Unchecked Executive War Power Could Slip Through the House & Blog of Rights: Official Blog of the American Civil Liberties Union

http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/unchecked-executive-war-power-could-slip-through-house

From the page: ” Unchecked Executive War Power Could Slip Through the House

Tucked inside the National Defense Authorization Act, being marked up by the House Armed Services Committee this week, is a hugely important provision that hasn’t been getting a lot of attention — a brand new authorization for a worldwide war.

This stealth provision was added to the bill by the committee’s chairman, Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), but has a bit of a history. It was first proposed by former Attorney General Michael Mukasey in 2008 after the Bush administration lost the Boumediene v. Bush case, in which the Supreme Court decided that federal courts would subject the administration’s asserted law of war basis to hold Guantanamo detainees to searching review. An idea that may have originally been intended to bolster the Bush administration’s basis for holding Guantanamo detainees is now being promoted as an authorization of a worldwide war — and could become the single biggest ceding of unchecked war authority to the executive branch in modern American history.
The current authorization of war provided the constitutional authority for the executive branch to go to war in Afghanistan. Subsequently, it has reportedly been invoked by the executive branch much more broadly to also use military force in Yemen and elsewhere, to justify torture and abuse of detainees, to eavesdrop and spy on American citizens without warrants, and to imprison people captured far from any battlefield without charge or trial.
Before Congress this week, the proposed authorization of a worldwide war goes much further, however, allowing war wherever there are terrorism suspects in any country around the world without an expiration date, geographical boundaries or connection to the 9/11 attacks or any other specific harm or threat to the United States. There have been no hearings on the provision, nor has its necessity been explained by Rep. McKeon or anyone else in Congress. “

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News from The Associated Press

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_JAPAN_EARTHQUAKE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-05-12-08-28-30

From the page: ” TOKYO (AP) — Japan admitted Tuesday it was unprepared for a severe nuclear accident like the tsunami-caused Fukushima disaster and said damage to the reactors and radiation leakage were worse than it previously thought.

In a report being submitted to the U.N. nuclear agency, the government also acknowledged reactor design inadequacies and a need for greater independence for the country’s nuclear regulators.

The report said the nuclear fuel in three reactors likely melted through the inner containment vessels, not just the core, after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant’s power and cooling systems. Fuel in the Unit 1 reactor started melting hours earlier than previously estimated. “

Tepco: Fukushima Fuel Rods Are Fully Exposed – Bloomberg

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-12/japan-suffers-setback-at-fukushima-after-no-1-reactor-s-fuel-rods-exposed.html

From the page:” While authorities have previously suspected a partial meltdown at unit 1, high radiation levels had prevented workers from entering the building to check the damage until last week.

“What this means is this is probably going to be a much more difficult cleanup than they originally planned for,” said Paul Padley, a particle physicist at Rice University in Houston. The government and Tepco “have consistently appeared to be underestimating the severity of the situation.” “

Associated Press

http://hosted2.ap.org/IDMOS/e0478123c3cf489bb836130ffdbd2b5f/Article_2011-05-12-AS-Japan-Earthquake/id-cbe9b9c66d0e476a83106cad8382112f

From the page: ” “The situation (in the core) hasn’t changed since (early in the crisis), and the fuel rods are being cooled by water continuously being injected into the core,” nuclear official Takashi Sakurai said.

Nuclear Industrial and Safety Agency officials said the new data indicates that it is likely that partially melted fuel had fallen to the bottom of the pressurized vessel that holds the reactor core together and possibly leached down into the drywell soon after the March 11 quake and tsunami that struck Japan’s northeastern coast.

While officials said it was unlikely that the chunks of fuel were still dangerously hot or that they could melt through the concrete base of containment vessel, they acknowledged that the level of damage could complicate plans detailed in April to bring the plant to a cold shutdown within nine months. Further examination was needed to ascertain the full extent of damage, they said.

TEPCO had adopted an unorthodox method of trying to cool Unit 1’s reactor by trying to fill the drywell with water leaking from the core, but the possibility that chunks of melted fuel had fallen and damaged part the containment vessel raised questions about how successful this method would be. It also called into question the utility’s timeline for stabilizing the reactor.

“We have to revise the flooding method, as we need to re-examine the way we carry it out,” Matsumoto said.”

Nuclear meltdown at Fukushima plant – Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8509502/Nuclear-meltdown-at-Fukushima-plant.html

From the page: ” Engineers from the Tokyo Electric Power company (Tepco) entered the No.1 reactor at the end of last week for the first time and saw the top five feet or so of the core’s 13ft-long fuel rods had been exposed to the air and melted down.

Previously, Tepco believed that the core of the reactor was submerged in enough water to keep it stable and that only 55 per cent of the core had been damaged.

Now the company is worried that the molten pool of radioactive fuel may have burned a hole through the bottom of the containment vessel, causing water to leak.

“We will have to revise our plans,” said Junichi Matsumoto, a spokesman for Tepco. “We cannot deny the possibility that a hole in the pressure vessel caused water to leak”. “

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