Proposed FISA update would not give telecom companies legal protection

Proposed FISA update would not give telecom companies legal protection


House introduces delayed proposal to amend foreign spying law
House Democrats have refused to submit to Bush administration requests to save telecommunications companies that assisted in a warrantless wiretapping scheme from lawsuits or prosecution, and they want to require judicial approval for future efforts to spy on Americans.

The latest demands were aired Tuesday in a proposed update to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, although it remains to be seen whether House leaders -- and their counterparts in the Senate -- will be able to stand firm in sticking to their demands.
“Earlier this year, President Bush signed a short-term surveillance law that exposed innocent Americans’ phone calls and emails to warrantless intrusion," House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers said in a statement announcing the Democrats' proposal. "This bill shows that it is possible to protect civil liberties and fight terrorism at the same time.”
The proposed House bill offers some concession to the administration, and it includes fixes in surveillance that Democrats and Republicans agreed were needed, such as a clarification that no warrant is required to spy on strictly foreign-to-foreign phone calls and e-mails.
Under the new law, the Attorney General or Director of National Intelligence would be authorized to receive blanket warrants to eavesdrop on several foreign intelligence targets who could call into the United States, but the bill would restore FISA court reviews of targeting procedures and steps taken to "minimize" Americans' exposure to surveillance. If an American is to become the "target" of surveillance, intelligence agencies would be required to seek an individualized warrant from the FISA court.

The American Civil Liberties Union said that concession would allow "blanket warrants" to authorize the National Security Agency and other US intelligence services to gather information on untold numbers of Americans who may not be suspected of doing anything wrong.
"The program can collect any communication as long as one leg of it is overseas," the ACLU said in a critique of the new proposal. "If Americans’ communications are swept up by this new, general program warrant, there is no requirement that a court actually review whether those communications are seized in compliance with the Fourth Amendment."

A Democratic summary of the new bill says Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell did not object to judicial oversight of targeting and minimization procedures. A DNI spokeswoman told RAW STORY that McConnell would not comment on pending legislation.
When he testified before Congress last month, McConnell laid out three primary requests for the FISA update. His foreign-to-foreign clarification and basket warrant provisions were included, but Democrats did not bow to his requests that telecommunications be let off the hook for assisting in the warrantless wiretapping program since 2001. McConnell told congressional committees that basket warrants were needed because intelligence analysts can't know in advance whether a foreign target would be calling someone in the US.

The ACLU was largely positive about bill, but it was dire in its warnings about the basket warrants' potential to violate Americans civil rights.

"There has not been a surveillance program since FISA was created that allows massive, untargeted collection of communications that will knowingly pick up US communications on US soil without any suspicion of wrongdoing," the group said. "This creates novel and fundamental Fourth Amendment problems that Congress should seek to avoid instead of sanctioning. Going back to the court may be inconvenient, but doing so is just a matter or resources and protecting our Fourth Amendment rights is worth the cost."

Since passing what many saw as a hastily crafted temporary FISA revision just before recessing in August, Democrats in the House vowed to assuage critics who saw that bill, the Protect America Act, as not doing enough to protect Americans' privacy rights.

The House Intelligence and Judiciary committees on Tuesday released a summary of their latest effort to amend FISA, which would require repair shortcomings in intelligence-gathering efforts while ensuring that intelligence agencies do not target Americans without first getting
individualized warrants.

The proposal is known as the Responsible Surveillance That is Overseen, Reviewed and Effective (Restore) Act, and it is timed to expire Dec. 31, 2009, when Congress also would revisit the Patriot Act.

Before the announcement Tuesday, the New York Times published a bleak assessment of the chances for success of a bill like the one Democrats have proposed.

Although the act would include several provisions requested last week by progressive lawmakers, it does not include must-have items demanded by President Bush, such as telecom immunity, and Democrats are unlikely to be able to corral enough votes to override a presidential veto.

Civil liberties and privacy-rights activists have been lobbying intensely for Democrats to stand firm against immunity for telephone and Internet providers who are alleged to have granted National Security Agency spies access to domestic communications switches, and they appear to have scored a small victory with Tuesday's announcement.

House leaders were expected to announce their proposal last week but held off after the House Progressive Caucus released its list of needed reforms in a FISA update, such as a sunset provision and refusal to grant immunity to telecom companies, which were included Tuesday.
The Protect America Act expires in February, and Democrats are facing pressure from the White House to pass a permanent measure soon. Congress is expected to send its FISA revision to the president before the end of the year.

