By William Fisher
I recently sat down online with a remarkable young woman, Samar Dahmash-Jarrah, a Kuwait-born Palestinian-American speaker, journalist, and Political Science instructor at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Her book, "Arab Voices Speak to American Hearts," is an attempt to create a bridge of communication between the Arab world and the Western world. It consists of a series of different Arabs answering in their own little chapter/interview, questions posed by Americans that concern religion, politics, society, and common misconceptions. It is a fascinating array of Arabs who range from a business executive in Cairo to a hair stylist in Amman, a student, an engineer, a preacher, professor, and an attorney. While it is a mix of Christians and Muslims answering different questions posed to them, the views are quite different. Most of these differences revolve around Islam and religion in general. Some see it as a social entity, others see it as an individual belief or practice. Some of those interviewed are practicing Muslims, others are not.
After the World Trade Center tragedy of September 11th, 2001, Dahmash-Jarrah was asked by many community organizations, churches, temples, and peace groups to speak about the Arab world. These events and the Iraq War served as the inspiration for her book.
Here's our online conversation.
Q. The activities, problems, challenges, aspirations, etc. of Arab-Americans are rarely reported by the mainstream US press. Is this because of lack of resources, perceived lack of reader/listener/viewer interest, media concentration and bottom-line orientation, uninformed journalists -- or what?
A. It is a combination of all of the above. It also has to do with how Hollywood managed to turn the villain from the Jew to the Native American to the black and for the past 25 years or so to the Arab. I am some one who grew up in Kuwait watching cowboy and Indian movies and mini series. I remember how at the age of nine, my sister and I would have a hamburger (British and was called wimpy) in one hand, ketchup coming out of the sides of our mouths, and the other hand cheering the cowboy to shoot the Indian. All we knew then was that a bunch of bad dark skinned people left India and came to America to kill the white people! With no educational background on the issue, no other TV source of information to explain to us the historical context and the bias of what we used to watch on a weekly basis, made me a biased if not a racist person who harbored negative feelings about red Indians all my adult hood till I came to live in the USA! Same analogy can be used to explain the image of Arabs (and now Muslims) in American media, psychic, movies, and most of all educational system. One could argue that acts of terrorism committed by Arabs is the cause of this image, but when was the last time an Arab gassed a people because they didn’t like their religion? Or when was the last time an Arab used napalms against a whole village? Or when was the last time an Arab dropped an atomic bomb on civilians?
Q. What are the main things the US public is NOT getting from the media about Arabs?
A. I doubt very much that Arabs are getting any type of half decent coverage of them, their culture, customs, history, or faith. Not even Christian Arabs get any coverage as if Christianity emerged some where in the West, in Philadelphia or in Rome. This is a historical crime committed against Christianity. The only time American media covers Bethlehem news is in the context of Palestinian violence
and never in the context of an illegal military occupation. I used to quiz my college students and ask them where Jesus was born. 45 out of 50 students would say that they have no clue one or two would say Rome, and one told me Bethlehem, Pennsylvania! This is why Arab Muslims and Christians in the Arab world were totally shocked and flabbergasted when I told them that one of the questions Americans want to ask you is: have you ever heard of Jesus Christ? Are you kidding me, an Arab would answer me back! No way, this cannot be true, can Americans be this ignorant? I was on a live popular TV show just a few hours before I caught my plane in April to come back to Florida and the announcer almost died from shock when I told him that Americans wanted me to ask that question to Arabs. He told me: this means we need to start from scratch when it comes to informing Americans about Arabs. My Christian friend who was born in Ramallah was asked once by a nurse doing an MRI on her when she saw her big golden cross: when did you convert? When you came to America? What on earth do Americans learn in schools? What do people learn in bible study in the churches? If this is the level of knowledge about Christ and Christianity in a Christian nation, then can you imagine the level of ignorance about Arabs in general and about Islam? Had there been a fair and balanced media in America, I do not think Iraq war could have happened, or Afghanistan or the total disengagement of this administration in the Peace Process.
Q. What can Arab-Americans can do about media attention?
A. Arabs are to blame too and this was my major message to the Arab world during my latest trip to Cairo and Amman. I strongly suggested that Arabs in the Arab world need to create English-speaking media to address the west from their own perspectives. It is interesting to see how people reacted to such a request: America will not let us! This is what most people told me and they gave me
the example of how Al-Jazeera is being targeted by the US government! It was very easy for me to answer them: well, I still watch Al-Jazeera from my couch in Florida! As for American Arabs, they are to blame too because they should have encouraged their young kids to go into the Arts and into media. Most American Arabs and American Muslim want their children to be physicians and study subjects that can get them good jobs. More of our young need to be in the Arts and in media.
Monday, June 12, 2006
SAUDI ARABIAN COSMETICS?
By William Fisher
As human rights organizations expressed skepticism that detainees recently transferred from Guantanamo Bay to Saudi Arabian custody could receive fair trials and escape torture - and a new study charged that the country's textbooks continue to promote intolerance of other religions - the oil-rich Kingdom put the finishing touches on its new Human Rights Commission.
The new commission - which the government characterizes as an independent rights watchdog -- came into existence last October, but the King has just gotten around to naming its board members so it can begin its work. The body's chairman, Turki Ibn Khaled Al-Sudairi, who previously worked as a state minister and Cabinet member, said there will be no women on the commission's board.
In a related development, Human Rights Watch said that the 15 Saudi detainees transferred from Guantanamo Bay to Saudi custody on May 18 "are unlikely to receive a fair trial and are at risk of torture."
"After being deprived of access to justice for years in U.S. military detention, they may face continued incarceration with no legal process in Saudi Arabia," the organization charged.
The 16 will be jailed upon their return to Saudi Arabia. Some may eventually go on trial if there is evidence against them, or they could be released after a judicial review.
An estimated 100 Saudis are still being held at Guantanamo, some of them for more than four years.
Saudi Arabia recently freed three former Guantanamo Bay detainees after they completed their jail sentences, according to the state news agency, SPA.
The three had been handed over by the US last year. At least five other Guantanamo detainees were freed by Saudi Arabia last year after completing jail sentences.
Meanwhile, the Center for Religious Freedom, part of Freedom House, a nonprofit group in Washington that seeks to encourage democracy, released a new study claiming that intolerance continues to pervade religious education in Saudi public schools.
"It is not hate speech here and there, it is an ideology that runs throughout," according to Nina Shea, the center's director and principal author of the report.
Among examples cited in the study: A first-grade student is taught that "Every religion other than Islam is false"; teachers are instructed to "Give examples of false religions, like Judaism, Christianity, paganism, etc."; fifth graders learn "It is forbidden for a Muslim to be a loyal friend to someone who does not believe in God and his prophet, or someone who fights the religion of Islam."
The study is based on translations of 12 history and religion textbooks obtained from parents of Saudi schoolchildren. The textbooks were used last year in Saudi schools and Saudi-run schools in Washington, London, Paris, and several other cities, the report said.
The results, it concludes, reveal systematic "hatred toward 'unbelievers,' " mainly Christians, Jews, Hindus and atheists, but also Shiites and other Muslims who do not believe in the country's orthodox interpretation of Islam.
Saudi authorities say they have been working on revisions to their textbooks for some years. The country's ambassador to the United States, Prince Turki Al-Faisal, said in a statement, "There are hundreds of books that are being revised to comply with the new requirements, and the process remains ongoing."
The new Saudi human rights body is one of many similar groups organized by Middle East governments in the past few years. Egypt, Jordan and Morocco are among the countries that operate such groups. In Libya, an 'informal' human rights group has been organized by the son of the country's ruler, Mu'ammar Gadhafi.
The new Saudi commission operates under the supervision of the king, and is mandated to "protect human rights and create awareness about them ... in keeping with the provisions of Islamic law." The commission's board includes at least 18 full-time members and six part-time members. The king names the board members.
The commission's chairman reported that his group has so far received 400 petitions from the public on various alleged rights violations. Like most of its counterparts in the Middle East, the commission serves in an advisory role and cannot initiate independent investigations of abuses on its own.
The most recent Human Rights report on Saudi Arabia from the US State Department found that " The government's human rights record remained poor overall with continuing serious problems, despite some progress."
It reported human rights violations including "no right to change the government, infliction of severe pain by judicially sanctioned corporal punishments, beatings and other abuses, arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detention, denial of fair public trials, exemption from the rule of law for some individuals and lack of judicial independence, political prisoners, infringement of privacy rights, significant restriction of civil liberties -- freedoms of speech and press, assembly, association, and movement, no religious freedom, widespread perception of corruption, lack of government transparency, legal and societal discrimination against women, religious and other minorities, and strict limitations on worker rights. "
In Jordan, according to Amnesty International, "Scores of people were arrested for political reasons, including on suspicion of terrorism. Many were brought to trial before the State Security Court (SSC)... and alleged that they had been tortured to confess."
"There were continuing restrictions on freedom of expression and assembly. Women were still subject to legal and other discrimination and inadequately protected against violence within the family. At least 11 people were sentenced to death and 11 were executed. Bomb attacks, apparently carried out to protest against Jordanian government policy on Iraq, targeted civilians," Amnesty said.
Jordan's government-funded National Centre for Human Rights (NCHR) recently reported it had received 250 reports of torture between June 2003 and December 2004. It also pointed to the difficulties faced by defendants in proving torture allegations. However, in one case, 10 police officers were sentenced to prison terms of up to 30 months after they were convicted of involvement in the death of a prisoner, the NCHR reported.
Egypt's National Commission on Human Rights (NCHR), which is chaired by former United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, has been operating since 2003. It has been widely criticized by Egyptian and international human rights organizations for remaining largely silent in the face of the country's widespread and well documented human rights abuses, including torture and death in detention.
