Big Sky Cairn

It seems odd that a law that has become as controversial as Real ID (at least in Montana) passed with such popular margins in Congress (100-0 in the Senate, 368-58 in the House). Why?

Our borders and immigration system, including law enforcement, ought to send a message of welcome, tolerance, and justice to members of immigrant communities in the United States and in their countries of origin. We should reach out to immigrant communities. Good immigration services are one way of doing so that is valuable in every way-including intelligence.

It is elemental to border security to know who is coming into the country. Today more than 9 million people are in the United States outside the legal immigration system. We must also be able to monitor and respond to entrances between our ports of entry, working with Canada and Mexico as much as possible.

There is a growing role for state and local law enforcement agencies. They need more training and work with federal agencies so that they can cooperate more effectively with those federal authorities in identifying terrorist suspects.

All but one of the 9/11 hijackers acquired some form of U.S. identification document, some by fraud. Acquisition of these forms of identification would have assisted them in boarding commercial flights, renting cars, and other necessary activities.

Recommendation: Secure identification should begin in the United States. The federal government should set standards for the issuance of birth certificates and sources of identification, such as drivers licenses. Fraud in identification documents is no longer just a problem of theft. At many entry points to vulnerable facilities, including gates for boarding aircraft, sources of identification are the last opportunity to ensure that people are who they say they are and to check whether they are terrorists.

And this one too:

For terrorists, travel documents are as important as weapons. Terrorists must travel clandestinely to meet, train, plan, case targets, and gain access to attack. To them, international travel presents great danger, because they must surface to pass through regulated channels, present themselves to border security officials, or attempt to circumvent inspection points.

In their travels, terrorists use evasive methods, such as altered and counterfeit passports and visas, specific travel methods and routes, liaisons with corrupt government officials, human smuggling networks, supportive travel agencies, and immigration and identity fraud. These can sometimes be detected.

Before 9/11, no agency of the U.S. government systematically analyzed terrorists’ travel strategies. Had they done so, they could have discovered the ways in which the terrorist predecessors to al Qaeda had been systematically but detectably exploiting weaknesses in our border security since the early 1990s.

We found that as many as 15 of the 19 hijackers were potentially vulnerable to interception by border authorities. Analyzing their characteristic travel documents and travel patterns could have allowed authorities to intercept 4 to 15 hijackers and more effective use of information available in U.S. government databases could have identified up to 3 hijackers.32

Looking back, we can also see that the routine operations of our immigration laws-that is, aspects of those laws not specifically aimed at protecting against terrorism-inevitably shaped al Qaeda’s planning and opportunities. Because they were deemed not to be bona fide tourists or students as they claimed, five conspirators that we know of tried to get visas and failed, and one was denied entry by an inspector. We also found that had the immigration system set a higher bar for determining whether individuals are who or what they claim to be-and ensuring routine consequences for violations-it could potentially have excluded, removed, or come into further contact with several hijackers who did not appear to meet the terms for admitting short-term visitors.33

Our investigation showed that two systemic weaknesses came together in our border system’s inability to contribute to an effective defense against the 9/11 attacks: a lack of well-developed counterterrorism measures as a part of border security and an immigration system not able to deliver on its basic commitments, much less support counterterrorism. These weaknesses have been reduced but are far from being overcome.

Recommendation: Targeting travel is at least as powerful a weapon against terrorists as targeting their money. The United States should combine terrorist travel intelligence, operations, and law enforcement in a strategy to intercept terrorists, find terrorist travel facilitators, and constrain terrorist mobility.

Remember that 9/11 Commission Report? Turns out that among the central recommendations of this report was something like Real ID. That’s where those excerpts are taken from.

Look, liberals love to set their standards way above federal minimums. Except, apparently, when it’s a matter of national security.

Of course, by now everyone knows that Harry Reid was lying to Montana when he promised Jon Tester a seat on the Appropriations Committee. It was a strange offer though if you think about it, because the bread and butter of an appropriator is the earmark and Jon Tester told Montanans that he didn’t like any earmarks at all. But I digress.

Two of our favorite blogs have weighed in:

Jack has a great post up about Tester on earmarks 14 months after taking office. Go read it. Watch the video.

Tester’s vote against the moratorium on earmarks is quite a different view than he had back in 2006 when he was running for the U.S. Senate, and that is a fact.

And then Montana Headlines had this commentary to add.

So why isn’t the vigilant Montana press doing this kind of homework, and asking hard questions of Sen. Tester? Why doesn’t the Gazette article mention Tester’s constant beating of the drum against earmarks in his campaign challenge to Burns?

I particularly enjoyed the statements that MH wrote for Tester for the sake of accuracy. Go take a look.

Rack this one up to media bias.  Yes, Rehberg voted for Real ID.  It’s all over the papers and in every news story about Baucus and Tester.  Usually the article also mentions that Renberg changed his position on the law after the state unanimously passed legislation refusing to comply.

