Extra-Credit: Review of the Video
"Fahrenheit 911 Full Movie"

1. In the Supreme Court case of “Gore v. Bush,” Bush was declared the President of the United States.
Explain what really happened during the election.

The Gore v. Bush election in 2000 hinged on the state of Florida, the election was covered in lead by Fox News, ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN all followed Fox’s lead in the announcement of President. The call was made by John Ellis, a freelance political advisor contracted by Fox News to head their election night “decision desk.” Ellis is also first cousin to George W. Bush and Florida governor. By calling the election for his first cousin, Ellis’ involvement was scrutinized for being instrumental in turning Bush’s loss in the popular vote.

Furthermore, the Florida election was held under the supervision of Florida Secretary of state, Katherine Harris, a co-chair of the Bush campaign. This and Ellis’ position at Fox presented an interesting campaign issue: fraud. Ellis announced Bush as the winner of Florida; however, the margin of victory triggered a mandatory recount, the litigation ultimately reached the United States Supreme Court. The Courts decision ended the recounts.

On the day of the joint session both the house of representatives and the senate was to certify the election results, Al Gore in his dual role as Vice President and President of the Senate presided over the event that would officially anointed George W. Bush as the new President. If any congressman wanted to raise an objection the rules state he or she would have to have the signed support of just one Senator.

Not one Representative of the House was able to a written objection signed by one Senator and the U.S. Supreme court anointed George W. Bush as the new president of the United States of America.

2. Who was allowed to leave the U.S. after 9/11?

Absolutely no one was allowed to leave the United States after 9/11; well almost. No one wanted to fly except for the bin Laden family and Saudi’s who wanted to leave to pick up their airplanes. The White House approved planes to pick up Osama bin Laden’s family and other Saudis. There were at least six private jets and nearly and nearly two dozen commercial planes out of the United States after September 11th. In all 142 Saudis (15 out of the 19 hijackers were Saudis), including 24 members of the bin Laden family were allowed to leave the country.

The United States government did not make any attempt to interview or question them; they were simply identified in the airports. Reasoning being was that the family did not have contact with Osama; he had always been portrayed as the black sheep of the family and the family had cut off all relationship in 1994. However, in the summer of 2001, just before 9/11, one of Osama’s sons was married in Afghanistan and several family members showed up to the wedding; indicated they were not cut off completely.

3. Name and explain the statute that was passed as a result of 9/11?

The USA Patriot Act is an Act of Congress that was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001 as a result of 9/11. The USA PATRIOT Act stands for Uniting and Strengthening America by providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism. The Patriot Act was designed to deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the world and to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools (USA Patriot Act, 2001).

The PATRIOT Act made a number of changes to U.S. law. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA), the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA), the Money Laundering Control Act of 1986 and the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), as well as the Immigration and Nationality Act were key acts that changed as result of the PATRIOT Act.

* Title I authorizes measures to enhance the ability of domestic security services to prevent terrorism. The title established a fund for counter-terrorist activities and increased funding for the Terrorist Screening Center which is administered by the FBI.

* Title II is titled "Enhanced Surveillance Procedures", and covers all aspects of the surveillance of suspected terrorists, those suspected of engaging in computer fraud or abuse, and agents of a foreign power who are engaged in clandestine activities. It primarily made amendments to FISA, and the ECPA, and many of the most controversial aspects of the USA PATRIOT Act reside in this title. In particular, the title allows government agencies to gather "foreign intelligence information" from both U.S. and non-U.S. citizens, and changed FISA to make gaining foreign intelligence information the significant purpose of FISA-based surveillance, where previously it had been the primary purpose.

* Title II established three very controversial provisions: "sneak and peek" warrants, roving wiretaps and the ability of the FBI to gain access to documents that reveal the patterns of U.S. citizens. Roving wiretaps are wiretap orders that do not need to specify all common carriers and third parties in a surveillance court order. These are seen as important by the Department of Justice because they believe that terrorists can exploit wiretap orders by rapidly changing locations and communication devices such as cell phones,[46] while opponents see it as violating the particularity clause of the Fourth Amendment.

* The title also covers a number of other miscellaneous provisions, including the expansion of the number of FISC judges from seven to eleven (three of which must reside within 20 miles (32 km) of the District of Columbia), trade sanctions against North Korea and Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and the employment of translators by the FBI.

* Title III of the Act, titled "International Money Laundering Abatement and Financial Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001," is intended to facilitate the prevention, detection and prosecution of international money laundering and the financing of terrorism. It primarily amends portions of the Money Laundering Control Act of 1986 (MLCA) and the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 (BSA). It was divided into three subtitles, with the first dealing primarily with strengthening banking rules against money laundering, especially on the international stage. The second attempts to improve

communication between law enforcement agencies and financial institutions, as well as expanding record keeping and reporting requirements. The third subtitle deals with currency smuggling and counterfeiting, including quadrupling the maximum penalty for counterfeiting foreign currency.