Neil Hicks, Director of International Programs for Human Rights First, told us he is "not surprised" that the NCHR has not been more visible. "They will choose their ground carefully when it comes to confronting the authorities. I am hopeful that when the NCHR reports on the events since the presidential election they will be supportive of the judges, and critical of the government's approach to suppressing protests in Cairo in recent weeks. I also hope they will criticize the renewal of the Emergency Law."
He added that government-sponsored human rights bodies in the Middle East and North Africa "are harmless, and can be beneficial. The Moroccan commission seems to have done some real good. It did very little for years, but eventually had a role in pushing the government towards some important human rights reforms."
The existence of government-sponsored human rights bodies may have helped focus more attention on the subject. But in most countries in the Middle East and North Africa, there appears to be little correlation between the existence of such agencies and the incidence of human rights abuses. The evidence suggests that private non-governmental organizations are largely responsible for human rights abuses being reported and corrected.
.
As human rights organizations expressed skepticism that detainees recently transferred from Guantanamo Bay to Saudi Arabian custody could receive fair trials and escape torture - and a new study charged that the country's textbooks continue to promote intolerance of other religions - the oil-rich Kingdom put the finishing touches on its new Human Rights Commission.
The new commission - which the government characterizes as an independent rights watchdog -- came into existence last October, but the King has just gotten around to naming its board members so it can begin its work. The body's chairman, Turki Ibn Khaled Al-Sudairi, who previously worked as a state minister and Cabinet member, said there will be no women on the commission's board.
In a related development, Human Rights Watch said that the 15 Saudi detainees transferred from Guantanamo Bay to Saudi custody on May 18 "are unlikely to receive a fair trial and are at risk of torture."
"After being deprived of access to justice for years in U.S. military detention, they may face continued incarceration with no legal process in Saudi Arabia," the organization charged.
The 16 will be jailed upon their return to Saudi Arabia. Some may eventually go on trial if there is evidence against them, or they could be released after a judicial review.
An estimated 100 Saudis are still being held at Guantanamo, some of them for more than four years.
Saudi Arabia recently freed three former Guantanamo Bay detainees after they completed their jail sentences, according to the state news agency, SPA.
The three had been handed over by the US last year. At least five other Guantanamo detainees were freed by Saudi Arabia last year after completing jail sentences.
Meanwhile, the Center for Religious Freedom, part of Freedom House, a nonprofit group in Washington that seeks to encourage democracy, released a new study claiming that intolerance continues to pervade religious education in Saudi public schools.
"It is not hate speech here and there, it is an ideology that runs throughout," according to Nina Shea, the center's director and principal author of the report.
Among examples cited in the study: A first-grade student is taught that "Every religion other than Islam is false"; teachers are instructed to "Give examples of false religions, like Judaism, Christianity, paganism, etc."; fifth graders learn "It is forbidden for a Muslim to be a loyal friend to someone who does not believe in God and his prophet, or someone who fights the religion of Islam."
The study is based on translations of 12 history and religion textbooks obtained from parents of Saudi schoolchildren. The textbooks were used last year in Saudi schools and Saudi-run schools in Washington, London, Paris, and several other cities, the report said.
The results, it concludes, reveal systematic "hatred toward 'unbelievers,' " mainly Christians, Jews, Hindus and atheists, but also Shiites and other Muslims who do not believe in the country's orthodox interpretation of Islam.
Saudi authorities say they have been working on revisions to their textbooks for some years. The country's ambassador to the United States, Prince Turki Al-Faisal, said in a statement, "There are hundreds of books that are being revised to comply with the new requirements, and the process remains ongoing."
The new Saudi human rights body is one of many similar groups organized by Middle East governments in the past few years. Egypt, Jordan and Morocco are among the countries that operate such groups. In Libya, an 'informal' human rights group has been organized by the son of the country's ruler, Mu'ammar Gadhafi.
The new Saudi commission operates under the supervision of the king, and is mandated to "protect human rights and create awareness about them ... in keeping with the provisions of Islamic law." The commission's board includes at least 18 full-time members and six part-time members. The king names the board members.
The commission's chairman reported that his group has so far received 400 petitions from the public on various alleged rights violations. Like most of its counterparts in the Middle East, the commission serves in an advisory role and cannot initiate independent investigations of abuses on its own.
The most recent Human Rights report on Saudi Arabia from the US State Department found that " The government's human rights record remained poor overall with continuing serious problems, despite some progress."
It reported human rights violations including "no right to change the government, infliction of severe pain by judicially sanctioned corporal punishments, beatings and other abuses, arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detention, denial of fair public trials, exemption from the rule of law for some individuals and lack of judicial independence, political prisoners, infringement of privacy rights, significant restriction of civil liberties -- freedoms of speech and press, assembly, association, and movement, no religious freedom, widespread perception of corruption, lack of government transparency, legal and societal discrimination against women, religious and other minorities, and strict limitations on worker rights. "
In Jordan, according to Amnesty International, "Scores of people were arrested for political reasons, including on suspicion of terrorism. Many were brought to trial before the State Security Court (SSC)... and alleged that they had been tortured to confess."
"There were continuing restrictions on freedom of expression and assembly. Women were still subject to legal and other discrimination and inadequately protected against violence within the family. At least 11 people were sentenced to death and 11 were executed. Bomb attacks, apparently carried out to protest against Jordanian government policy on Iraq, targeted civilians," Amnesty said.
Jordan's government-funded National Centre for Human Rights (NCHR) recently reported it had received 250 reports of torture between June 2003 and December 2004. It also pointed to the difficulties faced by defendants in proving torture allegations. However, in one case, 10 police officers were sentenced to prison terms of up to 30 months after they were convicted of involvement in the death of a prisoner, the NCHR reported.
Egypt's National Commission on Human Rights (NCHR), which is chaired by former United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, has been operating since 2003. It has been widely criticized by Egyptian and international human rights organizations for remaining largely silent in the face of the country's widespread and well documented human rights abuses, including torture and death in detention.
Neil Hicks, Director of International Programs for Human Rights First, told us he is "not surprised" that the NCHR has not been more visible. "They will choose their ground carefully when it comes to confronting the authorities. I am hopeful that when the NCHR reports on the events since the presidential election they will be supportive of the judges, and critical of the government's approach to suppressing protests in Cairo in recent weeks. I also hope they will criticize the renewal of the Emergency Law."
He added that government-sponsored human rights bodies in the Middle East and North Africa "are harmless, and can be beneficial. The Moroccan commission seems to have done some real good. It did very little for years, but eventually had a role in pushing the government towards some important human rights reforms."
The existence of government-sponsored human rights bodies may have helped focus more attention on the subject. But in most countries in the Middle East and North Africa, there appears to be little correlation between the existence of such agencies and the incidence of human rights abuses. The evidence suggests that private non-governmental organizations are largely responsible for human rights abuses being reported and corrected.
.
CALLING MR. SMITH
By William Fisher
For those gentle readers who've been frittering their time away worrying about gas prices or Iraq or government snooping or the levees in New Orleans, I have good news: It's OK to stop worrying about these minor issues and focus their attention on the transformational event of our century -- The Federal Marriage Amendment.
A reminder for those who have been preoccupied with trivial issues: The Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) mandates that marriage "shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman."
We're not talking about a plain vanilla amendment to some pork-barrel spending bill. The FMA is an amendment to our Constitution. And it happens to be the first amendment ever that takes a freedom away from us.
So this is no community theater performance or second-tier Summer Stock. This is Broadway!
So there's a big incentive to pay attention to this passion play. Aside from its profound importance to the future of our democracy, the FMA has all the elements of great political theater. So you can take a break from your hand-wringing and have some fun while battling the sinister forces of evil.
For one thing, the main players are directly out of Central Casting.
Center stage you'll find Senator Bill Frist, Dr. Frist to you. He's the Republican leader in the Senate, and you'll remember him as the heart transplant guy who diagnosed Terry Schiavo's neurological symptoms by long-distance and expressed his doubts that she was brain-dead. I should remind you he's running for president in 2008, so really needs the support of all those wonderful religious fundamentalists who brought us the Cirque Schiavo last year.
Then there's the author of the amendment, Senator Wayne Allard, who tries his best to look and sound like that guy you'd like to have a beer with. This stalwart champion of Federalism is worried that our Constitution is being amended to reflect a new definition of marriage - not by democratically elected members of Congress, but by unaccountable and unelected judges. He's concerned that "If we in Congress fail to define marriage, the courts ultimately will not hesitate to define it for us." He'd rather see these kinds of decisions made by each state, where legislatures are far more easily manipulated and where there are elected judges, because if they engage in "judicial activism", the voters in their infinite wisdom (and tons of money from the religious right) can get them un-elected.
Then there's the chorus, led by groups like the Religious Coalition for marriage which believes that "the world's great monotheistic religious traditions" and "impeccable social science research" agree that when marriage is "radically redefined" or is "no longer the boundary of sexual activity," the result is damage to individuals, family life and social justice. Well, it's good to know they're putting impeccable social science research to good use. Research probably done by a Federal grant to Bob Jones University.
The chorus in this extravaganza is really big and well trained to sing in perfect unison. It includes such Athenian democrats as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Gary Bauer, James Dobson, and spear-carriers like the leaders of Reform Judaism, Roman Catholic cardinals, leaders of the National Association of Evangelicals, the Southern Baptist Convention and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations.
This is the same cast that forced the president to throw Harriett Myers overboard after he nominated her as "best qualified" to sit on our Supreme Court. The chorus felt she would somehow morph into some kind of flame-throwing liberal and force us all to marry gays and lesbians.
