US Joins Russia and China on Anti-Privacy Nation List
As if there were not enough evidence already out there that the Unites States is NOT the most free country in the world under president and would be king George W. Bush, in contrast to the public statements of U.S. politicians, public perception and conventional wisdom, Privacy International now provides definitive evidence in the form of a report called the International Privacy Ranking.
This is a national disgrace. Wake up people!
PI
Key Findings on the U.S.
No right to privacy in constitution, though search and seizure protections exist in 4th Amendment; case law on government searches has considered new technology
No comprehensive privacy law, many sectoral laws; though tort of privacy
FTC continues to give inadequate attention to privacy issues, though issued self-regulating privacy guidelines on advertising in 2007
State-level data breach legislation has proven to be useful in identifying faults in security
REAL-ID and biometric identification programs continue to spread without adequate oversight, research, and funding structures
Extensive data-sharing programs across federal government and with private sector
Spreading use of CCTV
Congress approved presidential program of spying on foreign communications over U.S. networks, e.g. Gmail, Hotmail, etc.; and now considering immunity for telephone companies, while government claims secrecy, thus barring any legal action
No data retention law as yet, but equally no data protection law
World leading in border surveillance, mandating trans-border data flows
Weak protections of financial and medical privacy; plans spread for 'rings of steel' around cities to monitor movements of individuals
Democratic safeguards tend to be strong but new Congress and political dynamics show that immigration and terrorism continue to leave politicians scared and without principle
Lack of action on data breach legislation on the federal level while REAL-ID is still compelled upon states has shown that states can make informed decisions
Recent news regarding FBI biometric database raises particular concerns as this could lead to the largest database of biometrics around the world that is not protected by strong privacy law
Senate Postpones Telecom Immunity in Domestic Spying Bill
Responsing to pressure from the left across the United States on Monday, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid abruptly postponed a measure to give immunity to telephone companies that participated in President George W. Bush's warrantless domestic spying program.
"Everyone feels it would be to the best interest of the Senate that we take a look at this when we come back after the first of the year," Reid said on the Senate floor as seen on C-SPAN.
Reid's surprise announcement came hours after Bush's demand for immunity for the companies seemed to win an initial victory when the full Senate voted 76-10 to clear a procedural hurdle and move toward consideration of the so-called FISA bill.
The legislation would have bolstered judicial oversight of federal surveillance of suspected terrorists, according to the official line, but Senate leaders were unable to agree on a schedule to vote on amendments and the bill before Congress ends work for the year this most likely on Friday.
"We have tried to work through this process, and it appears quite clear at this stage on this bill we're not going to be able to do that," Reid said.
The Senate is expected to take up a massive, catchall spending bill on Tuesday to keep the government running and provide additional funds for the Iraq war. Reid said the Senate would return to the surveillance bill when the 2008 session of Congress begins in mid-January, accordin to Reuters.
A make-or-break moment for telecom immunity has arrived, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
After months of back-room committee-meetings, the FISA bill will finally reach the Senate floor on Monday.
Almost two years ago, EFF filed suit against AT&T for its illegal participation in a massive digital dragnet of Americans' private communications. In recent months, the Bush Administration has been pressuring Congress to immunize telecommunications companies against this litigation.
Just a few months ago, immunity seemed like a forgone conclusion. But last month, outcry from thousands of concerned citizens like you changed the tide, when the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill that didn't let lawbreaking telecoms off the hook.
Unfortunately, a previously-reported version of the bill that grants telecom immunity will be presented to the Senate extremely early on Monday morning. This vote is our chance to strip immunity from the bill. If you care about holding corporations accountable for lawbreaking and preserving privacy rights, now is the time to take action:
As Congress once again rushes home for the holidays, Democratic Party leaders are adding to their long list of betrayals, according to Democrats.Com.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid don't have the power to pass good bills by themselves, but they do have the power to keep wretched bills off the floor. But they adamantly refuse to exercise that power, and instead betray us at every turn. On Iraq, Pelosi and Reid vowed to end the Iraq Occupation after voters elected Democratic majorities in 2006. But in May they completely surrendered and gave Bush a blank check for $124 billion. In September they gave Bush another blank check for $12 billion, while vowing to block any new funds until January. But now they are giving Bush yet another blank check for $70 billion. What is their excuse? Incredibly, Pelosi actually said:
"The assumption I made was that the Republicans would soon see the light."
On warrantless wiretapping, Pelosi and Reid rushed the abominable "Protect America Act" through Congress in August, while vowing to "fix" it in the fall. When Senator Jay Rockefeller's bill gave retroactive immunity to the telephone companies, Senator Chris Dodd vowed a filibuster.
But Harry Reid is using his power as Majority Leader to undermine Senator Dodd's filibuster - something he adamantly refuses to do for any Republican filibusters. Senator Dodd urgently needs our help immediately to persuade 41 Senate Democrats to support his filibuster: http://chrisdodd.com/filibuster.
Pelosi and Reid have betrayed all the voters - not just Democrats but also Independents and Republicans - who put Democrats in charge of Congress to end the occupation of Iraq and restore the Constitution. It is time for Pelosi and Reid to resign as Democratic leaders and let real Democrats take over - Democrats who will fight and win, not surrender.
You can send Pelosi and Reid a message by joining our Democratic Donor Strike against the two fundraising committees they run - the DCCC and the DSCC.
Don't confuse her with Naomi Klein of Harper's magazine and The Shock Doctrine. Both Naomi's are heros of mine. Maybe if you take the time to investigate and educate yourself, you might agree?
Democracy ain't dead yet, but without some people getting off the couch, it will be soon. Look what happened to Don Siegelman...
When Bush talks about democracy in iraq, he is talking about Corporate Capitalism, not Democracy.
Wake up people! I know it's coming up on Christmas and all, and THEY know it too.
Virtual Alabama Spying System With Google Earth A First
News Flash: The Huntsville Times Montgomery bureau reporter, Bob Lowry, doesn't want you to know this. But there may be a down side to the new "Virtual Alabama" spying system that uses technology developed by Google Earth to map everything in the state with satellite imagary, even inside buildings.
He wrote a press release on the subject for today's paper, giving all the credit to Gov. Bob Riley and saying how great it will be for firefighters and such.
