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