Letters to the Editor
Jim White
Published Letters: 1094 Editor's Choice: 15
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I'm not sure what it will accomplish...
[Read the article: Col. Boylan's denial]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]but I just sent the following to Senator Bill Nelson of Florida:
Dear Senator Nelson,
I am writing to bring your attention to a matter of utmost importance to your role as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Early Sunday, Glenn Greenwald, a columnist for salon.com, received an unsolicited email that appeared to have been sent by Col. Steven Boylan, spokesman for General David Petraeus. This email was written in a very unprofessional and argumentative manner. Col. Boylan now denies, through an email published by Greg Mitchell of Editor and Publisher, that he wrote or sent the email to Mr. Greenwald. Interestingly, Mr. Greenwald has developed evidence of similar argumentative emails being sent by Col. Boylan to other members of the press who have published articles that do not flatter General Petraeus.
This matter is worthy of immediate attention by your committee. First, analysis by experts to whom Mr. Greenwald has forwarded the questioned and other known authentic emails from Col. Boylan suggest that the email has all the hallmarks of having been sent by Col. Boylan or from his account and/or computer. That opens the possibility that Col. Boylan is not truthful in his denial and that he has crossed the line of military conduct into blatantly political, abusive behavior.
On the other hand, if Col. Boylan indeed did not write or send the email, then that suggests that the security of the email server he uses has been compromised. One can only imagine the damage that could be done to our country by improper use of this email server to distribute false statements from the chief spokesperson for General Petraeus.
Please start a formal inquiry so that the military email server in question can be analyzed by the appropriate technical staff to determine the origin of the email in question. I would suggest that an independent technician supplied by your Committee be allowed to observe the military technicians conducting the investigation. Once the true origin of the email is determined it can be placed into the broader context of what Mr. Greenwald has already documented to be an extreme politicization of Col. Bolyan's position, wherein inside information placing the Administration in a flattering light is selectively leaked to right-wing publications and blogs while journalists and bloggers who question the Administration are subjected to diatribes bordering on intimidation by Col. Boylan.
Your prompt attention to this matter would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for your service to Florida and our nation.
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Just wondering...
[Read the article: Col. Boylan's denial]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Now that the M$M, in the form of Safire, has officially put Petraeus into consideration for Vice President, isn't it possible that Petraeus has been given an RNC email address? And/or, could Boylan now have one? I doubt that there is a way to confirm this one way or the other, but if it could be shown, this would be much more evidence of politicization of the military.
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Could someone please translate this?
[Read the article: Jay Rockefeller channels Dick Cheney's fear-mongering to urge telecom amnesty]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The bill authorizes case-by-case review in the courts only when the attorney general certifies that a company's actions were based on assurances of legality, and the court is specifically required to determine whether the attorney general abused his discretion before immunity can be granted.
I can't make any sense of what Stupefeller is trying to say here. Does this mean that any actions by a telecom where no "determination" by the Attorney General was given to them is still fair game in court? Given the current Justice Department, however, who would think that there ever would be even a response to an inquiry to the Department on whether they authorized any particular action (secret information, you know)?
Also, there is the little issue of major portions of the Justice Department threatening to resign over just those "assurances of legality" that had been prepared. If Comey, Ashcroft, Mueller and corporate counsel for Qwest all knew that the "assurances of leagality" were worthless, it simply is impossible to believe as, the judge in the EFF case has already ruled, that any company here actually believed that what they were doing was legal.
Okay, so is Idiotfeller trying to say that when assurance was given to the companies, we still can evaluate, on a case-by-case basis if that assurance was legal? We don't have to do that because of the ruling above. We already know it was illegal and you can bet the farm that the same flawed memo was used for "assurance" to each of the telecoms.
This whole move for amnesty is meant to give cover to the telecocms, and as Glenn points out clearly, the government provocateurs who urged them into blatantly illegal acts that still have yet to be disclosed in their entirety. The only route I would see for immunity to civil fines would be for the first (and only the first) telecom to provide a complete accounting, in a closed session of the Senate Intelligence Committee, of exactly what actions were taken and what "assurance" was given.
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About those devastating civil fines...
[Read the article: Jay Rockefeller channels Dick Cheney's fear-mongering to urge telecom amnesty]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In March, 1989, the Exxon Valdez ran aground unleashing a huge environmental disaster. Exxon paid for cleanup and also paid criminal fines.
In 1994, a civil suit resulted in a $5 billion judgement against Exxon. This week, it was announced that the Supreme Court will hear an appeal of that judgement.
That's right, over 18 and a half years later, Exxon has not paid a penny of civil fines.
Link: http://tinyurl.com/2ak2ta
Claiming that civil judgements for warrantless wiretapping against the telecoms will cause them immediate harm is absolute hogwash. They have the ability to string out any judgement in endless litigation just as Exxon has. However, this litigation does entail the possibility that in discovery actual information on the nature of this lawbreaking could come to light. That is what FISA retroactive immunity is all about. These lawsuits, while posing no danger to telecoms financially, pose huge problems to the government and telecoms politically.