Don't Let Arabs Sign Our Paychecks!

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush said Tuesday that a deal allowing an Arab company to take over [the operation of] six major U.S. seaports [from a British company] should go forward and that he would veto any congressional effort to stop it.

Opposition appears to be based more in fear and pandering than genuine policy concerns. As the President explained:

"I want those who are questioning it to step up and explain why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard than a Great British company. I am trying to conduct foreign policy now by saying to the people of the world, 'We'll treat you fairly.'"

...

"This is a company that has played by the rules, has been cooperative with the United States, from a country that's an ally on the war on terror, and it would send a terrible signal to friends and allies not to let this transaction go through," the president said after emerging from his helicopter on the South Lawn.

The basic criticism is essentially guilt by association:

Critics have noted that some of the 9/11 hijackers used the UAE as an operational and financial base. In addition, they contend the UAE was an important transfer point for shipments of smuggled nuclear components sent to Iran, North Korea and Libya by a Pakistani scientist.

Similar observations could be made about many countries, including the U.S., without refusing to do business with them. The UAE, however, is also an important ally and business center:

U.S. warships regularly dock at Dubai's Jebel Ali Port, which is also managed by DP World, and the emirate became the first Middle Eastern port city in 2004 to sign a U.S. pact aimed at deterring the use of shipping containers for terrorism.

The UAE provides logistical support for some U.S. military operations in the region, including Afghanistan. The Gulf Arab state, an OPEC oil producer, is negotiating a free trade agreement with the United States.

There is a more reasonable reaction than blocking the takeover. The port authorities should have some say over who they do business with:

[Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich] and New York's George Pataki, also a Republican, have indicated they may try to cancel lease arrangements at ports in their states because of the DP World takeover.

The Washington Times explains what "operating" a port really means and interviewed actual Baltimore port workers (rather than posturing politicians):

Work at the port will continue to be performed by unionized longshoremen under the deal in which state-owned Dubai Ports World of the United Arab Emirates purchased London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. for $6.8 billion.

P&O provides stevedoring and terminal operating services at Baltimore's Seagirt and Dundalk Marine terminals, the largest of the Maryland Port Administration's seven terminals, and at five other U.S. seaports.

The company also hires the terminal work force and ensures cargo is delivered or shipped at the port. It employs about 65 workers at the Port of Baltimore who handle mostly containerized cargo.

The U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Customs and Border Protection provide security... Port operators "just make sure every ship and every truck is unloaded," said Mike Bowden, president of International Longshoremen's Association Local 1459.

...

"I don't think it will affect me," said a 61-year-old longshoreman in an orange jumpsuit, who stopped by the same Citgo station to buy a stack of lottery tickets yesterday evening. "Everybody coming through on the ships are foreigners already.

"They have to go through customs and all that. ... It's the same ship, just somebody different who owns it."

As workers rolled out of the port at the end of their shift, one longshoreman, who also didn't provide his name, summed up the situation: "Nothing is going to change for us, man."

Rich Galen draws a useful analogy to explain port operations:

...the cable news programming geniuses have been talking about the US outsourcing "port security" to Dubai.

This is like saying the company which operates your local airport - which is to say it decides how much you pay for parking and where in the terminal the Starbucks will be located - is responsible for airline security.

It isn't.

Nor will DP World be responsible for port security. That remains with Customs and the Coast Guard...

Want to know what's really behind all this?

It's an even numbered year and we are 253 days from election day.

It's not about port security; It's about incumbent security.

Misunderstanding how ports work has spawned many false-premised reactions and editorials, like the Washington Post's "Wanna Buy a Port?" which begins "We're selling our harbors to an Arab government." Then there's an overly-emotional and less than factual letter reported by the AP:

"In regards to selling American ports to the United Arab Emirates, not just NO - but HELL NO," conservative Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., wrote Bush in a terse letter on Wednesday that she also posted on her Web site.

No matter that no American port is actually being sold, Bush faces a spreading rebellion among Republicans, Democrats and port-state governors.

(The Washington Post quoted Myrick's letter without pointing out the false statement.)

