The letter to Mr. Tamm gives him until Jan. 7 (today) to respond, not Jan. 9.

Thank you for drawing attention to yet another despicable abdication of responsibility by our spineless Congressional Dems.

From bmaz' post:

A lot of readers have asked about how to donate to Tamm's legal defense fund. In that regard, I contacted Mr. Tamm's attorney, Paul Kemp and obtained the information; here is the response:

Hi [bmaz]. Thanks for your inquiry. The address of the defense fund is:

Thomas Tamm Legal Defense Fund

Bank of Georgetown

5236 44th Street

Washington, DC 20015.

Tom appreciates your support and that of your readers.

Paul F. Kemp

Irrespective of his precise personal motivations, Tom Tamm has done the Constitution, the Fourth Amendment, the rule of law and all of us a favor by exposing the rank lawlessness of the elected leaders of this country. If you see fit, send him a few bucks to lighten the load he has taken on.

I don't know about you, but if the wingnuts can pony up hundreds of thousands for the traitor Scooter Libby, I am sure as heck going to ante up a little to thank Tom Tamm for doing the right thing.

If we ever hope to keep the window open on what our government is doing, it behooves us to support this man who demonstrates the sort of courage our resident trolls can only dream of.

Old timer Garrison Keillor had something to say about that:

Garrison Keillor on Habeas Corpus, 10/4/06

Congress' shameful retreat from American values

http://www.truthout.org/article/garrison-keillor-congresss-shameful-retreat-from-american-values

This was passed by 65 senators and will now be signed by President Bush, put into effect, and in due course be thrown out by the courts.

It's good that Barry Goldwater is dead because this would have killed him. Go back to the Senate of 1964--Goldwater, Dirksen, Russell, McCarthy, Javits, Morse, Fulbright--and you won't find more than 10 votes for it.

None of the men and women who voted for this bill has any right to speak in public about the rule of law anymore, or to take a high moral view of the Third Reich, or to wax poetic about the American Ideal. Mark their names [...]"

He mentions Fulbright.

In April 1966, “Senator J. William Fulbright delivered a speech at Johns Hopkins University on “the arrogance of power.” He said, “The question I find intriguing is whether a nation so extraordinarily endowed as the United States can overcome that arrogance of power which has afflicted, weakened, and, in some cases, destroyed great nations in the past. […] No one challenges the importance of national consensus, but consensus can be understood in two ways. If it is interpreted to mean unquestioning support of existing policies, its effects can only be pernicious and undemocratic, serving to suppress differences rather than to reconcile them.”

At the time, Senator Fulbright (D) was in the majority party, with a Democratic President (LBJ), and a war which did not loose popular support until spring of 1968. Francis Wilkinson wrote about this, and compared it to our situation in April of 2006. Towards the end of his essay [“Silence of the Lambs”], Wilkinson writes: “At the time Fulbright first tried to put the brake on war in Vietnam, the number of American dead was close to the body count from Iraq today. It took another nine years -- and more than 50,000 more U.S. dead -- before the arrogance Fulbright had identified in 1966 was exhausted.”

Read the essay at: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=silence_of_the_lambs

#6: When I become president, I'll need all the executive power and immunity from prosecution possible. So why rock the boat?

Yeah, much like Will Ferrell leading a streak through the quad, I suppose we won't do anything. We will do nothing about any of this. Man, firing off a few hotly worded missives sure helps release some steam, but what do we do?

I had a client who worked for the FDIC who worried about open revolt. I wonder whom we'd revolt against? Is it big banks, the guv'mint, arms producers, corporations? How do we appeal our case? Where do we find or make standing?

I guess we need to click our heels three times and say,

"change I can believe in/

change I can believe in/

change I can believe in!"

If I were to believe in that I'd need to be on drugs.

"(3) the use by the FBI of those letters that threatened people with criminal punishment if they revealed its contents. The latter making all the recipients co-conspirators in the FBI's inanities."-illyonnoc

Good, three points of constant irritants, for sure, illyonnoc.

Your number three, among other (sneak and peak abuses) keeps me awake at night. Once the FBI tapped into the PATActI&II, they saw a gold mine of opportunities, a short cut to investigation (loosely used) they had been dreaming of since J E Hoover.

When one sees how the once minor activities and behavior of everyday Americans have morphed into devious-appearing, assaults on the Homeland, will we understand the mind set of rightest, authoritarian policing of our thoughts and affiliations. (think recent party conventions for ample proof)

Strong post, but I'm not sure it's as cut and dry as you make it. Lets not forget Joe Biden in September:

Mr Biden said at an event in Deerfield Beach, Florida: “If there has been a basis upon which you can pursue someone for a criminal violation, they will be pursued, not out of vengeance, not out of retribution, out of the need to preserve the notion that no one, no attorney general, no president - no one is above the law."

His statement is the strongest indication yet that an Obama administartion might seek legal redress against the President George W. Bush. It could undermine Mr Obama’s message of bipartisanship and moving beyond the battles over Iraq.

In April, Mr Obama struck a similar note when he promised that he would ask his attorney general to review the Bush administration’s decisions to differentiate between "genuine crimes" and "really bad policies".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/2680908/Barack-Obama-would-consider-criminal-charges-against-Bush-administration-over-Guantanamo-Bay.html

Lets hope our new A.G. can be inspired to pursue the Constitution, and not these ridiculous notions of maintaining this above-the-law aristocracy that the Sober Serious crowd loves to opine on.