On Saturday, the FMA gala had a little preview in the President's weekly radio address, where he told us, "Ages of experience have taught us that the commitment of a husband and a wife to love and to serve one another promotes the welfare of children and the stability of society. This performance by The Great Sociologist was so totally boffo he got held over for another gig in the White House Rose Garden on Monday.
The FMA will get a vote on the Senate floor sometime this week, and while there are at the moment only 28 senators who support it, Senator Allard says he intends to introduce it every year until he can get the majority he needs to get it passed and send it to the States for ratification. So if you miss this year's performance, you can buy the DVD now or wait until next year.
I suppose there are two ways of looking at this theater of the absurd. One way says Congress is so ineffectual, clueless and wasteful that every minute it spends on trivia is a net gain for the nation.
The other way wonders how, at a time when our country faces so many existential challenges, we could possibly be spending time debating who should marry whom.
Mr. Smith, where the hell are you when we need you?
For those gentle readers who've been frittering their time away worrying about gas prices or Iraq or government snooping or the levees in New Orleans, I have good news: It's OK to stop worrying about these minor issues and focus their attention on the transformational event of our century -- The Federal Marriage Amendment.
A reminder for those who have been preoccupied with trivial issues: The Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) mandates that marriage "shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman."
We're not talking about a plain vanilla amendment to some pork-barrel spending bill. The FMA is an amendment to our Constitution. And it happens to be the first amendment ever that takes a freedom away from us.
So this is no community theater performance or second-tier Summer Stock. This is Broadway!
So there's a big incentive to pay attention to this passion play. Aside from its profound importance to the future of our democracy, the FMA has all the elements of great political theater. So you can take a break from your hand-wringing and have some fun while battling the sinister forces of evil.
For one thing, the main players are directly out of Central Casting.
Center stage you'll find Senator Bill Frist, Dr. Frist to you. He's the Republican leader in the Senate, and you'll remember him as the heart transplant guy who diagnosed Terry Schiavo's neurological symptoms by long-distance and expressed his doubts that she was brain-dead. I should remind you he's running for president in 2008, so really needs the support of all those wonderful religious fundamentalists who brought us the Cirque Schiavo last year.
Then there's the author of the amendment, Senator Wayne Allard, who tries his best to look and sound like that guy you'd like to have a beer with. This stalwart champion of Federalism is worried that our Constitution is being amended to reflect a new definition of marriage - not by democratically elected members of Congress, but by unaccountable and unelected judges. He's concerned that "If we in Congress fail to define marriage, the courts ultimately will not hesitate to define it for us." He'd rather see these kinds of decisions made by each state, where legislatures are far more easily manipulated and where there are elected judges, because if they engage in "judicial activism", the voters in their infinite wisdom (and tons of money from the religious right) can get them un-elected.
Then there's the chorus, led by groups like the Religious Coalition for marriage which believes that "the world's great monotheistic religious traditions" and "impeccable social science research" agree that when marriage is "radically redefined" or is "no longer the boundary of sexual activity," the result is damage to individuals, family life and social justice. Well, it's good to know they're putting impeccable social science research to good use. Research probably done by a Federal grant to Bob Jones University.
The chorus in this extravaganza is really big and well trained to sing in perfect unison. It includes such Athenian democrats as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Gary Bauer, James Dobson, and spear-carriers like the leaders of Reform Judaism, Roman Catholic cardinals, leaders of the National Association of Evangelicals, the Southern Baptist Convention and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations.
This is the same cast that forced the president to throw Harriett Myers overboard after he nominated her as "best qualified" to sit on our Supreme Court. The chorus felt she would somehow morph into some kind of flame-throwing liberal and force us all to marry gays and lesbians.
On Saturday, the FMA gala had a little preview in the President's weekly radio address, where he told us, "Ages of experience have taught us that the commitment of a husband and a wife to love and to serve one another promotes the welfare of children and the stability of society. This performance by The Great Sociologist was so totally boffo he got held over for another gig in the White House Rose Garden on Monday.
The FMA will get a vote on the Senate floor sometime this week, and while there are at the moment only 28 senators who support it, Senator Allard says he intends to introduce it every year until he can get the majority he needs to get it passed and send it to the States for ratification. So if you miss this year's performance, you can buy the DVD now or wait until next year.
I suppose there are two ways of looking at this theater of the absurd. One way says Congress is so ineffectual, clueless and wasteful that every minute it spends on trivia is a net gain for the nation.
The other way wonders how, at a time when our country faces so many existential challenges, we could possibly be spending time debating who should marry whom.
Mr. Smith, where the hell are you when we need you?
Monday, May 29, 2006
OIL ON TROUBLED WATERS
By William Fisher
Amid the ever-escalating rhetoric between the United States and Venezuela, the president of the oil-rich Latin American country, Hugo Chavez, has been busily scoring points with low-income American consumers.
Under a program sometimes dubbed petro-diplomacy, Citgo, Venezuela's wholly-owned gas and oil subsidiary, has been providing discounts of up to 60 per cent on heating oil to poor communities in the U.S.
The program is currently operating in Maine, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Most local politicians, desperate for ways to reduce energy costs for their constituents, have welcomed it with open arms.
Citgo says the program has benefited more than 180,000 households - and is now attracting some big-name supporters. In New York, the powerful Harlem Congressman Charles Rangel facilitated expansion of the program into upper Manhattan, and a new permutation has been enthusiastically embraced by former Massachusetts Representative Joe Kennedy.
Typical of the way the program works is the deal Citgo struck with three nonprofit organizations in the Bronx to deliver five million gallons of heating oil at 45 percent below the market price. Citgo says the deal will amount to a savings of $4 million for the 8,000 low-income households slated to benefit from the plan.
Citgo says it initiated the heating oil program late last year in an effort to help low-income families in the U.S. to cope with the cold winter and high oil costs. The Venezuelan government says the program costs Citgo relatively little because the oil is being supplied directly, without middlemen, who usually make substantial profits.
But Venezuela's "oil for the poor" program has not all been smooth sailing. In Chicago last October, Citgo proposed to substitute diesel fuel for home heating oil, which is used only by a small number of Windy City residents. Instead, it offered a 40 percent discount on 7.2 million gallons of diesel to be used for Chicago's public buses. Though the deal could have saved the city approximately $15 million, the offer was rejected by Chicago's transit authority over the objections of other elected officials and labor groups.
Undeterred, Chavez is now proposing a second phase of the program. He told a delegation of beneficiaries of the program that in addition to the 40% discount, only 30% would go towards Citgo's expenses and the remaining 30% would be set aside for a special local development fund, to help unemployed in the communities to set up cooperatives. The products of such cooperatives could then be sold to Venezuela, Chavez suggested. The idea was endorsed by Mr. Kennedy, a member of the U.S. delegation to Caracas and a key figure in facilitating the heating oil program in Boston via his not-for-profit Citizens Energy Corporation.
"This concept allows families to work out of poverty; it helps them by giving them the tools such as money to build a roof over their head, instead of just a one-shot benefit," said Kennedy.
Chavez also announced that the program will be doubled next year from its current level of 40 million gallons. "No one should believe that this is just a momentary interest," Chavez told the group. "Leave at ease and tell your neighbors of the communities you represent that the program will continue; it has just begun," he said.
Chavez insisted that the program was not designed to buy support in the U.S., as many critics claimed, but is rather an example of corporate responsibility because Citgo, which is now making large profits in the U.S., is now giving back to communities in which it does business. "Citgo has done good business in the U.S. We believe companies, along with making a profit need to have social responsibilities for the people they sell to," said Chavez.
Chavez pointed out that in the 20 years Venezuela has owned Citgo, the company never paid dividends to the Venezuelan state. Only in 2004 and 2005 has it begun to repatriate some of its profits to Venezuela, he said.
He also cited the program as "an example of his government's efforts to move towards socialism, in which countries relate to each other on the basis of cooperation, solidarity, and complementarity." Venezuela also provides discounted fuel to other countries in Latin America.
Meanwhile, despite a State Department spokesman's comment that the U.S. has "no objections" to Citgo's offers, the Bush Administration continues to ramp up its war of words - and equipment - on Chavez and his allies, principally Cuba, Bolivia and, more recently, Iran.
The fiery Chavez has provided the administration of President George W. Bush a lot to respond to. He proposed a new free trade pact between Venezuela, Cuba, and Bolivia. He pledged to help Bolivia's new President, Evo Morales, with $1.5 billion in energy investments. He also made it clear his country would remain a reliable oil-supplier to his role model, Cuban President Fidel Castro.
Bolivia has the second-largest natural gas reserves in South America after Venezuela. Venezuela's state-owned oil company, PDVSA, and Bolivia's state-owned YPFB, are expected to produce natural gas in a joint venture.
Chavez has also widened his estrangement from the Bush Administration by saying he does not believe that Iran 's nuclear program is a front for secret efforts to produce an atomic bomb. "I don't believe that the United States or anyone else has the right ... to prohibit that a country has nuclear energy," Chavez said at a news conference in London. He repeated a warning that any military strike against Iran would send the price of crude oil soaring above US $100 a barrel and trigger an enormous military escalation in the Middle East. He also called President Bush a "terrorist."
The Bush Administration's retaliation has been swift, though of arguable value. The U.S. recently announced it would cease selling American-made military hardware to Venezuela, citing what it claims is a lack of support by Chavez for counter-terrorism efforts, according to a State Department official.
Venezuela lost no time in countering that it would buy from the Russians and sell off its fleet of American-made fighter planes - which are little more than a pile of scrap metal, since the U.S. has been withholding spare parts for the planes for some time.