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The House Intelligence and Judiciary committees released the following summary of their proposal:

RESTORE Act of 2007 (Responsible Surveillance That is Overseen, Reviewed and Effective) Bill Summary
Security and Liberty: The bill provides the Intelligence Community with effective tools to conduct surveillance of foreign targets outside the United States but restores Constitutional checks and balances that were not contained in the Protect America Act (PAA--the Administration’s FISA bill.)

The RESTORE ACT:
Clarifies that No Court Warrant is Required to Intercept Communications of Non-United States Persons When Both Ends of the Communications are Outside the United States.
Requires an Individualized Court Warrant from the FISA Court When Targeting Persons in the United States. (Same as current law.)

Creates a Program of Court Authorized Targeting of Non-U.S. Persons Outside the United States. Grants the Attorney General (AG) and the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) authority to apply to the FISA Court for an order to conduct surveillance of foreign targets, or groups of targets, for up to one year – but RESTORES the following checks and balances that were absent under the PAA:

a. Court Review of Targeting Procedures. The FISA Court must review targeting procedures to ensure that they are reasonably designed to target only people outside the United States. In emergencies, the FISA Court review may take place after the surveillance has begun – for up to 45 days. DNI McConnell told Congress in September that he did not oppose FISA Court review of these targeting procedures.

b. Court Review of Minimization Procedures. The FISA Court must review minimization procedures. DNI McConnell told Congress in September that he did not oppose FISA Court review of these minimization procedures.

c. Court Review of Guidelines to ensure that, when the government seeks to conduct electronic surveillance of a person in the United States, the government obtains a traditional individualized warrant from the FISA Court.

Clarifies Ambiguous Language on Warrantless Domestic Searches. The bill clarifies and eliminates ambiguous language in the PAA that appeared to authorize warrantless searches inside the United States, including physical searches of American homes, offices, computers, and medical records.

In a letter to Congress in September, Administration officials indicated that they did not intend their legislation to authorize such warrantless domestic searches and expressed a willingness to consider alternative language.

A RESTORE ACT Authorization May Not Be Used to Target Any Known U.S. Person. If the government learns that the target of surveillance is a U.S. person (say, an American traveling abroad), it cannot use this new authority.

Assistant Attorney General Ken Wainstein acknowledged to Congress in September that the PAA could be used by the Administration to target Americans abroad without a warrant, even U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Limits Authority to Terrorism, Espionage, Sabotage, and Threats to National Security. The Administration’s bill allowed for surveillance for all foreign intelligence, including a broad category of information related to “foreign affairs.” This bill allows the Intelligence Community to deal with the threats facing the United States from terrorism, espionage, sabotage, clandestine intelligence activities, and to collect information related to the national defense or security of the U.S., without authorizing the collection on the broad category of “foreign affairs.”
Requires Quarterly Audits and Reports. Requires quarterly audits by the Justice Department Inspector General (DOJ IG) on communications collected under this authority and the number of U.S. persons identified in intelligence reports disseminated pursuant to this collection. These audits would be provided to the FISA Court and to Congress (Intelligence and Judiciary Committees.)

The Administration’s bill contained very limited reporting to Congress. During testimony, DNI McConnell said he did not oppose an Inspector General audit of the program to determine the scope of American communications swept up by this authority.

Requires an Audit of the President’s Surveillance Program and Other Warrantless Surveillance Programs. This audit mandates a report and documents related to these programs be provided
to Congress in unclassified form with a classified annex.

Requires Record-keeping of the Use of United States Persons Information. Mandates that the Executive Branch record every instance in which the identity of a United States person whose communication was acquired by the Intelligence Community is disseminated to an element or person within the Executive Branch and that it submit an annual report to Congress on the dissemination.

Adds Resources for FISA. Adds funding for personnel and technology resources at DOJ and NSA to speed the FISA process and to ensure that audits can be conducted expeditiously.
Reiterates the Exclusivity of FISA. Includes House-passed bipartisan Schiff-Flake language stating that FISA is the exclusive means to conduct electronic surveillance of Americans for the purpose of foreign intelligence collection.

No Retroactive Immunity. The bill is silent on retroactive immunity because the Administration has refused to provide Congress with documents on the specifics of the President’s warrantless surveillance program. However, the bill does provide prospective immunity for those complying with court orders issued pursuant to this authority.

Establishes En Banc Review. Allows the FISA Court to sit en banc. The FISA Court requested this, and the Administration does not oppose it.

Provides Sunset, Transition Procedures and Report on PAA. Sunsets this new authority on December 31, 2009, when certain PATRIOT Act provisions sunset. However, the legislation will allow for a transition from the existing warrants to the new ones to ensure that the Intelligence Community does not go “dark” on any surveillance. The Administration will be required to submit a report on U.S.-person information collected and disseminated under the PAA authorities.

