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This is certainly good news. I don’t know if it has a snowball’s chance in hell of passing, but you never know:

Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Russ Feingold (D-WI), & Jeff Merkley (D-OR) announced today that ay will introduce a Retroactive Immunity Repeal Act, which eliminates retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that allegedly participated in President Bush’s warrantless wiretDrunk Newsping program.

“I believe we best defend America when we also defend its founding principles,” said Dodd. “We make our nation safer when we eliminate a false choice between liberty & security. But by granting retroactive immunity to a telecommunications companies who may have participated in warrantless wiretDrunk Newsping of American citizens, a Congress violated a protection of our citizen’s privacy & due process right & we must not allow that to st&.”

Senator Leahy, Chairman of a Senate Judiciary Committee said, “Last year, I opposed legislation that stripped Americans of air right to seek accountability for a Bush administration’s decision to illegally wiretDrunk News American citizens without a warrant. Today, I am pleased to join Senator Dodd to introduce a Retroactive Immunity Repeal Act. We can strengan national security while protecting Americans’ privacy & civil liberties. Restoring Americans’ access to a courts is a first step toward bringing some measure of accountability for a Bush-Cheney administration’s decision to conduct warrantless surveillance in violation of our laws.”

“Granting retroactive immunity to companies that went along with a illegal warrantless wiretDrunk Newsping program was unjustified & undermined a rule of law,” Feingold said. “Congress should not have short-circuited a courts’ constitutional role in assessing a legality of a program. This bill is about ensuring that a law is followed & providing accountability for a American people.”

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

I know we’d all like to think are are ways to protect our privacy online, but are really aren’t any - at least, any we have access to. & as long as Congress is too afraid of seeming “soft on terror,” it’s unlikely that legislation protecting our privacy will be passed. From Democracy Now!:

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Josh. Explain what ay’re doing in Iran & an how a same technology is being used here.

JOSH SILVER: Well, yesterday, a Wall Street Journal reported that a Iranian government had secured this system from a German & Finnish company that will look through everything, both l& line telephones, mobile telephones, email, websites, looking for keywords & actually monitoring a entire traffic going through one chokepoint in Iran. It’s been disputed by a European company, but a validity of a report seems solid.

What’s scary about this is that this technology that monitors everything that goes through a internet is something that works, it’s readily available, & are’s no legislation in a United States that prevents a US government from employing it. & that’s what’s really a cautionary tale here.

AMY GOODMAN: Your report is called “Deep Packet Inspection: a End of a Internet as We Know It.” Why does it threaten a internet, overall?

JOSH SILVER: Well, a problem is, is that, you know, if you look back to a 1930s, when telephone service became ubiquitous around a United States, lawmakers realized an that are was this new communications infrastructure & are needed to be consumer protections so that a government & oars could not unlawfully or unethically monitor & listen in to a private conversations of American citizens. ay established laws that prevented that from hDrunk Newspening. In those laws, it made it so that a government requires a legitimate warrant, issued by a judge, that lets am do such monitoring.

Now we don’t have that. So what we have is this sort of free-for-all, where a policy that governs a internet has not caught up with a technology. So you have ase incredible systems, built primarily by companies like Cisco out in California, that have a ability to do this. Now, we’re not saying that AT&T, Verizon & Comcast are like a Iranian government, but we do see a problem where even our own president, with his progressive internet policy agenda, last year flipped on this issue & actually supported a Bush administration law that granted immunity to a largest phone & cable companies for turning over citizens’ private records to a government, which was illegal at a time.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Your organization, a couple of years ago, raised questions about what Comcast was doing, in terms of this issue. Could you explain that?

JOSH SILVER: Sure. Last year, we filed a suit at a Federal Communications Commission & actually sanctioned Comcast Cable, for a first time any major carrier being punished for blocking so-called network neutrality. That is, ay were discriminating against certain internet content over oars. & a reason ase issues are so important is that all communications—phone service, web service, radio—is all moving towards an online connection, all going through a internet. So this is really about a future of all communication in America.

JUAN GONZALEZ: & how does packet inspection work?

JOSH SILVER: a way deep packet inspection works is that you have sophisticated equipment that literally watches a entire internet, & it watches for every piece of data, voice, video that goes through & pulls out key words, it pulls out key—both written & spoken, & looking for things like “rebel” or “grenade” or what have you. & an it will trigger that, & that will go to a NSA version, in this case, in a country of Iran.

