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Senator Dodd Speaks in Opposition to FISA Bill on Floor of U.S. Senate
"I rise—once again—to voice my strong opposition to the misguided FISA legislation before us today. I have strong reservations about the so-called improvements made to Title I. But more than that, this legislation includes provisions which would grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that apparently have violated the privacy and the trust of millions of Americans by participating in the president's warrantless wiretapping program. If we pass this legislation, the Senate will ratify a domestic spying regime that has already concentrated far too much unaccountable power in the president's hands and will place the telecommunications companies above the law. " Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Dominican Republic in the 1960's.
Senator Dodd Speaks in Opposition to FISA Bill on Floor of U.S. Senate
Senator Dodd Speaks in Opposition to FISA Bill on Floor of U.S. Senate
June 24, 2008
Remarks as Prepared - Mr. President: I rise—once again—to voice my strong opposition to the misguided FISA legislation before us today. I have strong reservations about the so-called improvements made to Title I. But more than that, this legislation includes provisions which would grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that apparently have violated the privacy and the trust of millions of Americans by participating in the president's warrantless wiretapping program. If we pass this legislation, the Senate will ratify a domestic spying regime that has already concentrated far too much unaccountable power in the president's hands and will place the telecommunications companies above the law.
I am here today to implore my colleagues to vote against cloture in the morning.
And let me make clear, at the outset of this debate, that this is not about domestic surveillance itself. We all recognize the importance of domestic surveillance – in an age of unprecedented threats. This is about illegal, unwarranted, unchecked domestic surveillance.
And that difference—the difference between surveillance that is lawful, warranted and that which is not—is everything.
Mr. President, I had hoped I would not have to return to this floor again under these circumstances – hoped that in these negotiations we would have been able to turn aside retroactive immunity on the grounds that it is bad policy and sets a terrible precedent.
As all of my colleagues know, I have long fought against retroactive immunity, because I believe, quite simply, it is an abandonment of the rule of law. I've fought this with everything I had in me—and I haven't waged this fight alone.
In December, I opposed retroactive immunity on the Senate floor. I spent ten hours on this floor then. In January and February, I came to the floor time and time again to discuss the dangers of granting retroactive immunity. Along with my colleague and friend Russ Feingold, who has shown remarkable leadership on this issue, I offered an amendment that would have stripped retroactive immunity from the Senate bill. Unfortunately, our amendment failed and to my extreme disappointment, the Senate adopted the underlying bill.
Since passage of the Senate bill, there has been extensive negotiations on how to move forward. Today, we are being asked to pass the so-called compromise that was reached by some of our colleagues and approved by the House of Representatives.
I am here today to say that I will not and cannot support this legislation. It goes against everything I have stood for – everything this body ought to stand for.
There is no question some improvements have been made over the previous versions of this bill. Title I, which regulates the ability of the government to conduct electronic surveillance, has indeed been improved. Albeit modestly. In fact, it is my hope that a new Congress and a new President will work together to fix the problems with Title I should the Senate adopt this new legislation.
But in no way is this compromise acceptable, Mr. President. This legislation before us purports to give the courts more of a role in determining the legality of the telecommunications companies actions. But in my view the Title II provisions do little more than ensure without a doubt that the telecommunications companies will be granted retroactive immunity.
Allow me to quote the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the matter. It reads:
Beginning soon after September 11, 2001, the Executive branch provided written requests or directives to U.S. electronic communication service providers to obtain their assistance with communications intelligence activities that had been authorized by the President.
… The letters were provided to electronic communication service providers at regular intervals. All of the letters stated that the activities had been authorized by the President. All of the letters also stated that the activities had been determined to be lawful by the Attorney General, except for one letter that covered a period of less than sixty days. That letter, which like all the others stated that the activities had been authorized by the President, stated that the activities had been determined to be lawful by the Counsel to the President.
Under the legislation before us, the district court would simply decide whether or not the telecommunication companies received documentation stating that the President authorized the program and that there had been some sort of determination that it was legal.
But, as the Intelligence Committee has already made clear, we already KNOW that this happened.
We already KNOW that the companies received some form of documentation, with some sort of legal determination.
But that's not the question. The question is not whether these companies received a "document" from the White House. The question is, "were their actions legal?" It's rather straightforward—surprisingly uncomplicated.
Either the companies were presented with a warrant, or they weren't. Either the companies and the President acted outside of the rule of law, or they followed it. Either the underlying program was legal or it wasn't.
Because of this legislation, none of the questions will be answered, Mr. President. Because of this so-called "compromise," the judge's hands will be tied, and the outcome of these cases will be predetermined. Because of this compromise, retroactive immunity will be granted and that, as they say, will be that. Case closed.
No court will rule on the legality of the telecommunications companies activities in participating in the president's warrantless wiretapping program.
None of our fellow Americans will have their day in court.
What they will have is a government that has sanctioned lawlessness.
Well, I refuse to accept that, Mr. President. I refuse to accept the argument that because this situation is just too delicate, too complicated, that this body is simply going to go ahead and sanction lawlessness.
We are better than that.
And if I have needed any reminder of that fact, simply look to all those who have joined this fight – my colleagues and the many, many Americans who have given me strength for this fight. Strength that comes from the passion and eloquence of citizens who don't have to be involved, but choose to be nonetheless.
They see what I see in this debate – that by short-circuiting the judicial process we are sending a dangerous signal to future generations. They see us establishing a precedent that Congress can—and will—provide immunity to potential law breakers, if they are "important" enough.
Mr. President, some may be asking – why is retroactive immunity so dangerous?
What is this issue? Why should I care?
Allow me to explain by providing a bit of context. I want to remind my colleagues of what I said about this bill months ago, because the argument against providing retroactive immunity remains unchanged.
Mr. President, unwarranted domestic spying didn't happen in a panic or short-term emergency, not for a week, or a month, or even a year. If it had, I might not be here today.
But that isn't the case. What we now know is that spying by this Administration went on, relentlessly, for more than five years.
I might not be here if it had been the first offense of a new administration. Maybe not if it had even been the second or the third.
But that isn't the case either, Mr. President. Indeed, I am here today because with offense after another after another, I believe it is long past time to say: "enough."
I am here today because of a pattern—a pattern of abuse against civil liberties and the rule of law. Against the Constitution—of which we are custodians, temporary though that status may be.
And I would add that had these abuses been committed by a president of my own party, I would have opposed them, every bit as vigorously.
I am here today because warrantless wiretapping is merely the latest link in a long chain of abuses.
So, why are we here? Because, Mr. President – it is alleged that giant telecom corporations worked with our government to compile Americans' private, domestic communications records into a database of enormous scale and scope.
Secretly and without a warrant, those corporations are alleged to have spied on their own customers – American customers.
Here's only one of the most egregious examples. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Clear, first-hand whistleblower documentary evidence [states]…that for year on end every e-mail, every text message, and every phone call carried over the massive fiber-optic links of sixteen separate companies routed through AT&T's Internet hub in San Francisco—hundreds of millions of private, domestic communications—have been…copied in their entirety by AT&T and knowingly diverted wholesale by means of multiple "splitters" into a secret room controlled exclusively by the NSA.
The phone calls and internet traffic of millions of Americans, diverted into a secret room controlled by the National Security Agency. That allegation still needs to be proven in a court of law. But it clearly needs to be determined in a court of law and not here in Senate.
I suppose if you only see cables and computers there, the whole thing seems almost harmless. Certainly nothing to get worked up about—a routine security sweep, and a routine piece of legislation blessing it.
If that's all you imagine happened in the NSA's secret room, I imagine you'll vote for immunity.
I imagine you wouldn't see much harm in voting to allow this practice to continue either.
But if you see a vast dragnet for millions of Americans' private conversations, conducted by a government agency that acted without a warrant, acted outside of the rule of law—then, I believe, you'll recognize what's at stake here. You'll see that what's at stake is the sanctity of the law and the sanctity of our privacy. And you'll probably come to a very different conclusion.
Maybe that sounds overdramatic. Perhaps some will ask, "What does it matter, at the end of the day, if a few corporations aren't sued? These people sue each other all the time."
Others may say, "This seems a small issue. Maybe the Administration went too far, but this seems like an isolated case."
Indeed, Mr. President – as long as this case seems isolated and technical, they win. As long as it's about another lawsuit buried in our legal system and nothing more, they win. The Administration is counting on the American people to see nothing bigger than that – "Nothing to see here."
But there is plenty to see here, Mr. President – and it is so much more than a few phonecalls, a few companies, a few lawsuits.
What is at stake is nothing less than equal justice—justice that makes no exceptions. What is at stake is an open debate on security and liberty, and an end to warrantless, groundless spying.
This bill does not say, "Trust the American people; Trust the courts and judges and juries to come to just decisions." Retroactive immunity sends a message that is crystal clear:
"Trust me."
And that message comes straight from the mouth of this President. "Trust me."
What is the basis for that trust? Classified documents, we are told, that prove the case for retroactive immunity beyond a shadow of a doubt.
But we're not allowed to see them! I've served in this body for 27 years, and I'm not allowed to see them! Neither are a majority of my colleagues. We are all left in the dark.
I cannot speak for my colleagues—but I would never take "trust me" for an answer, not even in the best of times. Not even from a President on Mount Rushmore.
I can't put it better than this:
"Trust me" government is government that asks that we concentrate our hopes and dreams on one man; that we trust him to do what's best for us. My view of government places trust not in one person or one party, but in those values that transcend persons and parties.
Those words were not spoken by someone who took our nation's security lightly, Mr. President. They were spoken by Ronald Reagan -- in 1980. They are every bit as true today, even if times of threat and fear blur our concept of transcendent values. Even if those who would exploit those times urge us to save our skins at any cost.
But again, Mr. President:
"Why should I care?"
The rule of law has rarely been in such a fragile state. Rarely has it seemed less compelling. What, after all, does the law give us anyway? It has no parades, no slogans. It lives in books and precedents. And, we are never failed to be reminded, the world is a very dangerous place.
Indeed, that is precisely the advantage seized upon, not just by this Administration but in all times, by those looking to disregard the rule of law. As James Madison, the father of our Constitution, said more than two centuries ago, "It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger…from abroad."
With the passage of this bill, his words would be one step closer to coming true. So it has never been more essential that we lend our voices to the law, and speak on its behalf.
What is this about, Mr. President?
It's about answering the fundamental question: do we support the rule of law…or the rule of men? To me, this is our defining question—indeed it may be the defining question that confronts every generation.
This is about far more than a few telecoms – it is about contempt for the law, large and small.
Mr. President, I've said that warrantless wiretapping is but the latest link in a long chain of abuses when it comes to the rule of law.
This is about the Justice Department turning our nation's highest law enforcement offices into patronage plums, and turning the impartial work of indictments and trials into the pernicious machinations of politics.
