There is an article this morning in the Boston Globe and the WoPo titled "Justice Department may ease domestic spying regulations". In the article Spencer Hsu and Charlie Johnson report that the JD have proposed new regulations that make it far easier for local law enforcement to conduct domestic spying operations. These regulations would give tramendous power to every level, from the local sheriff in Alabama to the State Police in Massachusetts. These proposed regulations are a far more serious threat to civil liberties and let me explain why.
"The White House had concocted a fake letter from Habbush to Saddam, backdated to July 1, 2001. It said that 9/11 ringleader Mohammad Atta had actually trained for his mission in Iraq – thus showing, finally, that there was an operational link between Saddam and al Qaeda, something the Vice President’s Office had been pressing CIA to prove since 9/11 as a justification to invade Iraq. There is no link."
John McCain, like Hillary Clinton and many other Washington warriors, justifies the Iraq war by insisting that before we invaded every intelligence service in the world thought Saddam Hussein had WMD. McCain repeated the claim for the umpteenth time just last week. Since he’s never called on this particular brazen lie, it appears the press either can’t read or has no short term memory.
I just got a response back from Senator Casey about why he voted for FISA. It's just a copy/paste job, but it still made me laugh. Here's the short version: "I hated this bill, but I still voted for it"
Here's the funniest part:
I was pleased that the legislation enshrines the principle that the FISA statute is the exclusive authority for electronic surveillance and that the President must obey the FISA statute. It also restores the principle of basic judicial oversight over all surveillance activities and re-establishes the principal of accountability by requiring a comprehensive Inspector General's report on the President's warrantless surveillance program within a year.
Right. You gave this President immunity for his wrongdoings, but I'm supposed to believe that you'll hold the next guy accountable? Sure.
UPDATE: Oh, and also, there's this ... keep in mind that he wrote this in an email.
If you have access to the Internet, I encourage you to visit my web site...
If you have access to the internet, read the rest of his insipid email below the fold.
So, you think domestic surveillance is a problem only for terrorists and criminals? Well, take that smug look off your face. As I write, information collected on millions of Americans is being used to punish them for activities as benign as purchasing retread tires.
Have you visited a bar, played billiards, visited a massage parlor or sought marriage counseling? Then, there's a good chance you have been economically punished for those activities through lowering of your credit limits and scores. That could cost you a home loan or a job, or perhaps a government security clearance. If you reported illegal activities by a former employer, you could be blacklisted for life thanks to databases maintained by firms that conduct background checks on workers for both government and businesses.
As activists have repeatedly warned, corporate and government voyeurism, aided by datamining technology, homeland security mandates and secrecy, has progressed to manipulation and penalization of lawful activities. And, it's likely to get much worse.
Everybody has wondered when Obama was going to push back against the flip-flop meme that the media was tarring and feathering him with. Paul Krugman today went so far as to suggest that it had Rove's fingerprints written all over them. But Obama has begun pushing back against the flip-flop meme by releasing a fact sheet on Iraq. The fact sheet points out that Obama has the same positions on Iraq now that he did several months ago. You can read the fact sheet here.
In this week's issue of the New Yorker, Seymour Hersh reports that Bush and Co are stepping up covert operations in Iran. Hersh appeared on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer and said that "Congress has authorized up to $400 million to fund the secret campaign, which involves U.S. special operations troops and Iranian dissidents."
Hersh's new article, "Preparing the Battlefield," is the latest in a series that exposes the Bush administration's preparations for and intent to go to war with Iran.
Well, thank God I voted for the Democrats to stop all of the madness of the Bush administration and their flagrant disregard for the law, the Constitution, Common Decency, and the American public.
The guy behind the ultra-successful marketing campaign known as "IRAQ HAS WMDs!!!! IRAQ HAS MOBILE WEAPONS LABS!!!!" believes he should have been better-rewarded for his efforts.
In a series of interviews with Los Angeles Times reporters John Goetz and Bob Drogin, the Iraqi Intelligence Salesman Formerly Known As Curveball whined about how he isn’t appreciated in his own time.
The guy has a point. I mean, when you think about how much money has been made by leveraging the dubious-at-best assertions made by a guy who graduated with a D average from university – and, just to be clear, I’m talking about Curveball here, not any leaders of the free world – you’d think someone, somewhere could’ve seen fit to at least throw the guy a half a pallet or so of shrink-wrapped $100 bills, right?
In another disclosure of how the Bush administration warped the pre-war intelligence to drive American forces into Iraq, a Senate report cites a recently discovered CIA report that claims Bush's linking information between Saddam and Al-Qeada was not credible.
About my old man: He spent 22 years in the military. As a teenager, he served at the tail end of World War Two on a Navy refrigerator ship in the Pacific. Then, after being discharged at the end of the war - and not having a whole lot of success in the civilian world - he re-enlisted -- this time in the Army. And he did so just in time for Korea.
He was in the invasion of Inchon, and was sitting on the Yalu river when the Chinese invaded. Eventually, he earned a battlefield commission, and after the war, was stationed in Germany as an officer in the Army Counterintelligence Corps -- smack dab in the middle of the cold war. He's gone now, but he saw his share of shit. Hell, he probably participated in his share of shit. But one thing he didn't do was vote Republican. Ever. He was a devout liberal who was against torture and all forms of civil rights deprivation. And it used to kill him when, in my late teens, I'd spout the bullshit being fed to me daily by Rush Limbaugh. (I know, I know -- but I was teenager.) He used to go ballistic.
While having a discussion on nuclear energy, it came to my realization that for whatever efforts we expound upon Obama being a good candidate we are not thinking of him as a president.
Being President will involve a lot of very tough decisions and ones that I think he will be able to make. But we cannot confuse good, with just, or moral. Every President has had to deal with something.
Today, June 5th, 2008, Senator Rockefeller has released the long, long overdue "Phase II" report on how the Bush Administration used intelligence to make the case for war in Iraq.
I had pretty much given up on the Phase II ever coming out, or if it did come out, it would be a whitewash.
Here is the stunner: The Phase II is out, and judging by the press release, the Phase II report is NOT a whitewash.. I am shocked at how strong the language is. Read below for some quotes.
Forgive me if someone else has posted this today, but I have a slightly different perspective: When the report was released I was a taping a segment for tomorrow's "Bill Moyers Journal" with two of the few "heroes" of the early Iraq coverage, John Walcott and Jonathan Landay of McClatchy (formerly Knight Ridder). It was exciting to watch them go through the report, as it was handed to them in bunches as it was printed, in the Green Room as they noted how it confirmed so much of their very presicent reporting up to six years ago.
If you haven't heard, the devastating report featured Republicans Chuck Hagel and Olympia Snowe joining the Democrats. Sen. Jay Rockefeller declared, "Sadly, the Bush Administration led the nation into war under false pretenses."
As I contemplate the way Americans come to conclusions about candidates that effect their votes (our recent primary in West Virginia, for instance, with a predominance of non-college educated people many of whom believe Barack Obama to be a Muslim), I get increasingly worried about how the next administration will handle the economy or the war or anything else.
Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell (center) is almost done with significant (but unnecessary) revisions for the US Intelligence Community
In an attempt to complete the total overhaul of the US Intelligence Community (IC) prescribed by the 9/11 Commission, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell is putting the finishing touches on a revamped Reagan-era executive order that incorporates his position within that system and gives that office (the ODNI) the 'power of the purse' in determining the strategic priorities of the community's members. Executive Order 12333, entitled United States Intelligence Activities, was originally adopted in 1981 to further delineate the relationships among the various intelligence agencies and organizations that had evolved since the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency back in 1947.
