Virtual Fencing Going Forward. Controversial Photos To Be Kept Under Wraps?

Campaign rhetoric notwithstanding, more apparent homeland security continuity between the Bush and Obama administrations:

In announcing the resumption of a "virtual fence" on the U.S.-Mexican border yesterday, the Obama administration sent a powerful message of continuity with President George W. Bush, who included a pledge to secure the border as part of a 2006 effort to persuade Congress to overhaul the nation's immigration laws.

Much as Bush aides did three years ago, administration officials in the Department of Homeland Security described a five-year, multibillion-dollar plan yesterday to link a chain of tower-mounted sensors and other surveillance equipment over most of the 2,000-mile southern frontier. As before, the network of cameras, radar and communications gear is intended to speed deployment of U.S. Border Patrol officers to intercept illegal immigrants, drug smugglers and other violators, yielding greater "operational control" over the vast and rugged area.

Meanwhile, according to ABC News, it seems that the Obama administration is having second thoughts about releasing those photos depicting detainee mistreatment:

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was today asked about a letter from Sens. Joe Lieberman, D-Ind., and Lindsey Graham, R-SC, asking him to reverse the decision, saying the "release of these old photographs of past behavior that has now been clearly prohibited can serve no public good, but will empower al-Qaeda propaganda operations, hurt our country’s image, and endanger our men and women in uniform.

Gibbs said "obviously, the president has, has great concern about any impact that pictures of detainee -- potential detainee abuse in the past could have on the present-day service members that are protecting our freedom either in Iraq, Afghanistan, or throughout the world. That's something the president is very cognizant of. And we are working to -- we are working currently to figure out what the process is moving forward."

The Weekly Standard goes out on a limb to suggest that a reversal of the decision is imminent. Stay tuned.

Update: It's official--the administration has backpedaled and will now fight to prevent the "extradition" of the photos.

President Obama said Wednesday that he told government lawyers to object to a court-ordered release of additional images showing alleged abuse of detainees because the release could affect the safety of U.S. troops and "inflame anti-American opinion.

Administration Supporters Reevaluating their CEO in Chief

A self-sufficient, vibrant free-market economy forms an important component of national security. As we alluded to in a previous post, the private sector obviously has corrupt and fundamentally unfair and greedy elements, to say the very least. But excessive government intervention--not to mention nationalization of industries--leads to high costs, inefficiencies and disincentives, and more corruption. With that in mind we found this item from the British press almost funny, except that the rest of us are involuntarily along for the ride:

Wealthy Wall Street financiers and other business figures provided crucial support for Mr Obama during the election, backing him over the Republican candidate John McCain as the right leader to rescue the collapsing US economy.

But it is now dawning on many among them that Mr Obama was serious about his campaign trail promises to bring root and branch reform to corporate America - and that they were more than just election rhetoric.

A top Obama fundraiser and hedge fund manager said: "I'm appalled at the anti-Wall Street rhetoric. It was OK on the campaign but now it's the real world. I'm surprised that Obama is turning out to be so left-wing. He's a real class warrior."

If we remember correctly, Ayn Rand termed those who were part of the corporate welfare/individual welfare system in Atlas Shrugged as "looters."

Military Tribunals, The Reboot

Yet another disappointment to the "civil liberties" element of Obama's teleprompter-induced coalition, i.e., those who bought into empty campaign rhetoric:

The Obama administration is preparing to revive the system of military commissions established at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, under new rules that would offer terrorism suspects greater legal protections, government officials said.

The rules would block the use of evidence obtained from coercive interrogations, tighten the admissibility of hearsay testimony and allow detainees greater freedom to choose their attorneys, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The military commissions have allowed the trial of terrorism suspects in a setting that favors the government and protects classified information, but they were sharply criticized during the administration of President George W. Bush. "By any measure, our system of trying detainees has been an enormous failure," then-candidate Barack Obama said in June 2008.

In another legal development that puts the administration at odds with many of its supporters, the Ninth Circuit rejected the Justice Department's secrecy doctrine argument in a case revolving around the controversial rendition program:

A federal appeals court rebuffed the Obama administration's assertion of secrecy Tuesday and reinstated a lawsuit by five men who say a Bay Area subsidiary of Boeing Co. helped the CIA fly them to foreign countries to be tortured.

The ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco is the first major setback for the new administration's attempt to use secrecy doctrines to fend off challenges to clandestine activities authorized by President George W. Bush. President Obama's Justice Department is also defending a Bush wiretapping program in lawsuits pending in San Francisco.

Click here for the full text of the decision in Binyan Mohamed v. Jeppesen Dataplan Inc., Case No. 08-15693.

Gitmo Detainees--NIMBY

The way this administration is backpedaling and frontpedaling on what to do with the residents of the Guantanamo Bay terrorist prison, the detainees in question could score some hefty frequent flier miles:

The Obama administration will not release terrorists from Guantanamo Bay into neighborhoods in the United States, Attorney General Eric Holder told Congress on Thursday as he sought to reassure worried lawmakers.

"We don't have any plans to release terrorists," Holder testified at a Senate hearing on the Obama administration's budget for the Justice Department. The budget proposal released Thursday requests up to $160 million to close the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

But he also said some of the detainees at the facility will be let go, indicating the administration believes some held there are not terrorists. Asked after the hearing if he believes some current Guantanamo detainees are innocent, Holder did not answer.

Federal lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have made it clear--not in my backyard:

On his second day in office, President Obama ordered the Pentagon to mothball Guantanamo within one year, purportedly to reclaim the "moral high ground." That earned applause from the anti-antiterror squadrons, yet it is now causing all kinds of practical and political problems in what used to be known as the war on terror.

This mess grew even more chaotic this week, when Democrats refused the Administration's $50 million budget request to transfer some of the remaining 241 Gitmo detainees to a prison likely to be somewhere in the U.S. and perhaps to a new one built with taxpayer dollars. "What do we do with the 50 to 100 -- probably in that ballpark -- who we cannot release and cannot try?" Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently asked Congress.

The best answer is Gitmo. But the antiwar left wants terrorists treated like garden-variety criminals in the civilian courts or maybe military courts martial. The not-so-minor problem is that even states that send leftists to Congress don't want to host Gitmo-II. Think California, where Alcatraz could be an option. The abandoned San Francisco Bay prison has Gitmo's virtue of relative isolation -- but Senator Dianne Feinstein, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, claims it is a national treasure. The terrorist-next-door problem is also rising to a high boil in Kansas politics, given that Fort Leavenworth is being eyed too.

The Washington Post also chimes in on Congressional resistance:

Worried that some former Guantanamo Bay detainees may end up on U.S. soil, congressional Republicans and Democrats are sharply questioning President Obama's plans for closing the military prison in Cuba.

The Democratic-led House Appropriations Committee yesterday [May 7] passed a bill to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while stripping the more than $50 million that administration officials had requested for closing the prison and starting the relocation of its 240 prisoners.

Lawmakers criticized the administration for not yet offering a detailed plan on prisoner relocation.

Republicans are touting a bill that would prohibit any stateside relocation without the approval of the governor and the legislature of the affected state. Senate Republicans have also released this video preview of "coming attractions."Meanwhile, administration bureaucrats can't seem to keep track of terror suspects that are still at large:

Nearly eight years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the FBI's terrorist watch list is so flawed that at least 10 people who should have been kept out of the United States were allowed to cross its borders, an internal audit released Wednesday shows.

And in yet another reversal of a campaign promise, Obama's minions must have focused-group the idea of extending amnesty to illegal aliens and did not like the results--especially with the 2010 congressional elections looming:

On the thorniest of political issues, President Obama has embraced the enforcement-first position on immigration that he criticized during last year's presidential campaign, and he now says he can't move forward with the type of comprehensive bill he wants until voters are convinced that the borders can be enforced.

David Souter Exits Stage "Left"

It figures that the lackluster David Souter would give Obama a Supreme Court nominee so early into his term. Let's face it; had President G.H.W. Bush nominated even a garden-variety moderate, many of those narrow 5-4 high court decisions would have probably been a more definitive 6-3. The "stealth" nominee's other claim to fame, if you call it that, is and was to insure more through vetting of subsequent nominees.

Obama claims that he intends he put forward a nominee with empathy for people. We're all for empathy (although the job description primarily involves Constitutional application), but empathy for who--terrorists and criminals, and others who have chosen similar alternative lifestyles? Instead, how about empathy for law abiding, productive citizens?

The expectation is that Obama will nominate a down-the-line super liberal, who will then be pronounced by the fawning, worshipful media as a stone-cold moderate or better yet, a centrist. However, Sen. Hatch told Politico that Obama told him that the pick will be a pragmatist rather than a radical or an extremist, so time will tell.