Novak: Wilson didn't strongly object to wife's name being revealed

Novak: Wilson didn't strongly object to wife's name being revealed
Nick JulianoPublished: Tuesday October 9,

Wilson: Novak 'going to hell for his lies'
Conservative columnist Robert Novak said he did not hear forceful objection from the husband of a then-undercover CIA agent before her name was printed in his infamous column that sparked a years-long legal battle over his sources.

“He was not terribly exercised about it,” Novak said, referring to Ambassador Joseph Wilson, whose wife Valerie Plame Wilson was outed in his July 2003 column. Novak's comments to the Society of Professional Journalists convention were reported Monday in The Hill.

Wilson refuted that charge in an interview with RAW STORY Monday.
"I hope he's going to confession, because if not he's surely going to Hell for his lies," Wilson said.
Wilson, who had just published a column undercutting the Bush administrations claims about Iraq's weapons capabilities, asked Novak before the column appeared not to portray him simply as a war critic, the Hill reported. And Novak told the crowd that Wilson stressed that his wife went by his last name, rather than her maiden name (Novak's column reported her name as Valerie Plame).

"The question of my wife's last name never came up," Wilson said.
Rather, he says he asked Novak to stop telling people around Washington that his wife worked for the CIA.

"It is a compromise of my family's personal responsibility and safety ... not to mention treasonous," said Wilson, who did not confirm to Novak that Valerie Wilson was a CIA agent.
Novak slammed his critics for attacking his ethics, saying they really had a problem with his ideology. He said his case demonstrates the need for a federal shield law to protect journalists.
“I was stunned by how little editorial support I received. I was under assault from editorial writers from across the country,” Novak said. “It is startling how little is known about this case by the people who are commenting on it.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee last week approved a reporters' shield law, that would protect journalists from having to disclose the identities of confidential sources or hand over to authorities any records, documents or notes from confidential sources. The Washington Post reports that the new law would have a broad definition of who was covered that would include, reporters, columnists and bloggers but could exclude employees of news organizations owned by foreign governments, such as al-Jazeera or the BBC.

Novak defended his reporting Valerie Wilson's name, and said the disclosure was not part of a Bush administration effort to smear a prominent war critic. He also said it is "hypocritical" for his critics to support a shield law "that would have saved me from three years of confrontation."
To Wilson, Novak's "I'm a victim" defense is little more than a last resort aimed more at upping his book sales than setting the record straight.

"He's trying to flog his book," Wilson charged, "on my back and my wife's back."

Leak severs link to al-Qaeda’s secrets

Leak severs link to al-Qaeda’s secrets
Firm says Bush administration’s handling of video ruined its spying efforts
By Joby Warrick
The Washington Post

A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official release last month, and around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, it notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition. It gave two senior officials access on the condition that the officials not reveal they had it until the al-Qaeda release.

Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company's Web site. By midafternoon that day, the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from within the Bush administration to cable television news and broadcast worldwide.

The founder of the company, the SITE Intelligence Group, says this premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed a years-long surveillance operation that the company has used to intercept and pass along secret messages, videos and advance warnings of suicide bombings from the terrorist group's communications network.

"Techniques that took years to develop are now ineffective and worthless," said Rita Katz, the firm's 44-year-old founder, who has garnered wide attention by publicizing statements and videos from extremist chat rooms and Web sites, while attracting controversy over the secrecy of SITE's methodology. Her firm provides intelligence about terrorist groups to a wide range of paying clients, including private firms and military and intelligence agencies from the United States and several other countries.

The precise source of the leak remains unknown. Government officials declined to be interviewed about the circumstances on the record, but they did not challenge Katz's version of events. They also said the incident had no effect on U.S. intelligence-gathering efforts and did not diminish the government's ability to anticipate attacks.

While acknowledging that SITE had achieved success, the officials said U.S. agencies have their own sophisticated means of watching al-Qaeda on the Web. "We have individuals in the right places dealing with all these issues, across all 16 intelligence agencies," said Ross Feinstein, spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

‘Tremendously helpful’But privately, some intelligence officials called the incident regrettable, and one official said SITE had been "tremendously helpful" in ferreting out al-Qaeda secrets over time.

The al-Qaeda video aired on Sept. 7 attracted international attention as the first new video message from the group's leader in three years. In it, a dark-bearded bin Laden urges Americans to convert to Islam and predicts failure for the Bush administration in Iraq and Afghanistan. The video was aired on hundreds of Western news Web sites nearly a full day before its release by a distribution company linked to al-Qaeda.

