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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/5/11/191253/083
WASHINGTON, DC -The American Civil Liberties Union today cheered an amendment to the House Intelligence Reauthorization Bill that would prevent illegal domestic wiretapping by the government. The amendment, by Representatives Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ), will reaffirm the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) as the only legal means of collecting electronic intelligence surveillance. The amendment was passed late last night by a vote of 245-178.
We'll see about that...
N/T
Shorter Yoo: "If you allow Americans to have their Fourth Amendment rights, then the terrorists have already won."
Of course, the opposite is true.
Of course PBS will be counted as "partisan liberal" for putting on such a production.
to take pleasure in the various investigations that ARE taking place, it's easy to lose sight of the ones that still are NOT occurring. But of course at the end of the day, thay are all tied together.
Lets try this one on for size.
Q: Why should we be worried that the administration is using data-mining techniques to gather information on all Americans if they're using the technique to look for terrorists.
A: The administration has been systematically using its hiring power coupled with a little noticed provision in the Patriot act to pack the DOJ with people who demonstrate a willingness to use law enforcement powers to target political opponents.
One needn't believe in mysticism to note that everything's connected.
I was moving some paving stones this weekend, and was surprised by the sheer amount of bloated, crawling things I found underneath, all of which scuttled away when exposed to the light.
"... Thanks to a blindly compliant Congress and a tragically anemic press ..."
It has ever been thus, but now it is much worse than in past days. The "press" wants to see a maximum leader who controls all the people. The fools in the MSM seem to think heaven on earth lies in that direction. I think that direction leads to hell in a hand-basket.
The congress has just grown almost useless. Shall we elect horses to congress next?
I just thank you for ending the torture session at the weekend's long wait for a new thought.
In your second paragraph, you said you were "enthused." Yes.
Enthused is a beautiful condition. en-Theo's. And a human can't be anything without those good 'ole down to Earth, natural rhythms and motions.
Nat'a'da'tura! Firmament, firm, solid, and real down earthen, tooting, and beautiful...Nature...enthral harmony...a good birth natural rhythms system. That's doing our bustiest, and sharing the moistest sannum, Supreme Good. It's these very important things...you don't wince our eyes away. Look...
...maybe no more from me-even...That's even if a chop at the bridal bits, stirrups, and rip off a horse-shoe or chew on leather reigns, or chomp and gnaw on a horse's hoof...I'll eat a horseshoe for everybody when I'm hungry today...okay.
Let's be serious and not eat a whole horse's arse- or, a stale cold loaf of crusty burnt bread, or a rubber tire inner-Tube. B- for burp.
That's my enthused compliment.
The RI state police want expanded powers with proposed new legislation before the RI House and Senate that would let them obtain resident's phone and Internet records without court review, as reported today. The bills would let the state police, along with the chief of police of a city or town and the attorney general to issue "administrative subpoenas" that would compel communication companies to hand over records. Knowing how lazy, incompetent and/or corrupt many local police departments are here, giving them this kind of unchecked power is frightening and gives me the willies.
They tried passing a similar bill last year and it caused such an uproar that it died. But they're back. It shows that they will not give up until our rights are thoroughly degraded.
Obviously the state police got the the idea and encouragement from seeing what has been accomplished at the Federal level. You could say this is a novel form of "trickle down."
I don't know if you saw it, but I saw Bush admit that he had ordered wiretaps without consulting the FISA Court. Saw it on TeeVee. My God, Pelosi, the shithead admitted it on television. It's and Open and Shut case for impeachment. What could be the defense? "I thought I had a good reason to do it." Everyone who breaks the law thinks they have a good reason to do it. And if he says, "he had to; it was an emergency" then a) he's got to prove that in an open court called the US Senate, and b) even if they do, it doesn't mean anything because the FISA law allows the government to wiretap suspects IMMEDIATELY and then seek approval ex post facto (the Gov has 48 hours to call the court into session but can act immediately if they feel the situation warrents it). What Bush did was to order wiretaps and then ignore the law and the court so that they could continue without oversight. That is a breech of the law. That is way more than a "misdemeanor." How could anyone be fed such a fat pitch and then, not only not hit it out of the ballpark, but refuse to even swing at it?
The re-affirmation of FISA is all to the good, but irrelevant to the real issue:
The assumption of unlimited totalitarian powers by the authoritarians in this maladministration.
To the Usurper and his cronies, "laws" passed by "Congress" are as bread and circuses thrown to the masses by an emperor - entertaining distractions signifying little and meaning even less.
The transformation of law enforcement into secret police that would put the Stasi to shame will not end with the departure of the Usurper or the election of a Democratic president. It will not end until a substantial majority of Americans are confronted with evidence of their own secrets being pawed over by a bunch of drooling and giggling agents.
And since we no longer have a press that will do that job, it falls to patriotic hackers to literally risk their lives and break into the FBI's and the CIA's and the DEA's and the Border Patrol's and the ATF's and all of Homeland Insecurity's computers, drag out every unconstitutionally collected byte and post it all on the web.
Only desperate measures will suffice.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
