French author Bernard-Henri Lévy hit the road - with a chauffeur and an itinerary facilitated by his client "The Atlantic Monthly". His purpose: retracing the steps of Tocqueville and taking the pulse of democracy in America. The result: "American Vertigo", a soliloque of quick notes and rhetorical questions. Published in English before it will be released in French next month, it is meant to offer a "mirror" to Americans, says "BHL", the glamour branded philosopher.
As he skewers the cliches of anti-americanism in France, American critics are puzzled and flustered by the snippets of americana he chooses to explore the national psyche. Cooperstown, Las Vegas, Alcatraz? Therein lies the difficulty of this exercise that seeks to capitalize on the (relative) fame that his previous book, a 'reality fiction' on the assassination of Wall Street correspondent Daniel Pearl, has earned him in the United States.
To the French, BHL needs to justify his confidence in the American experience with anecdotical and analytical evidence - preferrably on somewhat familiar ground.
To the American, he wants to show that he understands their idiosyncrasies and the nuances of their culture.
He just might end up satisfying neither, no matter how brilliant his stylish gliding through the American political and cultural landscape.
He has not helped his cause by incarnating a caricature of himself on his blitz publicity tour: the "celebrity" playboy, describing in purposely 'shocking' terms his affair with America. Which is of course perfect for BHL, the casual philosopher - his vertigo is a the quickie.

"It was designed where you expect it to be designed, in the NSA", says George Bush, defending his warrantless eavesdropping program. Now, that is completely reassuring, isn't it? Just as the president saying "I have no doubt in my mind that it is legal", while saying at the same time that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act dates back to 1978 "and it is now a different world". Or, the president saying he does not need or want a new law.
As a matter of fact, it turns out he was offered one in 2002, and turned it down... for fear of the enemy suddenly getting a clue that the U.S. services might be spying on them. "Why tell the enemy what we're doing?", he asks. Why tell anyone, seems more like the modus operandi of this administration.

Diplomatic language translates with wild variations, depending on which side of the Atlantic one stands. The report on extraordinary renditions just released by Dick Marty, a center-right representative in the Council of Europe, is the latest example of the divide.
Dismissed in the U.S. as nothing new, it does confirm that over 100 extraordinary renditions were organized with stops in Europe. It clearly points out how the denials by State secretary Condoleezza Rice are non denials.
It also debunks the diplomatic outrage expressed by European governments: they had to know that those flights were taking place - or at least their intelligence services had to know, and then why wouldn't they know? Dick Marty wants to know.

Fun with words. First, there was the "war on terror" that was "a different war" - that is, without a defined ennemy, time or space. Now there is the domestic spying program that is a "terrorist surveillance program", and its logic that domestic laws cease to apply once anyone on the US terroritory is engaged in communications with an overseas party.
None of this explains why retroactive warrants can not be obtained, as the Foreign intelligence surveillance act allows for, within 72 hours of the deemed "urgent need" to spy on specific conversations or data exchanges. Or why, if this is not practicable, a change in the law was not offered.
There is just one word that never changes, in the administration's vocabulary: 9/11. The attacks could have been prevented, the White House even suggested, had the warrantless eavesdropping been authorized. Except for the fact, of course, that the U.S. services had failed to sort out and interpret the massive information already at their disposal.

The Bush administration really cares about the right to privacy, especially when it applies to the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Some of them might in the future face the death penalty in that island of legal limbo, thanks to a discreet provision tucked in a new military regulation regarding executions. However, their families will not suffer any embarrassement due to the revelation of their identities, if the Bush administration can help it. It had opposed the release of any name on 558 tribunal transcripts obtained by the Associated Press. The agency sued, and won in front of a federal juge. The administration should announce this Wednesday if, as expected, it will appeal this ruling that would - in small measure - lift a bit of the secrecy surrounding Gitmo.

