http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,48482,00.html
Oracle Keeps Pushing ID Card
By Declan McCullagh (declan_at_wired.com)
2:00 p.m. Nov. 17, 2001 PST
WASHINGTON -- Oracle still seems to adore the idea of a national ID
card.
At a congressional hearing on Friday, a company executive echoed the
pro-ID arguments that Oracle CEO Larry Ellison drew fire for
popularizing last month.
"By establishing a standard and secure national identifier, we could
ensure that any system that chose to use it could effectively share
information with other systems that use it," Oracle vice president Tim
Hoechst said.
[...]
[Sen. Dianne] Feinstein has introduced the Visa Entry Reform Act to create
a "SmartVisa" card for immigrants, which would include fingerprints,
retinal scans or face recognition data.
"If we had biometrics, we could have potentially forestalled the Sept.
11 attacks," Feinstein said.
Michael Kirkpatrick, assistant director in charge of the FBI's
Criminal Justice Information Service Division, saw things differently.
"There is no sign that biometrics will be a be-all end-all,"
Kirkpatrick said. "Fingerprints will play a role in identifying
someone and enrolling them in the system. To my knowledge, none of the
Sept. 11 terrorists were in the FBI's database."
[...]
---
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-national-id-card1116nov16.story?coll=sns%2Dap%2Dnation%2Dheadlines
By JESSE J. HOLLAND
Associated Press Writer
November 16, 2001, 5:43 PM EST
WASHINGTON -- Newt Gingrich and other former Republican lawmakers
predicted Friday that a new national identification card system will
probably never become a reality despite the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks.
"It's a dead end. It won't happen," Gingrich told a House Government
Reform subcommittee.
Talking about national IDs smacks of Nazism and "Big Brother" in
people's minds, and Congress will not have the political support to
get it through, said former Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wy. "You use the
words 'national ID,' it's over," he said.
Indeed, former Rep. Bill McCollum, R-Fla., called a new
all-encompassing national identification system "offensive" and said
it "contradicts some of our most sacrosanct American principles of
personal liberty and expectations of privacy and is far in excess of
what is needed to provide us with the security and protections we all
want."
[...]
---
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20011116-5300332.htm
Leahy challenges Bush on military tribunals [blackline-small.gif]
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday
challenged President Bush's call for special U.S. military tribunals
to try foreigners accused of terrorist attacks, saying the trials
could give the world the impression that the United States is looking
for "victor's justice."
"We need to understand the international implications of the
president's order, which sends a message to the world that it is
acceptable to hold secret trials and summary executions, without the
possibility of judicial review," said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont
Democrat, in what many consider the opening volley of a bitter fight
by Democrats to oppose the trials.
"Could this put U.S. citizens abroad, including military
personnel and peacekeepers, at grave risk? We also must take care not
to give the court of world opinion the impression that what we have in
mind is victor's justice," he said.
[...]
---
http://www.house.gov/conyers/pr111601.htm
Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 16, 2001 Contact: Dena Graziano
(202) 226-6888
CONYERS CHALLENGES ADMINISTRATION ON MILITARY TRIBUNALS AND OTHER
ANTI-TERRORISM ACTIONS
Congressman Conyers and other Members of Congress hold press
conference to express
concerns regarding the Administration's actions on Military Tribunals
and Anti-terrorism.
Today Congressman John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member of the House
Judiciary Committee joined Congressman Bob Barr (R-GA), Congressman
Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Congressman Bobby Scott (D-VA), Congressman Mel
Watt (D-NC), Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Congresswoman Sheila
Jackson Lee (D-TX), Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Congressman
Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) to address the recent actions taken by the
Administration regarding Military Tribunals and other anti-terrorism
acts.
Congressman Conyers issued the following statement regarding these
recent actions:
"Today we stand on the verge of a civil liberties calamity in this
country. The Administration and the Attorney General have taken a
series of constitutionally dubious actions that place the Executive
branch in the untenable role of legislator, prosecutor, judge, and
jury.