Allegations of "anti-Arab bias" do not seem misplaced:

Meanwhile, Arab-Americans have said that the focus on the Dubai company is based on anti-Arab feelings rather than security concerns. "I find some of the rhetoric being used against this deal shameful and irresponsible," said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, "There is bigotry coming out here." He accused politicians of exploiting fears left over from the 9/11 attacks to gain advantage in an election year. "Bush is vulnerable so the Democrats jump on it. The Republicans feel vulnerable so they jump on it. The slogan is, if it's Arab, it's bad. Hammer away" he said.

Meanwhile, more important issues are being ignored:

But whatever happens, experts in port operations said they feared broader issues about security in the country's docks were being lost in the controversy...

Stephen E. Flynn, a specialist in maritime security at the Council on Foreign Relations, noted that although the company is state-owned, several members of its top management are Americans -- including its general counsel, a senior vice president and its outgoing chief operating officer, Edward H. Bilkey, who is a former U.S. Navy officer. And since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the United States has increasingly depended on such foreign port operators to cooperate in inspecting cargo before it heads for U.S. shores.

"It's a global network at the end of the day that we're trying to secure here," Flynn said. "And that doesn't happen by the United States owning every bit of it. What we should be focusing on instead is the question, are the security standards adequate?"

...

"What I hope for out of this whole debate is that, as Americans suddenly realize most of our marine terminals are managed by foreign-owned companies, they ask, given that that's a reality, how do we secure it?" Flynn said. "I also hope this current situation doesn't lead to a feeding frenzy [against foreign operators], because if we want things to be secure over here, we're going to have to work with foreign counterparts."

With a deeper understanding of how ports operate, it's much harder to defend opposing this deal, which, as Rich Galen described it, was "known to the financial community since November, [and] approved by one of those alphabet commissions which happens to involve SIX Cabinet Departments including Treasury, State, Homeland Security, Commerce, and Justice..." I will be very surprised if opponents decide to use fact-based reasons to stop the transfer. While ports should still be able to reject having a new partner forced on them, I have yet to see a good reason to oppose the takeover entirely.

For more information, check out:
Der Spiegel's overview of the UAE's development and economy
"Background Note: United Arab Emirates" (State Department)
"Ports of Politics: How to sound like a hawk without being one" (Wall Street Journal)
"Security and the Sale of Port Facilities: Facts and Recommendations" (Heritage Foundation)

Lock Up the Court?

Brian Ross at ABC News seems to have a problem Supreme Court justices venturing outside the Beltway:

At the historic swearing-in of John Roberts as the 17th chief justice of the United States last September, every member of the Supreme Court, except Antonin Scalia, was in attendance. ABC News has learned that Scalia instead was on the tennis court at one of the country's top resorts, the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Bachelor Gulch, Colo., during a trip to a legal seminar sponsored by the Federalist Society.

Despite the fact that such seminars are planned well in advance and that Scalia explained this ("I was out of town with a commitment that I could not break"), Ross goes on to pretend to speak for Chief Justice Roberts:

Not only did Scalia's absence appear to be a snub of the new chief justice, but according to some legal ethics experts, it also raised questions about the propriety of what critics call judicial junkets.

The now-deified Justice O'Connor was teaching a class in Arizona on the day her successor, Justice Alito, was sworn in. ABC News has not yet labeled this a "snub."

Then of course there's the fallacious guilt by association:

One night at the resort, Scalia attended a cocktail reception, sponsored in part by the same lobbying and law firm where convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff once worked.

"You know a lot of people would be embarrassed at that. I don't think Antonin Scalia will be embarrassed," Gillers continued.

Should Scalia also be embarrassed to attend White House events because its previous occupant was impeached?

Ross leaves out some interesting details::

• Scalia was at the resort to teach a Continuing Legal Education seminar sponsored by the Federalist Society, as part of a larger meeting of the organization.
• Regular attendance at such seminars is required of lawyers in 46 of the 51 U.S. jurisdictions as a condition of practicing law. They are often held at resorts, because attorneys hate having to amass the necessary credits and combining them with recreation ensures better attendance.
• The seminars are usually taught by prominent members of the bar, and occasionally judges.

