I have not had a chance to read all the posts, so I may be making a point that someone else has already raised. The word "certifies" in the above section intrigues me. Certify means that a peron is swearing under oath (and subject to penalties for perjury) that statements in a document are true and based upon his or her personal knowledge. I have not had a chance to review the proposed bill, but I am assuming that the certification to the district court must be in writing.

The current AG is Mukasey. He was not the AG for the period covered by the bill. Essentially, the law empowers Mukasey to certify to a district court that the telecoms took their action at the behest of the President and that the actions were necessary to prevent terrorism, blah, blah, blah. However, Mukasey would have no first hand knowledge of the facts surrounding any of these requests. The two people most knowledgeable about any requests made between 2001 and 2007 would be Ashcroft and Gonzalez. I would think that any certification by Mukasey would be based upon hearsay, and therefore not admissible in a federal district court. Also, if Mukasey certifies something to a district court knowing it was false, then he would be committing perjury. As a former district court judge himself, one would hope that Mukasey would have slightly more respect for the truth. Finally, a party typically has the opportunity to depose an individual that submits an affidavit or certification. While it appears that the proposed bill cuts out the plaintiffs, the district court judges still have the inherent power to question the person making the certification, i.e., Mukasey.

Is Mukasey really willing to fall on his sword to risk covering for the misdeeds of his two predecessors and others in the administration. Since the requests came from the President, it should be he who has to certify to the district court that everything was on the up and up. Just one more examply of George Bush evading responsibility for his actions.

After thinking this through, my only hope is that the Democrats are trying to trick the Republicans into walking into some type of trap. For example, the bill states that any documents submitted to the district court remain secret. However, should there be a Democratic-controlled Congress and White House, they could amend the law to make these records public. Also, the immunity extends only to civil liability. If the documents were no longer secret, they could be used to prosecute the telecoms and the individual members of the Bush Administration for breaking the law.

I know this is highly unlikely, but right now it is all I have. I live in Peter Roskam's district in Illinois, and he is nothing but a Republican gimp. I saw him marching in a parade this past Saturday and felt the overwhelming urge to pummel him with the cheap crappy candy his supporters were handing out. However, I restrained myself because I knew that I would end up in jail. What a world we live in.

I have only review the first affidavit. I am trying to focus on the means that Ivins would have had to mail the letters from NJ. Here are the parts that relate to that:

Information gathered to date suggests that all of the lethal anthrax letters were mailed from a single street collection box located at 10 Nassau Street, in Princeton, New Jersey. The letters were postmarked on either September 18,2001 or October 9,2001 at the same Hamilton Township Regional Postal Facility in Hamilton, New Jersey. The collection box on Nassau Street was identified through forensic biological swabbing of every U.S. Postal Service drop box that collects mail to be processed at the Hamilton facility. Further forensic examination of the contaminated mailbox recovered a number of Caucasian human hairs from inside the box, which are suitable for comparison. P. 6-7.

The investigation examined Dr. Ivins's laboratory activity immediately before and after the window of opportunity for the mailing of the Post and Brokaw letters to New York which began at 5:00 p.m. Monday, September 17,2001 and ended at noon on Tuesday, September 18, 200 1. Beginning on Friday, September 14, Dr. Ivins worked the following three consecutive evening shifts prior to the mailings with time spent in Suite B3: [Sept. 14, 15 and 16, 2001, 2h 15min each night in B3]. P. 8.

The investigation further examined Dr. Ivins's laboratory activity before and after the window of opportunity.for the mailing of the Daschle and Leahy letters to Washington, D.C. which began 3:00 p.m. Saturday, October 6, 2001, and ended at noon on Tuesday, October 9, 2001. Beginning on September 28, Dr. Ivins worked eight consecutive nights which consisted of the following times in building 1425 with time spent in Suite B3: [Sept. 28 through Oct. 5, 2001, times ranging from as little as 20 minutes (Oct. 1) to 3h 59min (Oct. 5) each night in B3]. P.9

Although these exerpts discuss his access to the laboratory, there is nothing in the affidavit even suggesting that Ivins made any trips to NJ to mail any letters. Although the amount of time spent in the lab prior to each attack appears suspicious, without anything tending to show that he was in NJ during the possible times the letters were mailed, the late nights at the lab are meaningless. None of the subsequent affidavits, including the most recent affidaivt of July 11, 2008, contains any indication that the FBI can show that Ivins would have been in NJ during either of the windows for mailing the letters containing the anthrax.