From the horror of 9/11 to the invasion of Iraq; the truth about WMD to the rise of an insurgency; the scandal of Abu Ghraib to the strategy of the surge -- for six years, FRONTLINE has revealed the defining stories of the war on terror in meticulous detail, and the political dramas that played out at the highest levels of power and influence.
Now, on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, the full saga unfolds in the two-part FRONTLINE special Bush's War, airing Monday, March 24, from 9 to 11:30 P.M. and Tuesday, March 25, 2008, from 9 to 11 P.M. ET on PBS (check local listings). Veteran producer Michael Kirk (The Torture Question, The Dark Side) draws on one of the richest archives in broadcast journalism -- more than 40 FRONTLINE reports on the war on terror. Combined with fresh reporting and new interviews, Bush's War will be the definitive documentary analysis of one of the most challenging periods in the nation's history.
We received many questions from the press and the public, several on this blog, about the information contained in a person’s passport file. This entry details exactly what information can be found in a passport file.
Change Congress is a movement to build support for basic reform in how our government functions. Using our tools, both candidates and citizens can pledge their support for basic changes to reduce the distorting influence of money in Washington. Our community will link candidates committed to a reform with volunteers and contributors who support it.
What is the measure of a good executive? The ability to inspire those who follow, certainly. A dedication to speaking the truth, and particularly not misleading those who entrust leadership to him. The ability to listen and to absorb information critically. Raw intelligence. Good judgment. Being a good judge of others, and being able to pick the right advisors. Being possessed of a moral anchor. All of that would figure in the common measure of leadership. But no leader will operate without making mistakes. So another critical measure of a good leader is the ability to recognize mistakes and take remedial steps to correct them; moreover, to do this in a timely way.
Border Searches of Laptops and Other Electronic Storage Devices
Topic: Politics and Law
6:28 am EDT, Mar 24, 2008
A report of the Congressional Research Service:
The Fourth Amendment generally requires a warrant to support most searches and seizures conducted by the government. Federal courts have long recognized that there are many exceptions to this general presumption, one of which is the border search exception. The border search exception permits government officials, in most “routine” circumstances, to conduct searches with no suspicion of wrongdoing whatsoever. On the other hand, in some “non-routine” and particularly invasive situations, customs officials are required to have “reasonable suspicion” in order to conduct a search. Several federal courts have recently applied the border search exception to situations in which customs officials conducted searches of laptops and other electronic storage devices at the border. Though the federal courts have universally held that the border search exception applies to laptop searches conducted at the border, the degree of cause required to support the search has not been established. Though some federal appellate courts do not appear to require any degree of suspicion to justify a search, one federal district court stated categorically that all laptop searches conducted at the border require at least reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.
The Long-Term Implications of Current Defense Plans: Detailed Update for Fiscal Year 2008
Topic: Politics and Law
6:28 am EDT, Mar 24, 2008
This presentation updates the analysis of current defense plans contained in the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO’s) April 2007 Web document The Long-Term Implications of Current Defense Plans: Detailed Update for Fiscal Year 2007 to account for changes incorporated in the President’s budget for fiscal year 2008 and in the 2008 Future Years Defense Program (FYDP).
The presentation provides additional data not found in CBO’s December 2007 publication The Long-Term Implications of Current Defense Plans: Summary Update for Fiscal Year 2008. Both of those documents respond to standing requests from the Senate Budget Committee.
This presentation does not incorporate changes to the FYDP resulting from Congressional action on the President’s 2008 budget request.
Charts in this detailed update use the concepts “steady state” and “half-life” for the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) investment plans and weapon systems. Those concepts and how CBO estimates their values are explained more fully in Appendix A at the end of the presentation.
The updated displays in this presentation differ in some instances from those in previous presentations. In some cases, CBO has altered the display format to include additional historical data; in other cases, it has revised its historical database of procurement quantities and funding, as well as its projections of the inventories of weapon systems that the military services plan to sustain. CBO also, in some instances, departs from previous presentations by using different color schemes for the displays.
All budgetary projections in this presentation are in billions of 2008 dollars of total obligational authority, and all years are federal fiscal years. Numbers in the text may not sum to totals because of rounding. See Appendix B at the end of the presentation for an explanation of selected acronyms and abbreviations.
The text accompanying the charts composing this Web document assumes that the reader is familiar with DoD programs and their content.
There has been a firestorm about the war inside the Pentagon. It’s been raging for several months now, but the mainstream media, which can find plenty of space to report on Hollywood starlets and their substance-abuse problems, and any candidate’s garbled lines on the campaign stump, can’t find its way fit to report a single line on this.
Yet the smoke from this firestorm has been everywhere. Why did Admiral James Fallon suddenly resign following the publication of a portrait piece on him in Esquire? The word spread about the media, which covered this, as usually, dismissively as “another personnel flap.” In their reporting, it had something to do with the CENTCOM commander’s opposition to launching a new war against Iran.
When I tested this with my Pentagon sources, I was told “wrong.”
As the battle over reforms to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act rages in Congress, civil libertarians warn that legislation sought by the White House could enable spying on "ordinary Americans." Others, like Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), counter that only those with an "irrational fear of government" believe that "our country's intelligence analysts are more concerned with random innocent Americans than foreign terrorists overseas."
But focusing on the privacy of the average Joe in this way obscures the deeper threat that warrantless wiretaps pose to a democratic society. Without meaningful oversight, presidents and intelligence agencies can -- and repeatedly have -- abused their surveillance authority to spy on political enemies and dissenters.
