...there is the AT&T whistleblower, Mark Klein, that very few have even heard of or care to seriously report on.

I think it would make people everywhere warma nd fuzzy to realize just how truly patriotic **smirk** our telcos truly are.

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

By what magical process do we assume that the same adjectives don't apply to Federal officials?

You mention in your post that you "met with the program's producer, Rick Young, as they were identifying the issues they wanted to cover." Now don't be modest -- are you in/quoted in the documentary?

Speaking of anemic national media.......there is the AT&T whistleblower, Mark Klein, that very few have even heard of or care to seriously report on.

There is a lot in the Frontline program on Klein's discoveries, and the lengths to which EPIC has gone to verify their credibility. As you say, though, as extraordinary as that case is, it has largely been ignored.

...Perk up real quick when they realize BushCo is using these powers to spy on....Democrats.

Bush & Cheney have told us over & over that casting a vote for a Democrat is the same as voting for a terrorist.

They've made no bones about it: Democrat (or Democrat supporter)=terrorist.

Therefore it's logical to conclude they are, even as I type this, spying on both Democratic politicans & citizens who support Democrats.

Of course PBS will be counted as "partisan liberal" for putting on such a production.-- DrEyeBall

Indeed. PBS just cancelled a show describing the difference between moderate and fundamentalist Muslims. Dhimmitude reigns. Without a doubt PBS considers Bush a greater threat than suicide bombers. At least until another attack occurs.

http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?articleId=95d4dfdb-81b9-4f7b-8eb4-80e32c34db4c&headline=Deroy+Murdock%3a+PBS+refuses+to+air+film+on+Islam

veteran novice posted a comment yesterday that highly germane to this post:

http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/05/11/quotes/permalink/63b1570de203e9a0195ba1f7ee6a2418.html

The main theme: that we've been too focused on seeing the various Bush scandals in isolation, rather than in combination.

The highlighted example: the possibility that NSLs were used for highly unusual criminal investigations of campaign finance violations (which are usually dealt with as FEC violations, punishable via fines, not criminal prosecution).

In support of this example, veteran novice linked to this story:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lane-hudson/new-scandal-brewing-at-do_b_48230.html

by Lane Hudson, who played a key role in exposing Foleygate.

veteran novice's excerpt:

...there is a hearing in Denver, CO. On Monday, there is a hearing in Chicago, IL. Depending on the Judge, the Justice Department could find itself in major legal trouble...it could be a watershed moment for another reason. Because of the recent oversight given to the Executive Branch, we now know that the Justice Department has circumvented the legal process and issued tens of thousands of "national security letters." These documents allow DOJ/FBI to forego getting a Judge's approval for a subpoena. In other words, it allows bureaucrats to violate the Constitutional rights with no Judicial oversight. It is also done in secret...But, there are indications that national security letters were issued in these campaign finance investigations. It is possible that this Justice Department abused the law to go on a crusade to investigate Democratic donors. So far, the Government has been unwilling to provide an answer to the question of whether or not this is true. If we're lucky, a Federal Judge in Denver or Chicago will seek the truth and uphold the spirit of the law and our Constitution.

Shocking? Yes. Surprising? No.

Anyone who's been paying attention to the blog, TPM, Murray Waas, etc. should not be the least bit surprised if this story turns out to be true.

In fact, we might well accuse Karl Rove of being a slacker if it isn't. This is precisely the way that they work and think. This is precisely what they are about.

After all, DHS resources have already been used in an electoral context: Tom DeLay had them deployed to track Texas Democrats when they left the state to stall his mid-decade partisan gerrymandering of the Texas congressional delegation. This is simply a systematic application of the same idea in slightly different form: it's a matter of national security to keep the Democrats out of power.

"And not only do "we" -- the citizenry -- know very little about these surveillance activities, the Congress seems to know almost as little, and does not appear to have much of an interest in finding out more, and certainly has evinced little interest in informing the public about these matters."-GG

I thought that the House and Senate Intel committees were getting briefings on these programs (Sen Pat Roberts said a year ago he wanted to know "the full width and breadth of the President's program" http://tinyurl.com/2c66w2). Since these are all secret briefings, do we really have any clue how much Congress knows?

Congress now seems to me to be at fault not for failing to investigate but for being complicit in denying citizens information both on the program itself and on the congressional oversight of it.

You mention in your post that you "met with the program's producer, Rick Young, as they were identifying the issues they wanted to cover." Now don't be modest -- are you in/quoted in the documentary?

No. The point of the meeting was to do a preliminary interview in order to prepare for the on-camera interview, but they had a few months gap after that when they actually started filming, and we were never able to find dates when I'd be in DC to film the interview. So there is no on-camera interview included, but there is definitely material I gave them that's included, and James Bamford is prominently included and he's one of the best spokespeople on these issues, and makes most if not all the points that I think ought to have been made.