"The FBI tried to whitewash illegal uses of Patriot Act surveillance authority that was intended to be used against terrorists and spies but ended up being used against Americans. FBI officials characterized these unlawful acts as "administrative errors," which Fine said "diminishes their seriousness and fosters a perception that compliance with FBI policies... is annoying paperwork."

"The FISA court twice rejected the FBI's request for Section 215 orders because the police were investigating lawful conduct protected by the First Amendment. But after the FBI was rejected, it sent national security letters instead. Fine said the FBI should have re-evaluated the investigation instead."

From a March 13, 2008 story:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9894027-38.html

(or click on signature)

Barnett Rubin

http://icga.blogspot.com/2008/07/rubin-dilemma-of-anti-extremist.html

(or click on signature)

Quote 1:

"The U.S Government's General Accountability Office (which, unaccountably, has continued to operate through the current administration) has issued a report entitled "Combating Terrorism: The United States Lacks Comprehensive Plan to Destroy the Terrorist Threat and Close the Safe Haven in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas." Unlike, say, the "Patriot Act" or the "Protect America Act," in this case the title provides an accurate summary of the contents."

Quote 2:

"Khattak is in fact the provincial head of the Pashtun nationalist party that now governs the Northwest Frontier Province. The government of NWFP has recently appointed him "Pashtun Peace Envoy" for the province, FATA, and Afghanistan, and he is negotiating with the presidency and governor of NWFP (indirectly with the military) over his involvement in policy toward the tribal areas, over which the civilian political leaders have so far had no authority. According to Khattak, one part of the "government of Pakistan" is at war with groups created by another part of the "government of Pakistan." A policy toward "Pakistan" cannot address this problem."

Whatever it may be that Mara Liasson believes, what she's saying is not the truth.

"Saying untruths" or "making false statements" may be more accurate than "lying" but I don't think most people will see the distinction.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080721/melber

or click on the signature.

Includes link

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=6793

of open letter to Obama from the 20+K members of the Obama Vote Right on FISA group.

I really, really like this ad.

Glenn, a very sincere thanks for all your efforts!

I assume it is OK to post this ad. on my blog.

On to the money bomb!

In the meantime, the lawsuits are frozen so that telecoms are spared the terrible burdens from having to account for their behavior in a court of law.

Terrible burdens? Isn't that a justification, however weak, in favor of immunity?

(regarding the use of 'terrible burden' sarcastically)

Thanks, and also sorry - I'm feeling so grim that my sarcasm meter is not working.

There certainly are technicalities that had to be addressed - e.g., since an email account can be accessed from anywhere, should communications to it be considered domestic or foreign?

But those fixes can be made (and were made, I believe, in the RESTORE act passed by the House some months ago).

So why is it in the self-interest of our representatives in the House and Senate to push through a whole lot of bad stuff along with the technical fixes needed to FISA?

The answer is that this is a large collection of people, and I don't think we can ascribe a single motive to them. There are probably many, including -

1. Telecom money and influence

2. Fear of being labelled weak on terror

3. More influenced by establishment than by people outside the establishment (e.g., failing to notice today's 9% approval rating for Congress).

4. Genuine belief that the President must be king-like.

5. Their assumption that they are a class superior to the American hoi-polloi; a class whose actions are automatically good and legal.

6. Ignorance and stupidity

7. Complicity in these crimes

I hold no brief for Lincoln. He fought the Civil War to save the union.

But for all those f'ing morons who try to whitewash their ancestors' misdeeds by blaming Lincoln for the Civil War, this is all I have to say (and after I said it on turcopolier, Col Lang deleted the entire thread, I can report the correlation but not the causation, however) (click on signature) -

"Still fighting the Civil War

Over on Colonel Lang's turcopolier.typepad.com, there was a discussion of the American Civil War 1861-1865 - it has been taken down and even in google cache it is a fading memory.

The protagonist's argument was the war was because of an unreasonable North. The Constitution was on the side of the South, it allowed slavery. States' Rights meant that the states determined if they wanted slavery or not. Slavery would have been eventually abolished in an Independent South because it would want to stay part of the Western world. And Britain and France had managed to abolish slavery without any war.

There was another side with good arguments too. But what I want to say is that that last bit was too much for me, and I sent in a reply which went approximately like this:

"Britain and France managed to abolish slavery without secession either. Let's see - the slave trade was banned in 1808, the British banned slavery in 1838, the French banned slavery in 1848, and here in 1861, over a dying institution by then generally recognized in the West as morally reprehensible the Southerners wanted to secede? One has to wonder where they kept their brains and their hearts."

Next I check, the whole post has vanished. I cannot say that my comment was the trigger, but I can say that my IP address is banned from making comments on that blog.

I suppose the fact that the Confederacy seems rational only to its descendants and not to any outside observer is unbearable."

---- PS -- It was probably some other problem that led to my further comments to be rejected.