Protest: Police stand by while thugs attack shackdwellers in Durban, South Africa

Protest: Police stand by while thugs attack shackdwellers in Durban,  South Africa.

The poorest and most marginalized people in South Africa, the large number of homeless shackdwellers, have been been attacked again outside of Durban, South Africa, while police stood by and did nothing. This is the latest of many government-inspired and police-inspired attacks on South African shackdwellers, whose crime is demanding a decent life.  Please sign the open letter of protest to South African President Jacob Zuma.

One leader's kitchen after the attacks

The most recent attack on residents of the informal Kennedy Road settlement occurred on September 27.  A group of about 40 men heavily armed with guns, bush knives and even a sword attacked a meeting of the Kennedy Road Development Committee (KRDC) in the Kennedy Road community hall. There was no warning and the attack was a complete surprise.  The men who attacked were shouting: ‘The AmaMpondo are taking over Kennedy. Kennedy is for the AmaZulu,” reminiscent of racist slogans of the Apartheid era.  Some people were killed, many were very seriously injured.  It was later discovered that they had destroyed 15 houses belonging to people on or connected to the KRDC.  The police were called but they did not come.  When the attack happened one officer from Crime Intelligence was there in plain clothes.  The following morning, the police arrived and made eight arrests, only members of the Kennedy Road Development Committee (KRDC).  None of the perpetrators has been arrested. This is not the first time that this movement has been attacked.   Read more of this report. Other reports say that later, senior ANC leaders and police were present and did nothing to prevent the same gang from demolishing and burning homes of the Kennedy Road leadership.  Read more of this report. (More background information is below.)       

Please sign the open letter of protest to South African President Jacob Zuma. It reads:

We the undersigned are scholars, activists, supporters and veterans of the struggle for a free South Africa from around the world. We celebrated the end of apartheid with you, and have worked with you for the building of a genuinely democratic South Africa.

It is for this reason that we write to you with grave concern following recent events at the Kennedy Road Shack Settlement in Durban. Reports from the informal settlement of seven thousand people indicate that horrors reminiscent of Apartheid’s darkest years are currently being perpetrated – armed thugs have killed members of the freely elected local development committee and destroyed their houses, with slogans dripping with the language of ethnic cleansing, such as “The AmaMpondo are taking over Kennedy. Kennedy is for the AmaZulu”.

With these words of hate, members of the development committee have been hunted and, in at least one case, killed. What appalls us most about these attacks is that they appear to be happening with the support of local police and politicians. At the time of writing, reports indicate that local ANC branch executives and members of the Sydenham police force are in attendance, and doing nothing to halt the ongoing violence in the settlement. Further, it appears that members of the development committee, some of whom had been absent from the settlement during the attacks, have been targeted and arrested by the Sydenham police force.

Some of the signatories to this letter have personally experienced illegal political harassment by the Sydenham police in the past, and have witnessed their ruthless political intolerance towards the Abahlali baseMjondlo Shackdwellers Movement, of which the Kennedy Road Development Committee is a part. Many more of us have had the great pleasure of meeting leaders from the shackdwellers’ movement. All of us have been deeply impressed by the deep democratic and progressive commitments of the residents of Kennedy Road.

Under such circumstances, it is entirely inappropriate to rely on the Sydenham police to enforce the rule of law, and we appeal to your office to demand:

*an end to the violence in the shacks
*an end to arbitrary detention of innocent people
*an independent and transparent enquiry into the relationship between the Sydenham police and the continued violence
*an independent and transparent enquiry into the relationship between the violence and senior members of the local ANC branch present at the scene
*the arrest and prosecution of those responsible for these horrific attacks
*full restitution to those harmed in the violence
*and an undertaking that these tragic events be not used as a pretext for further hardship enforced on South Africa’s poorest citizens.

We have witnessed the great promise of South African democracy, and we hope that you will bring the full force of your office to protect it in this dark hour. As once before, the world is watching South Africa, to see how  democracy can triumph over fear.

Sincerely

Raj Patel, a long-time advocate and author of Stuffed and Starved writes:

TESTIMONY

Dear Members of the International Media

Like many of you, we fought and protested against the injustices of the Apartheid regime in South Africa, and celebrated the fall of that monstrous government in 1994. As South Africa prepares to host the 2010 World Cup, we write to you in grief and horror at the return of some of the most horrific tactics of that era, directed at South Africa’s poorest citizens.