And these are not minor seminars:

• Scalia arrived at the resort after 11PM on the first day. On the second day he taught his seminar, attended a reception and dinner, and played tennis. He left at 6:30 AM of the morning after the seminar. This... a late night arrival, a day of participation, and an early morning departure for the airport, is what Nightline referred to as spending "three days" at the resort.
• Justice Scalia's materials for his course were 481 pages long. He taught for 10 hours, all in the one day he actually stayed at the resort.
• How he found the time, not to mention the energy, to play tennis is a mystery.

The basic issue is this:

While there are ethics rules in place for lower federal court judges, there is no explicit code of ethics for the nine Supreme Court justices. Some practices have in turn come under scrutiny, such as accepting trips from groups with political and judicial agenda and gifts from private parties who may at some point have business before the court.

Ron Rotunda, a law professor at the George Mason School of Law, author of a textbook on legal ethics and who is himself a member of the Federalist Society, finds no problem with the Supreme Court justices attending events sponsored by the organization. "I'm a member of the Federalist Society, the NAACP, and the justices get invited to both, and I think that's a good idea," he said. "The organization doesn't have litigation before the judge and is unlikely to have litigation before the judge."

Gifts, including travel, provided to Supreme Court justices are already scrutinized. Other than covering his basic transportation and lodging expenses, Justice Scalia was paid nothing for his efforts. The problem here is the attitude that justices should not be associating with or educating fellow lawyers. Attending lawyers' seminars is simply an extension of the widespread practice of teaching at summer study abroad programs. Or is it less important to have educated practicing lawyers than to provide an excuse for students to study abroad?

It is also hard to see how anyone benefits from a Supreme Court locked away deep inside the Beltway.

A detailed analysis of the issue by a CLE instructor is available at The Ethics Scoreboard.

Lower Standards, Lower Success

The Washington Post reports on minorities taking AP classes and exams, but misses a pretty crucial observation on affirmative action.

Across the Washington region, more black and Hispanic students are participating in highly touted Advanced Placement courses. Now, educators say they have to make certain that those students are not only taking the classes but are succeeding in them.

...

For many years, AP held barriers for minority students, said George P. Arlotto, principal of Wheaton High School in Montgomery County and a former AP teacher. "A lot of schools throughout the country created prerequisites to get into AP classes. Today, we've taken those barriers down. We tell the students, 'If you have the desire, then we want you in the class.' "

...

At Wheaton... the number of students taking the AP exams has grown almost sixfold -- from 46 in 2001 to 247 in 2005. Arlotto said that's partly because educators are making more of an effort to encourage students to take the difficult coursework.

But Wheaton is a prime example of the next phase in AP. Although more students are enrolling, not all are achieving passing scores on the AP exams. In 2005, only 37.4 percent of the students who took an exam scored a 3 -- the minimum passing score -- or better, compared with 67.5 percent in 2001.

So the school lowered its standards, saw a forty-five percent drop in passage rates, and now they're starting to wonder why.

Then there's this meaningless statement:

In Fairfax County, the number [of students taking AP exams ] grew 32.2 percent, but the percentage of black and Hispanic students taking the tests... remained steady at about 9 percent over the five-year period.

I'll avoid reviewing basic math here, but that means that the number of black and Hispanic students taking the exams also increased around 32 percent. The rest of the article is filled with more statistics without any meaningful analysis.

I took four AP exams in high school, only two of which (Calculus AB & BC) were even arguably attached to a high school course. One teacher questioned whether I would be able to pass the other two (U.S. & Comparative Government and Politics) on my own - but I already knew much of the information and learned the rest independently. I passed them all with 4's and 5's (5 is the highest score). Prerequisites should not be an absolute barrier for AP classes, but just whining about diversity and regurgitating statistics doesn't get us anywhere.

The problem that is apparent from this article is one of the fundamental flaws of affirmative action - putting people in educational settings that they would not qualify for on merit, leading to failure and discouragement. The question shouldn't be why some minorities aren't passing the exams, but why they weren't qualified for the classes in the first place.

