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Tyler Drumheller

Do you still believe the Bush administration?

Click here.

At that meeting, Drumheller says, “They were enthusiastic because they said, they were excited that we had a high-level penetration of Iraqis.”

What did this high-level source tell him?

“He told us that they had no active weapons of mass destruction program,” says Drumheller.

“So in the fall of 2002, before going to war, we had it on good authority from a source within Saddam’s inner circle that he didn’t have an active program for weapons of mass destruction?” Bradley asked.

“Yes,” Drumheller replied. He says there was doubt in his mind at all.

“It directly contradicts, though, what the president and his staff were telling us,” Bradley remarked.

“The policy was set,” Drumheller says. “The war in Iraq was coming. And they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy, to justify the policy.”

Drumheller expected the White House to ask for more information from the Iraqi foreign minister.

But he says he was taken aback by what happened. “The group that was dealing with preparation for the Iraq war came back and said they’re no longer interested,” Drumheller recalls. “And we said, ‘Well, what about the intel?’ And they said, ‘Well, this isn’t about intel anymore. This is about regime change.'”

Josh Marshall has it covered.
Plus C&L.

Apple argues that blogger can't protect source

An interesting case for Apple, and for bloggers:

Apple has sued several unnamed individuals, called “Does” (as in “John Doe” and “Jane Doe”), for allegedly leaking the information. According to the EFF, as part of the lawsuit, Apple has subpoenaed Nfox, the ISP for PowerPage publisher Jason O’Grady, demanding that the ISP turn over the communications and unpublished materials O’Grady obtained while he was gathering information for his articles. Apple was also granted permission to issue subpoenas directly to PowerPage and AppleInsider for similar information.

A trial court ruled last year that if a journalist publishes information that a business claims to be a trade secret, this act destroys constitutional protection for the journalist’s confidential sources and unpublished materials.

Bloggers not immune from libel laws

Karyn Harty, the lady lawyer who sent out press releases earlier this month, has a guest article in today’s Irish Times. It seems to be a little more carefully worded in relation to the difference between an ISP and a host, but some of it still puzzles me.

Unlike their US counterparts, Irish ISPs do not enjoy any immunity under Irish law at present and generally take a constructive approach if pressed, although they will often seek to deny liability initially.

Where material that has been posted is plainly defamatory it is usually possible either to persuade them to close down the website or remove the offending content.

The Defamation Bill is expected to leave scope for companies like ISPs to be held liable for defamation, but there needs to be a serious debate about the extent to which we should make it harder for someone defamed on the internet to remove offensive material or close down websites.

For most people affected by internet libel, the priority is action rather than compensation. The stick that forces ISPs to act as the law currently stands is the potential for litigation. If that is diluted, people defamed on the internet may be left much worse off.

I have to ask again, in what way can an Irish ISP be forced to remove content from a foreign host? Perhaps what she is getting at is that the ISP could be forced to disclose the IP address of a customer that has been checked against the logs of a host and found that they correlate. In this way the identity of a person could be discovered.

She notes earlier:

Of course, in the huge, complex world of the web, tracing the writer of a defamatory comment is a lot more difficult than finding an article in a newspaper.

However, it is possible to trace offending bloggers with a bit of perseverance and lawyers often find that a formal complaint to the website host or internet service provider (ISP) and to the administrator of the website will lead to the removal of the offending material, without the need for litigation.

She seems to suggest that this is obviouslya good thing. Good, perhaps, for a person who feels wronged, but not good for freedom of speech. It simply means that the material was contested and the host folded at the first sign of a legal battle. It does not necessarily mean the material was libelous. I guess it’s a good thing for lawyers too, those letters do cost money.

As Dick noted, “McCann FitzGerald are flagging themselves as the go-to guys on internet libel. If someone does feel they’ve been libelled by a blogger, here’s a firm advertising itself as knowing what they’re talking about.”

The Cost of War

Jonathan Weisman at the Washington Post has an interesting article on the increasing cost of the war in Iraq. The rate of spending is enormous:

Cost of war

The cost of the war in U.S. fatalities has declined this year, but the cost in treasure continues to rise, from $48 billion in 2003 to $59 billion in 2004 to $81 billion in 2005 to an anticipated $94 billion in 2006, according to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. The U.S. government is now spending nearly $10 billion a month in Iraq and Afghanistan, up from $8.2 billion a year ago, a new Congressional Research Service report found.

One can imagine that if the disengagement happens as planned, the costs may peak at $100 billion a year.

Via Steve.


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