. The administration then argued that any trial would jeopardize national security.

The Constitution Project also sent a letter on October 4 advising Congress that it had the constitutional authority to enact rules for the Courts to reform the state secrets privilege "to protect the system of checks and balances, individual rights, national security, fairness in the courtroom” and that “it should do so.”


On October 9, as Conyers was introducing the RESTORE Act, the Supreme Court issued a get-out-of-jail-free card to the Bush administration, when it declined to hear el-Masri’s case, acceding to state secrets claims. Will Congress will buy the same arguments?


The President’s popularity is at an all-time low of 24%, as revealed in the October Reuters-Zogby Index. This follows his previous low of 29% in September. Additionally, a poll conducted by the Mellman Group for the ACLU October 11 through 14 showed that “voters overwhelmingly oppose key elements of the Bush Administration’s FISA agenda--voters oppose warrantless wiretaps, oppose blanket warrants, and oppose amnesty for telecommunication companies that may have broken the law. Large majorities across almost every demographic subgroup of American voters oppose all three of these proposals.” The poll also found that because of lack of trust in the President, members of Congress who “stand in defense of constitutional rights, have little to fear from their constituents.”

In a press conference on October 17, the President defended his actions regarding the popular SCHIP program, saying,

when I tell you I'm going to sprint to the finish, and finish this job strong, that's one way to ensure that I am relevant; that's one way to sure that I am in the process. And I intend to use the veto.

As I write this on October 21, I have to wonder whether those in Congress resisting further erosion of the Bill of Rights will prevail. Will a sufficient number stand up and abandon the President’s agenda and eliminate retroactive immunity and program warrants, or, as in the case of previous vetoes and veto threats, will Mr. Bush, in the end, get his way?

W&M's Gene Nichol still nailed by the Wren Cross

Photo of Gene Nichol, which appeared in the Flat Hat, William and Mary's student newspaper March 2, 2007. NewsTrust reviews here.
  
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The LA Times story on the firing and rehiring of the outspoken liberal Edwin Chemerinski as dean of the new law school at UC Irvine noted that the school's reputation had suffered more than his. And Scott Moss, an associate law prof who just started at the U of CO-Boulder argues the same in more detail at Find Law.

All this brought back to mind the case of William and Mary President Gene Nichol

Nichol's contract only goes through June 30, of 2008 according to a letter I received from Board of Visitors Rector Michael K. Powell.

Checking today, I learned that Nichol's foes are again using the power of the internet to rally against him, sponsoring a site with arguments against his renewal and a petition "Should W&M Renew Gene Nichol as President?," created according to internic.net on June 12 in Utah, after sending out an anonymous newsrelease on June 11.

There's a second site created at nearly the same time with the same provider, for the Society for the College of William and Mary, which appears to be down with no past history at the internet archive. But Nichols supporters also have a site  which says it has uncovered some of the right-wing funding behind the effort. (UPDATE:  this is now a private blog available by invitation only.)

 I last wrote about Nichol's plight on January 29. You may remember that the conservative Townhall.com labeled him a "Christ-o-phobic" who should be fired. American Spectator (infamous for the Arkansas Project) named Nichol "enemy of the year" and a contender for "the next cultural minister of the Taliban." Vince Haley, research director for the American Enterprise Institute for former House speaker Newt Gingrich, started a website, a blog and a petition against Nichol.

So what had Nichol done to get caught in this maelstrom?

Nichol had come up with a policy even the conservative Richmond Times Dispatch could support. He had ordered the the cross in the Wren Chapel stored unless requested for religious services so as to make the chapel more inclusive. As the RTD editorial said October 31,

The chapel is not used exclusively for religious functions but serves as a general meeting place. The move makes practical sense and reflects the facts on on the ground. The cross can be returned to its spot when appropriate.

The cross was first displayed at Wren in 1940 after Bruton Parish Church received a new cross, according to the Washington Times's January 29 story, "Bow to Diversity Leaves Altar Empty." Interestingly, at the February 8 hearing before the Board of Visitors, Herman Hollerith, current rector of the church called the cross's presence or absence trivial and instead cautioned

I tend to be skeptical of Christians when they are determined to win a victory over a superficial matter. It sounds like a sort of crusade to me. It makes me wonder what else is going on beneath the surface. Is this about winning a victory for God, or is this about winning a victory over the college president? This is a question that you must wrestle with as leaders of this institution.... As a man who has dedicated his life to the cross, I urge you as leaders to be cautious of the tremendous religious and political hypocrisy that surrounds this issue.

His comments and those of support by the faculty senate were bookended by comments by Haley and Bob Thompson, alumni who spoke against Nichols. No alumni were scheduled to speak for Nichols. Haley called the removal of the cross "incomprehensible-and frightening" "dangerous" and "irredemably flawed" and conflated it with making clergy unwelcome on campus. Thompson asked why Nichol hadn't done "what all great leaders do when they make a mistake -admit it, fix it, and move on?" The Rector of the Board of Visitors at William & Mary is Michael Powell, the controversial former chairman of the FCC, whom television critic Tom Shales described on November 21 , 2004 as

definitely not a force for good in America. Pompous and imperious, an ideologue who believes unfailingly in his own philosophy of how TV and radio should work (the FCC also has domain over telephone and emerging broadband technologies), Powell ignores or condemns anyone who opposes him. Though FCC chairmen have labored mostly in obscurity, Powell has managed to make himself famous; he's the Torquemada of the insane campaign now being waged against "obscenity" on the airwaves.