Fear and Ignorance in the Washington Post

In The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson writes:

Once upon a time we had a great wartime president who told Americans they had nothing to fear but fear itself. Now we have George W. Bush, who uses fear as a tool of executive power and as a political weapon against his opponents.

It's not worth reading beyond this point. The ignorance, whether intended or unavoidable, is too astounding. Robinson embraces the symbolism without substance of attacking one President with another's quotable quote - and he's not alone.

The quote is from Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1933 Inaugural Address, not anytime during World War II. But beyond that, I am stunned that Robinson does not remember the most fear-based act of the Roosevelt administration - the forced internment of tens of thousands of Japanese, Germans, and Italians during World War II - or at least the 120,000 Japanese that were most notable.

Then there was a panoply of war measures - including war bonds, rationing, victory gardens, and salvage drives - but the most fear-inducing would be the predecessors of "duck and cover" in civil defense:

In May 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt created the Office of Civilian Defense (OCD)... By November, all the states and 5,935 towns and cities had set up defense councils... Proclaiming the safest place in an air raid was in the home, [an OCD pamphlet, "What to do in an Air Raid," advised] Americans to stay away from windows and crouch under "stout" tables. The government, with the threat of coastal enemy invasions on its mind, created the Civilian Air Patrol (CAP) whose duties were to patrol the east coast by ship and small plane. In March 1942, by military order, "dim-outs" began. This meant that there were to be no rays of light emitted on the eastern shore and inland for 12-16 miles. These dim-outs, or "blackouts," soon spread across the county and to the west coast. Americans bought yards of blackout curtain material, and magazines offered suggestions on how to comply with the blackout in style: "Bedrooms need not go into mourning," said House & Garden. "Make a blackout shade by seaming together two pieces of fabric, one black and one to match your curtain." Those who did not comply with blackout orders were subject to arrest.

Anyone who makes light of duct tape and plastic sheeting should condemn FDR for blackout curtains.

FDR's wartime message was this: There's nothing to fear but fear itself... and Japs, and Krauts, and death from the air, and death from the sea, death from enemy infiltrators, death by chemical attack, death by vicious rumors, death by sabotage, subversion and disloyalty, and anything unusual.

So Robinson finds a useful contrast between FDR and President Bush? There is one, but not knowing history, he didn't seem to find it. Where are the war bonds? The bomb shelters? Efforts to defend against chemical and biological attack? Americans are not afraid enough.

Oh, if only we could have the peace and serenity of the Second World War again.

--

Update, Feb. 2: The disease of historical ignorance spreads to Virginia's governor.

What Next for Israel?

With Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in critical condition and not expected to return to office, many are asking what will happen to Israel if he cannot return to lead it. Will Israel's next leader continue to pursue the peace and security sought by Sharon's disengagement policies? What about the upcoming national election and Sharon's new political party, Kadima?

With national elections set for March 28, decisions about Kadima's future have been largely frozen during Sharon's health crisis. The party, cobbled together mainly from defectors from Likud and the rival Labor Party, has not selected a candidate list for the elections.

Party unity appeared to receive a boost Sunday when Shimon Peres, the onetime Labor leader and former prime minister, ended his silence about whether he would continue with Kadima or return to his old party by telling Israel Radio that he supported [deputy prime minister] Olmert.

Charles Krauthammer questions the future of Kadima without Sharon:

The problem is that the vehicle for this Sharonist centrism, his new Kadima Party, is only a few weeks old, has no institutional structure and is hugely dependent on the charisma of and public trust in Sharon.

To be sure, Kadima is not a one-man party. It immediately drew large numbers of defectors from the old left and right parties (Labor and Likud), including cabinet members and members of parliament. It will not collapse overnight. But Sharon's passing from the scene will weaken it in the coming March elections and will jeopardize its future. Sharon needed time, perhaps just a year or two, to rule the country as Kadima leader, lay down its institutional roots and groom a new generation of party leaders to take over after him.

This will not happen. There is no one in the country, let alone in his party, with his prestige and standing. Ehud Olmert, his deputy and now acting prime minister, is far less likely to score the kind of electoral victory that would allow a stable governing majority.