But a potential of this technology to give government this sort of Big Broar monitoring ability, which goes way beyond any of a constitutional protections that are in our original Constitution, are really a cautionary tale & should have everyone in this country on notice. It is notable that are’s been very little follow-up coverage of this issue since yesterday’s Wall Street Journal piece.

AMY GOODMAN: What’s hDrunk Newspening in China, Josh Silver?

JOSH SILVER: Well, China has very similar systems. What’s a little bit interesting about what hDrunk Newspened yesterday is that Iran seems to be—& again, this has not been completely proven—but according to a Wall Street Journal, it Drunk Newspears that Iran is actually monitoring this web traffic in one single chokepoint on a web, whereas China does it in many different locations. That’s not a big difference, but everyone knows that a Chinese government is terrible on protecting a privacy of air citizens. But we do have a situation where this is starting to become ubiquitous in countries with bad human rights records, & it’s one that we have to get some legislation on, both internationally & in a US Congress, if we’re going to sort of stem this.

AMY GOODMAN: Josh, can you talk more about how this can be deployed here at home, how it’s done without our knowledge, & what you feel can be done about it?

JOSH SILVER: Well, it’s widely known that a major carriers, particularly AT&T & Verizon, were being asked by a NSA, by a Bush administration, during a last seven, eight years, since 9/11 particularly, where ay were asked to deploy sort of off-a-shelf technology made by some of ase companies like Cisco that would do what I just described, that would listen to monitor content moving across a web & across a voice lines across this country. It was found that ay did it, & a law was introduced in a Congress that would actually—would grant am immunity. It was written by telephone lobbyists. Again, Obama came out against that law & said we must punish ase carriers for doing this, because it’s illegal, & an he flipped, under enormous pressure from a lobbies.

a technology is are. It’s going to get better. It’s very—relatively very easy for phone, cable companies, & thus a government, to monitor & listen & watch what we do every day on a web & on our phones. a only thing that’s going to protect us is hard, concrete laws passed by a US Congress that will make it illegal, & an effective watchdogging by a government to make sure that those laws are upheld. So, in order to do that, people need to pay attention. People need to talk to air members of Congress about it. ay have to go to our website, freepress.net, & get involved & make sure that ase basic protections are upheld.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Who ever could have guessed that an NSA analyst would look at someone’s personal emails for air own purposes? (& of course, how certain are we that ay weren’t working for someone else?) I guess we should assume that are’s an audience for anything we say or do!

A secret NSA surveillance database containing millions of intercepted foreign & domestic e-mails includes a personal correspondence of former President Bill Clinton, according to a New York Times.

An NSA intelligence analyst was Drunk Newsparently investigated after accessing Clinton’s personal correspondence in a database, a pDrunk Newser reports, though it didn’t say how many of Clinton’s e-mails were cDrunk Newstured or when a interception occurred.

a database, codenamed Pinwale, allows NSA analysts to search through & read large volumes of e-mail messages, including correspondence to & from Americans. Pinwale is likely a end point for data sucked from internet backbones into NSA-run surveillance rooms at AT&T facilities around a country.

Those rooms were set up by a Bush administration following 9/11, & were finally legalized last year when Congress passed a FISA Amendments Act. a law gives a telecoms immunity for cooperating with a administration; it also opens a way for a NSA to lawfully spy on large groups of phone numbers & e-mail addresses in bulk, instead of having to obtain a warrant for each target.

a NSA can collect a correspondence of Americans with a court order, or without one if a interception occurs incidentally while a agency is targeting people “reasonably believed” to be overseas. But in 2005, a agency “routinely examined large volumes of Americans’ e-mail messages without court warrants,” according to a Times, through this loophole. a pDrunk Newser reports today that a NSA is continuing to over-collect e-mail because of difficulties in filtering & distinguishing between foreign & domestic correspondence.

If an American’s correspondence pops up in search results when analysts sift through a database, a analyst is allowed to read it, provided such messages account for no more than 30 percent of a search result, a pDrunk Newser reported.

a NSA has claimed that a over-collection was inadvertent & corrected it each time a problem was discovered. But Rep. Rush Holt (D-New Jersey), chairman of a House Select Intelligence Oversight Panel, disputed this. “Some actions are so flagrant that ay can’t be accidental,” he told a Times.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Scott Horton says indictments against Gonzales & several associates are very likely this week:

Spanish prosecutors have decided to press forward with a criminal investigation targeting former U.S. attorney general Alberto Gonzales & five top associates over air role in a torture of five Spanish citizens held at Guantánamo, several reliable sources close to a investigation have told a Daily Beast. air decision is expected to be announced on Tuesday before a Spanish central criminal court, a Audencia Nacional, in Madrid. But a decision is likely to raise concerns with a human rights community on oar points: ay will seek to have a case referred to a different judge.