Certainly, we stand together as a nation in our collective outrage
over the September 11th terrorist attacks. However, we do nothing to
win the battle against terrorism by sacrificing our precious freedoms
and liberties.
We have been down this road of overreaction before. During the Civil
War, Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. After World War I, our
government wrongfully beat and deported thousands of immigrants.
During World War II, we placed Japanese-Americans in internment camps.
After the Oklahoma City bombing we gutted habeas corpus and decimated
our immigration laws.
When Congress passed the Anti-Terrorism bill last month, I was
concerned that the Attorney General would unilaterally and
unjustifiably seek to expand the government's powers. But I never
dreamed he would make me a prophet so quickly. Since then Mr. Aschroft
has dealt one hammer blow after another to the very constitutional
values he repeatedly promised to uphold at his confirmation hearings.
First, the Attorney General totally ignored my letter of October 31st
asking for information concerning the 1,000 plus immigrants who have
been detained for undisclosed reasons since the September attacks.
On October 31st, the Attorney General issued regulations permitting
the Department of Justice to unilaterally intercept attorney-client
phone calls.
On November 9th, the Administration announced a policy of ethnic
profiling by which it would discriminate in granting visas to men from
middle eastern countries and target 5,000 Arab male visitors for
intensive questioning. Surely in 21st Century America we can do better
than saying than if you are Arab you are a suspect.
Finally, on November 13th, the Administration announced the creation
of secret military courts to try immigrants and other foreigners for
terrorism offenses.
Collectively, the Administration has swept away the independent
judiciary, the right to a public trial, the right to an appeal, the
right to counsel, due process, equal protection and habeas corpus. Not
bad for two week's work.
We are here to remind our Attorney General that the Constitution
applies just as forcefully after September 11th as it did before
September 11th. I urge the Administration to not only reconsider these
hasty actions, but to commit to consult and work with Congress before
they issue any further edicts which erode our civil liberties and
alienate our enemies."
###
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http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200111/111401.html
Comment Of Senator Patrick Leahy,
Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee,
On The Administration's Executive Order
On Military Tribunals
Nov. 14, 2001
"Because there has been no consultation with Congress, we are left
with more questions than answers about what the Administration has in
mind in taking this step. We need to understand the international
implications of the President's order, which sends a message to the
world that it is acceptable to hold secret trials and summary
executions, without the possibility of judicial review, at least when
the defendant is a foreign national. Could this put U.S. citizens
abroad, including military personnel and peacekeepers, at grave risk?
We also must take care not to give the court of world opinion the
impression that what we have in mind is victor's justice. We want the
coalition the President has forged to remain at our side for the long
term, not just for the moment. We do not want to make it less likely
that other countries will cooperate with us -- perhaps even
jeopardizing their willingness to turn over suspected terrorists.
"Other questions have to do with how this fits under our Constitution
and legal system. The President's order covers suspected terrorists
arrested here as well as abroad. In the past and as recently as in the
anti-terrorism bill, the Administration has sought and Congress has
created new criminal offenses specifically aimed at terrorists,
anticipating that they will be charged and prosecuted as regular
criminals, not war criminals. There has been no formal declaration of
war, and in the meantime, our civilian courts remain open and
available to try suspected terrorists. All this raises questions about
whether the President can lawfully authorize the use of military
commissions to try persons arrested here.
"The way this was handled also contributes to the rising concern in
Congress about this administration's preference for unilateralism as
it promotes policy changes ranging from restructuring the INS to
eavesdropping on detainees' conversations with their attorneys to this
order on military tribunals. This approach needlessly threatens the
unity that Congress and the Administration have forged since Sept. 11.
We are all in this together, and the spirit of bipartisanship that has
largely prevailed in Congress since Sept. 11 must be reciprocated by
the Administration if it is to endure."
# # # # #
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Received on Nov 18 2001
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