White House holds back Clinton papers

The White House has not turned over thousands of pages of documents from the Clinton administration to a commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks even though the records are relevant to the panel’s mission, one of Clinton’s attorneys said Apr. 1.

Bruce R. Lindsey, who represents the former president on records issues, said that the Bush administration has turned over about 25 percent of the nearly 11,000 pages of Clinton records that custodians had determined should be released to the commission investigating the terrorist attacks. Lindsey said that, as a result, the commission may not have a full picture of the Clinton administration’s anti-terrorism efforts.

Al Felzenberg, spokesman for the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, said there may be a range of explanations, from duplicate records to disagreements about the relevance of some records. (Washington Post)

Millions more travelers to US face fingerprints and photos

The Department of Homeland Security announced on Apr. 2 that it planned to require travelers from 27 industrialized nations, including longtime allies like Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Japan, and Australia, to be photographed and electronically fingerprinted when they arrive in the United States.

Asa Hutchinson, an undersecretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said intelligence reports indicated that terrorists might take advantage of the loophole that allows travelers from Europe and other industrialized nations to travel to the United States with little scrutiny.

The program will be in effect by Sept. 30 at 115 airports and 14 seaports around the nation. Only diplomats, Canadians, and Mexicans carrying border cards, which are typically used for 72-hour visits to the United States, will be exempt from the new rules.

The new decision would extend that requirement to tourists from 22 European countries and Brunei, Singapore, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. (New York Times)

CDC: Mercury-laced shots OK for kids

Hundreds of thousands of infants and toddlers who get flu shots starting this fall could be exposed to a mercury-laced preservative that has been all but eliminated from other pediatric vaccines because of health concerns.

This year, flu shots are being added to the government’s recommended list of vaccines that should be given to all young children. The CDC’s decision, made despite pleas from parent activist groups and some experts, appears to be at odds with recent federal warnings about exposure to mercury, a potent neurotoxin, and with the government’s successful effort to see mercury removed from other childhood vaccines. The mercury-free flu vaccine will be more expensive — by roughly $4 per shot. Some experts said there was a greater risk in infants and toddlers failing to be vaccinated against the flu because of a shortage than in their being vaccinated with shots containing mercury. (San Francisco Chronicle)

Two arrested for feeding homeless

The arrests of two young men who joined a group feeding the hungry in a downtown park in Tampa, FL have reignited debate about the city’s attitude toward the homeless.

Mark Parrish went to Tampa’s Massey Park on Mar. 21 for a picnic-style gathering of Food Not Bombs, a group that promotes feeding the homeless. The 24-year-old Tampa man ended up arrested by city police on a trespassing charge.

James Dunson, 19, was arrested with the same group on the same charge. He also was warned not to trespass for a full year on city park or recreation property for the purpose of feeding the homeless.

Like other city parks, Massey doesn’t have restrooms or facilities needed to host homeless feeding programs, Mayor Pam Iorio said. “It’s not appropriate that our public parks be places of food distribution.”

Tampa drew criticism last fall when Iorio stepped up enforcement at parks. Opponents accused her of trying to run out the homeless. She argued she had a duty to make the city a place where everyone felt comfortable. (The Tampa Tribune)

HMOs may gain right to prevent patient suits

Patients risk losing their right to sue HMOs when their failure to pay for “ordinary care” leads to injury or death, as US Supreme Court justices signal they may side with Aetna Inc. and Cigna Corp. in overturning a Texas law which protects patients against HMO negligence.

Should this legislation pass, HMOs will bear no legal responsibility for patients who become ill, miscarry or die due to the HMOs refusal to adequately pay for medicine, hospital stays, or medical tests.

In 2001, President Bush opposed a bill which would have given patients a broad right to sue their health insurers, arguing that it would drive up health care costs.

Several studies have suggested, however, that the rising cost of health care is not driven by malpractice suits.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Aetna donated $299,000 to Republican campaigns in 2000, and Cigna donated $263,374. (The New Standard)

Peltier lawyers ask for FBI probe

The Leonard Peltier Legal Defense Committee has asked the House Committee on the Judiciary to investigate the activities of FBI agents and informants in conjunction with activities on the Pine Ridge Reservation in the 1970s.

The Committee has specifically requested hearings on FBI informants who may have acted outside the scope of their authority which incited groups to violent acts and caused divisive activity within some organizations.

While those hearings take place, the Peltier lawyers want the committee to include an investigation of any agent provocateur that worked against the American Indian Movement from 1968 until today, especially during the period known as the “reign of terror” of 1973 - 1976.

Peltier is serving two consecutive life sentences for the deaths of two FBI agents in 1975 on the Pine Ridge Reservation. He continues to maintain his innocence and claims he has been incarcerated beyond the normal probation limits without proper hearings. (Indian County Today)

Big paydays continue for Wall Street chiefs

As investor outrage over executive compensation rattled corporate boardrooms last year, some companies changed the way they set pay for their top officers. But the message apparently did not register on Wall Street, where chief executives like Sanford I. Weill of Citigroup and E. Stanley O’Neal of Merrill Lynch collected their biggest paychecks ever in 2003 -- $44 million and $28 million.

Companies that reduced the pay of their chief executives despite healthy performances included MetLife, American Express, and the MBNA Corporation. MBNA joined a trend by saying it would curtail the use of stock options. But at Bear Stearns, the big Wall Street investment bank, James E. Cayne received three times as much in stock options as he did the year before. Over all, Cayne received $27 million last year compared with $19.6 million in 2002. (New York Times)

Powell admits Iraq evidence mistake

In Feburary of 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell told the UN Security Council that Iraq had developed mobile laboratories for making biological weapons.

On Apr. 2 he conceded that information “appears not to be... that solid.”

The claim failed to persuade the Security Council to back the war, but helped sway the US chief weapons inspector in Iraq, David Kay, who now says he does not know whether Iraq ever had a mobile weapons program.

No evidence of weapons of mass destruction has emerged in Iraq since the invasion.

Previously, Powell has only said that he does not know if he would have backed the invasion had he believed Iraq did not possess banned weapons.

Powell refered to several intelligence sources on the alleged mobile labs during his Security Council speech, but at least two have been questioned in recent weeks. News organizations have reported that US intelligence officials considered one source unreliable even before Powell’s speech. (BBC)

Watergate aide: Cheney running shadow government

Thirty-one years ago John Dean -- Nixon’s legal counsel -- began cooperating with prosecutors into the Watergate burglary, revealing the inner workings of the most secretive and manipulative administration in American history.

In Dean’s newly published book Worse than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush, he “testifies” against President Bush and Vice-President Richard Cheney, accusing them of trumping his former boss when it comes to political sharp practice.

He accuses them of willfully misleading Congress over the nature of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein before the war in Iraq, and of “stonewalling” over inquiries into the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

Much of the blame for the White House style, he suggests, lies with Cheney, who is “by nature a secretive man” who “wants to turn the clock back to pre-Watergate styles of Imperial Presidency.”

He cites the “outing” of Valerie Plame, a CIA officer whose husband, Joe Wilson, rejected administration claims that Saddam had attempted to buy uranium from Niger. (Telegraph (UK))