But due to recent national stories raising concerns about the loss of privacy in America with the federal government's domestic spying operations under President George W. Bush, it seemed to us as if a few skeptical questions might be raised in the coverage of this event instead of covering it like a small town ground breaking or something. Where's ole Bob Riley with his picture on the front page with the giant scissors?
So, I e-mailed old Bob Lowry, who has been dutifully running the establishment press releases without asking skeptical questions for many years in this state.
Hey Bob,
Do you think, instead of a press release, it might have been worth asking a skeptical question or two?
Is there a potential downside to this? Spying on Americans? Bush’s domestic critics? Is it truly “all good” man?
His reply?
Actually, those questions were raised and addressed.
------
Bob Lowry, Montgomery correspondent
The Huntsville Times
836 Washington Ave.
Montgomery, AL 36104
334/269-2804
334/224-8605 (cell)
So I asked:
Then where is the report on them?
His reply?
Hate to break it to you, but you're not my editor.
Bob Lowry
So I said:
So the readers don’t get to know about those questions?
AT&T Whistleblower Urges Senate to Reject Immunity for Telecoms
The Buried Story of the Day
Telecommunications technician and AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein testified before Congress today and spoke out at a press conference on Capitol Hill explaining why he is asking lawmakers to reject immunity for telecoms who assisted the Bush administration's spying on millions of Americans.
Klein witnessed first-hand the technology AT&T built to assist the government's domestic warrantless wiretapping program at AT&T's main switching facility in San Francisco. As part of his job at AT&T, Klein connected high-speed fiber optic cables to sophisticated equipment that intercepted communications from AT&T customers and then copied and routed every single one to a room controlled by the National Security Agency.
Klein has provided evidence for the Electronic Frontier Foundation's class-action lawsuit against AT&T for its role in the illegal spying.
He said on MSNBC tonight, on Keith Olbermann's show, that the spying was not in any way limited to a few overseas calls but millions of recorded phone calls and intercepted e-mail messages from millions of Americans.
"My job required me to enable the physical connections between AT&T customers' Internet communications and the NSA's illegal, wholesale copying machine for domestic emails, Internet phone conversations, Web surfing and all other Internet traffic," Klein said. "I have first-hand knowledge of the clandestine collaboration between one giant telecommunications company, AT&T, and the National Security Agency to facilitate the most comprehensive illegal domestic spying program in history."
Also speaking at the event Wednesday was network systems and infrastructure expert Brian Reid, who explained how the infrastructure that Mr. Klein helped install likely fits into and facilitates the massive warrantless surveillance program.
Since I could not find one decent story covering this case on the wires or in the major papers today, here's the link to the Electronic Frontier Foundation's press release, and a video interview.
Maybe some news organization will pick up on this by in the morning, instead of focusing on Pat Robertson's diversionary move to endorse Giuliani for president. What a crock...
Former Bushie loyalist Attorney General John Ashcroft is now a lobbyist for the telecommunication giants. His latest assignment? Use the New York Times editorial page as a forum to bully the United States Senate into granting legal immunity to AT&T-BellSouth, Verizon and other telephone and Internet companies that went happily along with the Bush administration's plans to obliterate American civil liberties and spy on the enemies of the Republican Party.
Honestly, I don't know why the Times allows its opinion pages to be used in this manner, and just when they had gotten rid of charging for Times Select and I was beginning to think that paper may regain some of its credibility in the world of online journalism.
Ashcroft now admits that the illegal spying took place, but argues that the companies should be allowed off the legal and financial hook for doing it.
"Assuming that the country’s communications companies helped the National Security Agency track Qaeda operatives and other terrorists after being assured that their conduct was lawful, they acted as patriots, not privacy violators," Ashcroft spins.
What he doesn't admit is that all those phone calls and e-mails that were spied on - and are still being intercepted - are not just calls and e-mails by "terrorists" overseas.
As we have documented here before, and a few other news organizations too, including the Times, the Bush spy agencies and their corporate collaborators were spying on non-profit groups who support peace in the Middle East and a clean environment, as well as journalists and bloggers who wrote about those issues and were critical of the Bush administration.
The federal courts and the Bush IRS have also been illegally misused in the same end game, and that game is to shut down dissent in this country while going on TV every day and making speeches about promoting "peace" and "freedom" and "liberty" around the globe to fool enough of the people for the Republicans to continue winning elections.
The vast majority of Americans are already onto what is going on in Washington. They know now that everything that Bush and his loyal agents say is what George Orwell called "double speak."
But it seems many members of Congress are so out of touch with their constituents that they do not realize the people want their Representatives and Senators to stand up to Bush for them. The masses do not want more waffling and partisan games and more of the Washington two-step.
The Senate Judiciary Committee looked stronger when they were in the minority and then when Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales were still in their jobs in Washington. Since their ignoble departure in August, the committee has gone as limp as Dick Cheney's dick without Viagra - and the polls reflect that.
Among the presidential candidates on the Democrat side, only North Carolina's former Senator John Edwards has consistently stood up to Bush on this issue. To his credit, Rep. Dennis Kucinich introduced House Resolution 333 in April to impeach Vice President Cheney for his pre-war lies about Iraq and for threatening an invasion of Iran.
House Speaker Nanci Pelosi has blocked Judiciary Committee hearings on Kucinich's bill, but Kucinich is vowing to force a full floor vote this Tuesday using his right of personal privilege, although the effort seems doomed to fail.
But where is the outrage from Democrats, independents and libertarians on our Fourth Amendment rights?
What I want to know is this. Will Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama and Senator Patrick Leahy stand up for us? And for that matter, what about New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sultzberger? Times executive editor Bill Keller? And what about editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal?
We know the Newhouse family and their hinterland publishers in Alabama care more about keeping the money train rolling than standing up for civil rights and liberties.
And we know the not for profit press like Harper's magazine and The Nation will take a stand, along with a host of non-traditional media outlets like this one.
The question is: At the end of the Bush Empire, will there be anything of the American experiment in democracy left to protect?
Senate Caves in to Bush, Passes Bill White House Will Sign
Republicans in the minority in the U.S. House of Representatives blocked passage Friday night of a compromise spying bill, while the Senate passed a version of the measure that updates the law on eavesdropping on phone calls and e-mails of suspected terrorists - however that is defined by the Bush administration and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
Congress and the White House struggled Friday over expanding authority to eavesdrop on suspected foreign terrorists in a high-stakes showdown over national security.