I was feeling uneasy, as if the deck were stacked against Dr. Nichol. The friend of a fellow alum who heard us discussing the case even predicted the president would lose his job over the flap. Powell's February 23 letter to alumni did little to reassure me.

We have long believed that balance must be achieved between these competing perspectives in a manner respectful of the underlying values of each.

A well-organized group, which has been refuted on historic and religious grounds, was to receive equal treatment, even if their true agenda is not religion. I think that Rev. Hollerith, was exactly right in speculating this was about power over a college president, whom they view as an anathema, if the namecalling in their media is an indication. In fact, February 13, Devan Barber, columnist for the college paper, the Flat Hat reported that

a whopping 70 percent of the signatures from the "Save the Wren Cross" petition are from individuals with no affiliation to the College. James Ambrose, the student liason to the BOV, added that, from his conversations on campus, most students seem to think that the Wren cross is not a significant issue, and generally approve of Nichol's performance over the past year.

March 2, after a donor who had previously pledged $12,000,000, went back on his word citinghis position on the cross, Nichol wrote in the Flat Hat :

It may be that steps I've taken have caused wounds too deep to overcome. Perhaps they've touched a divide too white-hot to explore. But if we're to be the national treasure we're called to become, William and Mary must be open and welcoming to all. We must place all religions on an equal footing, rather than signing on to a particular tradition. There should be no strangers here. These heady goals are essential to the College's future. They're more important than the wishes of a donor, or a pundit, or a political hatchet man. They're also more important than a single president.

The final decision March 6 was, according to my friend Barry, more unsettling than relegating the cross to storage when it was not in use. Instead, it was to be displayed 24-7, but in a glass case accompanied by a placque, as if it were nothing more than an artifact. March 23, The Flat Hat reported that fellow parents at Walsingham Academy, a private high school where Nichol's daughter is a senior, had uninvited him to be the graduation speaker. The school happily reached its fundraising goal of $500,000,000 in June despite any of those who withdrew their pledge. I thought, Nichols had weathered the storm, until I got that letter from Powell. And now, looking at the detractor's website, I wonder how long these supposed supporters of my alma mater are going to tear down a wonderful school in an effort to pressure the Board of Visitors to get rid of a President with wide student and faculty support. What makes them think that if the Board caves a first rate President woudl want to come and take Nichols place?

Catherine Pancake's Black Diamonds

Photoshopped version of the Mountain Justice flyer for the film showing at Virginia Tech September 14 and a panel the next day.

Here's the sidebar article I turned in today for the New River Voice:, which will accompany the MTR article I submitted yesterday.

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Catherine Pancake came to Blacksburg August 14 for a panel discussion of her compelling and comprehensive 2006 film, Black Diamonds: Mountaintop Removal and the Fight for Coalfield Justice, winner of this year’s Jack Spadaro Award from the Appalachian Studies Association.

As a child, the West Virginia native accompanied her father, a minister, to strip mine sites and listened to him call the destruction a sin and a crime. Then Congress passed the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act in 1977, meant to stem the damage, Jimmy Carter signed the measure into law and Pancake eventually moved to Baltimore. So, when her sister, author Ann Pancake, passed along emails from an academic list-serve, saying coal companies were blowing up the mountains, it seemed unbelievable. Convinced by her sister to come down and shoot some footage, she imagined, back in March, 2000, a short film used to somehow publicize and stop the destruction of mountain life. Soon, Pancake realized she had embarked on making a full-length documentary, spending much of her free time during the next years driving six hours each way and capturing MTR’s story as told from the points of view of affected residents, politicians and the industry.

Talking to people in their homes, at mining sites and at Charleston protests, Pancake follows every claim of injustice or mistreatment with support in the form of visual documentation or a graphic citing information from state and regulatory agencies. She interviews lawyers, government officials and scientists who explain why they oppose the practice and the obstacles to ending it. And when Pancake interviews industry spokesmen and sympathetic politicians, she makes their spin and disinformation transparent.

Anyone who wants to understand the history and gravity of MTR should view this film and show it to your friends. For showings and ordering information, see:

• http://www.blackdiamondsmovie.com/
  

To read an entensive feature based on interviews with Pancake and activists in the film by Baltimore City Paper’s arts editor, Bret McCabe.

• See http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=11640

Mountaintop Removal and the New River Voice

Chart is photoshopped version of page 10 of a national opinion survey prepared September 13 by Opinion Research Corporation for the www.700Mountains.org, the newest project of the Civil Society Institute (CSI).

Here's a draft of the article I just turned in for New River Voice, a new publication edited by Tim Jackson, Assistant Director for Student Media at Radford University.
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You may have read about recent actions by the Bush Administration to make mountaintop removal (MTR) easier. As Coal River Mountain Watch’s Vernon Haltom told Democracy Now on August 24, "What this rule change amounts to is a declaration of war against the Appalachian People."