We have worked for years with shack dweller communities living in South Africa, communities of people too poor to live in townships, who have waited patiently for the South African government to bring the dividends of housing, water, education, healthcare, employment and food to them. They have waited in vain – with levels of human development that are now lower than in 1994, South Africa has overtaken Brazil as the country with the widest gap between rich and poor, and now is the most unequal society in the world.

In response, some communities have organized to protest against their government, using the freedoms enshrined in one of the most open and supportive constitutions to be found in any modern democracy. For this, they have been punished.

On Sunday night, at one of the hubs for this civil society organizing, men from outside the settlement armed with knives, machetes and even a sword, descended on a shack community in Durban called “Kennedy Road”, a road named after the US president, and adjacent to a large municipal dump. These men chanted slogans of racial hatred – demanding that the Kennedy Road shack settlement be for Zulus only. This ethnic chauvinism is anathema to the shack settlements – in the xenophobia that swept South Africa earlier this year, the Kennedy Road shack settlement was free of these sorts of attacks.

The police were called, and when they finally arrived, they looked on as the attacks continued for several more hours. After the bloodbath, they moved in and arrested the community leaders.

On Monday morning a huge police presence descended on the settlement as the local ANC councillor and the provincial minister for Safety and Security arrived. They announced that the local organizers had been driven out of the settlement. After the politicians left so did the police. The settlement was left in the hands of groups of armed men.

The future for the poorest residents of South Africa is grim. Faced with an ethnic hatred engineered by the ANC, they have tried to produce a genuinely democratic politics. And they have been killed, arrested and made homeless.

International support is crucial in order to prevent further violence, and to ensure justice for the shack dwellers. In just 24 hours, hundreds of people from around the world have signed a petition to the South African President, Jacob Zuma, insisting that he take action (at the time of writing over 600 people had signed the petition) . We hope that you’ll be able to support this effort to bring international scrutiny to the South African government, to hold it to the great promise offered by the end of Apartheid, by signing the petition below, and by sharing this news with your colleagues. If you’d like to know more, contact details are below, and we’d also be happy to answer any questions.

Sincerely,

Nigel C. Gibson
Director,
Honors Program
Emerson College
PHONE: 617 824 8769

Raj Patel
Visiting Scholar
Center for African Studies
UC Berkeley
CELL: 510 717 0953

Cc: Jacob Zuma, President South Africa; Sepp Blatter, President FIFA.

MEDIA CONTACTS IN SOUTH AFRICA (if you are calling from outside South
Africa, the international dialing code is +27, and the first 0 is
dropped).

The following members of the Kennedy Road Development Committee may be
available for comment if they have not been arrested:

Mzwakhe Mdlalose: 072 132 8458
Anton Zamisa: 079 380 1759
Bheki Simelane: 078 598 9491
Nokutula Manyawo: 083 949 1379

Mnikelo Ndabankulu, the elected media liason person for Abahlali
baseMjondolo, 097450653. If you can’t get Mnikelo you can also try:

Louisa Motha 0781760088
Shamita Naidoo 0743157962
Mashumi Figlan 0725274600
Philani Zungu 0729629312
S’bu Zikode 0835470474

Other local contacts who might be useful:

Kerry Chance at kerrychance@gmail.com may have video footage
Richard Pithouse at indianocean77@gmail.com

SOURCES:

http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5181018
http://hdrstats.undp.org/indicators/147.html

For some back ground on the shack dwellers’ organization see the
Abahlali.org website and also:

Michael Vines, “Shantytown Dwellers in South Africa Protest Sluggish
Pace of Change,” New York Times, December 25, 2005.

“The View from the Shacks” The Economist, April 8, 2006

For statements about the attacks see:

“Democracy Under Attack: A Statement by Bishop Rubin,” available at
http://abahlali.org/node/5783

“The ANC Has Invaded Kennedy Road,” by S’bu Zikode (President of
Abahlali baseMjondolo) whose house was destroyed in the attack on the
shack settlement, available at
http://abahlali.org/node/5784

Kennedy Road Development Committee (KRDC) Emergency Press Release,
Sunday 27 September 2009 available at
http://abahlali.org/node/5770

BACKGROUND

After decades of valiant resistance, the racist South African Apartheid regime was overthrown.  Tragically, the new government left banks and international finance in control of the country, where, in John Pilger’s words,

“The US, the British and the World Bank made it clear that South Africa would be “welcomed into the global economy” on condition that its new government pursued orthodox, “neo-liberal” policies that favoured big business, foreign investors, deregulation, privatisation and, at best, offered a “trickle down” to the majority who were to be shut out of the economy.”