Unwilling to be left out of what has all the appearances of a genuine "mouse that roared" international incident, Congress has weighed in with calls for an investigation.
Rep. Joe Barton, the powerful Texas Republican who is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, announced he would launch an investigation into possible antitrust violations by Citgo. Barton is the recipient of some $2 million in campaign contributions from the U.S. energy industry.
As reported in the New York Daily News, in a letter to the Houston-based Citgo, Barton demanded that company officials produce all records, minutes, logs,
e-mails and even desk calendars related to Citgo's novel program of supplying discounted heating oil to low-income communities in the United States.
"The bellicose Venezuelan decided to meddle in American energy policy, and we think it might prove instructive to know how," Larry Neal, deputy staff director for Barton's committee, told the Daily News.
But Rep. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said he was flabbergasted by Barton's investigation. "The Republicans are on another planet when it comes to energy policy," Markey said.
Instead of doing something about skyrocketing oil prices, Markey said, the Republicans are probing "a charitable donation of heating oil to relieve the suffering of a few thousand American families."
U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman seemed to agree. He told CNN that the U.S. government has no problems with Venezuela's "oil for the poor" offer. "We view it, as corporate philanthropy," he said, prompting some media outlets to comment that Mr. Bodman must have left his Administration talking points in his other suit.
While Mr. Chavez has become the most recent poster child for Latin American populism, the phenomenon has a long history south of the border. Latin American policy experts are encouraging both the Bush Administration and Mr. Chavez to lower the volume of the current over-the-top rhetoric and tit-for-tat diplomacy that they say can only further separate America from its troubled backyard.
Their fear is that the U.S. will succeed in elevating populists to heroes by backing Big Oil and acting as though every rhetorical extravagance by Chavez is another Cuban Missile Crisis - while Latin America's urgent needs go unaddressed.
They worry that the road the U.S. is traveling looks very much like the one that resulted in what it calls America's self-destructive Cuba policy.
Amid the ever-escalating rhetoric between the United States and Venezuela, the president of the oil-rich Latin American country, Hugo Chavez, has been busily scoring points with low-income American consumers.
Under a program sometimes dubbed petro-diplomacy, Citgo, Venezuela's wholly-owned gas and oil subsidiary, has been providing discounts of up to 60 per cent on heating oil to poor communities in the U.S.
The program is currently operating in Maine, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Most local politicians, desperate for ways to reduce energy costs for their constituents, have welcomed it with open arms.
Citgo says the program has benefited more than 180,000 households - and is now attracting some big-name supporters. In New York, the powerful Harlem Congressman Charles Rangel facilitated expansion of the program into upper Manhattan, and a new permutation has been enthusiastically embraced by former Massachusetts Representative Joe Kennedy.
Typical of the way the program works is the deal Citgo struck with three nonprofit organizations in the Bronx to deliver five million gallons of heating oil at 45 percent below the market price. Citgo says the deal will amount to a savings of $4 million for the 8,000 low-income households slated to benefit from the plan.
Citgo says it initiated the heating oil program late last year in an effort to help low-income families in the U.S. to cope with the cold winter and high oil costs. The Venezuelan government says the program costs Citgo relatively little because the oil is being supplied directly, without middlemen, who usually make substantial profits.
But Venezuela's "oil for the poor" program has not all been smooth sailing. In Chicago last October, Citgo proposed to substitute diesel fuel for home heating oil, which is used only by a small number of Windy City residents. Instead, it offered a 40 percent discount on 7.2 million gallons of diesel to be used for Chicago's public buses. Though the deal could have saved the city approximately $15 million, the offer was rejected by Chicago's transit authority over the objections of other elected officials and labor groups.
Undeterred, Chavez is now proposing a second phase of the program. He told a delegation of beneficiaries of the program that in addition to the 40% discount, only 30% would go towards Citgo's expenses and the remaining 30% would be set aside for a special local development fund, to help unemployed in the communities to set up cooperatives. The products of such cooperatives could then be sold to Venezuela, Chavez suggested. The idea was endorsed by Mr. Kennedy, a member of the U.S. delegation to Caracas and a key figure in facilitating the heating oil program in Boston via his not-for-profit Citizens Energy Corporation.
"This concept allows families to work out of poverty; it helps them by giving them the tools such as money to build a roof over their head, instead of just a one-shot benefit," said Kennedy.
Chavez also announced that the program will be doubled next year from its current level of 40 million gallons. "No one should believe that this is just a momentary interest," Chavez told the group. "Leave at ease and tell your neighbors of the communities you represent that the program will continue; it has just begun," he said.
Chavez insisted that the program was not designed to buy support in the U.S., as many critics claimed, but is rather an example of corporate responsibility because Citgo, which is now making large profits in the U.S., is now giving back to communities in which it does business. "Citgo has done good business in the U.S. We believe companies, along with making a profit need to have social responsibilities for the people they sell to," said Chavez.
Chavez pointed out that in the 20 years Venezuela has owned Citgo, the company never paid dividends to the Venezuelan state. Only in 2004 and 2005 has it begun to repatriate some of its profits to Venezuela, he said.
He also cited the program as "an example of his government's efforts to move towards socialism, in which countries relate to each other on the basis of cooperation, solidarity, and complementarity." Venezuela also provides discounted fuel to other countries in Latin America.
Meanwhile, despite a State Department spokesman's comment that the U.S. has "no objections" to Citgo's offers, the Bush Administration continues to ramp up its war of words - and equipment - on Chavez and his allies, principally Cuba, Bolivia and, more recently, Iran.
The fiery Chavez has provided the administration of President George W. Bush a lot to respond to. He proposed a new free trade pact between Venezuela, Cuba, and Bolivia. He pledged to help Bolivia's new President, Evo Morales, with $1.5 billion in energy investments. He also made it clear his country would remain a reliable oil-supplier to his role model, Cuban President Fidel Castro.
Bolivia has the second-largest natural gas reserves in South America after Venezuela. Venezuela's state-owned oil company, PDVSA, and Bolivia's state-owned YPFB, are expected to produce natural gas in a joint venture.
Chavez has also widened his estrangement from the Bush Administration by saying he does not believe that Iran 's nuclear program is a front for secret efforts to produce an atomic bomb. "I don't believe that the United States or anyone else has the right ... to prohibit that a country has nuclear energy," Chavez said at a news conference in London. He repeated a warning that any military strike against Iran would send the price of crude oil soaring above US $100 a barrel and trigger an enormous military escalation in the Middle East. He also called President Bush a "terrorist."
The Bush Administration's retaliation has been swift, though of arguable value. The U.S. recently announced it would cease selling American-made military hardware to Venezuela, citing what it claims is a lack of support by Chavez for counter-terrorism efforts, according to a State Department official.
Venezuela lost no time in countering that it would buy from the Russians and sell off its fleet of American-made fighter planes - which are little more than a pile of scrap metal, since the U.S. has been withholding spare parts for the planes for some time.
Unwilling to be left out of what has all the appearances of a genuine "mouse that roared" international incident, Congress has weighed in with calls for an investigation.
Rep. Joe Barton, the powerful Texas Republican who is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, announced he would launch an investigation into possible antitrust violations by Citgo. Barton is the recipient of some $2 million in campaign contributions from the U.S. energy industry.
As reported in the New York Daily News, in a letter to the Houston-based Citgo, Barton demanded that company officials produce all records, minutes, logs,
e-mails and even desk calendars related to Citgo's novel program of supplying discounted heating oil to low-income communities in the United States.
"The bellicose Venezuelan decided to meddle in American energy policy, and we think it might prove instructive to know how," Larry Neal, deputy staff director for Barton's committee, told the Daily News.
But Rep. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said he was flabbergasted by Barton's investigation. "The Republicans are on another planet when it comes to energy policy," Markey said.
Instead of doing something about skyrocketing oil prices, Markey said, the Republicans are probing "a charitable donation of heating oil to relieve the suffering of a few thousand American families."
U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman seemed to agree. He told CNN that the U.S. government has no problems with Venezuela's "oil for the poor" offer. "We view it, as corporate philanthropy," he said, prompting some media outlets to comment that Mr. Bodman must have left his Administration talking points in his other suit.
While Mr. Chavez has become the most recent poster child for Latin American populism, the phenomenon has a long history south of the border. Latin American policy experts are encouraging both the Bush Administration and Mr. Chavez to lower the volume of the current over-the-top rhetoric and tit-for-tat diplomacy that they say can only further separate America from its troubled backyard.
Their fear is that the U.S. will succeed in elevating populists to heroes by backing Big Oil and acting as though every rhetorical extravagance by Chavez is another Cuban Missile Crisis - while Latin America's urgent needs go unaddressed.
They worry that the road the U.S. is traveling looks very much like the one that resulted in what it calls America's self-destructive Cuba policy.
THE MOUSE ON STEROIDS
By William Fisher
We can’t be blamed if Venezuela’s mini-public diplomacy program reminds us of “The Mouse That Roared” – and you can almost hear the gnashing teeth in the White House SitRoom.
I refer to the program being waged in the U.S. by Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez. Under that program, Citgo, Venezuela’s wholly-owned gas and oil subsidiary, provides discounts up to 60 per cent on heating oil to poor communities in the U.S.
The program is currently operating in Maine, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Local politicians, desperate for ways to reduce energy costs for their constituents, have welcomed it with open arms. In New York, Harlem Congressman Charles Rangel announced expansion of the program into upper Manhattan, and Citgo struck a deal with three nonprofit organizations in the Bronx to deliver five million gallons of heating oil at 45 percent below the market price. Citgo says the deal will amount to a savings of $4 million for the 8,000 low-income households slated to benefit from the plan.