Contempt for the rule of law.
This is about Alberto Gonzales, the nation's now-departed Attorney General, coming before Congress to give us testimony that was at best, wrong—and at worst, outright perjury.
Contempt for the rule of law – by the nation's foremost enforcer of the law.
This is about Congress handing the president the power to designate any individual he wants as an "unlawful enemy combatant," hold him indefinitely, and take away his right to habeas corpus—the 700-year-old right to challenge your detention.
If you think that the Military Commissions Act struck at the heart of the Constitution, you'd be understating things—it did a pretty good job on the Magna Carta while it was at it.
And if you think that this only threatens a few of us, you should understand that the writ of habeas corpus belongs to all of us—it allows anyone to challenge their detention.
Rolling back habeas rights endangers us all: Without a day in court, how can you prove that you're entitled to a trial? How can you prove that you are innocent? In fact, without a day in court, how can you let anyone know that you have been detained at all?
Thankfully, the Supreme Court recently rebuked the President's lawlessness and ruled that detainees do indeed have the right to challenge their detention.
Mr. President, the Military Commissions Act also gave President Bush the power some say he wanted most of all: the power to get information out of suspected terrorists—by virtually any means.
The power to use evidence gained from torture.
I don't think you can hold the rule of law in any greater contempt than sanctioning torture, Mr. President.
Because of decisions made at the highest levels of our government, America is making itself known to the world for torture, with stories like this one:
A prisoner at Guantanamo—to take one example out of hundreds— was deprived of sleep over fifty five days, a month and three weeks. Some nights, he was doused with water or blasted with air conditioning. And after week after week of this delirious, shivering wakefulness, on the verge of death from hypothermia, doctors strapped him to a chair—doctors, healers who took the Hippocratic Oath to "do no harm"—pumped him full of three bags of medical saline, brought him back from death—and sent him back to his interrogators.
To the generation coming of age around the world in this decade, that is America. Not Normandy, not the Marshall Plan, not Nuremberg. But Guantanamo.
Think about it.
We have legal analysts so vaguely defining torture, so willfully blurring the lines during interrogations that we have CIA counterterrorism lawyers saying things like, "if the detainee dies, you're doing it wrong."
We have the CIA destroying tapes containing the evidence of harsh interrogations—about the Administration covering its tracks in a way more suited to a banana republic than to the home of freedom.
We have this Administration actually defending waterboarding, a technique invented by the Spanish Inquisition, perfected by the Khmer Rouge, and in between, banned—originally banned for excessive cruelty—by the Gestapo!
Still, some say, "waterboarding's not torture."
Oh really?
Listen to the words of Malcolm Nance, a 26-year expert in intelligence and counter-terrorism, a combat veteran, and former Chief of Training at the US Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School. While training American soldiers to resist interrogation, he writes,
I have personally led, witnessed and supervised waterboarding of hundreds of people….Unless you have been strapped down to the board, have endured the agonizing feeling of the water overpowering your gag reflex, and then feel your throat open and allow pint after pint of water to involuntarily fill your lungs, you will not know the meaning of the word….
It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. The victim is drowning. How much the victim is to drown depends on the desired result…and the obstinacy of the subject.
Waterboarding is slow motion suffocation…usually the person goes into hysterics on the board….When done right it is controlled death.
Controlled death, Mr. President.
And that is not torture?
Not according to President Bush's White House. They have said waterboarding is legal, and that, if it chooses, America will waterboard again.
Surely then, Mr. President, our new Attorney General would condemn torture.
Surely, the nation's highest law enforcement officer in the land, coming after Alberto Gonzales's chaotic tenure, would never come before Congress and defend the president's power to openly break the law.
Would he?
He would, Mr. President.
When he came to the Senate before his confirmation, Michael Mukasey was asked a simple question, bluntly and plainly: "Is waterboarding constitutional?"
He replied: "If waterboarding is torture, torture is not constitutional."
One would hope for a little more insight from someone so famously well-versed in national security law. But Mr. Mukasey pressed on with the obstinacy of a witness pleading the fifth: "If it's torture….If it amounts to torture, it is not constitutional."
And that is the best this noted jurist, this legal scholar, this longtime judge, a supposed expert on national security law had to offer on the defining moral issue of this presidency. Claims of ignorance. Word games.
Now-Attorney General Mukasey was asked the easiest question we have in a democracy: Can the president openly break the law? Can he—as we know he's done already—order warrantless wiretapping, ignore the will of Congress, and then hide behind nebulous powers he claims to find in the Constitution?
His response: The president has "the authority to defend the country."
And in one swoop, the Attorney General conceded to the president nearly unlimited power, just as long as he finds a lawyer willing to stuff his actions into the boundless rubric of "defending the country." Unlimited power to defend the country, to protect us as one man sees fit, even if that means listening to our phone calls without a warrant, even if that means holding some of us indefinitely.
That is, Mr. President, contempt for the rule of law.
And so, this is very much about torture – about "enhanced interrogation methods" and waterboarding.
It is also about extraordinary rendition—outsourced torture of men this administration would prefer we didn't know exist.
Oh, but we do know, Mr. President.
One was a Syrian immigrant raising his family in Canada as a citizen. He wrote computer code for a company called MathWorks and was planning to start his own tech business. On a trip through New York's JFK Airport, he was arrested by U.S. federal agents. They shackled him and bundled him onto a private CIA plane, which flew him across the Atlantic Ocean to Syria.
This man spent the next 10 months and 10 days in a Syrian prison. His cell was three feet wide—the size of a grave. Some 300 days passed alone in that cell, with a bowl for his toilet and another bowl for his water, and the door only opened so he could go wash himself once a week—though it may have been more or less, because the cell was dark and he lost track of time.
The door only opened for one other reason: for interrogators who asked him, again and again, about al-Qaeda. Here's how it was described:
The interrogator said, "Do you know what this is?" I said, "Yes, it's a cable," and he told me, "Open your right hand." I opened my right hand, and he hit me like crazy. It was so painful, and of course I started crying, and then he told me to open my left hand, and I opened it, and he missed, then hit my wrist. And then he asked me questions. If he does not think you are telling the truth, then he hits again.
The jail and the torturers were Syrian, but America sent this man there with full knowledge of what would happen to him—because it was part of the longstanding secret program of "extraordinary rendition." America was convinced that he was a terrorist and wanted the truth beaten out of him.
No charges were ever filed against him. His adopted nation's government—Canada, one of our strongest NATO allies—cleared him of all wrongdoing after a year-long official investigation, and awarded him more than $10 million in government compensation for his immense pain and suffering. But not before he was tortured for 10 months in a cell the size of a grave. Did his torture make us safer? Did his suffering improve our security?
I would note Mr. President, that our own government has shamefully refused even to acknowledge that his case exists.
We know about a German citizen as well, living in the city of Ulm with his wife and four children. On a bus trip through Eastern Europe, he was pulled off at a border crossing by armed guards and held for three weeks in a hotel room, where he was beaten regularly. At the end of three weeks, he was drugged and shipped on a cargo plane to Kabul, Afghanistan.
For five months, he was held in the Salt Pit—a secret American prison staffed by Afghan guards. All he had to drink was stagnant water from a filthy bottle. Again and again, masked men interrogated him about al-Qaeda, and finally, he says, they raped him.
He was released in May of 2004. Scientific testing confirmed his story of malnourishment, and the Chancellor of Germany publicly acknowledged that he was wrongly held. What was his crime? Having the same name as a suspected terrorist. Again, our own government has shamefully refused to even acknowledge that his case exists.
And so, we do know, Mr. President. We know because there aren't enough words in the world to cover the facts.
If you'd like to define torture out of existence, be my guest.
If you'd rather use a Washington euphemism—"tough questioning," "enhanced interrogation"—feel free. Feel free to talk about "fraternity hazing," like Rush Limbaugh did, or to use a favorite term of Vice President Cheney's, "a dunk in the water." You can call it whatever you'd like.
But when you're through, the facts will still be waiting for you. Controlled death. Outsourced torture. Secret prisons. Month-long sleep deprivations. The president's personal power to hold whomever he likes for as long as he'd like. It is as if we woke up in the middle of some Kafka-esque nightmare.
Have I gone wildly off-topic, Mr. President? Have I brought up a dozen unrelated issues?
I wish I had, Mr. President. I wish that none of these stories were true.
But, we are deceiving ourselves when we talk about the U.S. attorneys issue, the habeas issue, the torture issue, the rendition issue, or the secrecy issue as if each were an isolated case! As if each one were an accident! When we speak of them as isolated, we are keeping our politics cripplingly small; and as long as we keep this small, the rule of men is winning.
There is only one issue here. Only one: the law issue.
Does the president serve the law, or does the law serve the president? Each insult to our Constitution comes from the same source; each springs from the same mindset; and if we attack this contempt for the law at any point, we will wound it at all points.
That is why I'm here today: Retroactive immunity is on the table today; but also at issue is the entire ideology that justifies it, the same ideology that defends torture and executive lawlessness. Immunity is a disgrace in itself, but it is far worse in what it represents. It tells us that some believe in the courts only so long as their verdict goes their way. That some only believe in the rule of law, so long as exceptions are made at their desire. It puts secrecy above sunshine and fiat above law.
Did the telecoms break the law? That, I don't know.
But pass immunity…and we will never know. A handful of favored corporations will remain unchallenged. Their arguments will never be heard in a court of law. The truth behind this unprecedented domestic spying will never see light. And the cases will be closed forever.
"Law" is a word we barely hear from the supporters of immunity. They offer neither a deliberation about America's difficult choices in the age of terrorism, nor a shared attempt to set for our times the excruciating balance between security and liberty. They merely promise a false debate on a false choice: security or liberty, but never, ever both.
I think differently. I think that America's founding truth is unambiguous: security and liberty, one and inseparable, and never one without the other--no matter how difficult a situation, no matter what threats we face.
Secure in that truth, I offer a challenge to immunity's supporters: You want to put a handful of corporations above the law. Could you please explain how your immunity makes any one of us any safer at all?
The truth is that a working balance between security and liberty has already been struck! In fact, it has been settled for decades. For thirty years, FISA has prevented executive lawbreaking and protected Americans, and that balance stands today.
In the wake of the Watergate scandal, the Senate convened the Church Committee, a panel of distinguished members determined to investigate executive abuses of power. And unsurprisingly, they found that when Congress and the courts substitute "trust me" for real oversight, massive lawbreaking can result.
They found evidence of U.S. Army spying on the civilian population, federal dossiers on citizens' political activities, a CIA and FBI program that had opened hundreds of thousands of Americans' letters without warning or warrant. In sum, Americans had sustained a severe blow to their Fourth Amendment rights "to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures."
But at the same time, the senators of the Church Committee understood that surveillance needed to go forward to protect the American people. Surveillance itself was not the problem; unchecked, unregulated, unwarranted surveillance was. What surveillance needed, in a word, was legitimacy.
And in America, as the Founders understood, power becomes legitimate when it is shared, when Congress and the courts check that attitude which so often crops up in the executive branch—"if the president does it, it's not illegal."
The Church Committee's final report, "Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans," put the case powerfully:
The critical question before the Committee was to determine how the fundamental liberties of the people can be maintained in the course of the Government's effort to protect their security.
The delicate balance between these basic goals of our system of government is often difficult to strike, but it can, and must, be achieved.