Kadima represents an idea whose time has come. But not all ideas whose time has come realize themselves. They need real historical actors to carry them through. Sharon was a historical actor of enormous proportion, having served in every one of Israel's wars since its founding in 1948, having almost single-handedly saved Israel with his daring crossing of the Suez Canal in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and now having broken Israel's left-right political duopoly that had left the country bereft of any strategic ideas to navigate the post-Oslo world. Sharon put Israel on the only rational strategic path out of that wreckage. But, alas, he had taken his country only halfway there when he himself was taken away. And he left no Joshua.

In The Times (London), Tim Hames takes an optimistic view, arguing that 'Ariel Sharon will not be indispensable — he's altered Israel too much':

Kadima might have needed Mr Sharon to start it; it does not, though, require him to maintain it. He may turn out to have been its Moses figure. If he had died or been removed earlier from political life, even in the first half of 2005, it may not have developed as it has.

The dilemma for Israel and the peace process is not that Mr Sharon cannot continue to serve as Prime Minister. It is that there is no equivalent to Mr Sharon in the Arab world. There is no one willing to acknowledge publicly that the Palestinians cannot have all that they might want, just as Israelis cannot have everything they might desire.

There is no one prepared to state what is absolutely obvious, namely that any return to the boundaries of 1967, let alone those of 1948, is a ludicrous notion. There is no one willing to declare openly that not only do those who surround Israel have to recognise its right to exist, but that their societies will thrive only when they begin to emulate the democratic values, economic ingenuity and cultural diversity that explain why Israel’s gross domestic product exceeds that of its vastly more populous neighbours combined.

The Economist arrived in today's mail and its article on the subject had this subtitle: "The death or departure of Israel's superhawk will darken hopes for peace."

It's hard to tell which view will be right. The departure of Sharon will certainly complicate things, the future may depend on the rest of Kadima's leadership. As we wait for updates and the election approaches, we may have to hope that party unity will show Israel that progress can continue without changing to an unknown course.

We're Watching... Your Phone

The New York Times reports:

Most Americans carry cellphones, but many may not know that government agencies can track their movements through the signals emanating from the handset.

In recent years, law enforcement officials have turned to cellular technology as a tool for easily and secretly monitoring the movements of suspects as they occur. But this kind of surveillance - which investigators have been able to conduct with easily obtained court orders - has now come under tougher legal scrutiny.

In the last four months, three federal judges have denied prosecutors the right to get cellphone tracking information from wireless companies without first showing "probable cause" to believe that a crime has been or is being committed. That is the same standard applied to requests for search warrants.

...

Cellular operators like Verizon Wireless and Cingular Wireless know, within about 300 yards, the location of their subscribers whenever a phone is turned on. Even if the phone is not in use it is communicating with cellphone tower sites, and the wireless provider keeps track of the phone's position as it travels. The operators have said that they turn over location information when presented with a court order to do so.

Prosecutors, while acknowledging that they have to get a court order before obtaining real-time cell-site data, argue that the relevant standard is found in a 1994 amendment to the 1986 Stored Communications Act, a law that governs some aspects of cellphone surveillance.

The standard calls for the government to show "specific and articulable facts" that demonstrate that the records sought are "relevant and material to an ongoing investigation" - a standard lower than the probable-cause hurdle.

I'm not sure that cell phone tracking is as big of a problem as "privacy advocates" will claim. It reveals the approximate location of a phone (not necessarily the owner), but not the anything that a search warrant would normally be required for. It's not giving the contents of calls or the contents of homes. The information is essentially the same as (and possibly less accurate than) what could be obtained by following a suspect's public movements.

The magistrate judges, however, ruled that surveillance by cellphone - because it acts like an electronic tracking device that can follow people into homes and other personal spaces - must meet the same high legal standard required to obtain a search warrant to enter private places.

"Permitting surreptitious conversion of a cellphone into a tracking device without probable cause raises serious Fourth Amendment concerns, especially when the phone is monitored in the home or other places where privacy is reasonably expected," wrote Stephen W. Smith, a magistrate in Federal District Court in the Southern District of Texas, in his ruling.