Harry Belafonte was the darling of the media, but you would never had known that he opened the last sessions of the International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity committed by the Bush administration, last Friday. The comments that received all the attention was his speech at the Assocation of Performing Arts Presenters on Saturday.
Was this the eternal lesson in how one word ("the new Gestapo of Homeland Security") obliterates all else? Assuredly. But, had that word not been pronounced and ceased upon, what are the odds the even a line - let alone the short articles also quoting the performer as saying that "you can be arrested, and not charged. You can be arrested, and have no right to counsel" - would have been published?

The surveillance is targeted, says General Michael Hayden, the former head of the National Security Agency and current deputy director of national intelligence. Probably not the best choice of words, in a military man's mouth, given the recent recent history of "targeting". The general clarified that, shortly after 9/11, he was told that a program of warrantless surveillance was authorized.
That's what President Bush classifies as "tactics", explaining that Congress did not prescribe those when it gave him "the authority to use necessary force to protect American people".
That reference, presumably, would be to the use of force in Aghanistan, and later in Iraq. The conveniently confused label of the "war on terror" did not seem to impress Congress to the point that it would relinquish all constitutional garantees. Conditions for monitoring and surveillance were greatly facilitated by the "Patriot Act", and with a system of accelerated and confidential court authorization. Those courts were immediatley criticized for being mere rubber-stamps, but no senator or congressman has yet volunteered that he knowingly supported a system of warrantless surveillance.
The president insists that Congress was briefed, and that "all kinds of lawyers" reviewed the process - those same lawyers, possibly, who created a unique system of courts and detention outside of any national or international legal precedent. Secrecy, absence of oversight or rescourse: the thinking is similar and, once again, it was done "to protect the American people". They are supposed to trust the president, and not those pesky civil liberties organizations now demanding an investigation in the matter. But as George Bush started his persuasion campaign, most Americans thought it a good idea to have an independent look into the matter. Trust, but verify?

"You can't build security on evil", said Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, borrowing his rhetoric from the administration he hopes to help indicte.
He was testifying in front of the International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration.
He detailed the logic of "plausible deniability" after the CIA and MI6 received intelligence from allies in the "war on terror" that practice torture.
Alarmed by the information he had personally gathered from victims of torture in Uzbekistan, the ambassador complained about the use of such intelligence - bad intelligence, he adds. He was summoned back to London, where he was informed this was legal - provided the British did not do the torturing themselves, or requested that a specific individual be tortured.
This operating principle of "don't ask, don't tell" permits denials, such as those voiced by State secretary Condoleezza Rice, questionned by the European Union about the policies of "extraordinary renditions" and the existence of secret CIA prisons outside of the United States.
Asked about the US delivering prisoners to be interrogated in Uzbekistan, Craig Murray stated that he was only aware of ethnic Uzbeks "rendered" to the local authorities during his tenure in the country.
Other witnesses at these final hearings included former Abu Ghraib commander Janis Karpinski, now retired from the Army, and Barbara Olshansky, from the Center for Constitutional Rights. They dissected the public and secret policies that instituted a regime of detention and torture that violates national and international law, including the Geneva Conventions.
The International Commission, organised by "people of conscience" with the stated goal to "fuel and frame" a necessary discussion, does not limit the scope of its inquiry to war crimes and human rights violations in the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the "war on terror". It also charges the Bush administration with crime and violations in reference to its actions on global warming, reproductive rights, and its response to huricane Katrina. 

Facing the rap on a night out? No smile will change the mind of the "BioBouncer" - the facial recognition device to be tested at New York clubs next month, according to NY1. If the biometrics scan determines a match with the database of "undesirables" compiled by the clubs, entry will be denied.
In the land that prides itself on not having a national identity card, mundane activities such as getting into a bar or a club ressemble more and more getting on a plane, post 9/11: ID check, no smoking, expensive drinks - and would you please kindly leave your common sense at the door. Everyone is a suspect. Technology and data collection will capture all, with predictable unreliabily.
When 51% of Americans do not think that their government is going too far by spying on them without any court authorization, this is obviously neither the most surprising, nor the most worrisome.