The House rejected a Democratic proposal opposed by President Bush that would give him that authority for only four months. The largely party-line vote in favor of the bill was 218-207 (not the two-thirds majority needed for passage).
It also would allow the director of national intelligence and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to carry out the expanded eavesdropping for four months before a court signs off on it.
If a version of a bill is not passed by both houses in time for the August recess scheduled for August 6, it will be the Republicans who are to blame for putting Americans at risk, not the Democrats.
It looks at this point like the Bush administration does not want a bill to pass, perhaps knowing something about a domestically planned hit on an American target in the next month. Sources indicate it could be directed at Washington, D.C.
Update at 10 p.m. The Senate voted 60-28 to pass a bill that gives Bush the expanded eavesdropping authority he sought for six months. While only temporary, the measure gives Congress time to hammer out a more comprehensive plan instead of rushing approval for a permanent bill in the waning hours before lawmakers begin their monthlong break scheduled to start August 6.
There's something fishy going on in the U.S. House of Representatives, and it smells like partisan politics.
If you are tired of watching day 3 of the Minnesota bridge collapse coverage on the cable TV news, turn on C-SPAN and watch the hyperbole in action.
The debate centers around changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and it looks like the Democrats in the majority are trying to approve something before the Aug. 6 recess date that the intelligence community can live with to collect information on alleged terrorists operating on foreign and domestic soil.
But the Republicans are fighting approval of the bill, saying the White House and the Attorney General say the measure will not keep America safe.
There's not much on the wires about this now, but TPMMuckraker is covering it, including the big fight and walkout Republicans staged yesterday.
Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.) ominously said Thursday that Congress needed to pass changes to the terrorist surveillance laws BEFORE leaving for the August recess, warning that otherwise "the disaster could be on our doorstep."
When asked if people should leave Washington, D.C. for the month, Lott replied, "I think it would be good to leave town in August. And it would probably be good to stay out until September the 12th," he said, implying that a terrorist attack on the nation's capital would be imminent between now and Sept. 11 - unless the Democrats pass the bill the White House wants and allow surveillance of Americans without a court approved warrant.
Now I don't know how closely you follow these things, but the only explanation that makes any sense is that the White House knows that a terrorist attack is going to happen and plans on blaming the Democrats when it does. This is the worst sort of politics imaginable, and the American people should see through this smoke screen and not allow it to continue.
The people of this country have the power, if they would just get involved and act, to force Congress to begin impeachment proceedings against the corrupt, corporate, militant forces who are playing politics with our safety. But it will take more than phone calls and e-mails to your Congressman.
Where in hell are the mass protests? Are we just a bunch of week-kneed couch potatoes in this country?
By asserting broad claims of secrecy in his domestic spying operations, George W. Bush has prevented a meaningful public debate over the proper balance between security and liberty.
He's even made it impossible to evaluate whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales willfully misled Congress. Yet the argument that the al-Qaeda threat justifies this secrecy doesn't hold water.
The real targets of the secrecy - and much of the spying - appear to be the American people.
For the full story of Bush's secret data-mining plans, go to the independent ConsortiumNews.Com.
Bush's Loyalty Crusade Lands Gonzales in Hot Water
The controversy over George W. Bush's ouster of eight U.S. Attorneys can only be understood in the context of the President's determination in 2005-06 to solidify Republican one-party control of the U.S. government.
The fired prosecutors were seen as insufficiently loyal, especially in resisting a GOP strategy to bring indictments against Democrats over alleged "voter fraud," such as getting released felons to vote.
Meanwhile, Republicans were protected from legal worries over Democratic accusations of GOP "voter suppression." But Bush's dashed one-party dreams now mean he faces congressional oversight.
For the full story of Bush's extraordinary power grab, go to the independent ConsortiumNews.Com.
PBS's Friday night show "NOW" reported on new evidence suggesting the existence of a secret government program that intercepts millions of private e-mails each day in the name of terrorist surveillance.
News about the alleged program came to light when a former AT&T employee, Mark Klein, blew the whistle on what he believes to be a large-scale installation of secret Internet monitoring equipment deep inside AT&T's San Francisco office.
The equipment, he contends, was created at the request of the U.S. government to spy on e-mail traffic across the entire Internet. Though the government and AT&T refuse to address the issue directly, Klein backs up his charges with internal company documents and personal photos.
Criminal Defense Lawyer Nancy Hollander, who represents several Muslim-Americans, feels her confidential e-mails are anything but secure.
"I've personally never been afraid of my government until now. And now I feel personally afraid that I could be locked up tomorrow," she said.
Who might be eyeing the hundreds of millions of e-mails Americans send out each day, and to what end?
For more information, check out the show's Website.
The U.S. Senate is planning to quietly hold a vote this week that would pardon President Bush for breaking the law by illegally wiretapping innocent Americans without warrants.
According to Senator Leahy, the bill would "immunize officials who have violated federal law by authorizing such illegal activities."
President Bush broke the law, and courts are starting to agree.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter once said the program was illegal "on its face." But he has now caved to pressure from Vice President Cheney, and introduced legislation that marks a new low: the bill justifies everything the president did.
Worse, it makes it legal to wiretap Americans, in secret, without warrants or oversight, whenever the administration wants to.
So far, Democrats and some Republicans are holding strong against the bill, and there are good chances to stop it if enough of us speak up.
MoveOn.Org is sponsoring a petition opposing the Republican move to pardon President Bush for breaking the law.
Hey CNN, MSNBC and Fox News: Did you not get the memo?
We don't care about the JonBenet Ramsey case. A federal judge just ruled Bush's NSA domestic surveillance unconstitutional. Get down to the ranch in Crawford, Texas, interrupt Bush's August vacation and ask him what he plans to do now?
The tide is turning. The pendulum's swinging. Bush's days as president are numbered.
Judge Rules Bush's Surveillance Program Unconstitutional
A federal judge has declared the Bush administration's warrantless domestic surveillance program unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it, according to the Associated Press.
U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency's program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy as well as the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.
"Plaintiffs have prevailed, and the public interest is clear in this matter. It is the upholding of our Constitution," Taylor wrote in her 43-page opinion.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of journalists, scholars and lawyers who say the program has made it difficult for them to do their jobs. They believe many of their overseas contacts are likely targets of the program, which involves secretly listening to conversations between people in the U.S. and people in other countries.