Computer logs and records reviewed by The Washington Post support SITE's claim that it snatched the video from al-Qaeda days beforehand. Katz requested that the precise date and details of the acquisition not be made public, saying such disclosures could reveal sensitive details about the company's methods.

SITE -- an acronym for the Search for International Terrorist Entities -- was established in 2002 with the stated goal of tracking and exposing terrorist groups, according to the company's Web site. Katz, an Iraqi-born Israeli citizen whose father was executed by Saddam Hussein in the 1960s, has made the investigation of terrorist groups a passionate quest.

"We were able to establish sources that provided us with unique and important information into al-Qaeda's hidden world," Katz said. Her company's income is drawn from subscriber fees and contracts.

Katz said she decided to offer an advance copy of the bin Laden video to the White House without charge so officials there could prepare for its eventual release.

She spoke first with White House counsel Fred F. Fielding, whom she had previously met, and then with Joel Bagnal, deputy assistant to the president for homeland security. Both expressed interest in obtaining a copy, and Bagnal suggested that she send a copy to Michael Leiter, who holds the No. 2 job at the National Counterterrorism Center.

Administration and intelligence officials would not comment on whether they had obtained the video separately. Katz said Fielding and Bagnal made it clear to her that the White House did not possess a copy at the time she offered hers.

Around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, Katz sent both Leiter and Fielding an e-mail with a link to a private SITE Web page containing the video and an English transcript. "Please understand the necessity for secrecy," Katz wrote in her e-mail. "We ask you not to distribute . . . [as] it could harm our investigations."

Fielding replied with an e-mail expressing gratitude to Katz. "It is you who deserves the thanks," he wrote, according to a copy of the message. There was no record of a response from Leiter or the national intelligence director's office.

Exactly what happened next is unclear. But within minutes of Katz's e-mail to the White House, government-registered computers began downloading the video from SITE's server, according to a log of file transfers. The records show dozens of downloads over the next three hours from computers with addresses registered to defense and intelligence agencies.

Page markers an indicatorBy midafternoon, several television news networks reported obtaining copies of the transcript. A copy posted around 3 p.m. on Fox News's Web site referred to SITE and included page markers identical to those used by the group. "This confirms that the U.S. government was responsible for the leak of this document," Katz wrote in an e-mail to Leiter at 5 p.m.

Al-Qaeda supporters, now alerted to the intrusion into their secret network, put up new obstacles that prevented SITE from gaining the kind of access it had obtained in the past, according to Katz.

A small number of private intelligence companies compete with SITE in scouring terrorists' networks for information and messages, and some have questioned the company's motives and methods, including the claim that its access to al-Qaeda's network was unique. One competitor, Ben Venzke, founder of IntelCenter, said he questions SITE's decision -- as described by Katz -- to offer the video to White House policymakers rather than quietly share it with intelligence analysts.

"It is not just about getting the video first," Venzke said. "It is about having the proper methods and procedures in place to make sure that the appropriate intelligence gets to where it needs to go in the intelligence community and elsewhere in order to support ongoing counterterrorism operations."

Post editor says Bush, Gonzales should be tortured Nick Juliano

Post editor says Bush, Gonzales should be tortured

An associate editor and columnist for the Washington Post says that until George W. Bush and others in his administration endure the "harsh" treatment to which terrorism suspects are subjected, then Bush "will be remembered as the president who tried to justify torture."

Saying his proposal is a "serious" alternative to Jonathan Swift's "modest proposal," the Post's Eugene Robinson says Bush should endure the same detainee treatment he authorized, which "international conventions deem torture."

"My proposal on torture is serious," Robinson wrote on a washingtonpost.com discussion board Sunday. "Let me know if you agree: Bush administration officials who claim the "harsh" interrogation techniques being used on terrorism suspects are not torture should have to undergo those same techniques. Personally. Repeatedly."

The New York Times revealed last week that secret Justice Department documents explicitly authorized "a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures." Bush repeated denials that the US does not torture prisoners, although he has not discussed what specific tactics are used.

"Clearly, he is using a narrow definition of torture: If we haven't actually put anybody on the rack or pulled out his fingernails, we haven't committed torture," Robinson writes. "Until George W. Bush can say, 'Hey, I've been waterboarded, and it wasn't so bad,' or Alberto Gonzales can say, 'To tell the truth, spending those three days naked in a freezing-cold cell wasn't painful or anything,' then I'll continue to believe that history will condemn this administration for a shocking lapse of moral judgment. Bush will be remembered as the president who tried to justify torture."