What you make not have read about, is how two out of three Americans (65 percent) oppose the Bush Administration's proposal, according to a national opinion survey prepared September 13 by Opinion Research Corporation for the www.700Mountains.org, the newest project of the Civil Society Institute (CSI).
We should call a spade a spade. So-called MTR is mountain range removal. To maximize profits, big companies blast as much as 800 to 1000 feet off the "tops" of our ridges in Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky and now Tennessee to reach coal seams which lay underneath.
Mountain Justice Summer (MJS) organized four years ago at Virginia Tech after a visit by coalfield activist Larry Gibson, links students throughout the region to coalfield residents. The group explains MTR in its newsletter: "Once the mountains are destroyed, the few jobs obtained from this practice will also dissapear, leaving a wake of devastation and unemployment behind. Instead of fishing, hunting, camping, collecting medicinal and edible plants, instead of clean water from healthy watersheds, and clean air in a peaceful community deeply connected with the surrounding mountains, we will be left with the ravaged, crumpled, barren remains of what was once the backbone of our Appalachian heritage."
At ground level, a thin veneer of hills and forests often remains, hiding the immensity of the destruction. To fully understand the effects of this "stripmining on steroids, " you need to fly over, as I did last October. I joined Tech English faculty members Jeff Mann and Katie Fallon and 13 other writers, on a tour sponsored by the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and Southwings to visit Kayford Mountain, south of Charleston, West Virginia.
About all that remains of Kayford, rising out of a vast abyss: fifty acres which once sat halfway up the mountain. Larry Gibson and members of his extended family managed to put their homeplace into a trust rather than sell it to Massey Energy.
If you don’t know about the MTR process, let me explain. Coal companies such as Massey Energy in West Virginia and A&G in Wise County, Virginia take a beautiful mountain covered with deciduous forest. They

• use huge tractors to knock down the trees and other plants, which they set afire;
• scrape off the topsoil, ruining the ability to absorb rain and thereby increasing flooding;
• drill holes and insert amfo--ammonium nitrate fertilizer and fuel oil, similar to the stuff used by truck bombers to demolish the Oklahoma City Federal Building;
• ignite the fuses and blow up the mountain causing tremors that compromise the structural integrity of houses and clouds of smoke and dust which interferes with breathing;
• operate a dragline excavator 20 stories tall and nearly a city block in size connected directly into a high-voltage grid to scoop nearly 100 tons of shattered mountain a load (equivalent to about 65 pickup trucks) to dig down to the coal;dump what's left into nearby headwaters and valleys in piles in piles that can be two miles long and over 100 feet high, which leaches toxic metals such as mercury, copper, arsenic, lead, and selenium into the watershed which flows all the way to the mouth of the Mississippi River;
• leave mostly undeveloped flat plateaus where there were once mountains; and
• lime the soil for quick grass growth, which destroys acidity required for tree growth.

For those interested in viewing the destruction in Virginia first hand, Southern Appalachian Stewards (SAMS) offers flyover tours similar to the one I took, here in Wise County, Virginia. Bill McCabe, an organizer for the Sierra Club who works with the group and MJS, hopes to organize a writers’ tour for Virginia. I met McCabe and many SAMS members when I accompanied them to visit legislators to lobby in Washington for the Clean Water Protection Act, which would reverse a Bush Administration Army Corps of Engineers 2002 rule change undermining of the Clean Water Act by classifying the mining rubble dumped in streams as “fill”.
Larry Bush, a former miner and mine safety inspector active with SAMS, told me that there are less destructive ways to mine thin coal seams than MTR, ways that would provide more jobs in the southern mountains and still provide the coal companies with generous profits. The ratio of jobs for MTR versus these other methods is 1 to 200, according to another former mining inspector, Jack Spadaro, who lost his job running the National Mine Safety and Health Academy in Beckley West, Virginia for refusing to whitewash liability for the Martin County sludge spill after the Bush administration took office and ordered him to do so.
Bush administration’s latest assault comes after the deracination of the EPA’s court-ordered Environmental Impact Statement which downplayed the research of government scientists and instead looked at ways to make mining easier. August 24, the administration published its intention to further change the rules, eliminating the requirement to avoid mining within 100 feet of streams. It is as if Big Coal, already violating the law for years and successfully held accountable by citizens in Court, has now been given a free pass.
And our own Congressman, Rick Boucher is himself responsible for promoting destruction of our Mountains. In addition to refusing to co-sponsor the Clean Water Protection Act, he shepherded, over the objection of the House leadership, a stealth clause in the Energy Bill, to promote coal-to-liquid technology and “clean coal” with vague language that “No appropriation authorized pursuant to this section may exclude any category of eligible project described in section 1703" of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
Many of us in the New River Valley are taking action to stop MTR. Just last month, for instance, we attended the Southeast Climate Convergence and picketed the Blacksburg branch of Bank of America on August 31, in an action organized by MJS and the newly formed chapter of Blue Ridge Earth First! This month we attended a MJS showing of the film “Black Diamonds’ and attended a panel discussion with the filmmaker and others to educate ourself about this distructive practice (see sidebar).
It’s time to write Boucher and demand that he stop promoting the destruction of our mountains. His email address is ninthnet@hr.house.gov.
New River Voice readers can also generate letters regarding the Clean Water Protection Act and against the latest Bush Administration rule and access information on the facts on MTR at the Stop Mountaintop Removal site sponsored by EarthJustice, a public interest law firm, in coalition with various coalfield and environmental groups:

• http://action.earthjustice.org/stopmtr/advocacy/beth_blog-985957

The Southern Energy Network is organizing a series of actions against the new MTR rule. See:

• http://climateaction.net/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=62

To view the most recent legislative package in support of the Clean Water Protection Act, prepared by Appalachian Voices, see:

• http://www.appvoices.org/resources/LobbyPiece2007_draft2.pdf

To learn about actions by Blue Ridge Earth First, visit the group’s website and sign up for its listserve at :

• http://www.blueridgeef.com/

Also, mark your calendars. Attend the weekly meetings of MJS in Blacksburg at the Squires Student Center. November 7, join us as the campus chapter hosts Dave Cooper's Mountaintop Removal Road Show, including representatives from SAMS (time and place still pending). To get more information, visit the website:

• http://www.mountainjustice.org.vt.edu/

Who Profits from Fear?

