Letters to the Editor
Foodle
Published Letters: 45
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Sourcing is not really the problem, Glenn
[Read the article: National journalists believe you should trust them]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In response to my central point -- that a story of this magnitude and potential impact should not be passed on without at least some information enabling an assessment of the credibility of the sources...
What magnitude and what potential impact? You don't need to know the sources of the ABC report to know that it has neither -- unless you are actually interested in the meta issues of who is feeding bogus claims to ABC and why ABC is repeating them. Contrary to ABC's "trusted" claim that U.S. intelligence previously assessed that Iran could not produce a nuclear weapon before 2015, almost a year ago U.S. officials said that the best intelligence estimate was that Iran could produce a nuclear weapon within 5 to 10 years. Contrary to ABC's "trusted" claim that the installation of 1000 centrifuges at Natanz is a dramatic and unexpected upgrade of Iran's uranium enrichment capability, last year Iran told IAEA officials that it intended to begin installing 3000 centrifuges at Natanz starting in the fourth quarter of 2006.
There is nothing new in the recent ABC report to change the 2011 estimate of the earliest likelihood of an Iranian bomb. The 2009 estimate is an absolute worst case scenario that can be met only if Iran runs into no technical difficulties at Natanz -- a virtual impossibility. That worst case has been public knowledge for more than a year.
Far from being unexpected, the installation of centrifuges at the underground Natanz production site was actually anxiously anticipated. You only need to go back a few months to find "Where are the centrifuges?" stories published in the fourth quarter of 2006 when Iran failed to begin installing those centrifuges at Natanz as previously announced. Then the speculation was that Iran might be installing the centrifuges at an unknown, secret location dedicated to producing highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon. Now Iran's centrifuge production capacity is accounted for in the slightly behind schedule installation of centrifuges at Natanz.
Really, the fundamental problem with the ABC report is not that it can't be trusted without verifiable sources, but rather that the previously available information from confirmed sources is fully adequate to demonstrate the falsehood and misrepresentation of fact in ABC's recent claims. In that light, the identity of ABC's sources is still a very interesting question, but their actual claims about Iran's nuclear capabilities are not.
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The real story
[Read the article: Do national journalists agree with Gary Kamiya?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What's the real story in Russia, Norh Korea, or Saudi Arabia, that we aren't hearing from the administration?
Right here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6540599.stm
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You must be mistaken, Glenn
[Read the article: The Bush administration's terrible luck with finding documents]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]George W. Bush, June 21, 2006:
It's a -- we're a transparent democracy. People know exactly what's on our mind. We debate things in the open.
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Republican Secondaries
[Read the article: The Republican Party is the party of Bush]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What should be evident from the Bush presidency is that for all but an inconsequential few Conservatives, the loudly and widely proclaimed Conservative Principles are actually Conservative Secondaries -- matters that interest Conservatives only secondarily, and that they are willing to champion only so long as their chthonic, obdurate, and actual principles remain unthreatened. Bin Laden's stimulus was sufficient for Conservatives to cast aside their secondary overburden, allowing those brave and caring enough to look to at least glimpse what Conservatives previously took pains to hide. Unfortunately, not just ostensible Conservative Principles have been discarded, but also much that is primary to the worth of the United States as a nation.
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Plus ça change...
[Read the article: The rigid pro-war ideology of the foreign policy community]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That is why you can travel as far along the spectrum as possible, arrive at the most extremist neoconservative point, and still be comfortably within the acceptable range of Serious Community Views.
Well, you do need to have a sense of style if you want to be in the Serious Community. Paramilitary uniforms, red faces, and spittle are out of vogue, so be certain to wear conservative business attire and speak more softly.
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How?
[Read the article: AT&T, other telecoms, buy victory in lawsuits]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What is required for a telecom to "demonstrate to a court that they acted pursuant to a legal directive in helping the government with surveillance in the United States" when another court has already ruled that it cannot be seriously contended "that a reasonable entity in its position could have believed that the alleged domestic dragnet was legal"?
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@Elron
[Read the article: AT&T, other telecoms, buy victory in lawsuits]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That is the same issue I am seeing. To approach it from a slightly different angle: What real difference does a new statute make that grants immunity to telecoms acting in accordance with a legal directive when the existing FISA already immunizes telecoms who follow legal directives under FISA?
If a court were to find that FISA isn't the exclusive means of conducting electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes, and that there is another legal means by which the government can direct telecoms to wiretap without FISA warrants, then the proposed new statute would likely immunize telecoms acting in accordance with that alternative means; but as long as the extra-FISA surveillance was itself extra-legal, I'm having trouble seeing how the new statute would provide the telecoms additional immunity.
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Not sure, Glenn
[Read the article: AT&T, other telecoms, buy victory in lawsuits]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This is designed to include what they claim they have -- an oral "directive" from the President and the NSA.
It sets up a procedure where they go to a court - in secret - and show that they were told to do this by someone in authority and assured that it was legal. That is all that is needed.
Without being able to see the actual text of the bill, I'm not sure that you are correct, Glenn. If the text requires that the telecoms actually demonstrate that the directive was legal, not just that they had a good faith belief that it was legal, then oral directives from the President and/or NSA might still not result in telecom immunity. If the courts were to decide that there were legal means to conduct foreign intelligence wire tapping outside of FISA, then the new bill probably grants additional immunity for those extra-FISA actions. However, if the courts hold that FISA really is the exclusive legal means to conduct foreign intelligence wiretaps, then an illegal Presidential order to circumvent FISA likely does not grant telecom immunity even under the new bill.