As a result,  living conditions for most working-class blacks are actually worse,  in terms of employment, opportunities for youth, access to electricity and water, and, most particularly, housing.   As Raj Patel points out, South Africa has overtaken Brazil as the country with the widest gap between rich and poor, and now is the most unequal society in the world.  Decent, affordable housing for all had been one of the highest hopes for the new government, but instead, vast shanty-towns have developed around major cities.   In terms of services like employment, water, sanitation, and electricity, these shanty-towns are completely neglected by the African National Congress government.  Instead, the ANC considers the shanty-town inhabitants a threat and has been trying to displace them for years.  The shanty-town inhabitants have organized themselves into a new movement, The South African Shackdwellers’ Movement (Abahlali baseMjondolo).   As its website explained in mid-2006:

The Abahlali baseMjondolo (Shack Dwellers) Movement began in Durban, South Africa, in early 2005. Although it is overwhelmingly located in and around the large port city of Durban it is, in terms of the numbers of people mobilised, the largest organisation of the militant poor in post-apartheid South Africa. …(It)  grew quickly and now includes tens of thousands of people from more than 30 settlements. In the last year and a half the movement has suffered more than a hundred arrests, regular police assault and ongoing death threats and other forms of intimidation from local party goons. It has developed a sustained voice for shack dwellers in subaltern and elite publics and occupied and marched on the offices of local councillors, police stations, municipal offices, newspaper offices and the City Hall in actions that have put thousands of people on the streets. …  The movement’s key demand is for ‘Land & Housing in the City’ but it has also successfully politicised and fought for an end to forced removals and for access to education and the provision of water, electricity, sanitation, health care and refuse removal as well as bottom up popular democracy. (Introduction to Abahlali baseMjondolo) (You can see photos and videos of their actions here.)

Read “From the South African Shackdwellers: We are the Third Force”

Also read “Struggle Is a School: The Rise of a Shack Dwellers’ Movement in Durban, South Africa”

Why Afghanistan? It’s pipelines, not terrorism.

San Francisco Gray Panthers Newsletter, October 2009

Why Afghanistan?

Afghanistan lies in the path of a new proposed gas pipeline

In a nod to reality on the ground, the Obama administration put clearing al Qaeda from Pakistan high on the list of 46 benchmarks for tracking success in the war in Afghanistan. There are 68,000 US combat troops, 40,000 NATO troops, and 74,000 mercenaries in Afghanistan, with more expected to come. If al Qaeda has moved to Pakistan, why don’t the troops follow them?

One answer, rarely talked about in the US media, is—you guessed it!—oil and natural gas, this time in the Caspian Basin, and a planned pipeline that would carry natural gas from land-locked Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan, where it could be shipped to the West. To accomplish this, a strong centralized government willing to make deals with the West is needed, hence the attempts to prop up Hamid Karzai with US/NATO military assistance against the Taliban and war lords and with fraudulent elections.

Will this plan succeed? Probably not, given the Afghan opposition. Taliban attacks increased 59% in the first five months of this year over the same period last year. Death tolls are rising. Billions of dollars have already been spent. Bruce Riedel, a 30-year CIA veteran and adviser to four presidents, said, “Anyone who thinks that in 12 to 18 months we’re going to be anywhere close to victory is living in a fantasy.”

NO MORE ENERGY WARS!

ObamaCare Takes Form: Race to the Bottom vs. Our Aspirations

SF Gray Panthers Newsletter, October 2009

ObamaCare Takes Form: Race to the Bottom vs. Our Aspirations

SB 810 is a Single Payer bill for California.

In spite of recent news that 45,000 die each year in the US from lack of insurance, it’s clear that business and government want healthcare “reform” to control their costs while protecting and stabilizing the profits of the insurance, drug, and hospital industries. It’s not about providing everyone with comprehensive, affordable healthcare, let alone equal healthcare! It’s about forcing everyone to buy private insurance, with little assurance the insurance will cover them, or be affordable. It’s déjà vu of the bank bail-out; insurance companies will clean up. And forget undocumented workers.

Reducing healthcare costs for government and corporations is top priority. The House’s HR 3200 says half of the $1 trillion 10-year cost would come from savings in Medicare. Obama’s health speech said most of his $900 billion plan would come from savings in Medicare and Medicaid. And Max Baucus’ Senate Finance Committee plan doesn’t require any payment from companies that don’t offer insurance, unless the workers qualify for the skimpy government assistance.