The government argued that the program is well within the president's authority, but said proving that would require revealing state secrets.
The ACLU said the state-secrets argument was irrelevant because the Bush administration had already publicly revealed enough information about the program for Taylor to rule on the case.
"By holding that even the president is not above the law, the court has done its duty," said Ann Beeson, the ACLU's associate legal director and the lead attorney for the plaintiffs.
The NSA had no immediate comment on the ruling.
Taylor dismissed a separate claim by the ACLU over data-mining of phone records by the NSA. She said not enough had been publicly revealed about that program to support the claim and further litigation could jeopardize state secrets.
Beeson predicted the government would appeal the ruling and request that the order to halt the program be postponed while the case makes its way through the system. She said the ACLU had not yet decided whether it would oppose such a postponement.
A cowardly federal judge appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush threw out a lawsuit aimed at blocking AT&T from giving telephone records to the government for use in the so-called war on terror, citing national security.
"The court is persuaded that requiring AT&T to confirm or deny whether it has disclosed large quantities of telephone records to the federal government could give adversaries of this country valuable insight into the government's intelligence activities," U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly said in his ruling.
The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois on behalf of author Studs Terkel and other activists who said their constitutional rights were violated because of a National Security Agency program of gathering phone company records on American citizens.
Bush Justice Department attorneys argued it would violate the law against divulging state secrets for AT&T to say whether it had provided telephone records to the supersecret spy agency, while the ACLU argued that the practice was no longer secret, since numerous news reports made it clear phone records were given to the agency.
But the judge, covering his ass and not knowing what the fuck he is talking about, said the news reports amounted to speculation and in no way constituted official confirmation that phone records had been turned over. He also ruled that Terkel and the other plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which sought class-action status, had not shown that their own records had been provided to the government, so they lacked standing to sue the government.
Well in that case, we've got a source with an iron clad case - if only there were a kick-ass liberal lawfirm in these parts willing to pursue the case and risk the full wrath of Karl Rove and the Bush Republican smear machine.
In a 72-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Judge Vaughn Walker has rejected a request from U.S. director of intelligence John Negroponte to dismiss a lawsuit against AT&T, which alleges the firm illegally allowed the government to monitor phone conversations and e-mail communications as part of a domestic spying program acknowledged by President George W. Bush.
AT&T asked the court in late April to dismiss the case filed by the privacy rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is claiming the domestic surveillance program allows the government to eavesdrop on phone calls and read e-mails of millions of Americans without obtaining warrants and asking for an injunction to order the government to stop the program.
The U.S. government also asked the federal judge to dismiss the case, citing its state secrets privilege. Negroponte told the court in a filing that disclosing the information in the case "could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States."
But in his ruling, the judge wrote: "The very subject matter of this action is hardly a secret. Public disclosures by the government and AT&T indicate that AT&T is assisting the government to implement some kind of surveillance program. The compromise between liberty and security remains a difficult one. But dismissing this case at the outset would sacrifice liberty for no apparent enhancement of security."
One day after that ruling, BellSouth shareholders approved the sale of their company to AT&T for $67 billion in stock, a deal that would expand the reach of the nation's largest telecommunications provider and put the two companies' wireless joint venture under one roof.
A day after the deal was announced, AT&T said it plans to cut up to 10,000 jobs.
AT&T was formed by SBC's acquisition of AT&T in November. The deal added a substantial national reach to the former Southwestern Bell's local business, which is concentrated in 13 states, including Texas, California, and the Midwest. BellSouth is the dominant local telephone provider in nine Southeastern states.
BellSouth Chief Executive Duane Ackerman told shareholders once the deal is approved by federal regularors, the BellSouth and Cingular wireless names will be phased out.
He did not address questions about the potential liability AT&T may face with a pending multibillion dollar lawsuit over allegations some major phone companies gave customer data to the National Security Agency.
Both of these stories demonstrate that the Bush Republicans should be thrown out of office. American freedoms are being violated for no apparent increase in security. And AT&T is about to cobble back together the same monopoly in the telecommunications industry that the Reagan Justice Department broke up back in the 1980s.
Hello out there conservatives, libertarians and independents. How do you feel about this Republican Party now?
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified today that President Bush personally blocked Justice Department lawyers from pursuing an internal probe of the warrantless eavesdropping program monitoring the international calls and e-mails of millions of Americans, allegedly when terrorism is suspected.
The department's Office of Professional Responsibility announced earlier this year it could not pursue an investigation into the role of Justice lawyers in crafting the program, under which the National Security Agency intercepts some telephone calls and e-mail without court approval, according to the Associated Press. At the time, it could not obtain security clearance to examine the classified program because it was blocked by the President himself.
Under sharp questioning from Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter, Gonzales said that Bush would not grant the access needed to allow the probe to move forward.
"The president of the United States makes the decision," Gonzales told the committee, during a hearing in which he was strongly criticized on a range of national security issues by Specter and Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the panel's senior Democrat.
So, the buck stops with the "Texas Soufle." He will have to answer for it, preferably before a Senate trial with a Democratic majority after the November mid-term elections. Remove him from office. Put him in jail. That's the choice, and maybe what shows the world America is a society based on laws, not religious mouthings and alliances.
The harsh right-wing attacks on the New York Times for publishing articles about the Bush administration's secret monitoring of phone calls and financial transactions mark a new phase in the long neoconservative battle to intimidate and dominate the U.S. news media. But the struggle has dangerous implications as well for the future of the American Republic.
Read the full story on how the neocons are trying to consolidate their control over American perceptions at the independent ConsortiumNews.Com.
Don't Be Fooled By White House Liberal Press Bashing
Will the Bush administration's daily harangue of the "liberal press" help Republicans in their mid-term reelection bid in November? We doubt it, especially since we now know the architect of modern day liberal press bashing, Rush Limbaugh, needs Viagra to get it up these days.
Here are a couple of pieces to flesh out the debate for the initiated and uninitiated alike. Don't be fooled people. This is nothing but politics.
Bush administration officials have been lining up to condemn The New York Times for revealing a program to track financial transactions as part of the war on terrorism. But if the Times' revelation about a program to monitor international exchanges is so damaging, why has the administration been chattering about efforts to monitor domestic transactions for nearly five years?
