53 Hours

Click here for the mobile edition | Problems viewing this email? Click here for the online edition May 5, 2010 by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Zaid Jilani, Matt Duss, and Alex Seitz-Wald Contact Us | Tell-a-Friend | Archives | Permalink | Subscribe to Feed NATIONAL SECURITY 53 Hours At approximately 6:30 p.m. on May 1, a Muslim street vendor in New York City's Times Square alerted a police officer to white smoke collecting inside an idling Nissan Pathfinder. By 7 p.m., the bomb squad had arrived, and the area was cordoned off. A mere 53 hours later authorities apprehended a suspect, Faisal Shahzad, aboard an Emirates Airlines jet bound for Dubai, just as it was about to pull away from the gate at New York's John F. Kennedy airport. Shahzad, who became a naturalized U.S. citizen last year, "is from a military family in Pakistan, where he spent five months before returning in February to his home" in Shelton, CT. According to law enforcement sources, Shahzad admitted to "training in explosives in the past year with Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan" in Pakistan's North Waziristan region and said he had been driven to terrorism by the recent killings of Taliban leaders in Pakistan.  EFFECTIVE LAW ENFORCEMENT WORK: Fifty-three "is a pretty good number," New York City Police commissioner Raymond W. Kelly told reporters on Tuesday, referring to the number of hours it took for investigators to identify and apprehend the suspect. "The break in this case took place when a New York City detective was able to go under the vehicle and get the hidden VIN [vehicle identification number] number," Kelly said at a news conference in Washington yesterday. The VIN helped identify the original owner of the vehicle, which in turn led investigators to identify Shahzad. The government has also begun "requiring airlines to check no-fly lists much more quickly as a way to screen out terror suspects" after revelations that Shahzad was able to board an international flight even though his name was put on a watch list. Ken Gude and Brian Katulis of the Center for American Progress write, "Conservatives often deride using law enforcement and intelligence techniques against terrorists," but "the swift capture and arrest of the Times Square bombing suspect shows that effective intelligence and law enforcement work -- a component of successful counterterrorism operations for decades -- is a crucial part of an integrated strategy to keep Americans safe." CONSERVATIVES' EMBARRASSING REACTION: Though somewhat slower with their hysteria this time than they were reacting to the failed Christmas bomb plot last December, conservatives quickly amped up their rhetoric. Apparently under the mistaken impression that Mirandizing a suspect grants rights rather than informing a suspect of existing rights, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) told radio host Don Imus, "I think obviously that [Mirandizing Shahzad] would be a serious mistake until we've -- at least until we find out as much information as we have, and there are ways -- legal ways -- of delaying that." Rep. Peter King (R-NY) expressed similar fears, telling Politico, "I hope that [Attorney General Eric] Holder did discuss this with the intelligence community. If they believe they got enough from him, how much more should they get? Did they Mirandize him? I know he's an American citizen, but still." Some conservatives have gone even further. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) "is planning to introduce a bill that would allow the government to take away citizenship from Americans" who are associated with foreign terrorist organizations. Lieberman told Fox News, "I think it's time for us to look at whether we want to amend that law to apply it to American citizens...whether they should not also be deprived automatically of their citizenship and therefore be deprived of rights that come with that citizenship when they are apprehended and charged with a terrorist act." While Lieberman's support for simply stripping Americans of their rights is troubling enough, he seems unaware that any method for doing so would inevitably add several layers of legal complexity, and not simplify the process as he apparently believes. Shahzad, "a U.S. citizen, was properly and legally Mirandized." And, just like attempted Christmas bomber Umar Faouq Abdulmuttalab, Shahzad "is cooperating with investigators and apparently providing good information." Having been properly informed of his rights under the law, the evidence that Shahzad is now reportedly providing will be admissible in court. KEEPING THE PRESSURE ON: While effective coordination between federal and local investigators resulted in the apprehension of the suspect, the fact remains that thousands of lives were saved by the suspect's own incompetence and sloppiness. The Wonk Room's Matt Duss wrote that, while "counting on the stupidity of terrorists is not a sufficient anti-terrorism policy...there are a whole host of other tactics being used by the Obama administration to track and put pressure terrorist organizations," and it's fair to surmise that "these tactics and policies bear some measure of credit for the poorer players that extremists have been able to field lately." By tightening border controls and working more closely with allied intelligence agencies to track extremists, "the U.S. shrinks the pool of potential infiltrators, resulting in far slimmer pickings for terrorist commanders." It also makes training those infiltrators much more complicated and costly, resulting in cut corners that in turn result in botched attacks. Gude and Katulis write that "it's too soon to tell, but this attempted bombing in Times Square may be a desperate reaction to the increased pressure the United States is putting on militant groups in Pakistan. The investigation will determine whether this was a lone, 'self-starter' militant or an individual connected to a broader network and plot." But the effective response thus far "demonstrates that if we respond in the right way -- acting without overreacting -- our country can move forward effectively and keep Americans safe without compromising on the ideals and principles that make our country strong."   