Business and government are unwilling to do the things that could really control costs: (1) eliminate private health insurance with its outrageous profits and administrative costs (single payer), (2) negotiate drug prices and hospital charges, and (3) put doctors on salaries so their practices are no longer businesses with built-in incentives to either over-treat us or under-treat us.

So how do they plan to save at least $400-500 billion over ten years? Obama talks about eliminating the overpayments to HMO-based Medicare Advantage plans, which is good, but CBO estimates this will save only $150 billion. Obama talks about preventive and primary care, comparing drugs and treatments for effectiveness, systematic care of chronic disease, and electronic medical records. These would give better care, but don’t save much money, say knowledgeable experts.

Other suggested Medicare savings include an independent agency to set doctor and hospital rates; and encouraging or forcing doctors, hospitals, and nursing homes into accountable care organizations that would receive lump-sum payments for patients’ procedures like hip replacements or cardiac surgery, and be rewarded for cost savings and meeting care standards. HR 3200’s Medicare-friendly provisions, like eliminating major cuts scheduled for Medicare doctors, eliminating co-pays and deductibles for preventive care, reducing the Part D doughnut hole, and increasing Part B and D premium assistance, may be lost as Senator Baucus’ cheaper plan becomes the center of negotiation. However, without single payer, negotiated drug and hospital prices, and salaried doctors, the Medicare savings these plans need would require ending Medicare’s “entitlement” status; its budget would no longer grow automatically as enrollment increases. This is a major threat.

Even as Obama, Baucus, and Pelosi assure us that single payer is off the table, people continue to demand it. Obama officials, who organized the huge Sept. 2   rally at San Francisco City Hall for the public option, were openly hostile to the many people with single payer signs, asking some to move so as to “not block the view.” But the people whom the Obama officials brought to the rally loved the single payer signs, and cheered the people carrying them (including Gray Panthers).

Many public option supporters really wanted Single Payer.

Whatever private-insurance-based plan is chosen, it will neither provide care nor contain costs, as the Massachusetts plan shows. Meanwhile we must demand the plan include the Kucinich amendment so states can have their own single payer plans. This struggle will continue.

Limbaugh calls racism “inborn”, calls for segregated buses

During Katrina, we saw hundreds of blacks being allowed to die, and hundreds of thousands of blacks being driven out of their homes,  and public housing, schools, and healthcare shut down.  If this had happened during the 1960s and 1970s, dozens of US cities would be in flames, and rightly so.  The cold-blooded racist murder of Oscar Grant by BART police would have produced the same response.  As long as these racist attacks go unanswered, we can expect this step-by-step escalation of ideological and physical attacks to continue.   It will get particularly bad when immigration comes up for debate, and you can get a fore-taste when you see Obama and anti-immigrant racists trying to out-do each other in saying undocumented immigrants will be denied healthcare under their plans for “near-universal” healthcare.

AlterNet,  September 17, 2009

In a remark extraordinary even by the standards of his show, Rush Limbaugh said explicitly, Wednesday that the United States needed to return to racially segregated busing.

Limbaugh’s Racist Shocker: “We Need Segregated Buses”

In a remark extraordinary even by the standards of conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, the right-wing radio heavyweight declared on his program Wednesday that the United States needed to return to racially segregated buses.

Referring to an incident in which a white student was beaten by black students on a bus, Limbaugh said: “I think the guy’s wrong. I think not only it was racism, it was justifiable racism. I mean, that’s the lesson we’re being taught here today. Kid shouldn’t have been on the bus anyway. We need segregated buses — it was invading space and stuff. This is Obama’s America.”

A full transcript of Limbaugh’s comments on his radio show is available at MediaMatters.org.

Limbaugh’s comments came after a called complained to say that local law enforcement said the attack probably wasn’t racially motivated. The incident had been hyped by the conservative Drudge Report, which posted a video of the fracas.

“Police initially said the beating of the white student by two black students appeared to be racially motivated,” the Associated Press wrote. “But police on Tuesday backed away from that.”

That didn’t stop Limbaugh from making his comments Wednesday.

“In Obama’s America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, ‘Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on,” Limbaugh also said. “I wonder if Obama’s going to come to come to the defense of the assailants the way he did his friend Skip Gates up there at Harvard.”

“White Americans are racists who have created what they call free markets that really just enslave the rest of America and her trading partners,” Limbaugh also mocked. “I mean, it was white Americans that ran off Van Jones. No, look, let’s just follow Eric Holder’s advice and not be cowards about all this. Let’s have an open conversation, an honest conversation about all of our typical white grandmothers. You had one, I had one. Obama had one. They’re racists just like our students are. ACORN — hey, nothing but racism fueling the pursuit of ACORN.”