The Political Compass and U.S. Presidential Politics: Was tagging old entries this evening and looking up current versions of sites I had liked. This is an update from Political Compass. I had taken the test in 2006 and landed near the center, a bit left libertarian, the quadrant for Nelson Mandela and Gandhi , or Mozart, all of whom I regard as fine and admirable company. As the authors explain,

If we recognise that this is essentially an economic line it's fine, as far as it goes. We can show, for example, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung and Pol Pot, with their commitment to a totally controlled economy, on the hard left. Socialists like Mahatma Gandhi and Robert Mugabe would occupy a less extreme leftist position. Margaret Thatcher would be well over to the right, but further right still would be someone like that ultimate free marketeer, General Pinochet.

the social dimension is also important in politics. That's the one that the mere left-right scale doesn't adequately address. So we've added one, ranging in positions from extreme authoritarian to extreme libertarian.

Just to show the state of American politics, I'm left of any of the presidential candidates except Kucinich and Gravel, neither of whom would be my choice for this office. The skewing brings to my mind that quote about the American eagle needing both left and right wings to fly. Mario Savio attributes it to Jessee Jackson. Or there's the Pat Paulsen version:

Assuming either the Left Wing or the Right Wing gained control of the country, it would probably fly around in circles.

In looking at particular candidates, I'm interested how tight a cluster there is for the Democratic Party candidates (again, other than Kucinich and Gravel.) And that Edwards and Clinton are the most libertarian. Also that Ron Paul, who considers himself the libertarian falls above the dividing line. Contrast his placement with that of a conservative libertarian, Milton Friedman, on this chart:
An aside about Paulsen: according to his memorial he came in second in the 1996 New Hampshire Presidential Primary (makes me wonder how Colbert would have done if SC Dems had let him on the ticket.) And although I did not find the context for the above quotation, I found a site which includes his political editorials, as well as a now dead link I've revived thanks to the Internet Archive to Paulsen's quite serious answers to the 1996 Presidential Primary Natioinal Political Awareness Test from Project Vote Smart.

Since it's 9-11, I'll provide some content devoted to terror: How's this for Keystone Kops? NYC will deter nuclear attack with concentric circles of Geiger counters according to the New York Times today in "Suburban Police Enlisted to Help Protect the City" by Corey Kilgannon. Don't you feel safer now?

The counters didn't work so well in the latest dirty bomb scare. According to "MTA didn't tell us of dirty bomb scare: officers," by Alison Gendar in the NY Daily News on September 10, one officer who works at the Verrazano Bridge complained,

They'll give us two weeks of training for how to collect tolls, making sure we charge a three-axle truck more than a two-axle, but no field training on what a bomb might look like, how to stop cars or use this radiation detector.

Meanwhile, besides Geiger counters, LA is spending its homeland security money on robots and portable media hubs, according to Richard Winton in the September 9 LA Times.

I guess it all comes down to fear being a great motivator for letting loose the purse strings.

And speaking of fear: John Judis (email) had an interesting piece in the the New Republic August 17 explaining why West Virginia supported Bush. In "How Political Psychology Explains Bush's Ghastly Success. Death Grip" (referred to here), he writes about research since the early 1980s by Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski (interview, article, research), who developed "terror management theory."

Their experiments showed that the mere thought of one's mortality can trigger a range of emotions--from disdain for other races, religions, and nations, to a preference for charismatic over pragmatic leaders, to a heightened attraction to traditional mores.

It seems that this tendency could be counteracted, if folks were asked to think as rationally as possible. (Not something the current administration espouses.)

On the poetry front: again, with regard to 9-11, Tillie wrote me to say he'd mentioned my poem, "Windows on the World" on his blog entry today.

Other mention on the net:

• Coal: a poetry anthology and my poem in particular, got mentioned in this online review by West Virginia storyteller Susanna Holstein.

My journalism on Memeorandum: Just found out that my August 22, 2007 post at WV Blue, "Suit by West Virginia Protesters Reveals Bush Tactics," got a link from Memeorandum.com. The topic is the 2002 Bush advance manual for handling dissent. For those of you who haven't seen Memeorandum, it aggregates political news around memes.

SE Convergence for Climate Action v. Bank of America

Photograph of the Southeast Convergence action against the Bank of America at the Flickr collection. Other photos at Ashville Indymedia. Audio of workshops via Joseph Puentes. For more information, see the website for the Convergence.

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The direct action planners knew that police intended to disrupt a protest at the planned site "within two hours drive of our campite." I'm not sure whether this was at Progress Energy's dirty Skyland coal power plant, as indicated by the police.

As a result of that news, the planners changed the venue to the Bank of America to highlight that in recent years, Bank of America facilitated hundreds of million of dollars in loans to companies like Massey Energy and Arch Coal that are involved in mountaintop removal coal mining.

Two activists locked down inside the main lobby and other activists blockaded the entrance to the downtown Ashville branch. Citizens dressed as canaries and polar bears carried signs and banners that read: “Bank of America Stop Funding Climate Change,” “Bank of America Stop Mountaintop Removal,” “No Coal, No Nukes, No Kidding” “Bank of America Climate Criminal.” Five were arrested and four are still in jail. Bail needs to be raised in the amount of $4,000.

