Letters to the Editor
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Good news at last -- but the surveillance shell game continues
Wonderful to have some good news for a change! Fervent thanks to Glenn Greenwald and others who have rightfully kept the FISA issue front and center in the public eye, and who have provided a steady stream of facts and cogent analysis to those of us who want to take action. As the debate shifts back to the Senate, I know we'll all continue to watch the situation and do whatever we can.
In the meantime, however, lest we be tempted to indulge in more than a minute or two of hard-earned relief, did anyone see the following piece by Charlie Savage in yesterday's Boston Globe? Bush's action in this case is separate from the FISA battle, but equally relevant to the question of surveillance oversight -- and equally troubling. A summary and link to the full article are below:
"President weakens espionage oversight"
Date: March 14, 2008
"WASHINGTON - Almost 32 years to the day after President Ford created an independent Intelligence Oversight Board made up of private citizens with top-level clearances to ferret out illegal spying activities, President Bush issued an executive order that stripped the board of much of its authority."
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2008/03/14/president_weakens_espionage_oversight?p1=email_to_a_friend
Something else to keep an eye on...
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@ondelette
OK, saving for later. BBC is reporting Chinese military all over and the Tibetan Chinese puppet government is warning that the military will start killing by Monday midnight. No doubt the killing already started. We will have to rely on the exiled government to tell us what is really going on and not the media.
But exiled Tibetan leaders put the death toll higher and blamed China.
"There have been 30 confirmed deaths until today, and over 100 unconfirmed deaths," the Tibetan government in exile, which is based in northern India, said.
"Lhasa is completely closed and there is Chinese military all over," Danish tourist Bente Walle told Reuters news agency.
In a statement quoted by the state-run news agency Xinhua, the Tibetan government urged "the lawbreakers to give themselves in by Monday midnight" and promised that "leniency would be given to those who surrender".
Tibetan government Chairman Qiangba Puncog denounced the "plot of the separatists".
"We will challenge them firmly, according to law," AFP news agency quoted him as saying.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7297911.stm
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The Economist had someone on the ground
Fire on the roof of the world
Our China correspondent sends an eyewitness report from Lhasa as Tibet’s simmering resentment boils over
The mobs, ranging from small groups of youths (some armed with traditional Tibetan swords) to crowds of many dozens, including women and children, rampaged through the narrow alleys of the Tibetan quarter. They battered the shutters of shops, broke in and seized whatever they could, from hunks of meat to gas canisters and clothing. Some goods they carried away—little children could be seen looting a toyshop—but most they heaped in the streets and set alight.
Within a couple of hours, fires were blazing in the streets across much of the city. Some buildings caught fire too. A pall of smoke blanketed Lhasa, obscuring the ancient Potala—the city’s most famous monument, which covers a hillside overlooking the city. It is the traditional winter palace of the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader, who fled into exile in India after an abortive uprising in 1959. Some of the demonstrators shouted slogans like “long live Tibet” and “long live the Dalai Lama”. One group trampled on a Chinese flag in the middle of a main road.
The rioting seemed primarily an eruption of ethnic hatred. Immigrants have been flocking into Lhasa in recent years from the rest of China and now run many of its shops, small businesses and tourist facilities. Tourism is the mainstay of Lhasa’s economy and has been booming in recent years, not least thanks to Tibet’s first railway link with the rest of China, opened two years ago. The visitors are mainly Chinese.
There is big resentment too over sharp increases in the prices of food and consumer goods from the rest of China. Many residents of Lhasa, suspicious of the new train service, which they felt might encourage immigration, had been comforted by what they say were official statements saying the rail link would help bring prices down. But they have kept on rising, as they have in other parts of the country.
http://www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10870258&top_story=1
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You're kidding, right?
If we all engaged in a bit more self-reflection it probably would help the level of discourse here.
-- Aycharaych
I have seen no sign of a desire for helping the level of discourse, and very little engagement in self-reflection.
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good night. my fingers itch.
With deepest respect to all gerontologist.
whether they have sever poison ivy or not,
some gerontologist please tuck me in bed?
and hug and kiss me and say, 'Good Night' ...
No. Just shake all the neoconservative hands.
Oh, good night.
O peepers peep.
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I met
an old tibetan fellow once named Palden Gyatso, a monk who had been imprisoned in Tibet in camps for over twenty years for refusing to recognize chinese rule of tibet. Once when they mistakenly let him out, he walked up out of Tibet into India across the mountains. I was his host at my school. He was the kindest and gentlest man I have ever met, and the stories of horror he told me that he saw done to his friends and to him still make me sad. But he told me he did not hate the chinese, for what they had done to themselves in commiting these evils was far worse punishment than anyone would ever wish on anyone. Those poor people, he said: and at first I thought he meant the tibetans. But he was speaking of the chinese, who had twisted themselves in harming others for no good reason.
He was a better human being than me. IF I were tibetan, I think I would be more like those burning the shops. But Palden-la gives me an ideal to aim at. Its good to meet people who are better than you. It teaches you to look up.