We reject the view that the traditional American principles of justice and fair play have no place in our struggle against the enemies of freedom. Moreover, our investigation has established that the targets of intelligence activity have ranged far beyond persons who could properly be characterized as enemies of freedom….
We have seen segments of our Government, in their attitudes and action, adopt tactics unworthy of a democracy, and occasionally reminiscent of the tactics of totalitarian regimes.
We have seen a consistent pattern in which programs initiated with limited goals, such as preventing criminal violence or identifying foreign spies, were expanded to what witnesses characterized as "vacuum cleaners," sweeping in information about lawful activities of American citizens.
The senators concluded: "Unless new and tighter controls are established by legislation, domestic intelligence activities threaten to undermine our democratic society and fundamentally alter its nature."
What a strange echo we hear in those words! They could have been written yesterday. Three decades ago, our predecessors in this chamber understood that when domestic spying goes too far, it threatens to kill just what it promises to protect—an America secure in its liberty. That lesson was crystal-clear 30 years ago. Why is it so clouded now?
And before we entertain the argument that "everything has changed" since those words were written, remember: The men who wrote them had witnessed world war and Cold War, had seen Nazi and Soviet spying, and were living every day under the cloud of nuclear holocaust.
I'll ask this, Mr. President: Who will chair the commission investigating the secrets of warrantless spying, years from today? Will it be a young senator in this body today? Will it be someone not yet elected? What will that senator say when he or she comes to our actions, reads in the records how we let outrage after outrage after outrage slide, with nothing more than a promise to stop the next one? I imagine that senator will ask of us, "Why didn't they do anything? Why didn't they fight back? In June 2008, when no one could doubt anymore what the administration was doing—why did they sit on their hands?"
Since the time of the Church Commission, Mr. President, the threats facing us have multiplied and grown in complexity, but the lesson has been immutable:
Warrantless spying threatens to undermine our democratic society, unless legislation brings it under control. In other words, the power to invade privacy must be used sparingly, guarded jealously, and shared equally between the branches of government.
Or the case can be made pragmatically. As my friend Harold Koh, the Dean of Yale Law School, recently argued, "The engagement of all three branches tends to yield not just more thoughtful law, but a more broadly supported public policy."
Three decades ago, Congress embodied that solution in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA.
FISA confirmed the president's power to conduct surveillance of international conversations involving anyone in the United States, provided that the federal FISA court issued a warrant—ensuring that wiretapping was aimed at safeguarding our security, and nothing else.
The president's own Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, explained the rationale in an interview last summer: The United States "did not want to allow [the intelligence community] to conduct…electronic surveillance of Americans for foreign intelligence unless you had a warrant, so that was required."
As originally written in 1978, and as amended many times since, FISA has accomplished its mission; it has been a valuable tool for conducting surveillance of terrorists and those who would harm America.
And every time presidents have come to Congress openly to ask for more leeway under FISA, Congress has worked with them; Congress has negotiated; and together, Congress and the president have struck a balance that safeguards America while doing its utmost to protect privacy.
Last summer, Congress made a technical correction to FISA, enabling the president to wiretap, without a warrant, conversations between two foreign targets, even if those conversations are routed through American computers. For other reasons, I felt that this past summer's legislation went too far, and I opposed it. But the point is that Congress once again proved its willingness to work with the president on FISA.
Isn't that enough?
Just this past October and November, the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees worked with the president to further refine FISA and ensure that, in a true emergency, the FISA court would do nothing to slow down intelligence gathering.
Isn't that enough?
And as for the FISA court? Between 1978 and 2004, according to the Washington Post, the FISA court approved 18,748 warrants—and rejected five.
The FISA court has sided with the executive ninety nine point nine percent of the time.
Isn't that enough?
Is anything lacking? Have we forgotten something? Isn't all of this enough to keep us safe?
We all know the answer we received. This complex, fine-tuned machinery, crafted over three decades by three branches of government, four presidents, and 12 Congresses was ignored. It was a system primed to bless nearly any eavesdropping a president could conceive—and spying still happened illegally.
If the shock of that decision has yet to sink in, think of it this way: President Bush ignored not just a federal court, but a secret federal court; not just a secret federal court, but a secret federal court prepared to sign off on his actions ninety nine point nine percent of the time. A more compliant court has never been conceived.
And that still wasn't good enough.
So I will ask the Senate candidly, and candidly it already knows the answer:
Is this about security—or is it about power?
Why are some fighting so hard for retroactive immunity? The answer, I believe, is that immunity means secrecy, and secrecy means power.
It's no coincidence that the man who proclaimed "if the president does it, it's not illegal"—Richard Nixon—was the same man who raised executive secrecy to an art form.
The senators of the Church Committee expressed succinctly the deep flaw in the Nixonian executive: "Abuse thrives on secrecy." And, in the exhaustive catalogue of their report, they proved it.
In this push for immunity, secrecy is at the center. We find proof in immunity's original version: a proposal to protect not just the telecoms, but everyone involved in the wiretapping program.
In their original proposal, that is, they wanted to immunize themselves.
Think about that. It speaks to their fear and, perhaps, their guilt: their guilt that they had broken the law, and their fear that in the years to come, they would be found liable or convicted.
They knew better than anyone else what they had done—they must have had good reason to be afraid.
Thankfully, immunity for the executive is not part of the bill before us. But the original proposal tells us something very important: This is, and always has been, a self-preservation bill.
Otherwise, why not have the trial and get it over with? If the proponents of retroactive immunity are right, the corporations would win in a walk.
After all, in the official telling, the telecoms were ordered to help the president spy without a warrant, and they patriotically complied. We've even heard on this floor the comparison between the telecom corporations to the men and women laying their lives on the line in Iraq.
But ignore that comparison – which, frankly, I find deeply offensive. Ignore for a moment the fact that in America we obey the laws, not the president's orders. Ignore that not even the president has the right to scare or bully you into breaking the law, though it seems that tactic has proven surprisingly fruitful.
Ignore that the telecoms were not unanimous; one, Qwest, wanted to see the legal basis for the order, never received it, and so refused to comply.
Ignore that a judge presiding over the case ruled that "AT&T cannot seriously contend that a reasonable entity in its position could have believed that the alleged domestic dragnet was legal."
Ignore all that: If the order the telecoms received was legally binding, they have an easy case to prove. The corporations only need to show a judge the authority and the assurances they were given, and they'll be in and out of court in five minutes.
If the telecoms are as defensible as the president says, why doesn't the president let them defend themselves? If the case is so easy to make, why doesn't he let them make it?
It can't be that he's afraid of leaks. Our federal court system has dealt for decades with the most delicate national security matters, building up expertise in protecting classified information behind closed doors—ex parte, in camera. We can expect no less in these cases.
No intelligence sources need be compromised. No state secrets need be exposed. After litigation at both the district court and circuit court level, no state secrets have been exposed.
In fact, Federal District Court Judge Vaughn Walker, a Republican appointee, has already ruled that the issue can go to trial without putting state secrets in jeopardy.
He reasonably pointed out that the existence of the terrorist surveillance program is a hardly secret at all: "The government has [already] disclosed the general contours of the 'terrorist surveillance program,' which requires the assistance of a telecommunications provider."
As the state secrets privilege is invoked to stall these high-profile cases, it's useful to consider that privilege's history. In fact, it was tainted at its birth by a president of my own party, Harry Truman. In 1952, he successfully invoked the new privilege to prevent public exposure of a report on a plane crash that killed three Air Force contractors.
When the report was finally declassified—some fifty years later, decades after anyone in the Truman administration was within its reach—it contained no state secrets at all.
Only facts about repeated maintenance failures that would have seriously embarrassed some important people.
And so the state secrets privilege began its career not to protect our nation—but to protect the powerful.
In his opinion, Judge Walker argued that, even when it is reasonably grounded,
the state secrets privilege [still] has its limits. While the court recognizes and respects the executive's constitutional duty to protect the nation from threats, the court also takes seriously its constitutional duty to adjudicate the disputes that come before it. To defer to a blanket assertion of secrecy here would be to abdicate that duty, particularly because the very subject matter of this litigation has been so publicly aired.
The compromise between liberty and security remains a difficult one. But dismissing this case at the outset would sacrifice liberty for no apparent enhancement of security.
And that ought to be the epitaph of this Administration: "sacrificing liberty for no apparent enhancement of security." Worse than selling our soul—giving it away for free!
It is equally wrong to claim that failing to grant this retroactive immunity will make the telecoms less likely to cooperate with surveillance in the future.
The truth is that, since the 1970s, FISA has compelled telecommunications companies to cooperate with surveillance, when it's warranted—and what's more, it immunizes them. It's done that for more than 25 years.
So cooperation in warranted wiretapping is not at stake today, and despite claims by supporters of immunity-- never has been. Collusion in warrantless illegal wiretapping is. And the warrant makes all the difference, because it is precisely the court's blessing that brings presidential power under the rule of law.
In sum, we know that giving the telecoms their day in court—giving the American people their day in court—would not jeopardize an ounce of our security.
And it could only expose one secret: the extent to which the rule of law has been trampled.
And that is the choice at stake today: Will the secrets of the last years remain closed in the dark? Or will they be open to the generations to come, to our successors in this chamber, so that they can prepare themselves to defend against future outrages of power and usurpations of law from future presidents, of either party?
Thirty years after the Church Committee, history repeated itself. If those who come after us are to prevent it from repeating again, they need the full truth.
And that is why we must not see these secrets go quietly into the night. I am here because the truth is no one's private property—it belongs to every one of us, and it demands to be heard.
"State secrets," "patriotic duty"—those, as weak as they are, are the arguments the telecoms' advocates use when they're feeling high-minded! When their thoughts turn baser, they make their arguments as amateur economists.
Here's how Mike McConnell put it: "If you play out the suits at the value they're claimed, it would bankrupt these companies. So…we have to provide liability protection to these private sector entities."
To begin with, that's a clear exaggeration. We are talking about some of the wealthiest, most successful companies in America. Some of them have continued to earn record profits and sign up record numbers of subscribers at the same time as this very public litigation—totally undermining the argument that these lawsuits are doing the telecoms severe "reputational damage."
Companies of that size couldn't be completely wiped out by anything but the most exorbitant and unlikely judgment. To assume that the telecoms would lose, and that their judges would then hand down such backbreaking penalties, is already to take several leaps.
Opponents of immunity, including myself, have stated that we would support a reasonable alternative to blanket retroactive immunity.
No one seriously wants to financially cripple our telecommunications industry. The point is to bring checks and balances back to domestic spying. Setting that precedent would hardly require a crippling judgment.
It's much more troubling, though, that our Director of National Intelligence even bothers to speak to "liability protection for private sector entities."
This isn't the Secretary of Commerce we're talking about, but the head of our nation's intelligence efforts.
For that matter, how does that even begin to be relevant to letting this case go forward? Since when did we throw entire suits out because the defendant stood to lose too much?
It astounds me that some can speak in the same breath about national security and bottom lines. Approve immunity, and Congress will state clearly: The richer you are, the more successful you are, the more lawless you are entitled to be. A suit against you is a danger to the Republic!