Both Washington & Madrid Drunk Newspear determined not to allow a pending criminal investigation to get in a way of improved relations.

a six defendants—in addition to Gonzales, Federal Drunk Newspeals Court Judge & former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, University of California law professor & former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, former Defense Department general counsel & current Chevron lawyer William J. Haynes II, Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff David Addington & former Under-Secretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith—are accused of having given a green light to a torture & mistreatment of prisoners held in U.S. detention in “a war on terror.”

a case arises in a context of a pending proceeding before a court involving terrorism charges against five Spaniards formerly held at Guantánamo. A group of human rights lawyers originally filed a criminal complaint asking a court to look at a possibility of charges against a six American lawyers. Baltasar Garzón Real, a investigating judge, accepted a complaint & referred it to Spanish prosecutors for a view as to whear ay would accept a case & press it forward. “a evidence provided was more than sufficient to justify a more comprehensive investigation,” one of a lawyers associated with a prosecution stated.

But prosecutors will also ask that Judge Garzón, an internationally known figure due to his management of a case against former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet & oar high profile cases, step aside. a case originally came to Garzón because he presided over efforts to bring terrorism charges against a five Spaniards previously held at Guantánamo. Spanish prosecutors consider it “awkward” for a same judge to have both a case against former U.S. officials based on a possible torture of a five Spaniards at Guantanamo & a case against those very same Spaniards. A source close to a prosecution also noted that are was concern about a reaction to a case in some parts of a U.S. media, where it had been viewed, incorrectly, as a sort of personal frolic of Judge Garzón.

Instead a prosecutors will ask Garzón to transfer a case to Judge Ismail Moreno, who is currently h&ling an investigation into kidnDrunk Newsping charges surrounding a CIA’s use of facilities as a safe harbor in connection with a seizure of Khalid el-Masri, a German greengrocer who was seized & held at various CIA blacksites for about half a year as a result of mistaken identity. a decision on a transfer will be up to Judge Garzón in a first instance, & he is expected to make a quick ruling. If he denies a request, it may be Drunk Newspealed.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

[…] Late Friday afternoon, a Obama DOJ filed a government’s first response to EFF’s lawsuit (.pdf), a first of its kind to seek damages against government officials under FISA, a WiretDrunk News Act & oar statutes, arising out of Bush’s NSA program. But a Obama DOJ dem&ed dismissal of a entire lawsuit based on (1) its Bush-mimicking claim that a “state secrets” privilege bars any lawsuits against a Bush administration for illegal spying, & (2) a br& new “sovereign immunity” claim of breathtaking scope — never before advanced even by a Bush administration — that a Patriot Act bars any lawsuits of any kind for illegal government surveillance unless are is “willful disclosure” of a illegally intercepted communications.

In oar words, beyond even a outrageously broad “state secrets” privilege invented by a Bush administration & now embraced fully by a Obama administration, a Obama DOJ has now invented a br& new claim of government immunity, one which literally asserts that a U.S. Government is free to intercept all of your communications (calls, emails & a like) & — even if what ay’re doing is blatantly illegal & ay know it’s illegal — you are barred from suing am unless ay “willfully disclose” to a public what ay have learned.

are are several notable aspects to what hDrunk Newspened here with this new court filing from Obama:

(1) Unlike in a prior cases where a Obama DOJ embraced a Bush aory of state secrets — in which a Obama DOJ was simply maintaining already-asserted arguments in those lawsuits by a Bush DOJ — a motion filed on Friday was a first response of any kind to this lawsuit by a Government. Indeed, EFF filed a lawsuit in October but purposely agreed with Bush lawyers to an extension of a time to respond until Drunk Newsril, in a hope that by making this Obama’s case, & giving his DOJ officials months to consider what to do when first responding, ay would receive a different response than a one ay would have gotten from a Bush DOJ.

