"I disagree with you, but I'm pretty sure you're not Hitler." – Jon Stewart
Posted in Blog Post on May 12th, 2006
Bush Is Pressed Over New Report on Surveillance – New York Times Some Republicans, including Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, defended the N.S.A.’s activities and denounced the disclosure. Mr. Hoekstra said the report “threatens to undermine our nation’s safety.” “Rather than allow our intelligence professionals to maintain a laser [...]
Posted in Blog Post on May 11th, 2006
Add massive data mining operations to the laundry list of transgressions by the Bush administration: Yahoo News gives us the President’s reaction to a USA Today story – NSA has massive database of Americans’ phone calls Text: Bush’s Comments on NSA Activities – Yahoo! News Today there are new claims about other ways we are [...]
Posted in Blog Post on Apr 7th, 2006
Warrantless Wiretaps Possible in U.S. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales left open the possibility yesterday that President Bush could order warrantless wiretaps on telephone calls occurring solely within the United States — a move that would dramatically expand the reach of a controversial National Security Agency surveillance program. If this doesn’t bother you, then you [...]
Posted in Blog Post on Mar 13th, 2006
W.House dismisses Democrat’s call for Bush censure “I think it does raise the question, how do you fight and win the war on terrorism?” McClellan said. “And if Democrats want to argue that we shouldn’t be listening to al Qaeda communications, it’s their right and we welcome the debate. We are a nation at war.” [...]
Posted in Blog Post on Mar 7th, 2006
Senate panel rejects bid for NSA inquiry – Yahoo! News Investigate the law breaking by the executive branch? We don’t need no stinkin’ investigation. So what if the president knowingly broke the law? So what if he tramples the constitution, congressional oversight, the rule of law and civil liberties? There’s a shooting war going on [...]
Posted in Blog Post on Mar 2nd, 2006
Patriot Act Renewal Clears Final Hurdle – Yahoo! News After reading this account of the debate for the renewal of the Orwellian named “Patriot Act,” I wrote this little note to Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY): I read of your defense of the Patriot Act renewal. It included this quote: “Civil liberties do not mean much [...]
Posted in Blog Post on Feb 18th, 2006
Senate Chairman Splits With Bush on Spy Program – New York Times I’ve been saying since this scandal broke that the congress needs to meet their responsibility as a co-equal branch of the government and challenge the President. No President has the authority to simply ignore laws he doesn’t like. They have the votes to [...]
Posted in Blog Post on Feb 16th, 2006
George Will criticizes the President’s stance on the legality of the NSA domestic spying program. I would ask: When is congress going to reassert itself as a co-equal branch of government?
Posted in Blog Post on Feb 15th, 2006
Daily Kos: Let the Whitewashing Begin… georgia10 over at the Daily Kos is apoplectic about the administration’s pressure tactics to silence any investigation of the NSA spying operations within the US: Republican Senate DeWine says he will introduce a bill sanctioning the program, explicitly exempting it from the requirements of FISA. Both Hagel and Snowe [...]
Posted in Blog Post on Feb 12th, 2006
The Trust Gap – New York Times Like many other administrations before it, this one sometimes dissembles clumsily to avoid embarrassment. (We now know, for example, that the White House did not tell the truth about when it learned the levees in New Orleans had failed.) Spin-as-usual is one thing. Striking at the civil liberties, [...]
Posted in Blog Post on Feb 8th, 2006
The Wrong Wiretap Debate Karl Rove is resorting to the using the wiretap scandal as a for us or with the terrorists wedge issue. Liberal interest groups would prefer putting off the issue until after the elections when they believe the Democratic Party will be in a better position in the House. Meanwhile the NSA [...]
Posted in Blog Post on Feb 8th, 2006
NPR: NSA Wiretapping: The Legal Debate National Public Radio has a good balanced look at the issues in the NSA scandal. No wonder conservatives want to shut NPR down.
Posted in Blog Post on Feb 6th, 2006
For Some, Spying Controversy Recalls a Past Drama – New York Times Cheney and Rummy were both players in the last big NSA spy scandal as part of the Ford administration that motivated the passage of the FISA act in 1978. Then as now the GOP complained that secrets were being revealed and democrats complained [...]
Posted in Blog Post on Feb 3rd, 2006
The End of the Internet? Greed knows no bounds in our large telco oligopies. Not only do they want to charge us for the pipe, they want to charge us for the content. In the process they have to know exactly what the content is and feed it into a mamouth database. In order for [...]
Posted in Blog Post on Feb 2nd, 2006
Senate Panel Rebuffed on Documents on U.S. Spying – New York Times WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 — The Bush administration is rebuffing requests from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee for its classified legal opinions on President Bush’s domestic spying program, setting up a confrontation in advance of a hearing scheduled for next week, administration and [...]
Posted in Blog Post on Jan 31st, 2006
EFF: Class-Action Lawsuit Against AT&T Hmmm… The EFF sues AT&t over it’s cooperation with the NSA and allowing the NSA access to communication stream has well as call databases. Interesting approach. I don’t think it will amount to much, but at least it’s somekind of action.
Posted in Blog Post on Jan 30th, 2006
Unclaimed Territory – by Glenn Greenwald: Questioning the Attorney General Glenn has some interesting questions for the AG here and here. It’s mostly about this, exactly what are the limits of executive authority during time of war, if any? Have a look he’s got good stuff.
Posted in Blog Post on Jan 29th, 2006
Spies, Lies and Wiretaps – New York Times Well now I can see why I’m just an amateur. The pro’s at the Times neatly reiterate the same arguments I was making against warrant-less wiretapping here.
Posted in Blog Post on Jan 27th, 2006
This in answer to a little discussion antimedia I had going here. First of all I don’t really care if the paperwork is hard, it should be. Hire a few more lawyers over at the Justice Dept and NSA, it will keep them from chasing ambulances. Second, there is no significant threat of Congress withholding [...]
Posted in Blog Post on Jan 27th, 2006
In this post antimedia is trying to say that Glenn Greenwald is lying. Antimedia is pointing out that Gen. Hayden did not say that probable cause wasn’t a barrier to getting FISA warrants. But Hayden did say “The trigger is quicker and a bit softer than it is for a FISA warrant” in reference to [...]
Date: 12/03/2005