* Title IV amends the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 to give more law enforcement and investigative power to the United States Attorney General and to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).

* Title V allows the U.S. Attorney General to pay rewards pursuant of advertisements for assistance to the Department of Justice to combat terrorism and prevent terrorist acts, though amounts over U.S. $250,000 may not be made or offered without the personal approval of the Attorney General or President, and once the award is approved the Attorney General must give written notice to the Chairman and ranking minority members of the Committee on Appropriations and the Judiciary of the Senate and of the House of Representatives.

* Title VI made amendments to the Victims of Crime Act of 1984 (VOCA) in order to make changes to how the U.S. Victims of Crime Fund was managed and funded. Changes were made to VOCA to improve the speedy provision of aid to families of public safety officers by expedited payments to officers or the families of officers. Under the changes, payments must be made no later than 30 days after the officer is injured or killed in the line of duty.

* Title VIII alters the definitions of terrorism, and establishes or re-defines rules with which to deal with it. It redefined the term "domestic terrorism" to broadly include mass destruction as well as assassination or kidnapping as a terrorist activity. The definition also encompasses activities that are "dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State" and are intended to "intimidate or coerce a civilian population," "influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion," or are undertaken "to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping" while in the jurisdiction of the United States.

* Title IX amends the National Security Act of 1947 to require the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) to establish requirements and priorities for foreign intelligence collected under FISA and to provide assistance to the United States Attorney General to ensure that information derived from electronic surveillance or physical searches is disseminated for efficient and effective foreign intelligence purposes.

* Title X created or altered a number of miscellaneous laws that did not really fit into the any other section of the USA PATRIOT Act. Hazmat licenses were limited to drivers who pass background checks and who can demonstrate they can handle the materials.

* The final Act included a number of sunsets which were to expire on December 15, 2005 (USA Patriot Act, 2001).

4. Who was in the “coalition of the willing”?

The Republic of Palau, the Republic of Costa Rica, and the Republic of Iceland were countries in the coalition of the willing; of which none of them had an army or weapons. There was also Romania, the Kingdom of Morocco; although Morocco wasn’t officially a member of the coalition, they did offer to send 2000 monkeys to help detonate land mines (Fahrenheit 911).

The official public list of the United States’ allies as of March 21, 2003 contained the following 31 countries: Afghanistan, Albania, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom and Uzbekistan (Schifferes, 2003). Additions since then have included: Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Kuwait, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Mongolia, Palau, Portugal, Rwanda, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Uganda (Schifferes, 2003).

5. Explain the relationship between the Vice President and Haliburton and how Haliburton benefitted from the Iraq War and explain a “conflict of interest.”

Halliburton, an oil services company was contacted to deliver the troops in the Middle East with hot meals, supplies, clean clothing and communications. Halliburton won a large contract through competitive bidding in 2001. During this time, Vice President, Dick Cheney had been receiving bonuses from Halliburton, his former company. Under federal ethics law this indicates Cheney had a lingering financial interesting in Halliburton.

Although, it was made prevalent the contract was awarded through competitive bidding; Halliburton did not give a bid. In response to negative attention and accusations the nonpartisan investigative Government Accountability Office, formerly the General Accounting Office reported that the Halliburton subsidiary had been the only company “in a position to provide the services within the required time.” And that the no-bid contract was justified “given the war in Iraq and the urgent need for reconstruction efforts” (Rosenbaum, 2004).
On the question of Mr. Cheney’s income from Halliburton, officials of the Bush-Cheney campaign said that before entering office in 2001, Mr. Cheney bought an insurance policy that guaranteed a fixed amount of deferred payments from Halliburton each year for five years so that the payments would not depend on the company’s fortunes (Rosenbaum, 2004).
In response to an inquiry from Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service reported last year that an official’s deferred salary and stock options could amount to “a continuing financial interest” in the company involved. The report did not mention Mr. Cheney by name or say that such an arrangement was improper. To avoid conflict of interest, a nonpatisian Congressional Research Service said, any official with a continuing interest in a company should include the relationship in public financial disclosure statements, a step Mr. Cheney has taken (Rosenbaum, 2004).
A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation occurring when an individual or organization is involved in multiple interests, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation. The presence of a conflict of interest is independent of the occurrence of impropriety. Therefore, a conflict of interest can be discovered and voluntarily defused before any corruption occurs. A widely used definition is: "A conflict of interest is a set of circumstances that creates a risk that professional judgment or actions regarding a primary interest will be unduly influenced by a secondary interest” (Lo and Field, 2009).

Works Cited

Steve Schifferes, “US says ‘coalition of willing’ grows,” BBC News US Edition, 21 March 2003, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2870487.stm

Rosenbaum, David E. "A Closer Look at Cheney and Halliburton." The New York Times. The New York Times, 27 Sept. 2004. Web. 02 Nov. 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/28/national/28fact.html?_r=0

Lo and Field (2009). The definition originally appeared in Thompson (1993)