Citgo says the program has benefited more than 180,000 households – and is now attracting some big-name supporters (though Condoleeza Rice is not one of them).
Citgo says it initiated the heating oil program late last year in an effort to help low-income families in the U.S. to cope with the cold winter and high oil costs. The Venezuelan government says the program costs Citgo relatively little because the oil is being supplied directly, without middlemen, who usually make substantial profits.
But Venezuela’s “oil for the poor” program has also met with opposition from some local politicians. Last October, Citgo proposed to substitute diesel fuel for home heating oil, which is used only by a small number of Chicagoans. It offered a 40 percent discount on 7.2 million gallons of diesel if it was used for Chicago’s public buses. Though the deal could have saved the city approximately $15 million, the offer was rejected over the objections of other elected officials and labor groups.
Undeterred, Chavez is now proposing a second phase of the program. He told a delegation of beneficiaries of the program that in addition to the 40% discount, only 30% would go towards Citgo’s expenses and the remaining 30% would be set aside for a special local development fund, to help unemployed in the communities to set up cooperatives. The products of such cooperatives could then be sold to Venezuela, Chavez suggested.
The idea was immediately embraced by former Massachusetts Representative Joe Kennedy, a member of the U.S. delegation and a key figure in facilitating the heating oil program in Boston via his Citizens Energy Corporation.
“This concept allows families to work out of poverty; it helps them by giving them the tools such as money to build a roof over their head, instead of just a one-shot benefit,” said Kennedy.
Chavez also announced that the program will be doubled next year from its current level of 40 million gallons. “No one should believe that this is just a momentary interest,” Chavez told the group. “Leave at ease and tell your neighbors of the communities you represent that the program will continue; it has just begun,” he said.
Chavez insisted that the program was not designed to buy support in the U.S., as many critics claimed, but is rather an example of corporate responsibility because Citgo, which is now making large profits in the U.S., is now giving back to communities in which it does business. “Citgo has done good business in the U.S. We believe companies, along with making a profit need to have social responsibilities for the people they sell to,” said Chavez.
Chavez pointed out that in the 20 years Venezuela has owned Citgo, it never paid dividends to the Venezuelan state. Only in 2004 and 2005 has it begun to repatriate some of its profits to Venezuela, he said.
He also cited the program as “an example of his government’s efforts to move towards socialism, in which countries relate to each other on the basis of cooperation, solidarity, and complementarity.” Venezuela also provides discounted fuel to other countries in Latin America.
Meanwhile, despite a State Department spokesman’s comment that the U.S. has “no objections” to Citgo's offers, the Bush Administration continues to ramp up its war of words – and equipment – on Chavez and his buddies, Iran, Cuba and Bolivia.
Chavez has certainly been pushing all the right buttons in the White House and the State Department. He proposed a new free trade pact between Venezuela, Cuba, and Bolivia, and pledged to help Bolivia’s new President, Evo Morales, with $1.5 billion in energy investments. Bolivia has the second-largest natural gas reserves in South America after Venezuela. Venezuela's state-owned oil company, PDVSA, and Bolivia's state-owned YPFB, are expected to produce natural gas in a joint venture. Chavez has also pledged to be a reliable oil-supplier to his mentor, Fidel Castro.
He recently said he does not believe that Iran 's nuclear program is a front for secret efforts to produce an atomic bomb. "I don't believe that the United States or anyone else has the right ... to prohibit that a country has nuclear energy," Chavez said at a news conference in London. He repeated a warning that any military strike against Iran would send the price of crude oil soaring above US $100 a barrel and trigger an enormous military escalation in the Middle East. He also called Bush a "terrorist."
This kind of rhetoric is unlikely to win Chavez many friends in the U.S. – at least not in the White House or the State Department or the U.S. Congress.
The Bush Administration’s retaliation has bordered on the petty. The U.S. recently announced it would cease to sell American-made military hardware to Venezuela, citing what it claims is a lack of support by Chavez for counter-terrorism efforts, a State Department official said. Venezuela lost no time in countering that it would buy from the Russians and sell off its fleet of American-made fighter planes – which are little more than a pile of scrap metal, since the U.S. has been withholding spare parts for the planes for some time.
And you really can’t have an authentic international incident without someone in Congress calling for an investigation.
Enter Rep. Joe Barton, the powerful Texas Republican who is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. This stalwart recipient of some $2 million in campaign contributions from the energy industry announced he would launch an investigation into possible antitrust violations by a major oil company.
No, not ExxonMobil or Chevron, but – wait for it – Citgo.
As reported in the New York Daily News, in a letter to the Houston-based Citgo, Barton demanded that company officials produce all records, minutes, logs,
e-mails and even desk calendars related to Citgo's novel program of supplying discounted heating oil to low-income communities in the United States.
"The bellicose Venezuelan decided to meddle in American energy policy, and we think it might prove instructive to know how," Larry Neal, deputy staff director for Barton's committee, told the Daily News.
According to the newspaper, Barton's letter lists “a bunch of questions” he wants Citgo to answer, including "how and why were the particular beneficiaries of this program selected" and whether the program "runs afoul of any U.S. laws, including but not limited to, antitrust laws."
But Rep. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said he was flabbergasted by Barton's investigation. "The Republicans are on another planet when it comes to energy policy," Markey said.
Instead of doing something about skyrocketing oil prices, Markey said, the Republicans are probing "a charitable donation of heating oil to relieve the suffering of a few thousand American families."
U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman seemed to agree. He told CNN that the U.S. government has no problems with Venezuela's “oil for the poor” offer. "We view it, as corporate philanthropy. We're all for that. Nobody in the Energy Department, or in the government for that matter, is going oppose that. If that's what Mr. Chavez and his colleagues who own CITGO choose to do, I'm certainly not going to criticize," Bodman said.
Sounds like Mr. Bodman left his talking points in his other suit.
Where all this is heading should be well known to U.S. policymakers – we’ve been there before. It’s not like Latin American populism is anything new. And we have all the tools and all the experience – if not the will – to be trying to bring the countries of Latin America together to address real and urgent needs. It’s time for America – and Mr. Chavez – to abandon the current tit-for-tat diplomacy that can only further separate us from our troubled backyard.
Yet we seem to be hell bent on elevating populists to heroes by backing Big Oil and acting as though every rhetorically over-the-top utterance from folks like Chavez is another Cuban Missile Crisis.
It would be instructive if someone in the State Department remembered that the road we’re traveling looks very much like the one that took us to our insane Cuba policy.
We can’t be blamed if Venezuela’s mini-public diplomacy program reminds us of “The Mouse That Roared” – and you can almost hear the gnashing teeth in the White House SitRoom.
I refer to the program being waged in the U.S. by Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez. Under that program, Citgo, Venezuela’s wholly-owned gas and oil subsidiary, provides discounts up to 60 per cent on heating oil to poor communities in the U.S.
The program is currently operating in Maine, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Local politicians, desperate for ways to reduce energy costs for their constituents, have welcomed it with open arms. In New York, Harlem Congressman Charles Rangel announced expansion of the program into upper Manhattan, and Citgo struck a deal with three nonprofit organizations in the Bronx to deliver five million gallons of heating oil at 45 percent below the market price. Citgo says the deal will amount to a savings of $4 million for the 8,000 low-income households slated to benefit from the plan.
Citgo says the program has benefited more than 180,000 households – and is now attracting some big-name supporters (though Condoleeza Rice is not one of them).
Citgo says it initiated the heating oil program late last year in an effort to help low-income families in the U.S. to cope with the cold winter and high oil costs. The Venezuelan government says the program costs Citgo relatively little because the oil is being supplied directly, without middlemen, who usually make substantial profits.
But Venezuela’s “oil for the poor” program has also met with opposition from some local politicians. Last October, Citgo proposed to substitute diesel fuel for home heating oil, which is used only by a small number of Chicagoans. It offered a 40 percent discount on 7.2 million gallons of diesel if it was used for Chicago’s public buses. Though the deal could have saved the city approximately $15 million, the offer was rejected over the objections of other elected officials and labor groups.
Undeterred, Chavez is now proposing a second phase of the program. He told a delegation of beneficiaries of the program that in addition to the 40% discount, only 30% would go towards Citgo’s expenses and the remaining 30% would be set aside for a special local development fund, to help unemployed in the communities to set up cooperatives. The products of such cooperatives could then be sold to Venezuela, Chavez suggested.
The idea was immediately embraced by former Massachusetts Representative Joe Kennedy, a member of the U.S. delegation and a key figure in facilitating the heating oil program in Boston via his Citizens Energy Corporation.
“This concept allows families to work out of poverty; it helps them by giving them the tools such as money to build a roof over their head, instead of just a one-shot benefit,” said Kennedy.
Chavez also announced that the program will be doubled next year from its current level of 40 million gallons. “No one should believe that this is just a momentary interest,” Chavez told the group. “Leave at ease and tell your neighbors of the communities you represent that the program will continue; it has just begun,” he said.
Chavez insisted that the program was not designed to buy support in the U.S., as many critics claimed, but is rather an example of corporate responsibility because Citgo, which is now making large profits in the U.S., is now giving back to communities in which it does business. “Citgo has done good business in the U.S. We believe companies, along with making a profit need to have social responsibilities for the people they sell to,” said Chavez.
Chavez pointed out that in the 20 years Venezuela has owned Citgo, it never paid dividends to the Venezuelan state. Only in 2004 and 2005 has it begun to repatriate some of its profits to Venezuela, he said.