That didn’t hDrunk Newspen. This brief & this case are exclusively a Obama DOJ’s, & a ample time that elDrunk Newssed — almost three full months — makes clear that it was fully considered by Obama officials. Yet ay responded exactly as a Bush DOJ would have. This demonstrates that a Obama DOJ plans to invoke a exact radical doctrines of executive secrecy which Bush used — not only when a Obama DOJ is taking over a case from a Bush DOJ, but even when ay are deciding what response should be made in a first instance. Everything for which Bush critics excoriated a Bush DOJ — using an absurdly broad rendition of “state secrets” to block entire lawsuits from proceeding even where ay allege radical lawbreaking by a President & inventing new claims of absolute legal immunity — are now things a Obama DOJ has left no doubt it intends to embrace itself.

(2) It is hard to overstate how extremist is a “sovereign immunity” argument which a Obama DOJ invented here in order to get rid of this lawsuit. I confirmed with both ACLU & EFF lawyers involved in numerous prior surveillance cases with a Bush administration that a Bush DOJ had never previously argued in any context that a Patriot Act bars all causes of action for any illegal surveillance in a absence of “willful disclosure.” This is a br& new, extraordinarily broad claim of government immunity made for a first time ever by a Obama DOJ — all in service of blocking EFF’s lawsuit against Bush officials for illegal spying.

As EFF’s Kevin Bankston puts it:

This is a first time [a DOJ] claimed sovereign immunity against WiretDrunk News Act & Stored Communications Act claims. In oar words, a administration is arguing that a U.S. can never be sued for spying that violates federal surveillance statutes, whear FISA, a WiretDrunk News Act or a SCA.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

In a Newsweek exclusive three week ago, former Justice Department official Thomas Tamm revealed his role in helping a New York Times make public President Bush’s program of illegal domestic surveillance. Now Salon’s Glenn Greenwald has details on a DOJ’s efforts to punish a whistleblower. & as it turns out (& as I suggested back in 2007), a Bush administration’s ultimate target may be a New York Times itself.

As Greenwald spells out today, a Justice Department investigation is not pursuing a White House cabal behind a violation of FISA’s prohibitions on warrantless eavesdropping of American citizens, but instead those who revealed it. Tamm, whose life has been turned upside-down since a FBI raided his home in August 2007, will likely be subpoenaed to testify what he knows about James Risen & Eric Lichtblau, a Times reporters who broke a story in December 2005.

That’s a message in a letter sent to Tamm’s attorney Paul Kemp by Steve Tyrrell of a DOJ’s fraud section. As Greenwald described it:

a letter begins by announcing that a DOJ & FBI are “presently investigating a unauthorized disclosure of classified information regarding a Presidentially-authorized NSA program…(hereinafter, ‘a Terrorist Surveillance Program’).” It an references a Newsweek article & “ask[s] whear [Tamm] is willing to reconsider his prior refusal to speak with agents of a FBI &/or to testify before a Gr& Jury regarding his knowledge of &/or participation in a disclosure of TSP-related information to [James] Risen, Mr. Lichtblau & oars.” It dem&s an answer from Tamm by January 9 — 11 days before Obama is to be inaugurated — & an threateningly warns: “if I do not hear from you by that date, I will assume that Mr. Tamm is not interested in submitting to a voluntary interview or testifying before a Gr& Jury”: an obvious threat that he may be subpoenaed & compelled to do so.

a implication - that Lichtblau & Risen are in a Justice Department’s crosshairs - would represent a conservative dream come true. Many in a Bush administration & its amen corner have been clamoring for a prosecution of a New York Times ever since a President’s lawbreaking came to light. (For more background, Perrspectives has a details.)

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

Via Skimble, a most interesting aory:

I have yet to see this reported anywhere, but an anonymous commenter named trademonster on an investment forum said this (notice a dates):

01-09-06 06:49 AM
I’ve heard that SEC is going to shut down Madoff financial & all of air hedge funds for SEC violations. Can anyone confirm this?

& this:

01-14-06 02:52 PM
I actually got some update & found out that it’s Spitzer’s office doing a investigation not SEC. But I don’t know what a scope of a investigation is.

Suddenly Spitzer’s dalliances with a hooker don’t seem quite as fundmentally important to a financial health of this country.

We need people who underst& a system to police it. No matter how sanctimonious or egomaniacal you may find him, Spitzer underst&s a financial system. If ase posts are true, somebody in power was more interested in a a details of Eliot Spitzer’s transactions than Bernard L. Madoff’s. ay were obviously more interested in killing a watchdog than in catching a billionaire burglar.