President Bush calls the conduct of the New York Times "disgraceful." Vice President Cheney objects to the paper having won a Pulitzer Prize. A Republican congressman wants the Times prosecuted. National Review says its press credentials should be yanked. Radio commentator Tammy Bruce likens the paper to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
Even by modern standards of media-bashing, the volume of vitriol being heaped upon the editors on Manhattan's West 43rd Street is remarkable - especially considering that the Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal also published accounts Friday of a secret administration program to monitor the financial transactions of terror suspects. So, in its later editions, did The Washington Post.
So much for activist judges. A federal appeals court sided with the Bush administration Friday in an electronic surveillance case, making it easier to tap into Internet phone calls and broadband transmissions.
The primary sponsor of the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, called the court's decision contrary to congressional intent, saying it stretches a law written for "the telephone system of 1994 to cover the Internet of 2006," according to the Associated Press account.
Jim Dempsey, policy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a private group, said the decision "threatens the privacy rights of innocent Americans as well as the ability of technology companies to innovate freely."
The court ruled 2-1 in favor of the Federal Communications Commission, which says equipment using the new technologies must be able to accommodate police wiretaps under CALEA.
In dissent, Judge Harry Edwards said the FCC gutted an exemption for information services that he said covered the Internet and broadband. He said the FCC "apparently forgot to read the words of the statute."
Education groups challenged the FCC rule because they said the requirements would impose burdensome new costs on private university networks, arguing that broadband Internet access is an information service beyond the reach of CALEA.
Disclosures of spying on Americans and George W. Bush's sinking poll numbers have surprisingly not changed the political dynamic in Washington, as Bush continues to fend off serious oversight while consolidating his imperial presidency.
Bush's ultimate trump card in gaining this Orwellian consensus has turned out to be his control of government secrets, with only the November elections looming as a potential obstacle in his path.
For the full story on how the American Republic keeps slipping away, go to the independent ConsortiumNews.Com.
It now comes to our attention via a reader in Seattle that we are not the only news blog reporting that the Bush administration's spying involves eavesdropping on reporters.
According to an ABC News blog called The Blotter, a senior federal law enforcement official tipped reporters off to the fact that the federal government was tracking the phone numbers reporters call in an effort to root out confidential sources in its leak investigations.
"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told Brian Ross and Richard Esposito in an in-person conversation.
The Times and USA Today have Missed the Bigger Story, Again
I know you're shocked - SHOCKED! - that George Bush is listening in on all your phone calls. Without a warrant. That's nothing. And it's not news, according to columnist Greg Palast, writing for BuzzFlash.Com.
This is news, he says.
The snooping into your phone bill is just the snout of the pig of a strange, lucrative link-up between the Administration's Homeland Security spy network and private companies operating beyond the reach of the laws meant to protect us from our government. You can call it the privatization of the FBI - though it is better described as the creation of a private KGB.
See, I told you we already knew that. The USA Today story, however, put part of the picture into a digestable package, backed up with inside anonymous sources, and forced the discussion into the open in the "mainstream media."
For some strange reason, paying my phone bill online today failed. I noticed that Cingular, owned by BellSouth, owned now by AT&T, which was taken over recently by SouthWest Bell, violates my privacy every time I log in to pay a bill by demanding that cookies be enabled in my Web browser.
Considering the USA Today story from this morning, and the firestorm it has set off on cable TV news and in Washington on Captol Hill, I'm beginning to ask myself a few questions. For starters, why am I doing business with a company that routinely violates its own stated privacy policies by cooperating with the Bush administration by turning over phone records to the NSA without a warrent or supervision by the FISA court?
So I found their privacy@cingular.com e-mail address and sent them this note. I will publish their response - if I actually receive one. I suspect they will just stonewall and say nothing. You know lawyers.
For the record, here is the link to their stated privacy policy.
I have serious concerns that Cingular and BellSouth have failed to live up to your agreements concerning customer privacy, considering the story in USA Today this morning:
What can you do to assure me and millions of other customers that you are living up to long-standing laws and policies on protecting the privacy of U.S. citizens and your customers?
What is to prevent millions of customers from bringing a class action lawsuit against your company for violating the FISA law and FCC policies?
What is to prevent millions of customers from boycotting your services?
Will you stand up for American freedoms and stop cooperating with the Bush administration's anti-American policies?
Your answers are subject to being reported by Locust Fork Publishing, an independent news media organization.
--
Glynn Wilson
Editor and Publisher
Locust Fork Publishing
http://www.locustfork.net
fast2write@charter.net
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BTW: If you do business with AT&T, BellSouth or Verizon, you may want to duplicate this letter and/or write your own. We should demand answers not only from the government, but from the corporations.
Over the past several years, the word "Orwellian" has sometimes been overused in describing George W. Bush's authoritarian policies. But a newly disclosed government operation to electronically warehouse the phone records of some 200 million Americans over their lifetimes does truly capture the essence of George Orwell's Big Brother nightmare.
For a full analysis of Bush's compilation of the phone records and his tortured explanation, go to the independent ConsortiumNews.Com.
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said on Thursday he would ask U.S. phone companies whether they are providing phone records of tens of millions of Americans to the National Security Agency.
All of this is Karl Rove politics calculated to try and say Democrats are soft on terrorism on the eve of the 2006 mid-term Congressional elections. But with Bush's poll numbers tanking, we doubt if it will work this time...
U.S. Rep. Terry Everett, a back bencher Alabama Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, told the Birmingham News Monday that he supports Gen. Michael Hayden's nomination as CIA director.
"He's the best guy in the country for the job and he probably knows more about intelligence than anybody in the country," Everett said.
Hayden was nominated Monday by President Bush to replace Porter Goss, who resigned under a cloud of scandal involving late night gay poker parties.
Everett, who claims to have been an Air Force intelligence specialist in Germany in the 1950s, according to the News, took issue with critics - Democrat and Republican - who argue that Hayden's active duty military status would conflict with his CIA role.
Hayden most recently was the deputy under National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, a job that also required Senate confirmation, although the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee that held hearings indicated Hayden's responses were less than totally forthcoming.
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn., told a reporter on National Public Radio this morning that he was not satisfied with Hayden's answers about the NSA domestic spying program and would use his confirmation hearings to try to obtain more and better answers.
