1 in 500 Americans is a terrorist supporter?

That seems ridiculously high, doesn’t it?

Well, the GAO says the Terrorist Watch List is now up to about 800,000 names. In a nation of roughly 300 million people, that would break down to 1 in 400 Americans.

But of course, some names are duplicates or aliases. Some are non-U.S. citizens. So let’s say 1 in 500 Americans. Still — that’s an awful lot of terrorist supporters. And of course, our government won’t allow us to know why our names are being put on the list, nor is there a clear process for being taken off. Needless to say, I am not confident that this list makes us safer.

Full report (pdf). I particularly like the bit on page 11, where the researchers confide that the CIA refused to talk to them. Way to work together, guys.

(Via Wired, via ACS.)

A helpful tip

The inimitable Daniel Davies:

Mahmoud Ahamdinejad’s name is fucking difficult to spell. It’s also difficult to pronounce. This forms the basis for my latest raft of pronouncements on international affairs.

It is based on the Davies BBC Pronunciation Department Theory Of Geopolitics, which basically states that the importance of any foreigner to the politics of the UK can be reasonably assessed by looking at how much trouble the newsreaders take to get his name right. In general, the BBC appears to believe that all foreigners are pissy little no-marks and you pronounce their names phonetically as if they were English words.

I’d say the theory holds for the U.S., too.

Viz, the pronunciation of Ahmadinejad’s name (which is actually much easier to spell than Khruschev’s if you remember that it is actually a double-barrelled name – Ahmadi-Nejad – the Guardian actually used to spell it this way for a short while but seems to have given up). This is basically pronounced as “I’m a dinner jacket”.

Go see what he has to say about the rest of the world’s leaders.

The war in Spain

Being here in Spain the last few days has allowed me to get a little window on how the war(s) is/are looking from outside the U.S. The news here has been full of the story of two young soldiers who died in Afghanistan, and there was a protest today in Seville against the wars.

Speaking of wars, I´m noticing that everyone from protestors to the national press (what I´ve seen of it) seems to tie Iraq and Afghanistan far more tightly than in the U.S. At home, the public is decidedly gloomy about the Iraq war, while Afghanistan is more or less invisible. Even so, I would imagine — and when I´m not at an Internet cafe on my vacation I´ll probably look this up to verify — that if you polled Americans today, you´d still get a solid 70% in favor of staying in Afghanistan.

The rhetoric I´m hearing in Spain doesn´t support that. Of course, I don´t know enough about Spanish politics to make any sort of educated guesses about how much domestic exasperation is being taken out on the president (a la ¨Why are you letting Bush push you around?¨)

Also, I asked the young woman handing out flyers at the demonstration if the group was a religious one and she looked at me like I had two heads. There´s a data point in favor of Europe as much more secular than the U.S. (I did explain to her that in my country, groups protesting the war are often doing it in part because of religious beliefs. Just so she wouldn´t think my question was coming out of thin air.)

Never prouder

This afternoon, President Bollinger gave a speech that can only be called rousing and inspirational. Watch it here: part 1, part 2 (it’s unfortunate that the video doesn’t capture the response of the several thousand students who were watching out on the lawn; needless to say the atmosphere was electric).

Interestingly enough, just two hours later, Prezbo — miraculously — showed up to teach POLS 3285 Freedom of Speech & Press to thunderous applause. It was a good day to be in his class.

Today was a glorious affirmation of of the values my university and nation espouse, and I’ve never been prouder to be a part of both.

A sampling of the pictures I took throughout the day after the jump

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Tomorrow should be interesting

Seen just now while walking to the library:

Bwog coverage here, for those who don’t know what’s going on.

There is no right to know

Newsflash:

Without special permission, officials [at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration] are no longer allowed to provide information to reporters except on a background basis.

(Source.)

Let’s get that straight. You and I pay taxes to support one of the most important safety agencies in the world, one that spends millions of dollars studying a machine we all use every day: Cars. But to talk to one of those safety experts…whoops, no, we can’t. And reporters can’t, in any meaningful way.

The explanation? “We were finding a lot of stuff did not need to be on the record.” That’s from chief of staff for the political appointee who now runs NHTSA.

Talk about an upside-down view of the world. “We were finding a lot of stuff did not need to be on the record.” This is a democratic republic. We presume that our civil servants are working for us, so they’re obligated — indeed, honor-bound — to answer to the American people because we’re their employers.

