345 search results for "certification"

Banana Republic

by digby

What’s with all the military spying inside the US? Maybe the Pentagon ought to spend more time gathering intelligence in Iraq and Afghanistan and leave the spying on US citizens to the FBI, DHS, INS, DEA, ATF and state and local police agencies. I think they can handle the illegal wiretapping, mailreading and bank account tracking all by themselves.

Here’s another troubling sign:

Deep into an updated Army manual, the deletion of 10 words has left some national security experts wondering whether government lawyers are again asserting the executive branch’s right to wiretap Americans without a court warrant.

The manual, described by the Army as a “major revision” to intelligence-gathering guidelines, addresses policies and procedures for wiretapping Americans, among other issues.

The original guidelines, from 1984, said the Army could seek to wiretap people inside the United States on an emergency basis by going to the secret court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA, or by obtaining certification from the attorney general “issued under the authority of section 102(a) of the Act.”

That last phrase is missing from the latest manual, which says simply that the Army can seek emergency wiretapping authority pursuant to an order issued by the FISA court “or upon attorney general authorization.” It makes no mention of the attorney general doing so under FISA.

Bush administration officials said that the wording change was insignificant, adding that the Army would follow FISA requirements if it sought to wiretap an American.

But the manual’s language worries some national security experts. “The administration does not get to make up its own rules,” said Steven Aftergood, who runs a project on government secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists.

[…]

Like several other national security experts, Mr. Aftergood said the revised guidelines could suggest that Army lawyers had adopted the legal claim that the executive branch had authority outside the courts to conduct wiretaps.

But Thomas A. Gandy, a senior Army counterintelligence official who helped develop the guidelines, said the new wording did not suggest a policy change. The guidelines were intended to give Army intelligence personnel more explicit and, in some cases, more restrictive guidance than the 1984 regulations, partly to help them respond to new threats like computer hackers.

“This is all about doing right and following the rules and protecting the civil liberties of folks,” Mr. Gandy said. “It seeks to keep people out of trouble.”

And up is down and black is white.

This is bureaucratic buck passing that keeps the military perpetrators out of trouble by leaving the full responsibility with the Attorney General who they consider to be the unitary law enforcement officer of the unitary executive who claims unlimited power to wiretap without any kind of oversight. That would be how “doing right” is defined in our brave new world.

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Anyone Got Info On Dr. Eric Keroack?

by tristero

In a comment to my earlier post on the Borat clone Dr. Eric Keroack, Entlord wrote:

Amazing that there is so little biographical information on the gentleman. The AMA Find a Doctor site doesn’t recognize him and a Google search only turns up that he is an OB/GYN and has been one for 20 years. No information on his CV, his education, his training or anything else except for an unpublished “study” cited in Christianity Today proving showing teenaged girls sonograms of the fetus prevents abortions.

That’s just about all I’ve found, too, except more ugly quotes and incredibly stupid slide shows. And while doing that googling, I noticed several posts from doctors and biologists who are so astounded at the stupidity of his unpublished paper on oxytocin they can’t belief this guy is a doctor.

Sooooo…. is he? Anyone know his background? Where he went to med school? Where he got his certifications, etc. etc?

UPDATE: Thanks to commenter NotThatMo, we now have the following info. Other commenters have begun to find out other things about his affiliations and professional qualifications.

License Status: Active
License Issue Date: 8/5/1987
Accepting New Patients: Yes
Accepts Medicaid: Yes
Primary Work Setting: Private Office
Business Address: REMOVED
Phone: REMOVED
Insurance Plans Accepted: None Reported
Hospital Affiliations: North Shore Medical Center – Salem Hospital (Courtesy)
Union Hospital (Active)

Medical School: Tufts University School of Medicine
Graduation Date: 1986
Post Graduate Training: NEWTON-WELLESLEY HOSPITAL (1/1/1986-1/1/1987)
BAYSTATE MEDICAL CENTER (1/1/1989-1/1/1993)

Will He Certify That It Is Accurate

Reader W sent in this interesting observation by one of Mark Kleiman’s readers:

Did you notice that our esteemed President essentially committed securities fraud in representing that private investment accounts WILL perform better than anything the present system could do? Certainly, no one can honestly make that statement and any stockbroker making such a statement would be violating Rule 10b 5 of the Securities Act of 1934.

To which Kleiman added:

Which reminds me of my favorite snarky policy suggestion: How about applying the Sarbanes-Oxley certification process to budget submissions and other communications from the Executive to Congress or the public? Someone ought to be prepared to say about each submission, “Yes, I understand what’s in this document, and certify that it is accurate.”

This is another good line of argument. I think it hits a certain common sense chord to say that the president is overselling the market, especially right now. People just went through a very thorough retrenchment with their 401k’s and are very well aware that the market does not always go up. We should force the Republicans to explain why people should feel confident that they are guaranteed to make more money in the market as Bush says they will. And after they sputter their bromides about the long term gains in the last 70 years, blah,blah,blah, perhaps the Democratic spokesperson or legislator ought to turn around and say “everyone knows past performance is no guarantor of future returns. It’s the most basic and essential disclaimer given by anyone who works with stocks and bonds.”