This might make sense if the information revealed more than mere (possible) presence at a location. However, as far as I can tell the information says "suspect may be home" rather than "suspect is in his basement harvesting his marijuana plants."

For the record, the Fourth Amendment (which I do not believe applies here, for lack of search or seizure) states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause...

Congress may need to address the issue more directly, but the 1994 standard sounds most appropriate.

Representation Without Citizenship

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Republican lawmaker on Tuesday proposed changing the U.S. Constitution to exclude non-citizens from the Census for the purpose of drawing congressional districts, a move that effectively would deny them a voice in U.S. politics.

Under the present system, as determined by the 14th amendment to the Constitution, the Census Bureau counts all individuals living in the country once every 10 years. This data is used when drawing up the 435 congressional districts and when determining each state's vote in the Electoral College that decides presidential elections.

Michigan Rep. Candice Miller wants to change that so that both legal and illegal aliens would be excluded.

From Rep. Miller's statement:

"Every 10 years the census determines the number of Congressional districts allocated to each state. If we continue to include illegal aliens in that count, we'll allow others to steal the Congressional voice of American citizens. This is about fundamental fairness and the American ideal of `One Man; One Vote.'"

"A district which has tens or hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants dilutes the voice of citizens in other areas of the nation and enhances that of those who live in such areas," Rep. Miller continued. "In my opinion, that is simply not fair."

Why should anyone be concerned with providing representation to non-citizens? They already have representation - from their embassies.

Supporters of the amendment argue that the presence of non-citizens caused nine seats in the House to change hands between states in 2000.

California gained six seats it would not have otherwise had, while Texas, New York and Florida each gained one seat. Meanwhile, Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin each lost a seat and Montana, Kentucky and Utah each failed to receive a seat they would otherwise have gained...

According to Clark Bensen of Polidata, a Virginia firm which [analyzes] demographic information, excluding non-citizens would have boosted President George W. Bush's margin of victory in the Electoral College from 4 to 12 votes in the disputed 2000 election and from 34 to 42 in 2004.

President Bush would not have even needed to win Ohio in 2004

As the major beneficiary of skewed apportionment, Democrats will oppose the plan. So does a confused former Census bureaucrat:

"The Census Bureau cannot become a quasi-investigatory agency and still perform its basic responsibilities as a statistical agency," said Kenneth Prewitt who headed the agency from 1998 to 2000 and oversaw the last national census.

The basic responsibility of the Census Bureau is to conduct the Census - the Constitutionally mandated decennial enumeration of the population - not to assemble a vast collection of statistics of questionable usefulness. Besides, it's a check-box, not an interrogation.

"Lawful members of our society who pay income, property and sales taxes as well as for your and my Social Security, will ask why they are being denied the earliest and most basic right of our democracy -- political representation," Prewitt said.

Besides the fact that many are not lawful members of society, maybe Mr. Prewitt should explain how foreign nationals get political representation without voting. Why do the citizen neighbors of non-citizens have a right to disproportionate representation? (The tax question is complicated, and not all that relevant, as you can see here.)

And for the most idiotic comment of the day:

Lawrence Gonzalez of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials said the proposal harked back to the days before the abolition of slavery when blacks were only counted as three fifths of a person.

The similarity here isn't what Mr. Gonzalez thinks. Three fifths of black slaves were counted in apportioning Congressional seats, but slaves could not vote. This increased the (white) South's representation in Congress far beyond what it would have been if only citizens were counted. Counting all slaves as citizens for apportionment, but not voting, would have been even worse - granting even more disproportionate representation to the roughly two thirds of Southerners who were allowed to vote. (The South, of course, wanted all slaves to count, but not to vote.) The post-Civil War amendments that now govern Congressional apportionment and voting were written to fully count and give voting rights to former slaves, not to address the problems of illegal immigration or to create Congressional seats to represent foreign nationals.

Aliens, whether legal or illegal, are not and should not be represented in Congress. They cannot vote and their presence is simply used to skew the political map in favor of their voting neighbors. If "representation" of foreign nationals is so important, why don't we just have the Mexican ambassador appoint those six Congressmen from California? Foreign nationals are represented by their ambassadors - and that's a lot more representation than most Americans get.