I'll have to admit that I'm pleased and proud that the consummate snark master, Arne, has taken on two of my pet names for two of the most ridiculed trolls in attendance here at UT, Tibby and Elephantdung. If I am not mistaken, I coined both of those nicks.

Credit where credit is due. My hat's off to ya.

And thanks fer the "Bad Fiddler". That was awful (in both senses of the word). Hell, even I play better than that....

Cheers,

9-11 happens and then the nearly universal knee-jerk flag, country, patriotism, rah-rah.....Then all of a sudden these dems are sitting in on lawless, anti-American meetings. Then they either sit their and gulp or come out before the news cameras attacking the President of the United States.

It sounds to me like most of the villains of Glenn's piece were sincere in their belief that the programs they were briefed on were maybe legal and defninitely necessary. It sounds like they would to this day defend their actions, and that their actions in seeking openly to change the law retroactive to their lawbreaking speak cearly to their continued belief that their actions were justified. If they had any courage from that conviction, they would let investigations go forward and let the chips fall. It would be an important debate/process for Americans to see go forward.

Forgive me if I am wrong, social studies was many years ago, but aren't 'ex post facto' laws illegal? If even I remember that from fifth grade, how can they imagine that the Supreme Court won't overturn these laws the same way they overturned the others?

My understanding of this, from conversations here, is that ex post facto only really applies if the reversal is from legal to illegal. I.e. a person cannot be prosecuted later (when/if the law changes) for doing something done before it was against the law.

Since this situation is the opposite of that described above, it's more likely that the Supreme Court would reverse it based on the obvious Constitutional issue that it guts the 4th amendment.

Infuckingcredible! To paraphrase Lily Tomlin, No matter how cynical I get, it's impossible to keep up.

RS Hunter

Oregon

It would be an important debate/process for Americans to see go forward.

-- Mike NYWI

Well you see, as has been conclusively pointed out in Glenn's posts and in comments, this stuff is not debatable. That is why they are running from it and covering it up in any way that they are able.

Klein, the AT&T insider who informed us of how uncounted millions of electronic communications were split, copied, and analyzed by that company for the NSA, was never asked to testify before congress--Why is that?

MARK KLEIN: Right. I first should add a correction: Congress never invited me to testify, although I did go to Washington to lobby, but no committee has ever invited me to testify, which says something about Congress.

...

MARK KLEIN: They were basically copying the entire data stream going across critical internet cables and copying the entire data stream to this secret room, so the NSA was getting everything.

AMY GOODMAN: And what was the response when you started to talk about this?

MARK KLEIN: Well, while I was still working at AT&T, I didn’t say anything, because I wanted to keep my job, and it was a scary atmosphere back then, you may remember. But I sat on it, then took some mental notes, and after I retired in 2004 and the end of 2005, when the New York Times came out with their expose that there was warrantless wiretapping going on, then I came forward in early 2006, and I tried to present my documents to some media groups and to some civil liberties groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation. And I became a witness in EFF’s lawsuit against AT&T.

AMY GOODMAN: Mark—

MARK KLEIN: And eventually—

AMY GOODMAN: Go ahead.

MARK KLEIN: Yeah. And eventually, the media came onto the story. The New York Times came out with the story in April 2006.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the Democratic leadership and Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, of course, of the Democratic Party, calling the bill that’s going to be voted on a compromise?

MARK KLEIN: Well, the Democratic Party and the Congress, in general, has been unfriendly to me for the last two years of my efforts. As I say, I’ve been trying to bring my information forward for about two years now. Even after the Congress went Democratic, they turned their back on me, except for a couple of individuals, like Senator Dodd was friendly and a couple of congressmen. No committee of Congress would invite me to testify; it’s never happened. My attorney sent letters, which were never answered. And they never—and they voted not to investigate. So it’s been clear for some time that Congress wants to help the President cover this up, and they were just looking for a way to do it.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/7/att_t_whistleblower_urges_against_immunity

I am, indeed, a cat crazy lady!

Cat manicures consist primarily of trimming the offending tiny needles on a semi-regular basis. Declawing is actually amputation, so that's a no-go. I'll put up with a few scratches here and there. ;-}

BTW, the raspberry crop was exceptional this year. The banana trees are up to the second story windows already!

When I was a kid we received a steady stream of messages about how bad the Soviet Union was for denying the rights of its citizens. The Soviet Union was the boogeyman.

Maybe in these campaigns to inform voters about how badly the current congress is shafting us, you could highlight the similarities between what the Soviet Union did then and what our own government is doing now. It might snap people out of their stupor.

Then contrast with words from the founding fathers (part. the quote from Ben Franklin about how those who'd give up liberty for safety deserve neither) to really sharpen the contrast.

Among Americans of, say, 40 years and older, I think this could be fairly effective in helping them to understand just how serious this is.