The “rule of law” has become like the Golden Rule. Those who make the rules can ignore the law. It’s depressing and infuriating. Why can’t we hold government officials to the same standards that any other non-connected citizen is held to?

It should link at http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/psp.pdf

Much was omitted from the unclassified version of the report by the various Inspectors General.

And we don't know what was in the classified version of the report.

But here's one thing the unclassified report does make clear:

http://anonymousliberal.com/2009/07/case-against-john-yoo.html

The Case Against John Yoo

[...] Yoo characterized FISA as merely providing a "safe harbor for electronic surveillance," adding that it "cannot restrict the President's ability to engage in warrantless searches that protect the national security."

[...] It's difficult to put into words how insanely deficient this legal "analysis" is. The entire point of FISA was to constrain the president's ability to conduct warrantless surveillance for national security purposes.

[...] The OIG Report details a number of other obvious flaws in Yoo's opinion, but I think you get the idea. Yoo disregarded the law.

- - posted by A.L.

__________

THANK YOU!1 THANK YOU, GLENN for staying on these important issues. Other than some efforts by John Conyers and Judiciary there hasn't been any effort made by Congress to hold the Bush administration accountable for at least two serious crimes: 1. Torture and 2. Illegal spying on Americans. And without any accountability we should expect more of the same to continue.

I consider the position of Obama now to be one of overtly obstructing justice - a serious crime too. I would claim we should be calling for his impeachment if I thought anyone in Congress would listen. But knowing that calls for impeachment would go nowhere, I offer these suggestions which I believe would:

1. Make sure the DCCC and DSCC and DNC understand that they will not get another cent of your money until the Dems show some real leadership by holding Bush officials accountable for these crimes. This means the Dems must agree to hold real investigations with the power of issuing subpoenas that require former and any current elected officials and many others who worked for the Bush Administration to testify under oath regardless of whether or not Obama supports these investigations.

2. That until Obama claims he supports these investigations and will do everything he can to support them and make it easy not harder for these investigations to go forward, he will not get anymore of our support either for his programs and/or his fundraising efforts on behalf of other Dems.

What these politicians do understand is MONEY and the next election. Once our spigots turn off let's see if they continue to ignore us. This is why I think it is important now to target the major Dem fundraising groups at the national level. If you get calls from any of these groups asking for your money, just tell them you are donating now to the ACLU because at least they are an organization that will defend our civil liberties. Or tell them you are giving now to other charities where your money might do some good versus throwing it down the toilet of Democratic politics.

I can tell you, you will feel great when you have made the decision not to support these groups anymore for the reasons I have stated. It's like a big rock has been lifted from your shoulders.

If anyone has some better suggestions, I sure would like to hear them.

Ok, it's tin foil hat black helicopter stuff, but what if the "illegal wiretapping" was used to net more than simple criminal wrongdoing, but was actually used to listen into Democratic lawmakers and, in doing so, found some very compromising stuff.

Stuff, that was later used, and perhaps continues to be used, to blackmail Democrats into supporting the illegality and trying to shut down any investigation. An investigation, that would after all lead to great Democratic embarrassment.

September 2001-A tight-knit group of senior administration lawyers convenes. It includes David Addington, Counsel to the Vice President. The group includes White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales; his deputy, Tim Flanigan; William "Jim" Haynes, the Pentagon's General Counsel; and Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo. The group will secretly call itself "the War Council." http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/torturingdemocracy/timelines/

September 25, 2001 - Memo OLC to WH: “The President's Constitutional Authority to Conduct Military Operations Against Terrorists and Nations Supporting Them”; [47] It is written by Yoo at OLC to David S. Kris, Ass. Deputy AG, and is called “Constitutionality of Amending Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to Change the “Purpose” Standard for Searches. It concludes: “For the foregoing reasons, we believe that changing FISA’s requirement that “the” purpose of a FISA search be to collect foreign intelligence to “a” purpose will not violate the Constitution.” Memo at [109]

April 2003 - Bybee resigns as head of OLC and begins tenure as a judge in the Ninth Circuit. The WH pushes for John Yoo to be promoted to the position at OLC, but Yoo is “blocked by Attorney General John Ashcroft and his senior aides, who reportedly "had grown weary of what they saw as Yoo's end runs to the White House,"” [115] Jack Goldsmith, who had been working in the Legal Counsel’s Office of the DoD under Haynes, becomes the new head of OLC. Ashcroft and the others who interview Goldsmith “make quite clear that they did not feel sufficiently in the loop about what [Yoo] was doing, especially vis-à-vis the White House.” He repudiates two OLC memos in December 2003. Goldsmith resigns in summer 2004. For more about Goldsmith’s tenure at OLC, see [116]

Sources at:

http://www.webdsi.com/jebbie/tline.html

August 2008 - the powers-that-be said, if McCain wins, he'll face a Democratic Congress with enough of a majority that they just might be tempted to upset the apple-cart. We must be ahead of and in control of any populism. What best to blunt any hint of Democratic populism than a Democratic President? Hey, Obama, we'll guarantee you a win; in return, you pledge to keep the lid on things.

That explains the sudden nomination of Sarah Palin as VP. That utter non-entity will sink the ticket, they thought. The powers-that-be however, underestimated the lunacy of the Republican Right, and the McCain ticket climbed in the polls for two weeks. OK, we gotta sacrifice one of our own, Lehman Brothers, we could have rescued you (and we are planning to get untold billions from the Government and trillions from the Federal Reserve) but you gotta go on the chopping block.

That worked. Obama won handily; they didn't have to even call in the Diebold option. The Supreme Court, on standby, was a wee bit confused, having earlier had it drilled into them that they must elect the Republican.

Heeheehee, they gloat. Their one regret is that they can't see the collective look of shock on Americans' faces if they comprehended the truth. But in the pursuit of power, some sacrifices are necessary.

:)