IMMIGRATION -- PHOENIX SUNS WILL WEAR 'LOS SUNS' JERSEYS IN PART TO PROTEST 'FLAWED' IMMIGRATION LAW: The Phoenix Suns basketball franchise announced that players will be wearing "Los Suns" jerseys tonight for Game 2 of its playoff series against the San Antonio Spurs. The game, which coincides with Cinco de Mayo, will be played in Phoenix. Team owner and registered Republican Robert Sarver said the jerseys will "honor our Latino community and the diversity of our league, the state of Arizona and our nation." Sarver also made it clear that the selection of the Spanish-language jersey is a political statement against Arizona's new anti-immigrant law. "However intended, the result of passing this law is that our basic principles of equal rights and protection under the law are being called into question," Sarver said. He added that while he understood the "frustration with the federal government's failure to deal with the issue of illegal immigration," the state's law is "flawed." The team's star point guard Steve Nash said separately, "I think the law is very misguided. I think it is unfortunately to the detriment to our society and our civil liberties." "I think the law obviously can target opportunities for racial profiling," Nash added. The Center for American Progress Action Fund's Matthew Yglesias noted that the Nash, along with the Spurs' Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker, are all immigrants. "In general, it says good things about the National Basketball Association that foreigners with top-notch basketball skills generally want to come here and play. And the flow of foreign talent to our shores makes the NBA a better product -- indeed, an iconic global brand that's marketed internationally as a U.S. export," Yglesias wrote. Meanwhile, the Major League Baseball Players Association has also called for repealing the law and a number of Latino baseball players have spoken out against it as well.   The Gulf oil disaster presents "a prime opportunity for progressives and clean-energy advocates to demonstrate the desperate need for new forms of energy." However, progressives are concerned that Obama is missing the chance to "strengthen the clean-energy provisions of the bill and jettison industry breaks." Some lawmakers are asserting that the spill "dims the odds" of an energy bill compromise. "In a closed-door briefing for members of Congress, a senior BP executive conceded" yesterday that "the ruptured oil well in the Gulf of Mexico could conceivably spill as much as 60,000 barrels a day of oil, more than 10 times the estimate of the current flow. "What we heard today from BP, Halliburton and Transocean were a lot of worst-case scenarios without any best-case solutions," said Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA). "The Interior Department exempted BP's calamitous Gulf of Mexico drilling operation from a detailed environmental impact analysis last year" after reviews concluded that a spill was unlikely. The department gave BP's lease at Deepwater Horizon a "categorical exclusion" from certain regulatory measures last year, and BP lobbied to expand the exemptions just 11 days before the explosion. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) plans to introduce legislation that would revive a law stripping the citizenship of any American who fights for a foreign military. "I'm now putting together legislation to amend that to [specify that] any individual American citizen who is found to be involved in a foreign terrorist organization, as defined by the Department of State, would be deprived of their citizenship rights," said Lieberman. The Tucson and Flagstaff city councils voted yesterday to sue Arizona over its new anti-immigrant law, becoming "the first municipalities in Arizona to approve legal challenges." All 13 members of the city council in Washington, DC, also "sponsored a bill forbidding the police chief from sharing arrest data with federal immigration officials" and announced their support for an Arizona boycott. Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) plan to offer an amendment to the Senate's financial regulatory reform bill that would end anonymous holds by senators. "For far too long, secret holds have been a staple of the Senate and there's no question that both Democrats and Republicans are responsible for the current abuses," said Grassley. Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani-American man arrested in the failed Times Square car bombing, "has admitted his role in the attempted attack and said he received explosives training in Pakistan." Shahzad has been charged with terrorism related crimes, while potential co-conspirators have been arrested in Pakistan, where "investigators were strongly looking at possible links to the Pakistani Taliban." A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that the Tea Party movement "appeals almost exclusively to supporters of the Republican Party" and "may have little room for growth." "Most Americans -- including large majorities of those who don't already count themselves as supporters -- say they're not interested in learning more about the movement." Only 2 percent said they were "active participants" in the Tea Party. Senate Banking Committee leaders reached a "tentative agreement" on Wall Street reform legislation yesterday that would eliminate the $50 billion fund to save failing banks, which Republicans and President Obama had opposed. Some "liberal Democrats" are still preparing amendments to strengthen the bill, including one that "would limit the size of banks holding federally insured deposits." And finally: The ACLU has launched a new website called "The Deprofiler," providing masks to remove "reasonable suspicion" if you travel to Arizona.   Right-wing attendees at a Heritage Foundation event applaud the idea that President Obama is a "domestic enemy." Self-proclaimed anti-birther Andrew Breitbart blurbs for a book with a chapter questioning whether Obama is a "natural born citizen." The New York Times allows conservation group with oil industry ties to downplay Gulf disaster -- without noting the industry ties. David Brooks should get the history of what happened to different groups of Native Americans right. Sympathy for Gordon Brown. Fast food franchises claim health care law could burden restaurants as much as $55,000 annually. Study finds that half of the Amazon rainforest could be gone by 2050. Anti-gay movement leader caught returning from European vacation with "rent boy."   "Unions get a pass from new campaign finance disclosure rules." -- Wall Street Journal editorial, 5/03/10 VERSUS "There is equal treatment and the requirement of all interest groups included in this bill." -- Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE), 4/29/10   thinkprogress.org |