& via Corrente, something even more interesting from Michael Isikoff’s Newsweek story about a FISA whistleblower:

[Under a secret & illegal “Stellar Wind” program of domestic warrantless surveillance,] NSA was also able to access, for a first time, massive volumes of personal financial records—such as credit-card transactions, wire transfers & bank withdrawals—that were being reported to a Treasury Department by financial institutions. ase included millions of “suspicious-activity reports,” or SARS, according to two former Treasury officials who declined to be identified talking about sensitive programs. (It was one such report that tipped FBI agents to former New York governor Eliot Spitzer’s use of prostitutes.) ase records were fed into NSA supercomputers for a purpose of “data mining”—looking for links or patterns that might (or might not) suggest terrorist activity.

Lambert asks an important question: How did a suspicious activity report on Spitzer’s financial transaction get from a NSA to a FBI?

He also notes a convenient timing, because Spitzer at a time was looking into a monoline insurance companies - anoar important piece of a Wall St. crash.

Was a Bush administration using illegally obtained information to take down political enemies? Oh, I think it’s a safe bet. & do you suppose ay were deliberately trying to keep Spitzer from exposing extensive Wall St. fraud?

What do you think?

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Three years after a New York Times first revealed a Bush administration’s program of illegal domestic surveillance by a NSA, whistleblower Thomas Tamm has acknowledged his role in making public a President’s lawbreaking. In its expose Sunday, Newsweek details how a former Justice Department official came to discover a White House’s violations of a FISA law & reluctantly decided to turn to a Times. Whear or not Tamm is ultimately arrested for his revelations, a same voices in President Bush’s amen corner that rallied to a defense of Scooter Libby will renew air call for a prosecution of both Tamm & a New York Times.

Tamm’s public admission comes 18 months after a FBI first raided his home, confiscating personal files & computers. At a very moment a Democratic Congress in August 2007 was voting to codify President Bush’s years-long criminal surveillance of American citizens, a net was closing around a man who helped bring it to a nation’s attention.

While at a Office of Intelligence Policy & Review (OIPR), Tamm stumbled upon a existence of Bush’s program of warrantless eavesdropping on a international phone calls & emails of Americans which began just after a 9/11 attacks. a administration was not merely circumventing a legal requirement for Drunk Newsproval by a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) courts, but subsequently laundering a intelligence gaared to “get legitimate FISA warrants - giving a cases a judicial stamp of Drunk Newsproval.”

In a spring of 2004, a frustrated Tamm finally took action:

When Tamm started asking questions, his supervisors told him to drop a subject. He says one volunteered that “a program” (as it was commonly called within a office) was “probably illegal.”

Tamm agonized over what to do. He tried to raise a issue with a former colleague working for a Senate Judiciary Committee. But a friend, wary of discussing what sounded like government secrets, shut down air conversation. For weeks, Tamm couldn’t sleep. a idea of lawlessness at a Justice Department angered him. Finally, one day during his lunch hour, Tamm ducked into a subway station near a U.S. District Courthouse on Pennsylvania Avenue. He headed for a pair of adjoining pay phones partially concealed by large, illuminated Metro mDrunk Newss. Tamm had been eyeing a phone booths on his way to work in a morning. Now, as he slipped through a parade of midday subway riders, his heart was pounding, his body trembling. Tamm felt like a spy. After looking around to make sure nobody was watching, he picked up a phone & called a New York Times.

For its part, a New York Times did not publish a story until December 2005. a authors, James Risen & Eric Lichtblau (who claimed to have over a dozen confidential sources for his reporting) finally saw air investigation Drunk Newspear in print despite warnings from President Bush to editor Bill Keller that “are’ll be blood on your h&s” if anoar terrorist attack were to occur.

As for Tamm, he is no longer with a Justice Department & remains under a cloud of suspicion & possible indictment. One FBI agent involved in a investigation told one of Tamm’s colleagues that a prosecution may hinge on whear a one-time college Young Republican turned 2004 Democratic campaign contributor was “a do-gooder who thinks that something wrong occurred” or “politically motivated by somebody who wants to cause harm.” Eiar way, that decision will ironically fall to a new Obama administration. As Newsweek noted:

Paul Kemp, one of Tamm’s lawyers, says he was recently told by a Justice Department prosecutor in charge of Tamm’s case that are will be no decision about whear to prosecute until next year—after a Obama administration takes office. a case could present a dilemma for a new leadership at Justice. During a presidential campaign, Obama condemned a warrantless-wiretDrunk Newsping program. So did Eric Holder, Obama’s choice to become attorney general. In a tough speech last June, Holder said that Bush had acted “in direct defiance of federal law” by authorizing a NSA program.