Since we are talking about exposing millions of retirees to the stock market, shouldn’t the president be willing to apply the same rules to himself and certify his proposal with the standard Oxley-Sarbanes disclaimer: “Yes, I understand what’s in this document, and certify that it is accurate.”

It would be an interesting television moment anyway.

Two Extra Memos

I’m no expert on the arcana of the Killian documents, but I hadn’t been aware until a reader alerted me that there are six memos rather than the four reported by CBS linked on the USA Today site. Maybe everyone already knows about these other two, but they were news to me.

The first is dated 02 February, 1972 and says simply

Subject: Flight Qualifications

Harris,

Update me as soon as possible on flight certifications, specifically Bath and Bush.

The other is dated 24 June, 1973 and says:

Subject: Bush, George W. 1st Lt.32447544FG

Sir,

1. I got a call from your staff concerning the evaluation of 1st Lt Bush due this month. His rater is Lt. Colonel Harris.

2. Neither Lt Colonel Harris or I feel we can rate 1st Lt. Bush since he was not training with 111 F.I.S since April 1972. His recent activity is outside the rating period.

3. Advise how we are supposed to handle this.

Like I said, I’m not an expert and don’t want to become one, but these two docs were news to me. The note concerning Bush and Bath from February 1972 is particularly intriguing.

Here’s the USA Today pdf link.

If I’m not just misinformed here, I think it’s a bit odd that USA today has two documents that CBS never reported. They don’t mention it in their article. Where did they come from?

UPDATE: Apparently DU has been on this all day and has lots of intrigue. I’m not all that engaged in the details on this so if you want to get the latest go over there and check it out. In case anybody doesn’t know the illustrious history of Bush and Bath, here’s a handy site.

UPDATE II: Kevin Drum talked to the USA Today reporters who say that they received the memos from their own sources. One does wonder why they published them but didn’t mention that they had their own sources or that there were two more memos. Very strange.

Deadlines Schmeadlines

Republicans are very, very strict about following the law to the letter, even when it doesn’t make sense. And they are even more strict about adhering to arbitrary deadlines, regardless of the principle that underlies the issue at hand. In fact, Republicans believe that arbitrary deadlines in election contests are the very lifesblood of democracy. Where would we be if you can just change the rules as you go along?

Or, at least they did during the Florida recount in 2000. The initial issue, if you recall, was the fact that while Gore was following the process laid out by the legislature (and which had been used without controversy in past statewide races) by requesting recounts in certain districts, the deadline for the recount to be submitted to Kathryn Harris’ office was physically impossible to meet. The legal issue was whether or not the statute, under the state’s constitutional requirement to determine the will of the voters, required Harris to extend the certification deadline.

The Republicans argued vociferously that hand counts were unreliable in the first place, but more importantly arbitrary deadlines were the very foundation upon which our legal system rested and for the courts to change them under some constitutional flim flam like “every vote must be counted” was judicial activism at its worst. Deadlines are sacrosanct or the rule of law is nothing but toilet paper.

I guess its toilet paper.

What was once a fundamental threat to our system of government is now a “glitch.”

For want of a small change to the Illinois election law, President Bush’s name is not supposed to be on the state’s November ballot, but officials said one way or another, it will be there.

The glitch arose because the Illinois legislature adjourned earlier this week without extending the Aug. 30 deadline for presidential candidates to be certified by the state elections board and qualify for the Nov. 2 ballot.

The relatively late dates of this year’s Republican Party convention, running Aug. 30 to Sept. 2, mean that Bush will not be the official nominee until after the deadline set in state law. Eight other states had the same problem but fixed the date. As a result Illinois, is the only state where Bush could be left off the ballot.

But Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat, indicated the problem must be fixed somehow. “President Bush has to be on the ballot,” he said.

Illinois’ Democratic-majority legislature is expected to hold an overtime session soon that will require a three-fifths majority to enact any legislation — including a change in the ballot rule.

“We’re confident he is going to be on the ballot,” said Illinois Republican Party spokesman Jason Gerwig. “There are plenty of options out there to ensure that he is. This isn’t a last-ditch effort.”

Gerwig said that if the legislature fails to act, the party is prepared to appeal to the elections board, the state attorney general and, finally, the federal courts.

If anyone has the kind of free time that allows for it, they should go back and read the Republican oral arguments to the Florida Supreme Court on the necessity of strict deadlines, respect for the legislative process and the need to set standards. It’s a great reminder of just how full of shit they were then and still are today. By their own measure there is no way that Bush should be allowed on that ballot. I would love to see the Democrats make them argue for why he should be. You can bet that if the shoe were on the other foot, Kerry would be forced to take it all the way to the Supreme Court.

Update: No surprise here, but Florida voting is still amazingly screwed up. I hope that the DNC is planning to have many, many precinct watchers present with cell phones and digital cameras (and security guards…)

Thanks Donkey