And so, at the rock-bottom of its justifications, the telecoms' advocates are essentially arguing that immunity can be bought.
The truth is exactly the opposite—and it should be obvious:
The larger the corporation, the greater the potential for abuse.
No one suggests that success should make a company suspect; companies grow large, and essential to our economy, because they are excellent at what they do. But the size and wealth open the realm of possibilities for abuse far beyond the scope of the individual.
After all, if the allegations are true, we are talking about one of the most massive violations of privacy in American history.
Should there not be some retribution or penalty?
If reasonable search and seizure means opening a drug dealer's apartment, the telecoms' alleged actions would be the equivalent of strip-searching everyone in the building, ransacking their bedrooms, and prying up all the floorboards.
The scale of these corporations opens unprecedented possibilites for abuse—possibilities far beyond the power of the individual.
What the telecoms have been accused of could not be done by one man or even ten.
It would be inconceivable without the size and resources of a corporate behemoth—the same size that makes Mike McConnell fear the corporations' day in court. That's the massive scale we're talking about—and that massive scale is precisely why no corporation must be above the law.
On that scale, it is impossible to plead ignorance. As Judge Walker ruled, "AT&T cannot seriously contend that a reasonable entity in its position could have believed that the alleged domestic dragnet was legal."
But the arguments of the president's allies sink even lower. Listen to the words a House Republican leader spoke on Fox News. They are shameful: "I believe that they deserve immunity from lawsuits out there from typical trial lawyers trying to find a way to get into the pockets of American companies."
Of course, some of the "typical greedy trial lawyers" bringing these suits actually work for a nonprofit. And the telecoms that some want to portray as pitiable little Davids actually employ hundreds of attorneys, retain the best corporate law firms, and spend multimillion-dollar legal budgets every year. But if the facts actually mattered to immunity supporters, we wouldn't be here. For some, the pre-written narrative takes precedence far above the mere facts; and here, it is the perennial narrative of the greedy trial lawyers.
With that, some can rest content. They can conclude that we weren't ever serious about law, or about privacy, or about checks and balances—it was about money all along.
There can no longer be any doubt: One by one, the arguments of the immunity supporters, of the telecoms' advocates, fail. I'd like to spend a few moments reviewing, in detail, those claims and their failures.
[Slide 1]
One: Immunity supporters argue that granting immunity is a presidential prerogative.
But the fact is that this case belongs in the courts, in cases where the outcome has not been predetermined. The judiciary should be allowed to determine whether the president has exceeded his powers by obtaining from the telecoms wholesale access to the domestic communications of millions of ordinary Americans.
The courts should not simply be in the business of certifying that the companies received some form of documentation. Rather they should be allowed to evaluate the validity of the legal arguments asserted in the document. Was the request legal or not?
Remember also that the administration's original immunity proposal protected everyone involved in the wiretapping program—not just the telecoms. In their original proposal, that is, they wanted to immunize themselves.
Thankfully, executive immunity is not part of the bill before us. But the origin of immunity tells us a great deal about what's at stake here: self-preservation.
[Slide 2]
Two: Immunity supporters claim that only foreign communications were targeted—not Americans' domestic calls.
But the fact is that clear, first-hand evidence, authenticated by the corporations in court, contradicts that claim. "Splitters" at AT&T's Internet hub in San Francisco diverted into a secret room controlled by the NSA every e-mail, text message, and phone call—foreign or domestic—carried over the massive fiber-optic links of sixteen separate companies.
[Slide 3]
Three: Immunity supporters claim that a lack of immunity will make the telecoms less likely to cooperate with surveillance in the future.
But remember: Since the 1970s, FISA has compelled telecoms to cooperate with warranted surveillance, and it has immunized them. The issue today is not wiretapping—it is warrantless wiretapping. And the warrant is essential, because that is what brings the president's power under the rule of law.
[Slide 4]
Four: Immunity supporters argue that the telecoms can't defend themselves without exposing state secrets.
But the fact is that Federal District Court Judge Vaughn Walker has already ruled that the issue can go to trial without putting state secrets in jeopardy. He pointed out that the existence of the warrantless surveillance program is a hardly secret at all: "The government has [already] disclosed the general contours of the 'terrorist surveillance program,' which requires the assistance of a telecommunications provider."
[Slide 5]
Five: Immunity supporters claim that the telecoms are already protected by common law principles.
But the fact is that common law immunities do not trump specific legal duties imposed by statute, such as the specific duties Congress has long imposed on telecoms to protect customer privacy and records. In the pending case against AT&T, the judge already has ruled unequivocally that "AT&T cannot seriously contend that a reasonable entity in its position could have believed that the alleged domestic dragnet was legal."
Even so, the communications company defendants can and should have the opportunity to present these defenses to the courts, and the courts—not Congress preemptively—should decide whether they are sufficient.
[Slide 6]
Six: Immunity supporters claim that leaks from the trial might damage national security.
But the fact is that our federal court system, in decades of dealing with delicate national security matters, has built up the expertise it takes to secure that information, behind closed doors. If we're still concerned about national security being threatened as a result of these cases, we can simply get the principals a security clearance.
We can be increasingly confident that these cases will not expose state secrets or intelligence sources—because, after the extensive litigation that has already taken place at both the district court and circuit court level, no sensitive information has leaked out.
[Slide 7]
Seven: Immunity supporters claim that litigation will harm the telecoms by causing them "reputational damage."
But the fact is that there is no evidence that this litigation has reduced or will reduce the defendant companies' bottom lines or customer base.
These companies' reputations can only be harmed if they have done something wrong. If they have not, they have nothing to worry about.
[Slide 8]
Eight: Finally, immunity supporters claim that these lawsuits could bankrupt the telecoms.
But as we've seen, such huge corporations could only be wiped out by the most enormous penalties—and also the most unlikely. It takes several leaps to assume that the telecoms will lose, and then that they'll be slapped with such huge judgments.
But on another level, immunity supporters are staking their claim on a dangerous principle—that a suit can be stopped solely on the basis of how much a defendant stands to lose.
If we accept that premise, we could conceive of a corporation so wealthy, so integral to our economy, that its riches place it outside the law altogether. And that is a deeply flawed argument.
We see, then, that none of the arguments for immunity stand. There is absolutely no reason to halt the legal process, and bar the courthouse door.
And ultimately, Mr. President, that's all I'm asking for: a fair fight. In any other administration, it would be a humble claim: a day in court, for the companies that have been accused, and for the American citizens who have accused them. To reject immunity would mean to grab hold of the closest thread of lawlessness we have at hand, and to pull until the whole garment unravels.
But ensuring a day in court is not the same as ensuring a verdict. When that day comes, I have absolutely no investment in the verdict, either way. It may be that the federal government broke the law in asking the telecoms to spy, but that the telecoms' response was innocent. It may be that the government was within the law, and that the telecoms broke it. Maybe both broke the law. Maybe neither did.
But just as it would be absurd for me to declare the telecoms clearly guilty, it is equally absurd to close the case in Congress, without a decision. That is what immunity does. Throughout this debate, the telecoms' advocates have needed to show not just that they're right—but that they're so right, and that we're so far beyond the pale—that we can shut down the argument right here, today.
That is a burden they have clearly not met. And they cannot expect to meet it when a large majority of the senators who will make the decision have not even seen the secret documents that are supposed to prove the case for retroactive immunity.
Mr. President, my trust is in the courts, in the cases argued openly, in the judges who preside over them, and in the juries of American citizens who decide them. They should be our pride, not our embarrassment. They deserve to do their jobs.
As complex, as diverse, as relentless as the assault on the rule of law has been, our answer to it is a simple one. Far more than any president's lawlessness, the American way of justice remains deeply rooted in our character.
That, no president can disturb. So I am full of hope, even on this dark day. I have faith that we can unite security and justice—because we have already done it.
My father, Senator Tom Dodd, was the number two American prosecutor at the famous Nuremberg trials. And I have never, never forgotten the example he set.
As Justice Robert Jackson said in his opening statement at Nuremberg: "That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury, stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason."
Mr. President, what is the tribute that Power owes to Reason?
That America stands for a transcendent idea.
The idea that laws should rule, not men.
The idea that the Constitution does not get suspended for vengeance.
The idea that this nation should never tailor its eternal principles to the conflict of the moment, because if we did, we would be walking in the footsteps of the enemies we despised.
The tribute that Power owes to Reason is due today. I know that we can find the strength to pay it. And if we can't? We will all have to answer for it.
There's a famous military recruiting poster that comes to mind. A man is sitting in an easy chair with his son and daughter on his lap, in some future after the war has ended. His daughter is asking him, "Daddy, what did you do in the war?" And his face is shocked and shamed, because he knows he did nothing.
My daughters, Grace and Christina, are six and three. They are growing up in a time of two great conflicts: one between our nation and its enemies, and another, between what is best and worst in our American soul. And someday soon, I know I am going to hear that question: "What did you do?" I want, more than anything else, to give the right answer.
That question is coming for every single one of us in this body. Every single one of us will be judged by a jury from whom there's no hiding: our sons, our daughters, our grandchildren. Someday soon, they'll read in their textbooks the story of a great nation, one that threw down tyrants and oppressors for two centuries; one that rid the world of Nazism and Soviet communism; one that proved that great strength can serve great virtue, that right can truly make might.
And then they will read how, in the early years of the 21st century, that nation lost its way.
We do not have the power to strike that chapter. No, Mr. President—we can't go back.
We can't un-destroy the CIA's interrogation tapes. We can't un-pass the Military Commissions Act. We can't un-speak Alberto Gonzales's disgraceful testimony. We can't un-torture innocent people. And perhaps, sadly, shamefully, we cannot stop retroactive immunity. We can't un-do anything that has been done in the last six years for the cause of lawlessness and fear.
We cannot blot out that chapter. But we can begin the next one, even today. Let its first words read: "Finally, in June 2008, the Senate said: 'Enough.'"
I implore my colleagues to write it with me. I implore my colleagues to vote against retroactive immunity and vote against cloture tomorrow morning.
Links to Related Topics (Tags):
Headlines: June, 2008; RPCV Chris Dodd (Dominican Republic); Figures; Peace Corps Dominican Republic; Directory of Dominican Republic RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Dominican Republic RPCVs; Politics; Congress; Election2008 - Dodd; Intelligence Issues; Connecticut
When this story was posted in July 2008, this was on the front page of PCOL:
Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteers
Dodd vows to filibuster Surveillance Act
Senator Chris Dodd vowed to filibuster the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that would grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that helped this administration violate the civil liberties of Americans. "It is time to say: No more. No more trampling on our Constitution. No more excusing those who violate the rule of law. These are fundamental, basic, eternal principles. They have been around, some of them, for as long as the Magna Carta. They are enduring. What they are not is temporary. And what we do not do in a time where our country is at risk is abandon them."
What is Wrong at the US Embassy in Bolivia?
Last summer Peace Corps Inspector General David Kotz cited the lack of cooperation from the US embassy in Bolivia in the search for missing Peace Corps Volunteer Walter Poirier III. Now a member of the US Embassy Staff in Bolivia is accused of asking Peace Corps Volunteers "to basically spy" on Cubans and Venezuelans in the country. Could US Ambassador Philip S.Goldberg please explain what is going on at the embassy that he has been running in La Paz since 2006?
Read the stories and leave your comments.