Meanwhile a police helicopter hovered and dozens of uniformed and undercover police deployed from Buncombe, Henderson, and Transylvania Counties surrounded the site of the Southeast Convergence for Climate Action camp and dozens more police arrived at Skyland to prevent protest against dirty energy and climate change.

One of our polar bears commented,

This shows which side of the climate debate the government is on. They have spent tens of thousands of dollars to protect the coal industry today. Clearly if the government wanted to address climate change, they would be sending the police in to arrest the heads of Progress Energy for perpetuating the greatest threat humanity has ever faced - climate change.

The Ashville paper quotes, instead the police and Sorrels a astroturf toady from the nuclear energy industry who had been expelled from the camp saying the change in local was due to disagreements among organizers.

The Brits are convening to protest at Heathrow as the Southeast Convergence starts its direct action, as does the Northeast Convergence. Cate Gillon of Getty Images took this picture at Heathrow which accompanied the AP story on MSNBC's site, "Climate activists protest Heathrow expansion: Camp set up, 'direct action' vowed as way to highlight C02 emissions."

One comment by Gorky at the Guardian's blog about the London action:

It's a collection of explicitly pro-direct-action, proclaimedly anti-capitalist activists. This is, and has been from the beginning, an event primarily organised by very radical people, with a very radical message.

The fact that they have broad support is testimony that large swathes of the British public are prepared to support confrontational semi-lawful mass direct action. The very good reason for this is that it appears to be absolutely necessary: conventional political channels for halting climate chaos being apparently innaffective. And disruptive action has a record of success: the anti-roads movement (which destroyed the Tories' road building programme); and the anti-poll tax movement (which did indeed defeat the poll-tax) are good examples of this. Meanwhile, conventional "media pressure & public lobbying$" type campaigns - Make Poverty History, Stop the War Coalitoin - were totally inaffective.

Of course, there's a limit to the opportunities for massive direct action in such a heavily monitored environment, but I just hope the Camp isn't co-opted by hyper-liberal infiltrators.

MySociety: Congress, Please Learn from Brits re Internet

Graphic found at Utah Valley State College's site.

Amanda Adams (email) at OMB Watch's advocacy blog alerted to me to staff writer Elizabeth Brotherton's (email) July 12 Roll Call article, "E-mail Overloads Hill," which refers to Communicating with Congress: How Capitol Hill is Coping with the Surge in Citizen Advocacy, a July 11, 2005 report by the Congressional Management Foundation.

Roll Call is a paid site, but you can read the article on ELibrary, which is available for any Virginia public library card holder through FindItVirginia.com. LexisNexis has it too--many college libraries make this available to the public--for instance Roanoke College and Virginia Tech in our area.

Actually, Brotherton fails to mention that the Foundation has been publishing reports for over six years. See E-Mail Overload in Congress: Managing a Communications Crisis – March 19, 2001 . She also fails to provide a link to the project overview for upcoming research: Communicating with Congress.

So if this is a crisis, the solution seems to be coming pretty slowly. And the solution suggested of writing individual letters rather than participating in mass mailings won't help much unless it just serves to reduce the number of people contacting their members of Congress. I know. I always write an individual letter and the web forms for submitting them are pretty useless.

Instead try the direct address. To find it, click on your state at this directory and if you can't find the address for anything but a form, I'd suggest you use this directory. Click on your state and then click on the link in the left hand column for the legislator you wish to contact to find the member and staff. Then use the following protocol to write directly to their email addresses (try a google search to confirm):

• House: firstname.lastname@mail.house.gov
• Senate aides: firstname_lastname@memberlastname.senate.gov
• Senators: senator@lastname.senate.gov
  

Of course, a phone call always works best, but that takes money, except when an organization is sponsoring a tollfree number.

And the worst part? It looks like any solution will be hard to manage as there are no economies of scale, since each member's office the CMF notes, operates as a separate small business. In comparison, Great Britian has MySociety.org, a UK Citizens Online Democracy project founded by Tom Steinberg (email) with help from programmers and volunteers, which builds websites for the civic and community arenas and educates the public and voluntary sectors how to most efficiently use the internet to improve their lives. The organization was touched on in an article in the July 6 LA Times, "Open government, the Internet way: Barack Obama and others want to use the Web to fuel citizen participation," by Ronald Brownstein.

MySociety operates the following sites which CMF should be looking at:

• HearFromYourMP.com (21st November 2005)--encourages and enables MPs to run email lists and to allow constituents to discuss ideas in a way which doesn't bombard MPs with email. 5000 people had signed up before it was even launched.
• WriteToThem.com (14th February 2005)--lets users enter a postcode to learn the local representatives and who to contact for which reasons. An award winner within 12 weeks of launching, WriteToThem.com sent 5,000 messages in its first month of operation.
• TheyWorkForYou.com ( launched 6th June 2004)-- provides a searchable, annotatable version of what is said in Parliament, as well as useful pages providing clear, non-biased information on a range of different measures of activities by MPs. Originally built by volunteers while mySociety was getting started, it is now part of mySociety.

The group also built a civil service commissioned site for the Prime Minister that should be of interest:

• E-Petitions (14th November 2006 )--allows the public to petition about any issue. Highly robust and load-tolerant, it is also available as open source code for reuse elsewhere.

Tom Steinberg says he doesn't like

A world in which the likelihood of an issue being acted on depends on how well it flukes a position in the news cycle.

The current notion of 'a public debate', and suspects it is largely synonymous with "an issue on which at least one columnist from each national newspaper has vented their prejudices".