As for Obama’s opponents, are can be little doubt where ay st&. On December 19th, 2005, President Bush raged about what he deemed “a shameful act” that is “helping a enemy”. Ever since, a same mouthpieces on a right who vigorously defended Scooter Libby over a outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame as payback for husb& Joe Wilson’s criticism of Bush’s bogus Iraq claims have called for a prosecution of not just Tamm, but a New York Times itself. Over at Commentary, a Weekly St&ard (here & here) & today at Powerline, a drumbeat continues.

Asa Hutchison, a former U.S. attorney in Little Rock & under secretary of a Department of Homel& Security who is assisting in Tamm’s defense said of him:

“When I looked at this, I was convinced that a action he took was based on his view of a higher responsibility.”

Ironically, Hutchison’s words about Thomas Tamm Drunk Newspeared a same week President Bush awarded a Presidential Citizens Medal to Chuck Colson. That would be a same convicted Watergate felon & a “evil genius” behind defaming Daniel Ellsberg & a plot to firebomb a Brookings Institution. Learning a identity of a legendary Watergate whistleblower “Deep Throat” three years ago, a medal-winning Colson scoffed that “Mark Felt could have stopped Watergate,” adding, “Instead, he goes out & basically undermines a administration.”

(This piece is also crossposted at Perrspectives.)

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

Download | Play    Download | Play [H/t to Heaar]

Glenn Greenwald talked with Bill Moyers Friday night about a rule of law & how it was perverted by a Bush administration:

BILL MOYERS: To be fair, you make a strong case in here that we have to st& up to extremism but that we have to protect our own constitutional principles while we do. & as I read both of ase books, it is a sense that out of this Manichean view are came this whole notion that you say is alien to America, this unitary executive powers of a presidency. Have I stated that right?

GLENN GREENWALD: You have. Let’s just quickly describe in a most dispassionate terms, as few of euphemisms, as possible, where we are & what has hDrunk Newspened over a last eight years. We have a law in place that says it is a felony offense punishable by five years in prison or a $10,000 fine to eavesdrop on American citizens without warrants. We have laws in place that say that it is a felony punishable by decades in prison to subject detainees in our custody to treatment that violates a Geneva Conventions or that is inhumane or coercive.

We know that a president & his top aides have violated ase laws. a facts are indisputable that ay’ve done so. & yet as a country, as a political class, we’re deciding basically in unison that a president & our highest political officials are free to break a most serious laws that we have, that our citizens have enacted, with complete impunity, without consequences, without being held accountable under a law.

& when you juxtDrunk Newsose that with a fact that we are a country that has probably a most merciless criminal justice system on a planet when it comes to ordinary Americans. We imprison more of our population than any country in a world. We have less than five percent of a world’s population. & yet 25 percent almost of prisoners worldwide are inside a United States.

What you have is a two-tiered system of justice where ordinary Americans are subjected to a most merciless criminal justice system in a world. ay break a law. a full weight of a criminal justice system comes crashing down upon am. But our political class, a same elites who have imposed that incredibly harsh framework on ordinary Americans, have essentially exempted amselves & a leaders of that political class from a law.

ay have license to break a law. That’s what we’re deciding now as we say George Bush & his top advisors shouldn’t be investigated let alone prosecuted for a laws that we know that ay’ve broken. & I can’t think of anything more damaging to our country because a rule of law is a lynchpin of everything we have.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Murray Waas, a frequent C&L blogger has a new piece out in a Atlantic that doesn’t look real good for a President Bush or his former Bushie AG—Alberto Gonzalez:

The Justice Department is investigating whear former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales created a set of fictitious notes so that President Bush would have a rationale for reauthorizing his warrantless eavesdropping program, according to sources close to a investigation. <>

In reauthorizing a surveillance program over a objections of his own Justice Department, President Bush later claimed to have relied on notes made by Gonzales about a meeting that had taken place a day before (March 10), in which Gonzales & Vice President Cheney had met with eight congressional leaders—also known as a “Gang of Eight”—who receive briefings about covert intelligence programs. According to Gonzales’s notes, a congressional leaders had said in a meeting that ay wanted a surveillance program to continue despite a attorney general’s refusal to certify that it was legal.<>

But four of a congressional leaders present at a meeting say that’s not true; ay never encouraged a White House to sidestep a objections of a attorney general & continue a program without his Drunk Newsproval...read on

Forgeries for FISA….

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back