They're refusing to make the warrants public.

-- GlennGreenwald

Can they legally do that?

A nation of shopkeepers and sissies. Hell we even call men who drop 500 pound bombs on women and children, from so far up in the sky that they can not been seen, heroes. Yes, we call the practitioners of industrialized baby killing heroes.

Americans are the most well defended group in history, and yet are the most frightened in history. I imagine that women on their way to concentration camps in the 40s showed more heroism than an American could ever muster.

in Iraq and Afghanistan, those extraspecial confidential sources are apparently immune to being "outed" for providing bogus "intelligence" when it turns out the raids/air strikes targets were "mischaracterized" or just bogus....

Under the heading of "there but for fortune go you and I..." I was wondering who should be targeted by "us" for phone calls demanding due process and transparency of proceeding and release of the hall/staging area/resources ...

thoughts? It could be there was some loud mouth wacko (agent provocateur, on payroll) who provided "intelligence" mandating "action" ... that old ticking bomb, what if he's telling the truth????? scenario.

Still demands for swift, due process, restitution of property, etc. might create enough "whole world is watching" self-consciousness to help keep "Homeland Security" stormtrooper fantesties in check ... where I suspect everyone wants to be the hero

Glenn, Jane, and Crew,

Good luck getting around the Cities, where the Traffic Gods can be spiteful.

...is why the 4th Amendment is important. This is why the Democratic sell-out of the 4th Amendment was and continues to be so unforgivable.

You sell-out the 4th, it impacts the 1st, and so on....

Elsewhere:

— Protesters said police raided three Minneapolis homes on Saturday after a late-night raid on a building used by protest organizers. No arrests were made, but the protesters said deputies seized laptops, protest literature, bus schedules, a map and sign-making materials. Sheriff Bob Fletcher said authorities moved to head off efforts to disrupt the convention.

All of this except the last sentence attributed to "protestors said"

I wonder what agencies were represented in the "police."... Aren't sherrif's agents, "deputies" or is that not universal? ... no mention of "bomb making materials" or excrement.

These same oppressive tactics of intimidation and fear have been in place ever since the Democratic Convention in L.A. in 2000, and were taken to whole new levels of fascism during the Republican Convention in Philadelphia that same year. It is now standard practice for the authorities to track and trace those identified as malcontents and to silence them before they even have a chance to organize or protest. This is Police State USA, the powerful with an army of militant psychopaths at their disposal to keep the people from becoming involved in the most important element of democratic society, that being activism. We the people are nothing but a hinderance to the machinations of the establishment, they'd hold elections without voters if they could figure out a way to pull it off. As it is the establishment does not in any way feel ashamed or try to hide its illegal gestapo ideology. Our only remaining freedom is the right to remain silent in a dark hole until you die from natural causes.

Do you know if adnoto was there and if so, in what capacity?

Thanks for that cheeky little post. That's the first time I've laughed all week.

What happened to make Americans so easy to manage? -- Ché Pasa

Suburbs, particularly exurbs. Europeans and South American middle-aged, middle class, clout-wielding, 'solid citizens' still live in apartments over their shops. Out of sight, out of mind. That's why control of the TV news and the internet is so important.

Chuck Shephard's "News of the Weird" column that features in many alternative weeklies has a bit on the Minneapolis Police Swat team. To quote the entry from the Week of 24 August 2008:

"In a July ceremony, Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan honored SWAT officers for their bravery and professionalism during a December middle-of-the-night raid of a house that supposedly contained a gang's guns. However, it was the wrong house, and the bewildered, frightened resident started shooting back. Said Dolan, "The easy decision would have been to retreat (but the) team did not take the easy way out." The house got riddled with bullets, but no one was hit, and the chief later apologized but still felt that it was "a perfect example of a situation that could have gone horribly wrong, but did not because of the (team's) professionalism." [WCCO-TV (Minneapolis), 7-29-08]"

And none of this is new. Anyone from the Twin Cities who was active in the Honeywell Project protests dating back to the mid-80s will not be surprised by such tactics.

....free-speechless.

No response on why Amy Goodman hasn't been covering the leadup to the Republican convention?

No response on why Amy Goodman played such a leading role in promoting recreate 68?

No response on why Recreate 68 was set up to target the party that had not been in power for the past eight years, when in 1968 the targeted party HAD been in power for the past eight years?

No response on why Amy Goodman is busy promoting Nader and ignoring the Republicans?

I mean, explain it to me. Why? What's the agenda? Is there something to be gained by "left-wing progressives" by doing this kind of thing?

Or is it a deliberate agenda, one that works hand-in-hand with outlets like FOX News, who had set up all over Denver in order to get footage of "expected violent confrontations?"

How many of those widely-noted "PUMAs" in Denver were in reality undercover Republican political operatives, out to drum up support for their soon-to-be announced veep?

Such tactics are widely used in the political realm, which is the United States is mostly a theatrical performance. The press isn't supposed to go backstage and see how the performance is set up and carried out, and they certainly are not supposed to report on it, either.

I mean, what are the real issues that the country faces? War, economic collapse, environmental devastation, global warming and climate change, declining home ownership and falling wages, out-of-control private-public partnerships in academics and government, massive corruption, and, perhaps most importantly, energy and agriculture issues.

Yes, energy and agriculture and water. Food and heating and cooling and manufacturing and sewage treatment and enough water for agriculture, wildlife (including fish), and industry.

Naw. Let's talk about how 1960's era struggles for civil rights influence the current election strategy, and whether the fact that Sarah Palin's favorite dish is moosemeat will influence the electorate.

That's the kind of thing that really matters, in the end. Does she wear enough makeup? Or too much?