Gerrymandering, earmarks and un-capped electoral spending.

MySociety is currently working on:

• Freedom of Information Filer and Archive--to help people make Freedom of Information requests from different parts of government and archive the responses on the web. Fnding from one of Joseph Rowntree's trusts (yes, the dead chocolate mogul; eat lots of chocolate, it'll help mySociety's successors in the 22nd century).

Here are some other sites the group operates:

• PledgeBank.com (13th June 2005 )--lets users create pledges which say "I'll do something, but only if x number of other people will do something. For instance, "I'll clean up the river, but only if 5 other local people will pledge to come and help."
• NotApathetic.com (7th April 2005 )--permitted people planning not to vote in the UK General Election on May 5th 2005 to tell the world why.
• FixMyStreet (7th March 2007) --report, view, or discuss local problems such as graffiti, broken paving, or street lighting. In collaboration with the Young Foundation.

If you want to volunteer, look here for what's needed. When you click on the "#" by a task, you are linked to a form to express your interest in that task.

Gun Laws in the Wake of the Virginia Tech Killings

Cartoon from Steve Benson at the Arizona Republic on April 17, 2006 (email, archive).

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Cho Seung-Hui bought two semi-automatics—a Walther P-22LR February 2, 2007 from thegunsource.com in Green Bay, WI and a Glock 19 with 50 rounds of ammo March 13 at Roanoke Firearms. Then, on April 16 , the Virginia Tech senior murdered thirty-two fellow students and faculty members in Blacksburg before killing himself.

Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), one of the House’s strongest gun control advocates, introduced that day, the Anti-Large Capacity Ammunition Feeding Device Act of 2007 (H.R.1859), seeking to reinstate and strengthen the prohibition on possessing or transferring such devices, which were illegal until the expiration of the 1994 assault gun ban in 2004. McCarthy has garnered no co-sponsors to date, although early speculationthat Cho had used high capacity magazines proved true. As reportedApril 19, State Police told NBC correspondent Pete Williams they had found 17 magazines, some of which held 33 rounds of ammunition each.

Cho passed the background check mandated by the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993, despite having been ordered in 2005 to receive mental health treatment for being a danger to himself and others because Virginia only reports in-patient commitments to the FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Governor Tim Kaine (D) closed that loophole by executive order April 30.

McCarthy’s second bill, the NICS Improvement Act of 2007 (H.R.297) introduced on January 5, addresses the uneven state reporting. John Dingell (D-MI), a gun-rights Democrat and original co-sponsor for H.R. 297, currently is negotiating for support from the National Rifle Association, on whose board he once served. Meanwhile, the Springfield, VA-based Gun Owners of America has been sending out multiple member alerts decrying both the measure and the NRA for its possible cooperation and on April 27, the NRA posted to its website, "It is impossible to predict right now what any final bill will look like; therefore, we will withhold judgment until we see a final product."
H.R. 297 gained three co-sponsors January 30 to February 14 and an additional eleven from April 16 through May 1, including Rick Boucher, (D-VA), who represents Blacksburg and has an A+ rating from the NRA and Jim Moran (D-VA), who is a regular supporter of gun control legislation, and thus receives a grade of F from the group. There has been talk that Charles Schumer (D-NY) will sponsor a similar measure in the Senate.

McCarthy’s third bill, the Assault Weapons Ban Reauthorization Act of 2007(H.R. 1022) introduced on February 13, with no cosponsors, had gained 34 co-sponsors by March 22, 2007, including Moran. An additional seven co-sponsors signed on after April 16, 2007.

Even with Kaine’s order, people voluntarily committed will be able to buy guns, as will anyone seeking out a “private collector” at gun shows. Michael Castle’s (R-DE) Gun Show Loophole Closing Act of 2007(H.R.96), introduced on January 4 would require background checks for firearm sales at these shows. The bill gained another co-sponsor on April 16, in addition to the original three. Three other House measures with no co-sponsors to date include the Domestic Violence Victim Protection Act(H.R. 203), Child Gun Safety and Gun Access Prevention Act of 2007 (H.R. 256) and the Foreign Felon Gun Prohibition Act of 2007 (H.R.1168).

In the Senate, only Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has submitted a bill to date, the Anti-Gun Trafficking Penalties Enhancement Act of 2007(S.77), which would reverse amendments attached to funding bills annually since FY 2003 by Kansas Congressman Todd Tiahrt (R). The original version limited the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) responses to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. By 2006, according to opponents, his amendments have prevented:

• ATF from publishing reports that use trace data to analyze the flow of crime guns nationally since the aggregated data for 2000;
• local governments accessing much of ATF trace data;
• law enforcement agencies from accessing trace data outside its geographic jurisdiction and from sharing trace data with one another; and
• anyone other the ATF from using trace data as evidence in administrative proceedings such as state license revocations and civil lawsuits.

Some critics of the Commonwealth have conflated Cho’s notoriety with that of Virginia gun dealers, who have become known for allowing gun trafficking to cities in the Northeast. Four businesses in Madison Heights, Danville, South Boston and Richmond, were among the 15 sued by New York City in May, 2006 for selling a total of 500 crime guns which the city’s police department recovered between 1994 and 2001.

Additionally, NYC-hired private investigators from the James Mintz Group videotaped these dealers allowing one individual to provide the money, select the gun, and direct the purchase, while the other filled out the required paperwork. Such “straw purchases” are illegal because felons can have friends with no criminal records substitute for them in the matter of background checks.