He also cited the program as “an example of his government’s efforts to move towards socialism, in which countries relate to each other on the basis of cooperation, solidarity, and complementarity.” Venezuela also provides discounted fuel to other countries in Latin America.
Meanwhile, despite a State Department spokesman’s comment that the U.S. has “no objections” to Citgo's offers, the Bush Administration continues to ramp up its war of words – and equipment – on Chavez and his buddies, Iran, Cuba and Bolivia.
Chavez has certainly been pushing all the right buttons in the White House and the State Department. He proposed a new free trade pact between Venezuela, Cuba, and Bolivia, and pledged to help Bolivia’s new President, Evo Morales, with $1.5 billion in energy investments. Bolivia has the second-largest natural gas reserves in South America after Venezuela. Venezuela's state-owned oil company, PDVSA, and Bolivia's state-owned YPFB, are expected to produce natural gas in a joint venture. Chavez has also pledged to be a reliable oil-supplier to his mentor, Fidel Castro.
He recently said he does not believe that Iran 's nuclear program is a front for secret efforts to produce an atomic bomb. "I don't believe that the United States or anyone else has the right ... to prohibit that a country has nuclear energy," Chavez said at a news conference in London. He repeated a warning that any military strike against Iran would send the price of crude oil soaring above US $100 a barrel and trigger an enormous military escalation in the Middle East. He also called Bush a "terrorist."
This kind of rhetoric is unlikely to win Chavez many friends in the U.S. – at least not in the White House or the State Department or the U.S. Congress.
The Bush Administration’s retaliation has bordered on the petty. The U.S. recently announced it would cease to sell American-made military hardware to Venezuela, citing what it claims is a lack of support by Chavez for counter-terrorism efforts, a State Department official said. Venezuela lost no time in countering that it would buy from the Russians and sell off its fleet of American-made fighter planes – which are little more than a pile of scrap metal, since the U.S. has been withholding spare parts for the planes for some time.
And you really can’t have an authentic international incident without someone in Congress calling for an investigation.
Enter Rep. Joe Barton, the powerful Texas Republican who is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. This stalwart recipient of some $2 million in campaign contributions from the energy industry announced he would launch an investigation into possible antitrust violations by a major oil company.
No, not ExxonMobil or Chevron, but – wait for it – Citgo.
As reported in the New York Daily News, in a letter to the Houston-based Citgo, Barton demanded that company officials produce all records, minutes, logs,
e-mails and even desk calendars related to Citgo's novel program of supplying discounted heating oil to low-income communities in the United States.
"The bellicose Venezuelan decided to meddle in American energy policy, and we think it might prove instructive to know how," Larry Neal, deputy staff director for Barton's committee, told the Daily News.
According to the newspaper, Barton's letter lists “a bunch of questions” he wants Citgo to answer, including "how and why were the particular beneficiaries of this program selected" and whether the program "runs afoul of any U.S. laws, including but not limited to, antitrust laws."
But Rep. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said he was flabbergasted by Barton's investigation. "The Republicans are on another planet when it comes to energy policy," Markey said.
Instead of doing something about skyrocketing oil prices, Markey said, the Republicans are probing "a charitable donation of heating oil to relieve the suffering of a few thousand American families."
U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman seemed to agree. He told CNN that the U.S. government has no problems with Venezuela's “oil for the poor” offer. "We view it, as corporate philanthropy. We're all for that. Nobody in the Energy Department, or in the government for that matter, is going oppose that. If that's what Mr. Chavez and his colleagues who own CITGO choose to do, I'm certainly not going to criticize," Bodman said.
Sounds like Mr. Bodman left his talking points in his other suit.
Where all this is heading should be well known to U.S. policymakers – we’ve been there before. It’s not like Latin American populism is anything new. And we have all the tools and all the experience – if not the will – to be trying to bring the countries of Latin America together to address real and urgent needs. It’s time for America – and Mr. Chavez – to abandon the current tit-for-tat diplomacy that can only further separate us from our troubled backyard.
Yet we seem to be hell bent on elevating populists to heroes by backing Big Oil and acting as though every rhetorically over-the-top utterance from folks like Chavez is another Cuban Missile Crisis.
It would be instructive if someone in the State Department remembered that the road we’re traveling looks very much like the one that took us to our insane Cuba policy.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
ANOTHER LIPSTICKED PIG?
By William Fisher
Libya's "rehabilitation" as a country that has renounced WMD and state-sponsored terrorism - for which it will soon be rewarded with a real live American ambassador -provides an exquisite illustration of how the Bush Administration is replacing its "spreading freedom" mantra with support for the "Global War on Terrorism."
And Libya's role as an energy source has made the administration's job much easier to sell. Its removal it from the list of state sponsors of terror follows the return to Libyan oilfields of the Oasis Group of U.S. companies, according to a top Libyan oil official.
He said he was "positive and confident" the former pariah state would be wiped from the list, with the expected backing of the Oasis Group, comprising ConocoPhillips, Marathon and Amerada Hess.
"I would expect logically they will be willing to put the right message across to the U.S. government to do something about it quickly," Tarek Hassan-Beck of Libya's National Oil Company told Reuters in a telephone interview.
But the fact is that, despite a few largely symbolic adjustments, Libya remains one of the Middle East's most egregious violators of human rights.
Libyan strongman Muammar el-Qaddafi abolished the country's notorious People's Courts -- which dispatched perceived political opponents to prison or death without due process - but huge problems have yet to be addressed.
There is no independent press or civil society, and all political groups must be officially approved. Libyans are not allowed to criticize the government, its political system, or its leader. Torture in detention remains a serious problem, and the Libyan security apparatus is pervasive. Past cases of forced disappearance and deaths in detention remain unaddressed and unresolved.
The jailing of political opponents also continues, despite the Libyan government's denial. Colonel al-Qadhafi said not long ago, "They [Western countries] are accusing us of having political prisoners; and I am sure this is an unjust accusation. I think that those who are in prisons have used religion, they are heretics. These are people who instead of fasting, praying and preaching good are turning religion into violence, coups d'etats, underground activities."
Arguably, the most high-profile political prisoner is Fathi al-Jahmi, 64, a former provincial governor who in 2002 decided to test Libya's "new commitment to reform." He called for free elections, a free press and the release of political prisoners. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
But al-Jahmi's case only became high profile because of an international outcry and the widely publicized intervention of U.S. Senator Joseph Biden. The Delaware Democrat met with al-Qadhafi and called for al-Jahmi's release. Nine days later, an appeals court gave al-Jahmi a suspended sentence of one year and ordered his release.
President George W. Bush welcomed al-Jahmi's release, saying, "It's an encouraging step toward reform in Libya."
That same day, March 12, 2005, al-Jahmi gave an interview to the U.S.-funded al-Hurra Television, in which he repeated his call for Libya's democratization. He gave another interview to the station on March 16, in which he called al-Qadhafi a dictator.
The next day, security agents entered al-Jahmi's Tripoli house and arrested him, his wife, Fawzia, and their eldest son, Mohamed. The Internal Security Agency detained them in an undisclosed location for six months, without access to relatives or lawyers.
The authorities then released al-Jahmi's son and, later, his wife.
According to the head of Libya's Internal Security Agency, Col. Tohamy Khaled, the agency was holding al-Jahmi in a special facility for his own safety and because he is "mentally deranged."
The Libyan government has repeatedly assured Human Rights Watch that al-Jahmi receives appropriate medical care and regular family visits. According to al-Jahmi's family, however, the government forbade relatives to visit between June 2005 and April 2006. His son finally got to see him for 15 minutes on April 5, in the presence of state security. Al-Jahmi has requested an international lawyer because, he says, no Libyan lawyer would dare to defend him. NO such lawyer has been appointed.
Meanwhile, al-Jahmi remains in detention.
So do six health professionals arrested in 1999 - five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor - sentenced to death by firing squad for deliberately infecting 426 children with the HIV virus while working in al-Fateh Children's Hospital in Benghazi. A sixth Bulgarian defendant was sentenced to four years' imprisonment. Nine Libyan defendants were acquitted.
The defendants had told Amnesty International that their confessions, which they later retracted, had been extracted under torture, which included electric shocks, beatings, and suspension by the arms.
On the basis of their allegations of torture, Libya's Supreme Court overturned the convictions and ordered a retrial. Eight members of the security forces and a doctor and a translator employed by them were also charged.
The retrial of the Bulgarian nurses has been adjourned "for procedural reasons" until June 13. The presiding judge ruled they should be detained until the trial resumes.
Last month, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pressed the Libyan government to release the captive nurses, saying, "This is a humanitarian case and it is time for them to come home."
Another sign of Libya's "commitment to reform" is its arbitrary and indefinite detention of women and girls in "social rehabilitation" facilities. In a recent report, Human Rights Watch said, "Officially portrayed as protective homes for women and girls "vulnerable to engaging in moral misconduct, these facilities are de facto prisons...far more punitive than protective. How can they be called shelters when most of the women and girls we interviewed told us they would escape if they could?"
Said Human Rights Watch: "Those being held include many women and girls in these facilities who have committed no crime, or who have completed a sentence. Some are there for no reason other than that they were raped, and are now ostracized for staining their families' 'honor'. Officials transferred the majority of these women and girls to these facilities against their will, while those who came voluntarily did so because no genuine shelters for victims of violence exist in Libya."
Throughout the Middle East and North Africa, it has become fashionable in the past few years for authoritarian governments to organize their own human rights commissions. Most of these are caricatures of toothless tigers, cosmetic bodies set up to keep the pro-democracy Americans at bay.