Limbaugh also suggested that racism itself was acceptable.

“If homosexuality being inborn is what makes it acceptable, why does racism being inborn not make racism acceptable?” the talk show host asked. “I’m sorry — I mean, this is the way my mind works. But apparently now we don’t choose racism, we just are racists. We are born that way. We don’t choose it. So shouldn’t it be acceptable, excuse — this is according to the way the left thinks about things.”

NY Times David Brooks exposes rotton underside of Obama health speech

HR 3200, the House health measure, is fatally flawed by its reliance on private insurance companies, but whatever value it might have had was thrown out the window by Obama’s health speech.  Obama simulataneously said that health “reform” could not add a dime to the federal deficit, yet taxes could not be raised to cover additional expenses.   Half of HR 3200′s $1 trillion in ten-year expenses are to come from additional taxes on incomes above $350,000, but Obama stated that “Reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this ($900 billion) plan.”

Where will these Medicare/Medicaid savings come from?  Obama has talked about eliminating the overpayments to HMO-based Medicare Advantage plans, a good thing, but the Congressional Budget Office estimates this ten-year saving as about $150 billion.   But what about the rest?  Preventative and primary care,  comparing drugs and treatment for effectiveness, systematic care of chronic disease, and electronic medical records give us better care, but don’t save much money.  And measures that could save big money are off the table: getting rid of insurance companies (Single Payer),  government-negotiated drug, procedure,  and hospitalizetion prices,  and putting doctors on salaries so there is no incentive to over-treat us (or under-treat us).

So as Brooks says, Obama’s formulation of no increased deficit and no increased taxes means “health reform” is now open to all possible cost-containment plans to strip it down to a shadow.  This is probably fine and responsible in Brook’s conservative eyes, but at least he’s done us the service of removing whatever illusions about Obama that might still exist.

New York Times, September 11, 2009

Op-Ed Columnist

The Dime Standard

By David Brooks

On Wednesday night, Barack Obama delivered the finest speech of his presidency. The exposition of his health care views was clear and lively. The invocation of Teddy Kennedy was moving and effective. The rumination at the end about the American character and the role of government was the clearest summary of Obama’s political philosophy that he has yet given us.

Best of all for those of us who admire the political craft was the speech’s seductive nature and careful ambiguity. Obama threw out enough rhetorical chum to keep the liberals happy, yet he subtly staked out ground in the center on nearly every substantive issue in order to win over the moderates needed to get anything passed.

First, Obama rested the credibility of his presidency on what you might call the Dime Standard. He was flexible about many things, but not this: “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits — either now or in the future. Period.”

This sound bite kills the House health care bill. That bill would add $220 billion (that’s 2.2 trillion dimes) to the deficit over the first 10 years and another $1 trillion (10 trillion dimes) to the deficit over the next 10 years.

There is no way to get from the House bill to deficit neutrality. The president’s speech guarantees that the more moderate Senate Finance Committee bill will be the basis for the negotiations to come.

The Dime Standard also sets off a political cascade. Since the Congressional Budget Office is the universally accepted arbiter in such matters, the Democrats have to produce a bill that the C.B.O. says is deficit-neutral, now and forever. That means there will be a seller’s market for any member of Congress, Republican or Democrat, who has a credible amendment to cut costs. It also means the Democrats will have to scale back coverage and subsidy levels to reach the fiscal targets.

Second, the president accepted the principle of capping the tax exemption on employer-provided health benefits. The specific proposal he embraced is a backdoor and indirect version of the cap. But what’s important here is the movement and the concession on principle. Soon moderates and Republicans will produce amendments to impose a cap directly. These amendments will credibly raise revenue and reduce costs. The administration will now have no principled argument to reject them.

Third, the president accepted the principle of tort reform to reduce the costs of defensive medicine. Once again, the specific proposal Obama mentioned is trivial. The important thing was the concession on principle. There are already amendments being drawn up to create separate malpractice courts and to otherwise reform the insane malpractice system. The president is going to have a hard time rejecting these amendments just because they might reduce campaign donations from tort lawyers to the Democratic National Committee.

Fourth, the president introduced the public option to its own exclusive Death Panel. As Max Baucus has said, the public option cannot pass the Senate. On Wednesday, the president praised it, then effectively buried it. White House officials no longer mask their exasperation with the liberal obsession on this issue.

