April 29, 2004 by s.z.

'Cause Once You Have a New Flag, Then Everything Else Is Gonna Fall Into Place And to add some honest competition to that "Design an Iraqi Flag" contest that nobody but the Governing Council got to vote on, and apparently not even the winner knew he had entered, Peanut at Sadly,No! gives us some entries from the usual suspects.  I vote for the Pillsbury entry, but I also like the CIA one.  4:30:05 AM

An Act So Secret that If You've Read It, You're Ordered to Kill Yourself Remember last week when we shared with you this  part of Bush's address to the hostile (but wealthy) newspaper editors: We've got a Patriot Act -- which needs to be renewed, by the way, and strengthened, in my judgment -- that is really important to allow the criminal division and the intelligence division of the FBI to share information, which they could not do before.  And by the way, any provision in the Patriot Act that enables us to collect more information requires court order, just like it does when you're dealing with a mobster, or a doctor that's creating criminal problems, or white collar crime. And then we pointed out that apparently the President was misinformed, because Section 505 of the Patriot Act DOESN'T require a court order to collect information -- it says that FBI field offices can authorize administrative subpoenas that don't require any probable cause or judicial oversight, and use these "national security letters" to compel financial institutions and businesses to provide bank records, email info, credit reports, etc.   And you wouldn't even know this information about you had been turned over (unless you found out in court), because, per the Slate article we cited, "Those forced to turn over records are gagged from disclosing the demand." And we noted that the ACLU had filed a FOIA request last year, and had received information indicating that the FBI had issued enough national security letters to fill up five pages of a log -- but virtually every word on the pages had been blacked out before being turned over to the ACLU, for "security" reasons. Anyway, it seems that the ACLU later filed a lawsuit about the FBI's use of this section of the Act -- but were forbidden to tell anyone about the case (due to "security concerns").  Here's part of the Wash Post story: The American Civil Liberties Union disclosed yesterday that it filed a lawsuit three weeks ago challenging the FBI's methods of obtaining many business records, but the group was barred from revealing even the existence of the case until now. The lawsuit was filed April 6 in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, but the case was kept under seal to avoid violating secrecy rules contained in the USA Patriot Act, the ACLU said. The group was allowed to release a redacted version of the lawsuit after weeks of negotiations with the government. "It is remarkable that a gag provision in the Patriot Act kept the public in the dark about the mere fact that a constitutional challenge had been filed in court," Ann Beeson, the ACLU's associate legal director, said in a statement. "President Bush can talk about extending the life of the Patriot Act, but the ACLU is still gagged from discussing details of our challenge to it." Well, to be fair, while the President can talk about extending the life of the Act, he is forbidden from actually reading it.  The ACLU's complaint focuses on the use of national security letters to obtain information held by "electronic communication service providers." The group says the letters could force Internet providers to turn over names, screen names, e-mail addresses and other customer information without proper notice to the people involved. Not that any non-terrorists using  the internet would ever have anything they'd want to keep private.  No indeed. 4:06:57 AM

9/11 Commission to Host Event for "National Party for the President" Day Yes, today is National Party for the President Day, the day when we host "informal, grassroot 'parties'" (yes, "parties" is in quotes, so you know these events are going to be F-U-N!) to help raise support for the Bush campaign.  Per GeorgeWBush.com, 5194 parties are planned for today (the map shows that only threeor four of them are in my state -- I guess us westerners just aren't party people).  And at 8:30pm EST, Dick Cheney is going to talk to each and every one of these parties via a conference call -- I suspect that during the call he'll spend most of the time telling everyone that John Kerry is a drug-addicted commie/hippie/jerk, mention that George Bush is the only President who can protect you and your family from the nuclear weapons al Qaeda has pointed at your house, and then ramble about how he's sick and tired of having to do George's dirty work and when is it going to be National Party for the VP Day anyway? Per the fine print at the bottom of the page, these "parties" "are not official Bush-Cheney '04 events" and "A Party for the President hosted at a public location such as a restaurant requires that each person in attendance pay for the food or drink they consume to comply with federal law."  Yup, my kind of party. But as you know, the 9/11 Commission has its own party for the President planned.  Exactly what is going to happen at it?  Let's read some headlines at Google News to see what the experts say: Bush and Cheney to tell 9/11 stories Toronto Star, Canada - 1 hour ago He'll take no oath, allow no tape recordings, ensure no transcript is kept, but he and US Vice-President Dick Cheney — so far apart on Sept. ...  9/11 panel's session today highlights powerful pairing Philadelphia Inquirer (subscription), PA - 1 hour ago By Ron Hutcheson and William Douglas. WASHINGTON - If President Bush and Vice President Cheney were roommates, they would be the ... President, Cheney: a pair on a mission Miami Herald (subscription), FL - 2 hours ago President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, who have a unique working relationship, will appear as a team today before the commission that is looking into ...  So, basically, it's a date.  And one without oaths, cameras, or transcripts. But I think the best predictions I've seen about what will happen come from Norbizness -- I'm putting my money on the "Pushy Mob Lawyer" scenario.  3:21:54 AM