Three dealers in Midlothian, Rocky Mount and Roanoke were among another dozen sued in December 2006 for selling 300 crime guns recovered between 1994 and 2002 and for allowing straw purchases by the Mintz Group investigators.

The Justice Department refused to pursue criminal charges based on the evidence gathered and the 2007 General Assembly passed legislation, H.B. 2653 forbidding stings conducted by anyone other than law enforcement. The bill’s sponsor, Scott Lingamfelter (R), received a “Defender of Freedom” award from the NRA and was quoting having this to tell Mayor Michael Bloomberg, “If you want to clean up New York City we suggest you hire more police as opposed to coming south of the Potomac River to trifle with rights of Virginians."

The Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL), based in Newington, supported H.B. 2653 enthusiastically and sponsored a "Bloomberg Gun Give Away," in which customers spending $100 at one of three of the sued gun stores would be eligible to win a handgun or rifle. According to AP, Bloomberg’s photograph appeared with those of two other gun control advocates on a “poster taped to a shotgun rack at Bob Moates, under the words ‘Here are our worst enemy,’” with the mayor’s face“circled in bright pink highlighter.”

VCDL had tried unsuccessfully for two years to pass a measure allowing students to bring concealed firearms on campus. The group issued a press release April 16, “Gun-control claims lives at Virginia Tech."

Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, co-founders of the Mayors Against Handgun Violence coalition, explain: “The polarizing rhetoric of gun politics on all sides only obscures the tragic reality we see every day…: violent criminals with easy access to firearms.” Their adversaries at the Fraternal Order of Police, however, accuse the mayors of endangering officers and witnesses. FOP says the mayors want to use the Tiahrt-proscribed data not to fight illegal firearm use, but to pursue “civil litigation suits against firearms dealers and manufacturers.”

Tiahrt and Bloomberg met earlier this year in an attempt to iron out their differences, but despite Tiahrt adding language to his amendment to permit law enforcement to communicate with each other and the ATS to compile reports, Bloomberg's criminal justice coordinator, John Feinblatt, said “it was one step forward, three steps back." So last week, the mayors began airing television ads showing Chaska, Minnesota Police Chief Scott Knight saying, "A few years ago, I had the absolute worst nightmare of any police chief. One of my officers was shot. The Tiahrt Amendment has absolutely stood in the way to effectively address gun crime. Where are the guns coming from? Who's buying them? How are they getting into my city? The information is there. We're not allowed to have it. We're fighting criminals and illegal guns. Why is Congress fighting us?"

Tiahrt has called the ads unfair and two Wichita stations, affiliates for CBS and NBC refused to air them Said the latter on its website “Meantime, while we showed you the ad in the context of a newscast, KSN has elected not to run it during regular programming because the station could not verify its claims. Broadcast stations are responsible for the content of issue advertising.”

In The Will to Power, Frederick Nietzsche is quoted as saying “Extreme positions are not succeeded by moderate ones, but by contrary extreme positions.” Citing the Second Amendment, the National Rifle Association has taken a hard line on a myriad of issues including allowing guns in the workplace, removing liability for gun manufacturers and antagonizing environmental groups. It often overstates the conclusions of its sources, arguing for instance that the Congressional Reference Service has found the ATF’s data useless for fighting crime, when ,in fact, CRS concluded “combined with multiple handgun sales reports and other investigative data, firearm trace data has proved to be a viable tool for ATF in targeting regulatory and investigative resources with greater effect. Some gun owners have even defected to the newly formed, more moderate American Hunters and Shooters Association.

On April 19, Bristol Township, PA police say a 16-year old Conwell-Egan Catholic High School student, distraught over a break-up, wrote a note threatening to kill 34 people and “break the record.” The soldiers for the gun lobby came out in force, saying “guns don’t kill people, pointing to the 12th anniversary of the Oklahoma city bombing on April 19. The next day, of course, marked the 8th anniversary of Columbine.

Pundits attribute Al Gore’s loss in 2000 to his support of gun control. The NRA campaigned against John Kerry in 2004. In the run-up to the 2008 presidential race, it remains to be seen how far Congress will go in confront the organization by passing gun control legislation. This much remain sure: the Virginia Tech Massacre has turned public attention to U.S. gun laws. As the San Francisco Chronicle quoted Ladd Everitt of the Coalition to End Gun Violence on April 18:

I don't know what the tipping point is. At some point, the public will just have to stand up and say "enough.''

In wake of VT killings, NYPost's Michael Daly paints all Virginians with arrogant, simplistic brush

Losanjealous.com's random Nietzche's Family Circus.
Thought before I got back to writing about gun control, I'd provide the above distraction of (via Andrew Sullivan today (blog entry,email). "Neitzche Family Circus" which randomly pairs one of Bil Keane's (bio,email) The Family Circus cartoons with a quote by Friedrich Nietzche. The caption which came up for this cartoon :

Extreme positions are not succeeded by moderate ones, but by contrary extreme positions.

Dang No distractions there. As for extreme positions, I'll send this quote to Michael Daly (email) and the Editor (email) at the New York Daily News.

In "Yes, Virginia, guns kill innocents," published the day after the Virginia Tech murders, Daly's harsh tones painted all of us in the Commonwealth with the same broad brush he'd use on the NRA or worse, Gun Owners of Virginia. I agree with Daley and Bloomberg's Mayor's that Virginia guns pose problems for New York, as well as other cities in the Northeast, yet found myself as disgusted with his words as those of the sponsor of H.B. 2653, which outlawed Mayor Bloomberg's sting operation of the same. And that's the correct bill number, not "Bill 2106," as listed by Daly.