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Parshat Tzav
The Torah addresses Aharon and his sons to teach them additional laws relating to their service. The ashes of the korban olah — the offering burned on the altar throughout the night — are to be removed from the area by the kohen after he changes his special linen clothing. The olah is brought by someone who forgot to perform a positive commandment of the Torah. The kohen retains the skin. The fire on the altar must be kept constantly ablaze. The korban mincha is a meal offering of flour, oil and spices. A handful is burned on the altar and a kohen eats the remainder before it becomes leaven. The Parsha describes the special korbanot to be offered by the Kohen Gadol each day, and by Aharon's sons and future descendants on the day of their inauguration. The chatat, the korban brought after an accidental transgression, is described, as are the laws of slaughtering and sprinkling the blood of the asham guilt-korban. The details of shelamim, various peace korbanot, are described, including the prohibition against leaving uneaten until morning the remains of the todah, the thanks-korban. All sacrifices must be burned after they may no longer be eaten. No sacrifice may be eaten if it was slaughtered with the intention of eating it too late. Once they have become ritually impure,korbanot may not be eaten and should be burned. One may not eat a korban when he is ritually impure. Blood and chelev, forbidden animal fats, are prohibited to be eaten. Aharon and his sons are granted the breast and shank of every korban shelamim. The inauguration ceremony for Aharon, his sons, the Mishkan and all of its vessels is detailed.
A Nice Patch of Grass
"Command!" (6:2)
The word mitzvah — commandment — sits uncomfortably in the lexicon of today's pluralistic correctness.
Truth be told, the Torah is chock full of commands. In fact there is not a single word of Torah that does not contain a commandment.
Isn't all that "commandment stuff" rather repressive?
Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe once asked a pupil:
"Did you ever say Shema Yisrael with kavana (intention and attention)?"
The pupil replied, "Yes, of course, Rabbi."
Said Rabbi Wolbe, "Tell me, while you were saying the Shema did you feel a hint of rebellion against G-d?"
"Chas v'shalom," replied the pupil, "Of course not."
"Then you have never said Shema with kavana" replied the Rabbi.
A human being is made up of two elements — the physical and the spiritual. They have very different agendas.
The spiritual Masters teach that the first mitzvah of the Shema is to accept upon ourselves "the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven." Why didn't they just say, "to accept upon ourselves the Kingdom of Heaven." Why does it have to be a "yoke"?
The word in Hebrew for physicality is chumriut. The word for a donkey is chamor and shares the same root. The physical body is akin to donkey. A donkey needs a yoke, for when it spies that first appealing patch of grass it will stray from the path. The natural inclination of the body is to shy away from the yoke of subservience to G-d and the yoke of the mitzvot because it wants to graze in the human equivalent of a nice patch of grass.
A true recitation of the Shema demands that we accept the yoke in spite of and only after we have felt the body's desire to rebel.
The Ultimate Connection
"Command!" (6:2)
The word mitzvah (commandment) has the same root in Hebrew as the word "tzavta" which means "connection".
The word mitzvah shares its last two letters - vav and heh - with the four-letter Name of G-d (yud, heh, vav and heh).
Interestingly, the first two letters of the word mitzvah - mem and tzadi - also hint to the first two letters of G-d's name - yud and heh - because using the numerological system of gematria known as At-bash, mem becomes yud, and tzadi becomes heh.
If you want to know who someone really is, find out what they want. What a person truly wants is the outward expression of his essence.
The mitzvot are, quite literally, what G-d "wants". And since a mitzvah is what G-d "wants" you can never be more connected to G-d than by doing a mitzvah, for what G-d wants is a "reflection" of Who He "Is".