Speculation is currently centering on Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the Second Circuit. Through the years, Supreme Court nominations have taken into account political, ideological, and ethnic calculations, so there is nothing new there. However, recall that President G.W. Bush attempted to nominate Miguel Estrada to the D.C. Circuit, but Senate Democrats using procedural trickery to prevent Estrada from receiving an up-or-down vote. The Estrada contretemps served as another failure of the Bush administration to use the bully pulpit. Had Estrada made it to the D.C. Circuit bench, the likelihood is that he may have later been nominated to the Supreme Court instead of Samuel Alito.

At NationalJournal.com, Stuart Taylor suggests that Sotomayor may have a problem with her handling of the controversial New Haven firefighter case which is currently pending before the Supreme Court. The New Republic also has reservations about this judge.

There is some talk on Capitol Hill from both sides of the aisle about nominating someone outside the judiciary, with more "real world" experience. For once, the lawmakers are making sense.

Mexican Cartels and U.S. Gangs

Although the swine flu outbreak has grabbed most of the headlines, intelligence analysts at Stratfor remind us that the Mexican drug cartels and their affiliates retain plenty of potency:

While the Mexican cartels do have people in the United States, they do not have enough people so positioned to handle the increased workload of distributing narcotics at the retail level. A wide range of skill sets is required. Some of the tactics involved in moving shipments across the border require skilled workers, such as pilots, while U.S. gang members along the border serve as middlemen and retail distributors. Other aspects of the operation call for people with expertise in manipulating corrupt officials and recruiting human intelligence sources, while a large part of the process simply involves saturating the system with massive numbers of expendable, low-skilled smugglers who are desperate for the money.

The U.S. gangs are crucial in filling the cartel gap north of the border. Members of these border gangs typically are young men who are willing to break the law, looking for quick cash and already plugged in to a network of similar young men, which enables them to recruit others to meet the manpower demand. They are also typically tied to Mexico through family connections, dual citizenship and the simple geographic fact that they live so close to the border. However, the U.S. gangs do not constitute formal extensions of the Mexican drug-trafficking organizations. Border gangs developed on their own, have their own histories, traditions, structures and turf, and they remain independent. They are also involved in more than just drug trafficking and distribution, including property crime, racketeering and kidnapping. Their involvement in narcotics is similar to that of a contractor who can provide certain services, such as labor and protection, while drugs move across gang territory, but drug money is not usually their sole source of income.

Click here for the full report, "When the Mexican Drug Trade Hits the Border."

Obama Gives In to ACLU on Detainee Photos

We're all for government transparency, especially in fiscal matters (and we need more transparency for example to combat vote fraud), but what is the point of putting out information that undermines U.S. security and and stature?

In a letter from the Justice Department to a federal judge yesterday [April 23], the Obama administration announced that the Pentagon would turn over to the American Civil Liberties Union 44 photographs showing detainee abuse of prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq during the Bush administration.

The photographs are part of a 2003 Freedom of Information Act request by the ACLU for all information relating to the treatment of detainees -- the same battle that led, last week, to President Obama's decision to release memos from the Bush Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel providing legal justifications for harsh interrogation methods that human rights groups call torture.

Courts had ruled against the Bush administration's attempts to keep the photographs from public view. ACLU attorney Amrit Singh tells ABC News that "the fact that the Obama administration opted not to seek further review is a sign that it is committed to more transparency."...

But some experts say the move could have a chilling effect on the CIA even beyond President Obama's decision last week to release the so-called "torture memos."

Calling the ACLU push to release the photographs "prurient" and "reprehensible," Dr. Mark M. Lowenthal, former Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Analysis and Production, tells ABC News that the Obama administration should have taken the case all the way to the Supreme Court.

"They should have fought it all the way; if they lost, they lost," said Lowenthal, who retired from the Agency in 2005. "There's nothing to be gained from it. There's no substantive reason why those photos have to be released."

Maybe the administration will consider setting up a page on FaceBook or MySpace to make it even easier for our adversaries and assorted political opportunists (like this individual) to find documents or images that will damage our nation. Also, do the ACLU minions feel that they are immune or somehow have a force field around them that would provide protection from any future acts of terrorism?

On the subject of transparency in this administration, an excellent blog post here.