Negroponte, best known for directing the covert funding of the Nicaraguan Contras and the coverup of human rights abuses carried out by CIA-trained operatives in Central America in the 1980s, was Bush's pick for the new position of Director of National Intelligence after the uproar that erupted when no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq and then-CIA director George "Slam Dunk" Tenet resigned in early June, 2004.
Everett, who used to be the publisher of Gulf Coast Newspapers in Baldwin County in the early 1980s but sold out to Worrell Enterprises, the now defunct weekly newspaper chain started by a former FBI agent, told the news: "To say this will be disturbing the balance between the (Department of Defense) ... and the intelligence community is a red herring. I just find it frankly disappointing that this kind of rationale has sprung up."
Everett's position is in sharp contrast with the Republican chairman of his committee, Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, who called Hayden the "wrong man" for the job.
Hayden's confirmation will also involve additional scrutiny of the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program, which he directed at NSA. Everett said the controversy over the program may be troublesome during confirmation hearings but shouldn't derail Hayden's appointment. But then, what does he know?
When contacted in Washington last year on a visit there, it became clear that Everett spends most of his time working to speed America into the space weapons war against China. That's a big mystery, unless there is some secret space weapons manufacturing plant somewhere near Enterprise.
Everett defended NSA's ability to listen in on communications between Americans and suspected terrorists, which so far has bypassed review by the secret court that oversees government wiretapping.
"I feel like that, whatever the method, if somebody in this country is talking to al-Qaida, I want to know about it and I think most of the public feels that way," Everett said.
Well, Mr. Everett should read more polls. A majority of Americans now list warrantless domestic spying as one of the reasons they support Bush's impeachment.
Although Everett said he's satisfied with the NSA program, he would "feel better" if the law was changed to clearly define it. So why hasn't he done some work to do just that?
Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Huntsville, the other Alabama member of the House intelligence panel, would not take a position on Hayden's nomination. He issued a written statement that said:
"Through my position on the intelligence committee, I have worked with General Hayden and have a great deal of respect for him. The next CIA director needs to understand the relationship the agency has within the DNI (Office of the Director Of National Intelligence), and I think General Hayden recognizes this and the other challenges that face the CIA."
But who cares, really, what Alabama's Congressional delegation thinks on these issues? They are all a bunch of featherweights anyway - who mostly just kiss Bush's ass...
Sen. Feingold Urges Democrats to 'Stand Up to Bush'
by Glynn Wilson
Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, a potential anti-war candidate in the 2008 presidential field, according to AP, urged fellow Democrats on Monday to show more backbone in challenging President Bush on his decision to invade Iraq.
"We must get out of our political foxholes and be willing to clearly and specifically point out what a strategic error the Iraq invasion has been," Feingold told an audience at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
Feingold, who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations and Intelligence Committees, said some Democrats in Congress gave in to "intimidation" by the Bush administration when they voted to authorize the war in 2002.
"If we do not show both a practical and emotional readiness to lead in the fight against terrorism, we will lose in '06 and we will lose in '08, just like we did in '02 and '04," he warned.
Feingold called for the censure of Bush over the administration's warrantless surveillance program back in March. So far, only two Democrats, Tom Harkin of Iowa and Barbara Boxer of California, have signed on as co-sponsors. Some on the hard left, and even some Republicans, have said censure is not the answer, impeachment is...
Feingold has also proposed that U.S. troops leave Iraq by the end of the year, rejecting criticism that such a move could lead to chaos there.
"I believe the situation would probably get better" if U.S. troops left, he said. "The lesson of insurgency is when the occupying power leaves, it tends to lessen, rather than increase, the level of violence."
He said people ask him at every stop he makes out in the country, including Montgomery, Alabama, why Democrats won't stand up publicly for what they believe - especially against President George W. Bush. This includes Bush's decision to invade Iraq, rather than pursuing al Qaeda.
Iraq was not on the administration's list of countries where al Qaeda was operating on 9/11, he pointed out.
"It was not even on THEIR list," he said.
Feingold, who cast the lone vote against the USA Patriot Act in the Senate, also said he has no confidence in the assurances issued Monday by Bush's new appointee to the CIA, Gen. Michael Hayden, that the NSA has not been spying on American citizens without warrants.
We predict this nomination will never make it to the Senate. Hayden will step down when it becomes apparent that a military general is not suited to run the civilian CIA. Of course Bush wants another loyalist to head the agency. The bureacracy will never approve of it.
Despite a troubled history of abuse, police across the nation are keeping tabs on ordinary Americans, according to U.S. News and World Report magazine. Where will the next gumshoe drop?
Almost two months ago, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales came before the Senate Judiciary Committee to answer questions about President Bush's authorization of illegal domestic spying by the National Security Agency. The Judiciary Committee learned very little from the Attorney General, who stonewalled and evaded questions, frustrating senators' attempts to perform their oversight obligations, according to the People for the American Way.
The Judiciary Committee is holding a follow-up hearing today, and has scheduled hearings on Senator Feingold's resolution to censure the President for this coming Friday.
The President's illegal wiretapping program is just the tip of the iceberg - the Bush administration has placed itself above the law time and time again. PFAW continues to call for the Bush administration to be held accountable for wrongdoing in the NSA case and has started a new Web site:
Also, the group supports the immigration bill moving to the U.S. Senate floor.
Comprehensive Immigration Reform Goes to Senate Floor
After a remarkable marathon session, the Senate Judiciary Committee came to an agreement on a comprehensive immigration reform bill that includes a path to earned citizenship, an accelerated family reunification program, and a guest worker program. This bill complicates Senator Frist's attempts to ram through an enforcement-only measure intended to bolster his 2008 presidential bid.
The Judiciary Committee's action comes after an incredible groundswell of grassroots support for fair and realistic immigration reform, including the almost 30,000 messages sent by PFAW activists. Yesterday, students walked out of classes in states from Michigan to Texas to Virginia in protest of Senator Frist's approach. Massive protests have erupted from coast to coast in recent days: Over 500,000 people surrounded Los Angeles' City Hall this weekend; 100,000 marched in Denver; and more than 50,000 turned out for a rally last weekend in Chicago. Milwaukee, Phoenix, Trenton, and many other cities have seen some of the largest rallies in recent memory.
