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When Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud Qosi, a Sudanese detainee at Guantanamo Bay, was arraigned Thursday he refused to accept legal representation and informed the military court that he would boycott future proceedings. In a “rambling statement” he told the judge, “I leave in your hands the camel and its load for you to do whatever you wish.” (LA Times)

An advisory panel of scientists has slammed the Environmental Protection Agency’s Administrator Stephen Johnson for ignoring its advice and implementing air quality standards that fail to protect public health. When Johnson lowered the allowable ozone levels that are considered healthy (from 80 parts per billion to 75 parts per billion) 345 counties nationwide were deemed to be in “violation of the federal air quality standards for ozone, commonly known as smog.” (AP)

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates apologized to Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) after Gates told Levin he must be confused for believing that the Pentagon was still involved in the physical reconstruction business in Iraq. Levin had received a letter from the Pentagon discussing an allocation of $600 million in reconstruction aid, yet Gates mistakenly told Levin that the money must have been for something else. After receiving a note from an aide that confirmed Levin’s understanding, Gates admitted that “[T]here are actually things that go on that I don’t know about.” (Politico’s “The Crypt”)

And in the same line of questioning with Sen. Levin and the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gates said he doesn’t hold out hope for getting troop levels in Iraq down to 100,000 by 2009, despite the past prospects he’s had on the subject. (ThinkProgress)

The Justice Department’s inspector general has announced that his report on the FBI’s role in interrogations of prisoners in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay has been delayed by the Pentagon for months. The Pentagon is still determining what parts of the inspector general’s report must remain classified. (McClatchy)

Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) is speaking out against the recently publicized sexual assaults against U.S. contractors in Iraq. Nelson, who believes that ”American women are vulnerable not only to assault, but to achieving justice,” has been pressuring the Bush administration to take action in cases in which U.S. citizens are sexually assaulted by contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. (McClatchy)

Environmental groups argue that the United States Forest Service’s new regulations are a “parting gift from the Bush administration to the timber industry” because they allow for a “complete gutting of the provisions to protect wildlife.” (New York Times)

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), has sent letters to the Dept. of Defense and the State Dept. demanding information on how 22-year-old Efraim Diveroli was able to attain almost $300 million in defense contracts through his company AEY Inc. The lack of oversight in the contracting process allowed Diveroli to send faulty ammunition to American troops in Afghanistan. (The Hill)

The Center for Responsive Politics has found that expenditures on lobbyists set a record in 2007 when they reached $2.79 billion. The biggest spenders on lobbyists include health care interests, Wall Street, the real estate industry, and insurers. (Reuters)

Speaking of lobbying, four years later and Greenberg Traurig still feels the ripple effect of their former employee, disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Greenberg is now trying to resolve false billing charges with the U.S. territory of Guam, which Abramoff lobbied for while working for the Miami-based firm. Abramoff allegedly tacked on travel expenses to Guam’s bill, violating the firm’s contract with the territory. (Law.com)

Though former Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT) lost re-election in part because of his ties to lobbyists such as Jack Abramoff, Burns registered as a lobbyists just weeks after becoming eligible to do so. Burns will be working for the American Quarter Horse Association, a group that supports the slaughter of wild horses. “The issue of wild horse slaughter was important to Burns” while he served in the Senate. (AP)

Since 2006, the Project on Government Secrecy has attempted to standardize rules for how and what government information is classified, and what constitutes harm if classified information is leaked. The study found that the three levels of classification set up by Executive Order 12958 provided no common understandings of “Confidential,” “Secret” and “Top Secret,” and that “the definitions of ‘national security’ and what constitutes ‘intelligence’ — and thus what must be classified — are unclear.” (Washington Post)

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