subset: commoncrawl


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Except mortgages, most liens are filed in the Prothonotary's office, not in the Recorder of Deeds Office. You can check with them for liens filed against you there.
Show All Answers
Our records are by names, not locations. Our records will list all the ground owned by an individual, but if you want to know who owns a certain lot, go to the Board of Assessment office at 55 E Court Street and locate the lot on the tax map. They can tell you the owner, as well as our book and page reference.
Recording documents is a two step process.
Your deed will give you the legal description but a surveyor is needed to use this information to actually locate your property lines, and place stakes or other markers.
Come into the office at 55 E Court Street, on the 6th floor. Deed restrictions do not necessarily have to be spelled out in each new deed. If it's not on a deed it doesn't mean a restriction doesn't exist. A restriction could be in a deed ten owners back and still be in effect. When a title company makes a search prior to granting title insurance, these restrictions are reported. Check with a title company for accurate information.
Come into the Recorder's Office and checking the records. We will be glad to help you, or contact your attorney or title company.
This information is not included in a deed but can be found by referring to a United States Coast and Geodetic Survey Map of your area which is available via the Planning Commission.
This can be checked on a United States Coast and Geodetic Survey Map of your area via the Planning Commission.
This information is not recorded in our office. Records in the municipality in which your property is located may give you this information. If they do not have it, have a plumber trace your lines.
No. A deed to a cemetery lot only gives you permission to use the ground. The cemetery still retains title to the ground. Such "deeds" or "titles" are maintained in the office of the cemetery company.


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Activists Ousted from Expo for Chevron-Sponsored Marathon
Associated Press
15 January 2010
Houston, TX – A group of human rights advocates with a booth critical of the Chevron Houston Marathon's title sponsor was expelled from the marathon expo Friday for painting the company "in a negative light."
Steven Karpas, the managing director of the Houston Marathon Committee, said runners from Rainforest Action Network were setting up a booth with "very anti-Chevron placards and pamphlets that absolutely painted Chevron in a negative light," so he had them booted from the expo.
Brianna Cayo Cotter, one of the runners with Rainforest Action Network, said the group had no plans to disrupt event. They had pamphlets on contamination they allege Chevron caused in Ecuador and stickers that read, "I'm running for human rights. Ask Chevron why."
The 30,000 runners registered to participate in the 5K, half-marathon and marathon Sunday were expected to attend the two-day expo to pick up race numbers, gear and expo giveaways.
Before the first runners arrived Friday morning, Cotter said the group was escorted by police out of the city-owned convention center with a promise from Karpas that their expo fee would be refunded.
Karpas said he made the decision to kick out the group, and that no request came from Chevron Corp. officials. He said the event would refund the $1,300 booth fee.
"We're not a political event, and we certainly don't appreciate them using our expo to promote their politics," said Karpas. "It's our expo, and we have the right to control access to the expo. We just didn't find their message to be appropriate given the title sponsor."


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Red Jacket Orchards Fuji Apple Juice, Plastic Bottle
64fl oz $2.10/pt
Total $8.39
Our juices are 100% fruit juices made simply by pressing whole fruit (not from concentrate; no sugar, no water, no color and no flavoring added). They're pressed at the orchard using traditional rack and cloth pressing techniques we've used for the past 50 years, which results in outstanding flavor, and they're flash pasteurized to minimize heat's negative effect on flavor and nutritional content. (from Red Jacket Orchards) Red Jacket Orchards' Fuji Apple Juice was awarded the Outstanding Beverage of the Year Award in 2005 by the National Association for Specialty Food Trade.
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A standing desk can help you avoid the health risks of sitting at a desk all day and also burn more calories while you're at it. This calorie-burn calculator from Just Stand reveals just how many extra calories.
Provided by ergonomic product company Ergotron, the calculator requires just your weight and the amount of time you spend working (i.e., sitting). The difference in calorie-burn from using a standing desk can really add up (and when you're trying to keep the calories off, every bit counts). Be sure to adjust the amount of time in the calculator to account for breaks you usually take from sitting—which you'd also take from standing.
Ergotron's main site also has previously featured tools like the Workstation Installation Tool to help you find the optimum measurements for your seated or standing desk, so whichever method you choose you can be healthier while working.
Calorie-Burn Calculator | Just Stand [via Notebooks.com]
You can contact or follow Melanie Pinola, the author of this post, on Twitter.


text:
Risk Analysis: How To
By: Dawid Czagan
The goal of risk management is to deliver optimal security at a reasonable cost. This article introduces quantitative risk analysis. It also describes cost/benefit analysis, risk handling, and types of countermeasures.
CIA Triad
Risk is related with vulnerabilities, which threaten confidentiality (C), integrity (I), and availability (A) of the assets. This is described as the CIA Triad.
- Confidentiality is about not disclosing sensitive information to other people.
- Integrity is about preserving the state of the system—we don't want attackers to change our data.
- We do want our systems to be up and running. Hence availability is considered.
Quantitative Analysis
Quantitative analysis is about assigning monetary values to risk components. Let's analyze the example of hard drive failure to better understand how it works.
Let's first describe the threat, vulnerability, and risk.
- Threat—hard drive failure
- Vulnerability—backups done rarely
- Risk—loss of data
The asset is data. The value of the asset (AV) is assessed first—$100,000, for example.
Let's discuss the single loss expectancy (SLE). It contains information about the potential loss when a threat occurs (expressed in monetary values). It is calculated as follows: SLE = AV x EF, where EF is exposure factor. Exposure factor describes the loss that will happen to the asset as a result of the threat (expressed as percentage value). SLE is $30,000 in our example, when EF is estimated to be 0.3.
Let's continue this case. Annualized rate of occurrence (ARO) is described as an estimated frequency of the threat occurring in one year. ARO is used to calculate ALE (annualized loss expectancy). ALE is calculated as follows: ALE = SLE x ARO. ALE is $15,000 ($30,000 x 0.5), when ARO is estimated to be 0.5 (once in two years). As we can see, the risk is about the impact of the vulnerability on the business and the probability of the vulnerability to be exploited.
Cost/Benefit Analysis
Let's continue the example from the previous section. Annualized loss expectancy (ALE) is $15,000. This means that the potential loss is $15,000 in one year, when the data is lost as a result of the hard drive failure. A countermeasure can be used to reduce the potential loss. It happens when the management decides to reduce the risk. This countermeasure should not cost more than $15,000 per year. Otherwise it wouldn't be logical from a business point of view (we don't want to spend more money than we can potentially lose). This is basically how cost/benefit analysis works.
Let's see how the annual value of the countermeasure to the company (COUNTERMEASURE_VALUE) can be calculated:
COUNTERMEASURE_VALUE = ALE_PREVIOUS – ALE_NOW – COUNTERMEASURE_COST, where
ALE_PREVIOUS: ALE before implementing the countermeasure
ALE_NOW: ALE after implementing the countermeasure
COUTERMEASURE_COST: annualized cost of countermeasure (please note that it's not only purchasing cost—maintenance cost is included).
Risk Handling
Risk can be handled in the following ways:
- Risk reduction—risk is reduced to an acceptable level (countermeasures implemented; types of countermeasures are described in the next section).
- Risk avoidance—stopping the activity, which leads to the risk
- Risk transference—the risk is transferred to the insurance company
- Risk acceptance—accepting the cost of potential loss (no countermeasures)
Let's discuss the types of countermeasures (also called controls) that are implemented in the case of risk reduction. There are three types of countermeasures:
- Administrative (e.g., security awareness training should not be forgotten, because people are the weakest point in the security chain)
- Technical (e.g., firewall)
- Physical (e.g., locks)
Countermeasures are implemented to reduce the risk. We talk about total risk when no countermeasure is implemented. Let's assume now that the countermeasure is implemented. Perfect security doesn't exist and there is some risk left. This is a residual risk.
This article introduced quantitative risk analysis. Single loss expectancy (SLE), exposure factor (EF), annualized rate of occurrence (ARO) and annualized loss expectancy (ALE) were described. It was also shown how cost/benefit analysis works. Finally, risk handling and types of countermeasures were discussed.