So I find myself wondering why, in every article I’ve read about Baucus and Tester opposing Real ID, there is absolutely no mention of how Baucus voted.  It seems like in an article about their opposition to a law, it would be relevant to know how they originally voted when that law was made.  And I figure the reporters know it’s relevant because they mention Rehberg’s support for the law even when the story isn’t about Rehberg at all.  But Baucus’ press release probably didn’t have that information in it, and as busy as it gets, it was probably too much work to determine if he ever supported Real ID.  After all, its not like anyone would try to use this as a political issue.

Fear not dear readers; I did the 2 minutes of research on Google.  Turns out, that like 99 of his colleagues in the Senate, including the other Senator from Montana, Max Baucus voted for Real ID.  Doesn’t that seem newsworthy to you?

I’ve hypothesized before that Senator Jon Tester is violating Senate Ethics rules in the process of conducting a Senate Ethics Audit to determine whether or not  he is violating Senate Ethics rules.  That would be kind of problematic for him since the whole point of the audit is to show Montana how ethical he is.  Anyway, check this out.

So the problem I have is with the nature of the service being provided Tester - or more accurately the cost of the service.  As I’ve pointed out before, John Sheehy is doing the audit work for free.  Trouble is those pesky ethics rules that gave Tester the nails to crucify Conrad Burns with also have something to say about certain work being done for free.  They call it an in-kind contribution and it is prohibited.

Senate Rule XXXVIII (38) is a prohibition of unofficial office accounts.  Sounds unrelated, except that the Senate Ethics Manual (pdf) has this to say about Interpretive Ruling 443 (from page 105).

‘‘Senate Rule 38 prohibits unofficial office accounts, that is, private supplementation of expenses incurred in connection with the operation of a Member’s office and the activities of a committee as well. Thus, private contributions of money or private, in-kind contributions of goods or services for official purposes are prohibited by Senate Rule 38.”

Of course, there are exceptions for work centered around the legislative process - the drafting, debating and enacting of laws.  We don’t want to prevent a Senator from soliciting expert advice.  But when it comes to the administrative aspects of running of an office - the stated goal of Tester’s audit - it’s pretty clear:

As stated in Committee Interpretative Ruling 444 interpreting Rule 38, however, neither official nor officially related expenses, goods, or services used in the operation of a Senator’s office may be provided or paid for by private parties. This rule provides a broad prohibition on the use of private resources to do the work of a Senate office.

So what’s the big deal?  I mean obviously Tester is trying to do the right thing, right so why rake him over the coals with an ethics manual so darn antiquated that they say “XXXVIII” instead of “38″?

The reason that in-kind contributions are forbidden is that they establish a tit-for-tat relationship between the provider of the gift and the men and women elected to hold tremendous power on our behalf.  Anyone with an elementary grasp of persuasion or sales knows that giving someone something for free puts them into a debtor situation where social norms drive them to return the favor - often times at a rate much greater than the initial gift.

The concern is that by accepting free services from Sheehy, Tester is putting himself and his staff in a situation where they may feel indebted to him.  That’s the problem with “special interests” isn’t it?  That individuals exercise more influence than Joe or Jane Montana.  So unless you have something you can give or provide for Senator Tester, I’d be a little worried about that fact that it took less than a year for Jon to settle into the you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours culture.

I wrote before on Tester’s public relations stunt to hunt out his own impropriety.  From the Gazette:

“We’re going to look and see what Judge Sheehy has to say about it, and we’ll respond from there,” Tester said. “If he finds problems, we’ll address them. If not, that’s good for us.”

Here’s my question.  Since Senator Tester has promised to make the results of the audit public, won’t be an awful lot of pressure to keep any “problems” out of the report.  I mean, I can’t see him publicizing a point-by-point description of his ethical lapses.  That would be sort of like doing opposition research for them.  For this kind of report to be helpful, Tester would have to keep the report private - at least at first - so that his auditor can be honest with potential violations.  Publicize that the audit is happening and take the results seriously.

Asked if he expected criticism because of Sheehy’s past political ties, Tester said, “I really don’t. Judge Sheehy was a very fair, honest guy and a distinguished Supreme Court justice.”

Hahaha.  Haha.

Okay, but seriously, I still think Sheehy is making in-kind contributions to Tester.

Via The Western Word, comes Jon Tester’s first annual ethics self-audit. In theory I think this is a great idea, but I also think it would be a lot more useful if the results stayed private. When you publicize them you create one hell of an incentive to audit through rose-colored glasses. It becomes nothing but a publicity stunt.

And not a very smart one. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Retired Justice John “Skeff” Sheehy of Helena, a Democrat, agreed to perform the audit. He will look at hundreds of documents at no charge and submit a written evaluation to Tester by April 15, if possible.

I wonder who is going to determine whether the Sheehy’s generosity constitutes an illegal in-kind contribution?