Fifth, the president also buried the soak-the-rich approach. The House Ways and Means Committee came up with a plan to raise taxes on the rich to pay for health reform. That’s dead, too. Health reform will be paid for by changes within the health care system. The president underlined his resolve to cut $500 billion from Medicare and Medicaid. This is a courageous move that moderates appreciate.

Finally, people in the administration and moderates in Congress would like to beef up the “game changers.” These are the wonky but important ideas like bundling hospital payments and increasing price transparency that might lead to a more efficient system down the road.

In short, the president can read the polls just like anybody else. He has apparently recognized the need to pull back to get something passed. He is, characteristically, trying to rise above old divisions in search of a pragmatic sweet spot. He has opened up many opportunities for intelligent Republicans and moderate Democrats to constructively offer amendments to improve the bill and bring it closer to fiscal sanity.

Which is not to say that this is effective health reform. The only risible parts of the speech came when Obama said that parts of the system work (they don’t; they’re unsustainable) and when he said he would be the last president to take on health care (we still await a president willing to take on fundamental perversities in the system).

For whatever reason, President Obama has decided not to be that president. He has decided to expand the current system, not fix it. His speech on Wednesday, and the coming legislative changes, make it much more likely he will achieve his goal.

Read the text of the Obama speech

Obama Backs Extending Patriot Act Spy Provisions

Wired, September 15, 2009

Obama Backs Extending Patriot Act Spy Provisions

The Obama administration has told Congress it supports renewing three provisions of the Patriot Act due to expire at year’s end, measures making it easier for the government to spy within the United States.

In a letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Justice Department said the administration might consider “modifications” to the act in order to protect civil liberties.

“The administration is willing to consider such ideas, provided that they do not undermine the effectiveness of these important authorities,” Ronald Weich, assistant attorney general, wrote to Leahy, (.pdf) whose committee is expected to consider renewing the three expiring Patriot Act provisions next week. The government disclosed the letter Tuesday.

It should come as no surprise that President Barack Obama supports renewing the provisions, which were part of the Patriot Act approved six weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

As an Illinois senator in 2008, he voted to allow the warrantless monitoring of Americans’ electronic communications if they are communicating overseas with somebody the government believes is linked to terrorism. That legislative package, which President George W. Bush signed, also immunized the nation’s telecommunication companies from lawsuits charging them with being complicit with the Bush administration’s warrantless, wiretapping program. That program was also adopted in the wake of Sept. 11.

These are the three provisions due to expire:

*A secret court, known as the FISA court, may grant “roving wiretaps” without the government identifying the target. Generally, the authorities must assert that the target is an agent of a foreign power and/or a suspected terrorist. The government said Tuesday that 22 such warrants — which allow the monitoring of any communication device — have been granted annually.

*The FISA court may grant warrants for “business records,” from banking to library to medical records. Generally, the government must assert that the records are relevant to foreign intelligence gathering and/or a terrorism investigation. The government said Tuesday that 220 of these warrants had been granted between 2004 and 2007. It said 2004 was the first year those powers were used.

*A so-called “lone wolf” provision, enacted in 2004, allows FISA court warrants for the electronic monitoring of an individual even without showing that the person is an agent of a foreign power or a suspected terrorist. The government said Tuesday it has never invoked that provision, but said it wants to keep the authority to do so.

“The basic idea behind the authority was to cover situations in which information linking the target of an investigation to an international group was absent or insufficient, although the target’s engagement in ‘international terrorism’ was sufficiently established,” Weich wrote.

The American Civil Liberties opposes renewing all three provisions, especially the lone wolf measure.

Michelle Richardson, the ACLU’s legislative counsel, said in a telephone interview, “The justification for FISA and these lower standards and letting it operate in secret was all about terrorist groups and foreign governments, that they posed a unique threat other than the normal criminal element. This lone wolf provision undercuts that justification.”

The committee hearing is set for 10 a.m. Sept. 23 and will be webcast live.
See Also:

• FBI Use of Patriot Act Authority Increased Dramatically in 2008 …
• Bloggers, TV, Go Nuts Over Misleading ‘Patriot Act’ Arrest Claim …
• FBI Tried to Cover Patriot Act Abuses With Flawed, Retroactive …
• FBI Targets Internet Archive With Secret ‘National Security Letter …
• Judge Orders FBI to Turn Over Thousands of Patriot Act Abuse …
• FBI Misuses, Underreports Patriot Act Power: Audit
• Court Strikes Down Key Patriot Act Power Again