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An exploration of pizza in and around Rochester, NY, one pizzeria at a time
Monday, June 22, 2009
Pizza Chef, Fairport
The Pizza Chef is on East Avenue in Fairport, just off North Main St. The entrance is on the side of the building facing the gas station next door and would be easy to miss if you didn't know where it was.
They had a few types of slices available at lunchtime, but I went with plain cheese. The pepperoni looked a bit fresher but the cheese slices just looked good to me. The guy at the counter courteously asked if I wanted it to get a 30-second rewarming, which I did. The pies, by the way, are cut into sixths, putting the slices halfway between a regular, eighth-of-a-pie slice and a "giant" quarter-pie slice.
The crust was on the thin side, with some definite charring underneath, more, or blacker, perhaps, than you can see in the photo. Maybe it had something to do with the rewarming, but it was also very crackly, and split when I tried to fold it.
That was, however, a minor fault in what was otherwise a very good New York-style slice of pizza. True to its appearance, the crust had an immediately noticeable toasted flavor, and under the crunchy exterior lay a thin but still bready interior.
The sauce and cheese were also applied in good balance with the crust. I'm not saying that a saucy pizza can't be good, but to me, the sauce on a NY-style pizza should stay in the background, with just enough to balance out the dryness of the crust and provide some acidic, tomatoey flavor contrast, and that's what the sauce did here. It was flecked with a few herbs, but had a mild flavor.
Likewise, the cheese, though not skimpy, did not predominate or overwhelm the crust. It was more creamy than stringy, and was fairly greasy (check the pool of grease on the paper plate in the lower photo). Maybe it's whole-milk mozzarella, which I assume is higher in fat than part-skim and hence more likely to get greasy when baked.
If you want a whole pizza, The Pizza Chef also offers a thick-crust Sicilian pizza in addition to its NY pies. Toppings are pretty much the usual ones. They also have wings, calzones and strombolis (never had one, probably never will, and not sure what the difference is), hot and cold subs, salads, and fried sides. They offer free delivery to Fairport, East Rochester and Perinton. There are a few tables, not many.
As I said, this was a very good slice of pizza: the ingredients were well balanced and well integrated with each other. The only real fault that I could find here was that crackly crust. A NY slice should be neither brittle nor floppy, but instead be crisp and supple at the same time. You should be able to fold it, yet still feel that little bit of crunch when you bite into it. This slice didn't quite pull off that balancing act. So I'm giving it a B+, but putting the Pizza Chef on my mental list of places to go back to, in the hopeful expectation that next time it'll rate an A.
The Pizza Chef, 7 East Ave., Fairport. Mon. - Sat. 11 am - 10 pm. Sun. 3-9 pm. 377-9690
6 comments:
- AnonymousJanuary 19, 2010 at 11:13 PM
OMG! I just found this blog. Pizza Chef is one of my favorites and your reviews are dead on! I gotta go read the rest now...
ReplyDelete - AnonymousJune 23, 2011 at 5:50 AM
Note that real NY Pizza has a thin coating of oil on top of the crust. It helps prevent the tomato from making the crust soggy. At least that is what I was taught in a Home Ec. class in a NYC high school. Pizza Chef does seem to use the oil and I think that is what accumulated on the plate.
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Show All Answers
Internal Audit participates in both internal and external quality assurance assessments. Internal assessments include ongoing monitoring of the performance of the internal audit activity and periodic self-assessments. External assessments are done every 5 years or less, and are conducted by a qualified, independent audit team from outside of the organization. The County's independent audit advisory committee oversees this work. A report with findings and recommendations for improvement is issued to the Board of Supervisors.


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44138 - Giant Rhino Beetle (Bones Black)
No Reviews
44138 - Giant Rhino Beetle sculpted by Kevin Williams
The new range of Bones Black Miniatures in a darker, harder plastic, with a finer resolution of detail.
Reaper Miniatures are supplied unpainted and may require assembly. Any painted miniatures shown in the product images are for representation purposes only.
Please note that Reaper advise you do not need primer for their bones range, however if you wish to primer your bones miniatures we would recommend brush on primer as we have found that many aerosol primers will not cure completely on Bones.


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Mounting the Genesis cooler is not complicated and can easily be performed by following the included written instructions, provided the cooler is compatible with your motherboard of course. For this reason we'll skip the mounting procedure and show the Genesis mounted on Asus Rampage II Extreme motherboard.
Genesis packaging says that it will cool your CPU, RAM, MOSFET and Northbridge chipset, where our testing has proven it is indeed the case. The picture clearly shows how Genesis cools the memory.
Prolimatech has been making CPU coolers with split heatsinks, such as Megahalem or Armageddon coolers. However, Genesis' heatsink is not only split but the parts are completely detached from one another. We've already said that heatsink measures (L)146mm X (W)216.5mm X (H)160mm. Note that it is designed in order to fit on most motherboards.
However, not all motherboards will like this cooler. For instance, we had difficulties mounting the Genesis on EVGA's FTW 3 motherboard due to the board using a tall VRM heatsink. We practically couldn't mount the cooler until we removed the motherboard's heatsink and replaced it with smaller heatsink modules. VRM temperatures didn't exceed 67°C, which is in normal limits.
Prolimatech pretty neatly bent several heatpipes and routed them over memory slots. Heatsink has a slim design, with plenty of space below for tall memory modules with heatsinks, such as Corsair Dominator series.
The cooler's slim design definitely helps with any potential conflicts with memory modules, but bear in mind that you will have to remove the Genesis before replacing the memory. However, Genesis can be removed by unscrewing two screws so that should not take up too much of your time.
We managed to mount Kingston's memory modules without taking the cooler off.
In most cases, though dependent on motherboard design, Genesis will take two 14cm fans in a push-pull configuration (it's also possible to mount two 12cm fans).
We performed our testing in Corsair Obsidian 800D case with three reference fans running at 900RPM (room temperature about 22°C). Our weapons of choice were EVGA's X58 FTW3 motherboard and Core i7 930 CPU. The temperatures were measured at reference 2.9GHz as well as after our overclock (we pushed the CPU to 3.6GHz).
The heatsink measures (L)146mm X (W)216.5mm X (H)160mm, so you might experience difficulties when mounting it on certain motherboards that might have tall and/or wide chipset cooling solutions.
For the first test with Genesis we used one 14cm fan. We're talking about Thermalright's TR-TY 140 fan (900~1300RPM) which ended up being enough for excellent Genesis performance. The case's rear panel houses a 14cm fan that pushes the air out, so we've got ourselves a neat push-pull setup here.
We've already mentioned that the 14cm, 900 RPM fan on the case's rear panel does great to improve cooling and ultimately, adding another fan on the coolers tower heatsing made little difference, so we strapped Genesis with one more fan but we mounted it on the heatsink above the memory modules and you can see it on the picture below.
We used Prime95 to put a 100% load on all Core i7 930's cores, so bear in mind that we're talking about a scenario that will most probably never happen. We measured temperatures on all four cores using AIDA64 (the successor to Everest), and put average values in the tables. We used Gelid's GC Extreme paste.
After overclocking the CPU to 3.6MHz, Genesis took the top spot.


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Human Resources
U.S. Employment Immigration Overview
The usual process to gain permanent residency (a green card) through an employer is a three step process, comprised of three separate and individual applications made with the U.S. Department of Labor and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Universities and colleges have advantages in the process.
Step One: Labor Certification
The first step in this process is a Labor Certification through the U.S. Department of Labor – this process is now called "PERM." Before this process can being, it must be determined whether the nonimmigrant employee in question will be engaged in any teaching within the college or university.
Persons engaged in teaching are eligible for a streamlined process called "Special Handling" when undertaken for Colleges and Universities. The college or university seeking the permanent employment services of the foreign faculty would need to undertake a competitive recruitment for the position on a permanent basis (most likely this would already have taken place prior to the employment of the faculty member). Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, applicants for college and university teacher positions must be more qualified than the alien on whose behalf certification is being sought, in order to be considered "available." Therefore, in order to proceed with a PERM case the foreign faculty member must be found to be the "most qualified" candidate after the competitive recruitment is complete. This step of the process requires at least one print ad in a national professional journal.
In cases for persons with no teaching responsibilities, the requirements and nature of the PERM process are far different. In these cases (e.g., for a software analyst, librarian, or other nonteaching position), there are different rules that govern the amount and the type of recruitment efforts required by the employer. The employer cannot secure certification for the foreign worker for the position from the U.S. Department of Labor unless it demonstrates that there were no qualified, willing, able or available U.S. workers meeting the minimum requirements for the position following certain recruitment efforts mandated by the regulations. Here, the required recruitment is more extensive and specific.
Step Two: Immigrant Petition
Once a PERM case is approved, the second step of the three step process involves the filing by the employer of an immigrant petition on the sponsored employee's behalf through the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service. This petition, sponsored by the college or university employer allows the employee to apply for permanent immigration to the U.S. based on said approved Labor certification and "permanent" job offer. In this step, the employer submits Form I-140 with the approved labor certification as well as the proof that the employee met the requirements of the position stated within the PERM case at the time it was filed. The employer must also document its ability to pay the proffered wage to the employee beginning from the date the PERM case was filed up until the present time.
Step Three: Application for Permanent Residence/Green Card
The actual green card application (application for adjustment of status) is the last step of the three-step process. This application is filed by the employee and separate applications are filed by any qualified dependents (spouse and children) with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service. The actual green card application might be able to be filed at the same time as the Immigrant Petition, or might not, depending on several factors at the time of filing including the country of birth of the principal applicant or the spouse of the applicant. When this step is approved the case is complete and the applicant(s) receives permanent resident status in this country.
(Information above excerpted from Understanding the Immigration Process)
Attorney Eligibility to Represent WIU Employees in the Green Card Process
WIU no longer permits outside attorneys to handle the matters of immigration and labor certification described below. Recent legislation and past experience have made it clear that the University must be able to exercise institutional control over documents filed in its name. The University relies on WIU Administration, University Legal Counsel, and legal counsel that are under contract to provide immigration-related services on behalf of the University, as well as close cooperation among our foreign students, faculty and staff.
Accordingly, outside attorneys who are not under contract with the University are not permitted to: (1) sign a G-28, Notice of Entry of Appearance as Attorney or Representative, on behalf of WIU; (2) file I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker, for WIU employees; and (3) file Form I-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker on which WIU is shown as the petitioner. Even if an outside attorney who is not under contract with the University has represented you in the past by filing an H-1B petition, he/she will not be permitted to file an application for labor certification or an I-140 petition on behalf of the University for the reasons set forth above.
The University does not and will not prohibit an employee from seeking outside legal counsel. While employees are free to seek your own legal counsel, they cannot retain an attorney's services for the purpose of filing in the University's name the petitions outlined above. However, an outside attorney can sign Form G-28 if the petition is in an employee's name. "Western Illinois University" may not be listed as a petitioner nor may its IRS tax number appear in such a petition.
The University reserves the right to interpret the nature of employment it offers to individuals within the context of labor, immigration and other statutes. Please keep in mind that in most instances an application for permanent residence that is filed on behalf of a tenure-track faculty member must be initiated within fourteen (14) months of the date of the initial offer letter. It is the faculty member's responsibility to keep this time frame in mind and to ensure that no applicable filing deadlines are missed.
Additional Information
Any questions or additional information concerning the Western Illinois University guidelines in this regard should be directed to Human Resources at firstname.lastname@example.com or by phone at 309-298-1971.