And as for ridiculing our election of Jim Webb, did Daly notice Webb has had the spine to stand up to Bush on Iraq and Iran, to irritate the Cato Institute in talking about income disparity in the Wall Street Journal, to oppose General Pack's homophobic remarks, and to co-sponsor progressive legislation including the union card-check provisions deplored by the Chamber of Commece. He's only departing from what I'd support once, regarding, I'll admit, an anti-gun control measure for the District of Columbia.


Would Daly have preferred a vote for George Allen, who had an A+ NRA rating, as did, by the way some New Yorkers (Fosella, Kelly, Reynolds, et. al). Can Daly tell the difference between the general voting record of Allen and the equally A+ Rick Boucher (who represents Blacksburg down to Abingdon)? Does Daly know New York gun owners hope to organize to "take-out" pro-Bloomberg candidates in the Democratic primary? Did Daley notice Virginians re-elected Bobby Scott (NRA grade D-), James Moran (F) and Tom Davis (C), one of the few Republicans NRA grades low? Did Daly read Webb's dignified April 16 statement

I want to express my profound sympathies to the entire Virginia Tech community for the tragic shooting that occurred on the campus earlier this morning. My heart goes out to the parents and families of the victims of this senseless act.
Virginia Tech is a great institution. The young people who were lost today had demonstrated an enormous amount of promise. There is very little that I can add in terms of describing the depth of our feelings and our regret that this incident has occurred. It is an incredible human tragedy.
Hopefully once the grieving is done,we can find ways that will prevent these sorts of incidents from happening in the future.

Of the four current gun control measures, only one has originated in the Senate and has no co-sponsors to date, so it is hard to fault Webb. It will be interesting to see how things evolve.

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And for the other extreme position, consider Dale City Delegate L. Scott Lingamfelter (R-Dale City) who penned  House Bill 2653 which " prohibits anyone other than a law enforcement officer or someone under an officer’s supervision from attempting to persuade a firearms dealer to make an illegal sale."  Am I allowed, as an independent, to say I hope they field a strong candidate against him? After all, in Kansas, Tiahrdt has whole blog about him.  Governor Tim Kaine has announced he's signing the bill.  Below is the letter I'll email tomorrow to Governor  Kaine, so I can mail a similar one to Potomac News (email), Lingamfelter's hometown paper, with a copy to the Democratic Party chair for the District 31, Pete Frisbie (email).

Governor Kaine,

You said in a March 23 news release that you were signing H.B. 2653 because it "will ensure that trained, authorized officers, not individual citizens, media, or interest groups, are enforcing the law."

Can your office please provide me with statistics on how many such stings have been conducted by officers and which Virginia dealers were found to be allowing "straw purchases?"

How did you react when you learned that the four businesses in Madison Heights, Danville, South Boston and Richmond, among the 15 sued by New York City in May, 2006, were alleged to have sold 500 crime guns which the city's police department recovered between 1994 and 2001 and that NYC-hired private investigators from the James Mintz Group caught the dealers allowing one individual to provide the money, select the gun, and direct the purchase, while the other filled out the required paperwork? That three dealers in Midlothian, Rocky Mount and Roanoke (where I live) were among another dozen sued in December 2006 for selling 300 crime guns recovered between 1994 and 2002 and for allowing "straw purchases" by the Mintz Group investigators?
Do "straw purchases" allow friends with no criminal records to stand in a felon's place for background checks?

The Tiahrt amendments to federal spending bills now prohibit the ATF from publishing gun tracking reports. The last such report revealed in 2000 that "49 percent of traceable guns recovered in New York City were first purchased at FFLs [Federal Firearm Licencees] in Southern States: Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina." Additionally, "[n]early 75 percent of crime guns recovered in New York City were first purchased at FFLs located 250 miles or more from New York City.

Potomac News reported on April 10, 2007, less than a week before the tragedy at Virginia Tech that the NRA had awarded Dale City Delegate L. Scott Lingamfelter (R) as a "Defender of Freedom" for penning the H.B. 2653 "inspired" by NYC Mayor Bloomberg. Lingamfelter said the Mayor "has, I think, wrongly pointed to Virginia for the sources of his troubles. His problems are on the streets of his city not in the towns and cities of Virginia....If you want to clean up New York City we suggest you hire more police as opposed to coming south of the Potomac River to trifle with rights of Virginians."
Would you agree with Lingamfelter that such gun dealers play no part in crime in NYC? Please explain.

H.B. 2654 was heavily supported by the Virginia Citizens Defense League, who sponsored the "Bloomberg Gun GiveAway." The group issued a news release on April 16, "Gun Control Claims Lives at Virginia Tech." It also said in in another news release on April 16 about the failure of H.B. 1572, which would have prevented prohibiting handguns on campus, "Well, Mr. Hincker [Tech's Associate Vice President University Relations and chief spokesman] - are you still happy? Militia, Police, and Public Safety Committee - still think you did the right thing?"

How would you respond to this group?

Thank you for your kind attention to this matter.

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• Email from Sabrina that she'll take a gun control essay for LLRX.
• Phone conversation with Kim ditto for the NRFP.
• Called Yvonne about Clean Water Protection Act lobbying. She invited me to stay with her while I'm in the DC area.
• Called Cindy Rank, who tells me Frank Pallone (D-NJ) will soon submit the Act with 61 co-sponsors. Rank is sending a copy of an email, so I can get started on the blog entry for Congresspedia.