The group says to support this historic movement, call your senators today to tell them to support the Judiciary Committee's bill. Comprehensive immigration reform will help control our borders while honoring American traditions as a nation of immigrants that value hard work and fairness.
In Alabama, that would be:
Sen. Richard Shelby
Phone: (202) 224-5744
Sen. Jeff Sessions
Phone: (202) 224-4124
Budget Process Begins in the House
Having just rammed through $40 billion in cuts to student loan programs, Medicaid, and other programs for America's families to give more tax breaks to the wealthy, members of the House of Representatives are licking their chops over the prospect of more program cuts, the group says.
This week, the House begins preparing the Budget Resolution, the blueprint for the budget in the coming year. The Senate already passed its Resolution, which, while forcing deep cuts to programs for low-income and middle-class families, is not as severe as some right-wing House members would like. They'll propose even more severe cuts this week and attempt to get their colleagues to sign on when it comes to the floor next week.
To call on your representative to oppose cuts to programs in order to pay for more tax cuts for the wealthy, use this toll-free number:
Budget Hotline: 1-800-459-1887
Election Protection Katrina
As Louisiana legislators came back into session this week, they still appeared unlikely to postpone the New Orleans municipal elections until satellite voting centers can be set up in the cities outside Louisiana with large numbers of Katrina evacuees. As many as 195,000 of New Orleans' 300,000 registered voters are estimated to be unable to return to their hurricane-ravaged city.
As People For continues to work with its coalition allies to convince legislators to reconsider their decision to go ahead with elections in which a majority of the city's voters could have trouble participating, the PFAW Foundation is working with the NAACP and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (LCCRUL) to facilitate absentee voting and has set up a toll-free Voters' Hotline and 15 NAACP Voter Assistance Centers in the cities with the largest numbers of Katrina evacuees, and providing the materials, training, and person-power necessary to educate Katrina survivors about their voting rights and options for casting a ballot in the upcoming elections. The Voter Assistance Centers have absentee ballot request forms on hand and fax machines for sending them in.
"We hope that this direct assistance to voters, along with a publicity campaign to educate evacuees about their rights, will maximize participation in these elections," the group says in a press release. "The city leaders elected this spring will chart the course for New Orleans' reconstruction."
Despite a dip in his opinion polls, George W. Bush's transformation of the United States into an authoritarian society continues apace, with new "compromises" with Congress actually consolidating his claims to virtually unlimited executive power.
Bush's latest success came as part of a supposed "concession" to Congress that would grant two new Republican-controlled seven-member subcommittees narrow oversight of Bush's warrantless wiretapping of Americans.
While "moderate" Republican senators - Mike DeWine of Ohio, Olympia Snowe of Maine, and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska - hailed the plan as a retreat by the White House, the deal actually blesses Bush's authority to bypass the courts in spying on Americans and imposes on him only a toothless congressional review process.
Indeed, the congressional plan may make matters worse, broadening the permissible scope of Bush's wiretaps to include Americans deemed to be "working in support of a terrorist group or organization."
Given Bush's record of stretching words to his advantage – and his claim that anyone who isn't "with us" is with the terrorists – the vague concept of "working in support" could open almost any political critic of the Bush administration to surveillance.
Plus, the only check on abuses would be the closed-door oversight work of the seven-member panels, which would only be informed of a warrantless wiretap after it had been in place for 45 days. Republicans also would have four of the seven seats on each subcommittee and any dissent from the minority Democrats would be kept secret.
In other words, the plan would let Bush and his Republican congressional loyalists conduct wiretaps of anyone whose activities might be called supportive of terrorists, while any Democratic critic would be muzzled from saying anything publicly under penalty of law.
Indians Protest Bush Visit: Where Are the American Protesters?
Tens of thousands of Indians waving black and white flags and chanting "Death to Bush!" and "Bully Bush, Go Home!" rallied Wednesday in New Delhi to protest a visit by President Bush. As many as 100,000 people gathered in a fairground in central New Delhi ordinarily used for political rallies, according to the Associated Press.
What we're wondering is, if the Indian people can raise that many protesters for a brief Bush visit, why in the hell can't the activists in the United States turn out a similar number to protest the bastard here? The Indians don't have to live under his regime day in and day out. We do.
If you are not pissed off enough yet, wake up and smell the coffee - and get pissed off. It is imperative that the American people get off the damn couch and go to work to help the Democratic Party take over Congress in the 2006 elections, now less than nine months away. Even if you are a disgruntled conservative Republican, a libertarian independent or sympathetic to the Green Party, the only way to get rid of Bush is for the Democrats in Congress to impeach him.
Let's face facts. Can America survive three more years of Bush? Why would we want to when the mechanism is in place to oust the SOB?
Some of my more conservative and neutral friends have recently asked me why I am so anti-George Bush. It's not just a biased liberal Democrat point of view. He is responsible for screwing up my life, the country I love and the world we live in so many ways that have been documented over and over again over the past few months. In other words, it is personal.
We suspect the politicians and the press in this country would go after Bush more if they heard more from working people who oppose Bush's policies. But the left in this country seems disengaged from politics and reality. Maybe everyone is just afraid of the NSA and Bush's domestic spying program and scared to show opposition publicly. Sorry, but that is the only way to change things.
Just look at the Indians. They are not afraid. If this is the greatest Democracy in the whole damn world, why are Americans so afraid of protesting? We've fought tough wars to get where we are. We can't stop now and let the Bush-GOP oil cabal monarchy completely take over.
All I can do is blog about it. All the press can do is write about it. Government of the people is up to THE PEOPLE!
When you go to work, stop at the store, fly in a plane, or surf the web, you are being watched. They know where you live, the value of your home, the names of your friends and family, in some cases even what you read. Where the data revolution meets the needs of national security, "there is no place to hide," writes investigative reporter Robert O'Harrow.
No Place To Hide is a multimedia investigation by news organizations working together across print and broadcast platforms, to make a greater impact than any one organization could alone, with support from the Center for Investigative Reporting.
We'll have more to say about this on Sunday afternoon. Both authors were interviewed by Tim Russert. Watch for the late night and weekend replay on CNBC.
People For The American Way Calls For Special Prosecutor
Since calling for a Special Prosecutor to investigate President Bush's authorization of an illegal domestic spying program last week, the People For The American Way sent lawmakers more than 70,000 petition messages.