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Nick Stahl Reaches Out to Friends via Email
Nick Stahl Reaches Out to Friends via Email
Missing "Terminator 3" star Nick Stahl has reached out to friends via email, TMZ has learned, telling them he's ok and pledging to go to rehab.
According to our sources, Stahl emailed friends yesterday and apologized for scaring them. We're told Stahl told friends he was getting treatment and would be out of contact for the next 30 days.
Our sources say Stahl's friends and family hope he's telling the truth ... but they are skeptical.
We're told that Stahl's wife, the one who reported him missing, was not on the email.
A rep for the LAPD tells TMZ the missing persons case will remain open for now -- an email is not enough for them to close the file on it.


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Classes, Screenings & Support Groups
Pediatric Oncology Support Group
A group for families who have a child with cancer. From 6:00 to 7:00 PM is a social time to eat pizza/sandwiches sponsored by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and John Muir Pediatric Oncology and 7:00 to 8:00 PM is a parent discussion group and Studio:Art! for the children sponsored by the Art for Life Foundation. Call 947-5272 for more information.
Learn more about the Cancer Support Community.
Cost: FREE
Register for any three fee-based* classes during one transaction and receive a 20% discount.
(* some exclusions may apply)
(* some exclusions may apply)


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According to a TMZ report, Wolfgang Puck is being sued by a diner who alleges she had a restroom disaster at Spago back in 2007. The story kind of reads like a scene out of a Three Stooges bit, but we'll start at the beginning. First, the woman claims that there were "standing pools of urine and feces" in the bathroom at arguably the most renowned restaurant in Beverly Hills. To make things worse, the door didn't have a lock. And then things get ridiculous. Take it away, TMZ:
...the woman, Majorie Linden, claims she had to use one of her hands to hold the door closed while she took care of business on the throne. But mid-squat, with her hand stuck firmly on the handle, another woman allegedly yanked the door open causing Linden to fall "face-first onto the tile floor." Marjorie claims the fall broke her back, messed up her knee, and caused serious mental damage -- among other things.The Spago contingent, of course, denies that the restaurant's bathrooms have ever been in the aforementioned state and says "that portion of the claim is totally without merit."
· Wolfgang Puck Sued for Crappy Dining Experience [TMZ]
[Photo: Flickr/mdfeeds.com]


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Connect Facebook Dynamic Ads to My CRM Example with LeadsBridge
In this article, you'll learn how to set up the bridge and connect Facebook Dynamic Ads to My CRM Example using LeadsBridge.
Facebook Lead Ads are a type of ads specifically designed to collect leads. In comparison to traditional ads that drive to website landing pages, with Facebook Lead Ads, the process of generating leads on Facebook is much easier. In fact, when users click on a Lead Ad on Facebook they instantly visualize a registration form to leave their data, without leaving the social network. The opt-in forms are pre-filled.
Facebook Lead Ads are optimized for mobile navigation and allow advertisers to easily collect leads from smartphones and tablets. User's data, in fact, are automatically added by Facebook which takes them from their personal profiles.
How to set up your bridge step-by-step tutorial
Before you start
Step 1: Bridge's Main information
- Choose a name for your bridge (this will only be visible inside LeadsBridge)
- You may add labels to help you identify your bridge later
- Choose Facebook Dynamic Ads as the source for your bridge
- Choose My CRM Example as the destination
- Click on the Next button
Step 2: Setup your Facebook Dynamic Ads source
- Select the Facebook Ad Account, Page and the Lead Ads Form from the dropdown
- If you didn't add your Facebook Ad Account yet, please click on the "Add Ad Account" button or read how to connect a Facebook Ad Account.
- Click on the Next button
Step 3: Setup your My CRM Example destination
- Type in the integration's name in the dedicated field
- Enter your details where you want to send your leads
- Click on the Next button
- You'll now be able to select the destination segment to send your leads to
- You may choose to receive an email receipt for each incoming lead.
- Type the address(es) where you'd like to receive the receipt
- You may also modify the Subject line of the email
- Click on the Next button
Step 4: Fields Mapping
Here you'll be able to map your source information with your destination fields.
You'll see a field name with the destination integration's logo at the top, this indicates the name of the field on My CRM Example.
Underneath there's a box where you may add the information you'd like to send.
- Check each of the My CRM Example fields available
- Match the information you wish to pass along from Facebook Dynamic Ads
- You may type the information manually and pass them as a static value
- Use the functions to customize information like reformatting dates and times or modifying text, phone numbers and so on
- You may also leave blank the box of a field's information you don't want to send through
Custom Fields
- If you'd like to add more fields, just look at the bottom of the page
- Head over the "Don't find a CRM custom field?" box
- Select the field you'd like to add from the dropdown list
- Click the Add Custom Field button
- The field will appear above
- Add the desired information, as you did with the other ones
Once accomplished your desired outcome, just click Next and head to the last step.
Step 5: Test
In this final step, you'll be able to send a lead from LeadsBridge to test if the configuration works properly.
- To create a new test lead, fill in the required information when prompted
- Click Test Now
- To test with a real lead, switch the toogle to "Test with existing lead".
- Click Sync Now along the lead you'd like to send
- If you did everything right the button will turn green, meaning your lead was synced successfully and the integration is ready
- Click Finish to save your settings and turn active your bridge
That's all! Congratulations.
You'll be redirected to the bridges section of your account with a green success message at the top right of the page and your bridge will now be active.
Would you like to test the connection?
You don't need to start a campaign to test if the connection works fine, just register yourself through your Ad preview.
To do so, follow this documentation: Facebook Lead Ads Testing Tool
Have you got some questions?
You may want to take a look at the common questions on the respective integration's documentation.
- Destination: My CRM Example


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A group of kayakers on the Adams River averted a tragedy after a dog was swept away in the raging river.
On May 18, Haig and Janice Vejprava were hiking the Adams River trail, an area they were very familiar with having been seasonal North Shuswap residents for the past 15 years. Hiking with them was Ivory, a two-year-old white lab.
Haig said after the trio encountered another hiker and her dogs at the top of a hill near the trail system's parking lot, Ivory bolted down a steep cliff and ended up being swept into the fast-flowing water of the river and out of sight.
Haig and the other hiker, Jennifer Neilly, sprinted downstream hoping to find the dog washed up on shore, but had no luck.
Related: Man dies after dive into Adams River
The search for the dog continued. Neilly contacted the rangers at Roderick Haig-Brown Park, but their search of likely landing points downstream was in vain. The RCMP and Scotch Creek/Lee Creek Fire Department were contacted. She also met a group of teachers from Salmon Arm, who also abandoned their hike to assist with the search.
Some searchers heard Ivory howling, and soon the dog was located on a small clearing at the base of a steep cliff near where she was pulled into the river. Onlookers then tried to keep the dog calm for four hours as a rescue was planned. Fire Chief Mike Engholm returned to the Scotch Creek Fire Hall for rappel equipment, but Haig said a rappel rescue attempt seemed daunting as there were no trees to properly anchor the equipment.
As day turned to early evening, desperation grew and then there was a chance encounter with Emily Boyes, a whitewater kayaker who had lost her kayak upstream. She was walking back down the trail looking for the lost boat when she came upon the situation and offered up another option for rescuing the dog. Boyes had already enlisted the help of friends and fellow kayakers Maison Cavaliere and Luke Robinson to search for her lost kayak. The search for the kayak was abandoned and a rescue attempt was launched.
The three kayakers entered the river upstream of Ivory and headed to the tiny clearing she had climbed onto. Cavaliere pulled his kayak alongside the tiny shelf of land the dog was clinging to, climbed out and attempted to calm the barking dog down. He was soon successful, but the task ahead was perilous.
The rescuers quickly decided that the only way to get the dog to safety would be for Cavaliere to get in the raging river and swim with Ivory to the safety of the eddy at the Adams River bridge. With the other kayakers providing support to make sure man and dog didn't get swept into the middle of the river, both made the swim to safety.
Haig said they are thankful for everyone involved in the rescue, especially the kayakers, but are also grateful to everyone who assisted, from those who helped contact the fire department to people who bought bottled water for the searchers.
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Today would have been the ninety-second birthday of JoAnn Rothbard.
James Tift Champlin (1811–82) was born in Colchester, Connecticut. He enrolled at Brown University in 1830, where the president, Francis Wayland, greatly impressed him.
Wayland was a staunch defender of private...
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Whatever happens with the virus, the real story, the real historical change, is probably economic. Abenomics—Japan's ultra-Keynesian experiment—seems to be dead.
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In 1983, Joe Biden sponsored legislation that gave federal agents nearly unlimited powers to seize assets from private citizens.


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King Mesha of Moab fought against the kings of Yisrael, Yehuda and Edom (2 Melachim chapter 3). The navi Elisha prophecies, under oath, that the Jews will be successful. However at the end of the chapter Mesha sacrifices his son (or perhaps the son of the king of Edom) which somehow causes a reversal of fortune with Mesha and Moav remaining undefeated.
This story is puzzling. What has Mesha achieved in killing his son? He was not commanded to do so by God, in fact it violates one of the 7 noachide laws. This is equally true if he killed the son of the Edomite king. Why then would God turn things in his favor as a result of this act? Furthermore the navi already said there would be victory. We have a principle that a positive prophecy will not be revoked.
How do we understand these turn of events?