Whether the body set up by Colonel Qaddafi's son, Seif al-Islam, will prove to be any different remains to be seen. Thus far, it has recommended the release of 131 political prisoners who, it says, pose no threat to the government. It also played a role in granting new trials to 86 accused members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
But exactly what did the U.S. actually get - aside from access to oil - from this devil's bargain? It seems to me that the Philadelphia Inquirer had it just about right when it editorialized, "Libya had no biological weapons, apart from some World War I-era mustard gas. The truth is, Qadhafi gave up nothing of value ... Has Libya embraced democracy? Not according to human rights groups, which say that Gadhafi remains a brutal and unstable dictator. So much for President Bush's doctrine of spreading democracy. The message here is that the United States doesn't really mind doing business with tyrants. Has Libya helped the United States in its fight against terrorism? Yes, the Qadhafi government has ratted out some of its former associates. But the Islamists have been trying to kill Qadhafi for years. We are helping him get rid of his own enemies."
It may seem like an eon ago, but in 2004, at his second inauguration, President Bush declared: "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."
But that was then and now is now. Now it seems that the idealism of "spreading freedom" has been replaced by the realpolitik of oil and anti-terrorism.
Libya's "rehabilitation" as a country that has renounced WMD and state-sponsored terrorism - for which it will soon be rewarded with a real live American ambassador -provides an exquisite illustration of how the Bush Administration is replacing its "spreading freedom" mantra with support for the "Global War on Terrorism."
And Libya's role as an energy source has made the administration's job much easier to sell. Its removal it from the list of state sponsors of terror follows the return to Libyan oilfields of the Oasis Group of U.S. companies, according to a top Libyan oil official.
He said he was "positive and confident" the former pariah state would be wiped from the list, with the expected backing of the Oasis Group, comprising ConocoPhillips, Marathon and Amerada Hess.
"I would expect logically they will be willing to put the right message across to the U.S. government to do something about it quickly," Tarek Hassan-Beck of Libya's National Oil Company told Reuters in a telephone interview.
But the fact is that, despite a few largely symbolic adjustments, Libya remains one of the Middle East's most egregious violators of human rights.
Libyan strongman Muammar el-Qaddafi abolished the country's notorious People's Courts -- which dispatched perceived political opponents to prison or death without due process - but huge problems have yet to be addressed.
There is no independent press or civil society, and all political groups must be officially approved. Libyans are not allowed to criticize the government, its political system, or its leader. Torture in detention remains a serious problem, and the Libyan security apparatus is pervasive. Past cases of forced disappearance and deaths in detention remain unaddressed and unresolved.
The jailing of political opponents also continues, despite the Libyan government's denial. Colonel al-Qadhafi said not long ago, "They [Western countries] are accusing us of having political prisoners; and I am sure this is an unjust accusation. I think that those who are in prisons have used religion, they are heretics. These are people who instead of fasting, praying and preaching good are turning religion into violence, coups d'etats, underground activities."
Arguably, the most high-profile political prisoner is Fathi al-Jahmi, 64, a former provincial governor who in 2002 decided to test Libya's "new commitment to reform." He called for free elections, a free press and the release of political prisoners. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
But al-Jahmi's case only became high profile because of an international outcry and the widely publicized intervention of U.S. Senator Joseph Biden. The Delaware Democrat met with al-Qadhafi and called for al-Jahmi's release. Nine days later, an appeals court gave al-Jahmi a suspended sentence of one year and ordered his release.
President George W. Bush welcomed al-Jahmi's release, saying, "It's an encouraging step toward reform in Libya."
That same day, March 12, 2005, al-Jahmi gave an interview to the U.S.-funded al-Hurra Television, in which he repeated his call for Libya's democratization. He gave another interview to the station on March 16, in which he called al-Qadhafi a dictator.
The next day, security agents entered al-Jahmi's Tripoli house and arrested him, his wife, Fawzia, and their eldest son, Mohamed. The Internal Security Agency detained them in an undisclosed location for six months, without access to relatives or lawyers.
The authorities then released al-Jahmi's son and, later, his wife.
According to the head of Libya's Internal Security Agency, Col. Tohamy Khaled, the agency was holding al-Jahmi in a special facility for his own safety and because he is "mentally deranged."
The Libyan government has repeatedly assured Human Rights Watch that al-Jahmi receives appropriate medical care and regular family visits. According to al-Jahmi's family, however, the government forbade relatives to visit between June 2005 and April 2006. His son finally got to see him for 15 minutes on April 5, in the presence of state security. Al-Jahmi has requested an international lawyer because, he says, no Libyan lawyer would dare to defend him. NO such lawyer has been appointed.
Meanwhile, al-Jahmi remains in detention.
So do six health professionals arrested in 1999 - five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor - sentenced to death by firing squad for deliberately infecting 426 children with the HIV virus while working in al-Fateh Children's Hospital in Benghazi. A sixth Bulgarian defendant was sentenced to four years' imprisonment. Nine Libyan defendants were acquitted.
The defendants had told Amnesty International that their confessions, which they later retracted, had been extracted under torture, which included electric shocks, beatings, and suspension by the arms.
On the basis of their allegations of torture, Libya's Supreme Court overturned the convictions and ordered a retrial. Eight members of the security forces and a doctor and a translator employed by them were also charged.
The retrial of the Bulgarian nurses has been adjourned "for procedural reasons" until June 13. The presiding judge ruled they should be detained until the trial resumes.
Last month, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pressed the Libyan government to release the captive nurses, saying, "This is a humanitarian case and it is time for them to come home."
Another sign of Libya's "commitment to reform" is its arbitrary and indefinite detention of women and girls in "social rehabilitation" facilities. In a recent report, Human Rights Watch said, "Officially portrayed as protective homes for women and girls "vulnerable to engaging in moral misconduct, these facilities are de facto prisons...far more punitive than protective. How can they be called shelters when most of the women and girls we interviewed told us they would escape if they could?"
Said Human Rights Watch: "Those being held include many women and girls in these facilities who have committed no crime, or who have completed a sentence. Some are there for no reason other than that they were raped, and are now ostracized for staining their families' 'honor'. Officials transferred the majority of these women and girls to these facilities against their will, while those who came voluntarily did so because no genuine shelters for victims of violence exist in Libya."
Throughout the Middle East and North Africa, it has become fashionable in the past few years for authoritarian governments to organize their own human rights commissions. Most of these are caricatures of toothless tigers, cosmetic bodies set up to keep the pro-democracy Americans at bay.
Whether the body set up by Colonel Qaddafi's son, Seif al-Islam, will prove to be any different remains to be seen. Thus far, it has recommended the release of 131 political prisoners who, it says, pose no threat to the government. It also played a role in granting new trials to 86 accused members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
But exactly what did the U.S. actually get - aside from access to oil - from this devil's bargain? It seems to me that the Philadelphia Inquirer had it just about right when it editorialized, "Libya had no biological weapons, apart from some World War I-era mustard gas. The truth is, Qadhafi gave up nothing of value ... Has Libya embraced democracy? Not according to human rights groups, which say that Gadhafi remains a brutal and unstable dictator. So much for President Bush's doctrine of spreading democracy. The message here is that the United States doesn't really mind doing business with tyrants. Has Libya helped the United States in its fight against terrorism? Yes, the Qadhafi government has ratted out some of its former associates. But the Islamists have been trying to kill Qadhafi for years. We are helping him get rid of his own enemies."
It may seem like an eon ago, but in 2004, at his second inauguration, President Bush declared: "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."
But that was then and now is now. Now it seems that the idealism of "spreading freedom" has been replaced by the realpolitik of oil and anti-terrorism.
Thursday, May 25, 2006
USED THE PHONE LATELY? WORRIED?
By William Fisher
Anticipating that the U.S. federal government would invoke the so-called "state secrets" privilege to block any lawsuit calling for the disclosure of details about allegations that phone companies shared customer records with the government's biggest spy agency, a major civil rights group has embarked on an alternate course.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed complaints in more than 20 individual states demanding that their utility commissions and attorneys general convene public hearings and call phone company executives to testify.
The ACLU action in Massachusetts is typical of the approach being taken by the civil rights group. Carol Rose, executive director of the ACLU in Massachusetts, said four mayors had complained to the state's utility regulatory board, where. State law requires the board to conduct public hearings when a mayor complains.
Michael D. Bissonnette, mayor of Chicopee, Massachusetts, said he joined the requests because privacy was fast becoming the key civil rights issue.
"This is likely the greatest invasion of consumer privacy in our nation's history," he said.
The ACLU filed similar complaints in Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.
Typically, state utilities commissions are mandated to regulate the activities of telephone and other electronic carriers operating in their respective states.
A full-frontal legal assault on the National Security Agency would likely hit the brick wall of the "state secrets" doctrine - through which the government is able to keep sensitive cases from ever coming to trial because public disclosures would compromise national security. Once rarely used, the state secrets privilege has become one of the staple defenses used by the Bush Administration to maintain secrecy.
As the ACLU filed its state complaints, it also launched a nationwide campaign to encourage citizens to make their utility commissions aware of their privacy concerns. This campaign is being conducted through an online complaint form available at the ACLU website (www.aclu.org).
The group is also running full-page ads in eight large-city newspapers asking the public to join the complaints. The ads claim that telecommunications companies including "AT&T, Verizon and Other Phone Companies May Have Illegally Sent Your Phone Records to the National Security Agency."
The ACLU said its complaints were filed in the states of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington.
Ads were taken out in newspapers in Portland, Oregon, Seattle, Washington, New York City, New York, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Chicago, Illinois, Miami, Florida, Boston, Massachusetts, and San Francisco, California.