Thousands of Americans will gather Wednesday night at Constitution Vigils organized by MoveOn.org in cooperation with PFAW and the ACLU in a grassroots campaign to restore the Constitution, according to a press release issued today.
"With every passing day, the portrait of a secretive and power-hungry White House unchecked by Congress grows increasingly alarming," the groups says, offering these examples in troubling areas:
Thwarting New Civil Liberties Protections: On February 20, the LA Times revealed that the White House used stalling tactics to delay the convening of a Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board created at the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission - and has nominated a long-time Bush friend (who served as treasurer of his gubernatorial campaign) to head it.
Failed Oversight: The House and Senate have already buckled under pressure from Vice President Cheney, shirking their duty to investigate White House law breaking. House Intelligence Committee Chair Peter Hoekstra is attempting to divert attention from illegal Bush administration practices by limiting House inquiry into whether surveillance laws should be changed, while Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Pat Roberts has scuttled hearings altogether.
Restriction of Information: Yesterday, the New York Times exposed an Orwellian program in which intelligence agencies have been reclassifying documents that have long been public. Over the past seven years, more than 55,000 pages of previously public documents have been closed to the public, some dating as far back as World War II.
Silencing Dissent: A pair of op-eds in the Washington Post by Richard Cohen and Ruth Marcus report on the White House not only suppressing information that portrayed it in a bad light - but actively quashing the gathering of information that threatened to contradict its ideologically motivated conclusions.
Torture and Detention: The U.N. has called for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, accusing the U.S. of practices that "amount to torture," while new stories continue to surface about U.S. kidnapping and "extraordinary rendition" of terrorist suspects to countries that permit torture.
"It is clear that only a Special Prosecutor, isolated from political pressure, can hold Bush administration officials accountable for illegal activities," the group says.
Not that George W. Bush needs much encouragement, but Sen. Lindsey Graham suggested to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales a new target for the administration’s domestic operations - Fifth Columnists, supposedly disloyal Americans who sympathize and collaborate with the enemy.
House Committee Grills National Security Whistleblowers
The U.S. House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations held a series of hearings this week that did not receive much play in the news. In fact, I cannot find a single news story about these important hearings. Nor have I been able to find a link to them on the C-SPAN Web site, even though I've watched the replay a couple of times on late night and weekend C-SPAN.
The upshot of the hearings is that the Bush administration has been trying to silence numerous officials from all branches of the military and intelligence communities who are standing up for the truth about illegal spying and U.S. intel failures before and after 9/11.
Let me know if you see a good news story about this and I'll throw up the link for all of our readers to see.
George W. Bush tells Americans that they have nothing to fear from his warrantless wiretapping because the program has been reviewed and approved by lots of lawyers and other professionals. What he doesn't say is what happens to those administration officials who object to his assertion of unfettered presidential power. Many are isolated in their jobs or pushed out of the government. One even got a derisive nickname from Bush.
For the full story about how Bush's engineers his internal consent, read it all at at ConsortiumNews.Com
AG Gonzales Faces Tough Questions on Domestic Spying
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales faced strong questioning today by Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and other members, in the attempt to determine whether President George W. Bush's program to spy on Americans via the National Security Agency is legal - or not.
If you care about individual liberties, watch it live on C-SPAN and make up your own mind as to whether the program is legal or warranted.
It is pretty clear to me that the president has already admitted breaking the law. He just doesn't admit that what he did and is still doing is against the law. He is asserting, through the Justice Department, that he is above the law, while saying he is NOT above the law.
This is classic double-speak right out of George Orwell's book 1984. This is Big Brother, and it is a mystery why anyone calling themselves a conservative could support the administration on this issue. I thought conservatives and libertarians wanted the government out of our bedrooms, not listening in on our telephone conversations, land lines and cell phones, and reading our mail and e-mail.
The misleading defense of this specific NSA program is that only calls to and from abroad are included. But that ignores the larger issue of other agencies of the federal government, including the Pentagon, spying on peace groups, environmental groups, journalists and yes even bloggers.
If the Senate Judiciary Committee wants to get to the bottom of how this administration has broken the law rising to the level of impeachment of the president and the vice president, the inquiry should be exanded to include the other domestic spying programs. The probe should not just be limited to an inquiry of the NSA's sweeping program of searching for key words in phone calls and e-mails.
As has already been reported widely, most of the NSA's requests for a followup investigation by the FBI have been dropped because the target was clearly not associated with any real terrorists or al Qaeda.
But what I have been saying over and over again since before this Web site was started is that the Bush administration is intent on characterizing as a "terrorist" any activist who disagrees with Bush's policies.
Carefully read this post from Sept. 26, 2004, along with the links.
We suspect, although it is not yet coming out in the press, the media, or in the questioning of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that when administration officials say they are only looking at "al Qaeda" and "terrorists" and "their associates," what they mean is any opponent of the administration, especially peace advocates, animal rights activists and groups and individuals who oppose the administration's radical views that pose a grave risk to the national and global environment.
On Feb. 1, the day after his State of the Union Address, George W. Bush stood on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry and delighted his audience by talking “Texan,” which in Bush’s lexicon must mean lying big, according to Robert Parry at ConsortiumNews.Com.
Bush’s biggest lie that day was his claim that his warrantless wiretaps inside the United States were needed to intercept calls in which “one of the people making the call has to be al-Qaeda, suspected al-Qaeda, and/or affiliate.”
“Let me put it to you in Texan: If al-Qaeda is calling into the United States, we want to know,” the President said. His listeners laughed and applauded.
With his folksy style, Bush again got away with his false assertion that existing law wouldn’t let U.S. intelligence intercept these al-Qaeda telephone calls when, in fact, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 set up procedures for just such intercepts and even let the Executive tap first and get approval from a secret court later.
But “talkin’ Texan” is apparently like telling tall tales about Paul Bunyan or Pecos Bill, except Texas-sized.
The New York Times plays up the story of James Frey, upbraided by Oprah Winfrey Thursday for lying about his past and portraying his memoir, "A Million Little Pieces," as a truthful account of his life.
I guess it beats the Michael Jackson story, but hey, did everyone forget already that President George W. Bush actually had an honest to Dog press conference Thursday? He assured us all that his order for the NSA to spy on phone calls of Americans, including reporters, was legal. His justification?
Because he says so, and he's the president, your not...
