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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RetiredNow who wrote (321489)	1/18/2007 12:02:23 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1577883

It is unsustainable if we keep adding to it faster than the growth in the economy. If you do that indefinitely yes, but the deficit as a percentage of GDP has been going down, and apparently its been going down even in nominal dollars. Message 23189670 optimist123.com optimist123.com An possible counterargument was that Bush's earlier deficits where so bad that an improvement on them still leaves us with a bad situation, or you could think that we are going to enter in to another recession and that the positive trends won't continue. But the first doesn't change the fact that the deficit is becoming easier to deal with at the moment, and the 2nd is speculation. BTW - None of the above means that I think the current deficit is a good thing, or that Bush's deficits have been "no problem". Just that I don't think we are in an unsustainable situation.

To: RetiredNow who wrote (321489)	1/18/2007 9:29:17 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1577883

Gonzales faces sharp criticism by senators By Greg Gordon McClatchy Newspapers (MCT) WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats and one Republican pressed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Thursday to explain why it took the Bush administration five years to give a secret national security court control over government eavesdropping on suspected terrorists. Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee that such a change was highly complex - "not the kind of thing you pull off a shelf" - and that it took time to find a way to do it without compromising the nation's security. Until now, the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program, launched in the months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, has monitored overseas phone calls and other electronic communications involving Americans without court warrants. But Gonzales repeatedly rejected senators' assertions that it was illegal, saying the program was within President Bush's emergency war powers. Testifying under oath in his first congressional appearance since Democrats took control of Capitol Hill this month, Gonzales was pummeled with allegations that the program and other administration anti-terrorism programs have trampled on federal civil rights laws and the Constitution. He also faced sharp questions about rising violent crime in some medium-sized cities, allegations of voting rights abuses against African-Americans in Maryland and his agency's recent dismissal of a half-dozen U.S. attorneys. "I have never seen a time when our Constitution and fundamental rights as Americans were more threatened by their own government," said Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the committee chairman. In his opening statement, Leahy pointed to "warrantless wiretapping," allegations that the U.S. has tortured some terrorism detainees held overseas and the evisceration of what he called "the Great Writ of habeas corpus" - a detainee's right to challenge the conditions of his confinement. Leahy's face reddened and his voice rose when Gonzales said he couldn't explain for another few days why an innocent Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, was detained at New York's Kennedy Airport in 2002, then sent to Syria to be questioned. A Canadian inquiry later found that the Syrians had tortured Arar while they held him captive for 10 months. Gonzales said that his predecessor as attorney general, John Ashcroft, had received assurances from Syria that Arar wouldn't be tortured. "Assurances?" Leahy asked. He questioned why the U.S. government would trust Syria. "We knew damned well if he went to Canada, he would not be tortured," the senator said, describing the episode as "beneath the dignity of this country that has always been a beacon of human rights." "The Canadians are wondering what's happened to us," said Leahy, who lives an hour's drive from the Canadian border. He threatened to hold a hearing on the matter if Gonzales fails to provide an explanation within a week. Talking in low, controlled tones in response to questioning by Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., Gonzales refused to provide specifics of the newly disclosed arrangement with the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, saying such matters are classified. He said the new program complies with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the 1978 law that created the court and gave it a lower threshold for approving wiretaps and other surveillance in national security investigations. Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, the panel's ranking Republican, said he'll explore further whether there's "any conceivable justification for 19 months elapsing" from the time Gonzales said the Justice Department first began exploring ways to put the program under the FISA court until it did so. Specter sought to quell concerns that the court has given the administration a secret, blanket warrant to monitor the activities of suspected terrorists. Specter said that two senior Justice Department officials advised him, during a private briefing after the new arrangement was announced Wednesday, that orders signed by a judge on the court provide for "individualized" treatment of warrant applications. Specter said that disclosure of the program, just as Congress was completing revisions to the USA Patriot Act in December 2005, weakened the law and may have been a factor in Republicans' election defeat last fall. Leahy and Specter wrote to the FISA court's chief judge on Wednesday requesting copies of the new orders. Chief Judge Colleen Kollar-Cotelly responded that she had "no objection" to making the material public, but that it's the court's practice to refer requests for classified information to the Justice Department. Gonzales repeatedly emphasized that all members of the Senate and House intelligence committees have been briefed on the orders and didn't immediately say how he'd respond to the demand from the Judiciary Committee. The agreement was announced two weeks before the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati was due to hear arguments over a lower court judge's ruling that the warrantless surveillance program was illegal. A Justice Department official, who insisted upon anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the matter, said the agency would now argue that the case is moot. mercurynews.com