The civil rights group has also asked the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reconsider its recent decision not to investigate the alleged provision of tens of millions of telephone records to the National Security Agency (NSA). The NSA is the largest of the government's spy agencies and both the creator and executor of the massive program.
The phone-records issue was exposed after a newspaper, USA Today, reported the program on May 11. It charged that three major national phone companies -- AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth -- had turned over the call records of millions of Americans to the US government in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
President George W. Bush and other administration officials have neither confirmed nor denied the USA Today report that the NSA is collecting the calling records of ordinary Americans in its effort to detect the plans of al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations. But Bush has said the administration's anti-terrorism surveillance programs are legal and constitutional.
Meanwhile, attorneys who specialize in class action lawsuits are preparing to file a blizzard of suits against the phone companies purportedly involved with the NSA program. The ACLU of Illinois has already filed suit against one of the suspect phone companies, AT&T, charging that its actions in the NSA program violated customer privacy.
But it remains unclear which phone firms handed over what records to whom. Some companies have denied involvement - but the ACLU notes that those denials have carefully worded and some have referred to the national security interests involved.
All the companies named by USA Today have disputed the newspaper's account. AT&T has neither confirmed nor denied it, but has said that no information was released illegally.
Verizon has flatly denied involvement in the NSA program. But it has left open the issue of whether MCI, the long-distance subsidiary it acquired in January, has turned over records to the government.
BellSouth issued a statement earlier this month that said, "Based on our review to date, we have confirmed no such contract exists and we have not provided bulk customer calling records to the NSA." Civil rights groups are saying that the use of the word "contract" in this denial appears to be a hedge.
If legal claims against the phone companies continue to gain momentum, their costs could be enormous - reminiscent of such past actions as litigation against the major tobacco companies.
In response to an ACLU letter, the FCC -- the agency charged with overseeing the entire U.S. telecommunications industry - said it does not have the authority to look into the phone records program because its members lack the necessary security clearances.
The ACLU believes the phone program is the latest example of "a longer-term abuse of power by the executive branch," said executive director Anthony D. Romero.
In response to a question during a telephone press conference, an ACLU spokesman accused the federal government and the named phone companies of "hiding behind the 'state secrets privilege' " to keep critical information about citizens' privacy from being made public.
Civil liberties lawyers have questioned the legal basis that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has used to justify the constitutionality of collecting domestic telephone records as part of the Bush administration's anti-terrorism program.
Gonzales said such an activity would not require a court warrant under a 1979 Supreme Court ruling because it involved obtaining "business records." Under the 27-year-old court ruling in Smith v. Maryland, "those kinds of records do not enjoy Fourth Amendment protection," Gonzales said. "There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in those kinds of records," he added.
But other legal experts disagree. For example, G. Jack King Jr. of the National
Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers noted that Congress in 1986 passed the Electronic Communications Privacy Act requiring court orders before turning over call records to the government. He said Gonzales is correct in saying "the administration isn't violating the Fourth Amendment" (which prohibits unlawful searches and seizures without a warrant based on probable cause). But he added that Gonzales is "failing to acknowledge that it is breaking" the 1986 law, which requires a court order "with a few very narrow exceptions."
The phone records at issue do not contain the names or contents of calls, but do list which numbers called which other numbers, both internationally and domestically, and how those calls were routed.
According to USA Today, this information was then sifted by powerful computers in an attempt to discover a pattern that might reveal the presence of terrorists in the US. The newspaper reported that the NSA had used the phone records of the known 9/11 conspirators to try to establish a model of how terrorists communicate.
In April, the ACLU and other civil rights, journalism and business advocacy groups who frequently communicate by phone and e-mail with people in the Middle East, filed suit against another NSA program, the so-called Domestic Surveillance Program, through which the NSA eavesdrops on international telephone calls and emails, one end of which is in the U.S.
Oral arguments are currently scheduled for June 12, and it is widely expected that the government will invoke its "state secrets privilege" to keep the case out of court.
Anticipating that the U.S. federal government would invoke the so-called "state secrets" privilege to block any lawsuit calling for the disclosure of details about allegations that phone companies shared customer records with the government's biggest spy agency, a major civil rights group has embarked on an alternate course.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed complaints in more than 20 individual states demanding that their utility commissions and attorneys general convene public hearings and call phone company executives to testify.
The ACLU action in Massachusetts is typical of the approach being taken by the civil rights group. Carol Rose, executive director of the ACLU in Massachusetts, said four mayors had complained to the state's utility regulatory board, where. State law requires the board to conduct public hearings when a mayor complains.
Michael D. Bissonnette, mayor of Chicopee, Massachusetts, said he joined the requests because privacy was fast becoming the key civil rights issue.
"This is likely the greatest invasion of consumer privacy in our nation's history," he said.
The ACLU filed similar complaints in Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.
Typically, state utilities commissions are mandated to regulate the activities of telephone and other electronic carriers operating in their respective states.
A full-frontal legal assault on the National Security Agency would likely hit the brick wall of the "state secrets" doctrine - through which the government is able to keep sensitive cases from ever coming to trial because public disclosures would compromise national security. Once rarely used, the state secrets privilege has become one of the staple defenses used by the Bush Administration to maintain secrecy.
As the ACLU filed its state complaints, it also launched a nationwide campaign to encourage citizens to make their utility commissions aware of their privacy concerns. This campaign is being conducted through an online complaint form available at the ACLU website (www.aclu.org).
The group is also running full-page ads in eight large-city newspapers asking the public to join the complaints. The ads claim that telecommunications companies including "AT&T, Verizon and Other Phone Companies May Have Illegally Sent Your Phone Records to the National Security Agency."
The ACLU said its complaints were filed in the states of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington.
Ads were taken out in newspapers in Portland, Oregon, Seattle, Washington, New York City, New York, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Chicago, Illinois, Miami, Florida, Boston, Massachusetts, and San Francisco, California.
The civil rights group has also asked the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reconsider its recent decision not to investigate the alleged provision of tens of millions of telephone records to the National Security Agency (NSA). The NSA is the largest of the government's spy agencies and both the creator and executor of the massive program.
The phone-records issue was exposed after a newspaper, USA Today, reported the program on May 11. It charged that three major national phone companies -- AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth -- had turned over the call records of millions of Americans to the US government in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
President George W. Bush and other administration officials have neither confirmed nor denied the USA Today report that the NSA is collecting the calling records of ordinary Americans in its effort to detect the plans of al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations. But Bush has said the administration's anti-terrorism surveillance programs are legal and constitutional.
Meanwhile, attorneys who specialize in class action lawsuits are preparing to file a blizzard of suits against the phone companies purportedly involved with the NSA program. The ACLU of Illinois has already filed suit against one of the suspect phone companies, AT&T, charging that its actions in the NSA program violated customer privacy.
But it remains unclear which phone firms handed over what records to whom. Some companies have denied involvement - but the ACLU notes that those denials have carefully worded and some have referred to the national security interests involved.
All the companies named by USA Today have disputed the newspaper's account. AT&T has neither confirmed nor denied it, but has said that no information was released illegally.
Verizon has flatly denied involvement in the NSA program. But it has left open the issue of whether MCI, the long-distance subsidiary it acquired in January, has turned over records to the government.
BellSouth issued a statement earlier this month that said, "Based on our review to date, we have confirmed no such contract exists and we have not provided bulk customer calling records to the NSA." Civil rights groups are saying that the use of the word "contract" in this denial appears to be a hedge.
If legal claims against the phone companies continue to gain momentum, their costs could be enormous - reminiscent of such past actions as litigation against the major tobacco companies.
In response to an ACLU letter, the FCC -- the agency charged with overseeing the entire U.S. telecommunications industry - said it does not have the authority to look into the phone records program because its members lack the necessary security clearances.
The ACLU believes the phone program is the latest example of "a longer-term abuse of power by the executive branch," said executive director Anthony D. Romero.
In response to a question during a telephone press conference, an ACLU spokesman accused the federal government and the named phone companies of "hiding behind the 'state secrets privilege' " to keep critical information about citizens' privacy from being made public.
Civil liberties lawyers have questioned the legal basis that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has used to justify the constitutionality of collecting domestic telephone records as part of the Bush administration's anti-terrorism program.
Gonzales said such an activity would not require a court warrant under a 1979 Supreme Court ruling because it involved obtaining "business records." Under the 27-year-old court ruling in Smith v. Maryland, "those kinds of records do not enjoy Fourth Amendment protection," Gonzales said. "There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in those kinds of records," he added.
But other legal experts disagree. For example, G. Jack King Jr. of the National
Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers noted that Congress in 1986 passed the Electronic Communications Privacy Act requiring court orders before turning over call records to the government. He said Gonzales is correct in saying "the administration isn't violating the Fourth Amendment" (which prohibits unlawful searches and seizures without a warrant based on probable cause). But he added that Gonzales is "failing to acknowledge that it is breaking" the 1986 law, which requires a court order "with a few very narrow exceptions."
The phone records at issue do not contain the names or contents of calls, but do list which numbers called which other numbers, both internationally and domestically, and how those calls were routed.
According to USA Today, this information was then sifted by powerful computers in an attempt to discover a pattern that might reveal the presence of terrorists in the US. The newspaper reported that the NSA had used the phone records of the known 9/11 conspirators to try to establish a model of how terrorists communicate.
In April, the ACLU and other civil rights, journalism and business advocacy groups who frequently communicate by phone and e-mail with people in the Middle East, filed suit against another NSA program, the so-called Domestic Surveillance Program, through which the NSA eavesdrops on international telephone calls and emails, one end of which is in the U.S.
Oral arguments are currently scheduled for June 12, and it is widely expected that the government will invoke its "state secrets privilege" to keep the case out of court.
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