This guy apparently believes that civil servants need a good reason to speak to Americans. Funny, in my world a civil servant needs a darned good reason not to.

This is not fiction

I remember a time when when this stuff was only to be found in dystopian novels:

SHENZHEN, China, Aug. 9 — At least 20,000 police surveillance cameras are being installed along streets here in southern China and will soon be guided by sophisticated computer software from an American-financed company to recognize automatically the faces of police suspects and detect unusual activity.

Starting this month in a port neighborhood and then spreading across Shenzhen, a city of 12.4 million people, residency cards fitted with powerful computer chips programmed by the same company will be issued to most citizens.

Data on the chip will include not just the citizen’s name and address but also work history, educational background, religion, ethnicity, police record, medical insurance status and landlord’s phone number. Even personal reproductive history will be included, for enforcement of China’s controversial “one child” policy. Plans are being studied to add credit histories, subway travel payments and small purchases charged to the card.

More terrifying details await in the rest of the NY Times article.

No one person should have this much power

I wrote earlier about a judge in Pakistan who was standing up for the rule of law. Today he was reinstated:

Pakistan’s Supreme Court today reinstated the country’s Chief Justice unconditionally in a blow to the Pakistan President, General Pervez Musharraf, who had suspended him.

The historic ruling – the first a Pakistan court has ever made against a military ruler – comes after four months of unrest in Pakistan since Iftikhar Chaudhry’s suspension on allegations of misconduct and corruption.

Judge Chaudhry refused to quit, despite pressure from the president and his intelligence chiefs, and became a symbol of resistance to General Musharraf, lionised by supporters in rallies round the country.

In contrast, today the White House made a stunning declaration that our president has supreme rights over Congress.

Mark J. Rozell, a professor of public policy at George Mason University who has written a book on executive-privilege issues, called the administration’s stance “astonishing.”

“That’s a breathtakingly broad view of the president’s role in this system of separation of powers,” Rozell said. “What this statement is saying is the president’s claim of executive privilege trumps all.”

No one person should have this much power. The founders of our country knew that no president could ever be so perfect that he (or she) should have the rights of a king. But the current president is making wilder and wilder claims about the power to which he is entitled.

Let’s go back to Pakistan, a nation with which we have had profound differences:

“The president has said the judgement of the Supreme Court will be honoured, respected, and adhered to,” said retired Major General Rashid Qureshi, the president’s spokesman.

There’s a critical difference to note: The White House claims are being made anonymously. That means that our president isn’t quite sure enough to stand up and say in public that he has the right to overrule Congress like this. Letting his staff speak to the Washington Post is a way of testing to see if Americans will swallow this outrageous claim.

If you agree that nobody should have this much power, call your senators. Or better yet, write them.

Happy Independence Day

This seemed like the best way to celebrate:

More photos of me looking bewildered after the jump.

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“He’s my president, and I hope he does a good job”

Transcript and video of Keith Olbermann’s sharp and righteous July 4th commentary on the pardon of Scooter Libby.

When President Nixon ordered the firing of the Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox during the infamous “Saturday Night Massacre” on October 20th, 1973, Mr. Cox initially responded tersely, and ominously:

“Whether ours shall be a government of laws and not of men, is now for Congress, and ultimately, the American people.”

President Nixon did not understand how he had crystallized the issue of Watergate for the American people.

It had been about the obscure meaning behind an attempt to break in to a rival party’s headquarters; and the labyrinthine effort to cover-up that break-in and the related crimes.

But in one night, Nixon transformed it.

Watergate — instantaneously — became a simpler issue: a President overruling the inexorable march of the law. Of insisting — in a way that resonated viscerally with millions who had not previously understood — that he was the law.

Not the Constitution.

Not the Congress.

Not the Courts.

Just him.

Just – Mr. Bush – as you did, yesterday.

Brings to mind the unmatchable Representative Barbara Jordan during the Watergate hearings:

Earlier today, we heard the beginning of the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States, “We, the people.” It is a very eloquent beginning. But when the document was completed on the seventeenth of September 1787 I was not included in that “We, the people.” I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation and court decision I have finally been included in “We, the people.”

Today, I am an inquisitor; I believe hyperbole would not be fictional and would not overstate the solemnness that I feel right now. My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total. I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.

Transcript. It’s even better if you listen to her uniquely majestic voice.