10 Fast and Easy Steps from Freedom to Fascism

10 Fast and Easy Steps from Freedom to Fascism

By F. Vyan Walton

During her little noticed appearance on The Colbert Report this week author Naomi Wolf mentioned a list of ten specific steps that can and will lead a country from Democracy and Freedom into Totalitarian Fascism - and unfortunately it appears that we've already ticked our way past all but one of those goalposts while hardly blinking an eye.

From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all

The old analogy of the frog in the frying pan clearly applies here. It's only by very slowly and gradually increasing the heat that we are lulled into believing everything is just fine - meanwhile our skin is peeling off.

Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree - domestically - as many other nations. Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government - the task of being aware of the constitution has been outsourced from citizens' ownership to being the domain of professionals such as lawyers and professors - we scarcely recognize the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled. Because we don't learn much about European history, the setting up of a department of "homeland" security - remember who else was keen on the word "homeland" - didn't raise the alarm bells it might have.

It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable - as the author and political journalist Joe Conason, has put it, that it can happen here. And that we are further along than we realize.

Naomi makes an excellent point, but what is even more chilling is the fact that it has happened before - TO US!

Step 1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy

As was done after the Reichstag Fire and the Attack on Pearl Harbor a new and enduring enemy of the state has been identified, both within and without - both real and imagined. In Germany the imagined enemy were the Jews, Gypsies and Gays, in America it was the interned Japanese-Americans, the dreaded "Fifth Column" and later The Reds and Commies.

As the Reichstag Fire was followed by the Enabling Act which supplanted constitutional law with a perpetual state of emergency, we have seen Sept 11th followed by the Patriot Act, the (toothless) Detainee Treatment Act, the Military Commissions Act and the FISA Act - all of whom have continued to trade freedom and protections against the overreaching of the state for the pyrite of "Security" in a deal so naked in it's lopsidedness it would make Beelzebulb blush with envy.

Today the real threat is indeed al Qeada, albeit a far less deadly and damaging threat than the one which wiped most of New Orleans from the map, while the imagined one are those damn filthy Liberals who just about seem to be to blame for everything. Especially those mouthy Liberals who would rail against the slow loss of liberty and our national moral standing. Pity those who dare to stand firm against the juggernaut of fear and loathing, they who will become nothing more than grease upon it's wheels.

Step 2. Create a Gulag

As we've seen under Stalin once you have identified your enemies - you need a dank dark place to put them. Permanently. And of course, like a little butter to make this bitter pill go down - you need a sham kangaroo court to make your Secret Prisons and Detention Centers seem completely legitimate.

By the way, the establishment of military tribunals that deny prisoners due process tends to come early on in a fascist shift. Mussolini and Stalin set up such tribunals. On April 24 1934, the Nazis, too, set up the People's Court, which also bypassed the judicial system: prisoners were held indefinitely, often in isolation, and tortured, without being charged with offenses, and were subjected to show trials.

Today people such Abu Omar, Maher Arar and Pulitzer Prize winning AP photographer Bilial Hussein have been literally snatched off the street by U.S. forces and agents, kidnapped, transported across international lines against their will and in several cases tortured by our "allies" only to be later to have been found as Omar and Ahar have been - to be completely innocent. Most of those held at Abu Ghraib were innocent of any real charge, and had no connections to insurgents or terrorists - yet they have remained.

Meanwhile the American public has hardly lifted a voice in protest, let alone a finger. Just as they remained silent during the internment of Japanese-Americans, and the blacklisting of suspected "Pinkos" in decades past.

3. Develop a thug caste.

When leaders who seek what I call a "fascist shift" want to close down an open society, they send paramilitary groups of scary young men out to terrorize citizens. The Blackshirts roamed the Italian countryside beating up communists; the Brownshirts staged violent rallies throughout Germany. This paramilitary force is especially important in a democracy: you need citizens to fear thug violence and so you need thugs who are free from prosecution.

Today we have private military firms such as Triple Canopy, and of course Black Water. These firms not only roam the streets of Baghdad, but have already roamed the streets of New Orleans. Accountable to no one except their share-holders, these firms employ their on mercenary army with their own rules of engagement and a history of shooting civilians for sport as Triple Canopy was accused of in 2006.

WASHINGTON - Shane Schmidt was a U.S. Marine for seven years, the leader of a sniper unit. Chuck Shepard spent seven years in the U.S. Army. After leaving the military, each found his way into the legions of heavily armed private security contractors working in Iraq.

The two were working together on July 8, 2006, when they claim they witnessed what they believe was a crime. They say another American fired, unprovoked, into two Iraqi civilian vehicles. They say it started during a mission to Baghdad International Airport, when their supervisor, who was leaving Iraq the next day and was in the vehicle with them, made a troubling remark.

"He'd made a comment that he was going to kill somebody today," says Schmidt. "Kill someone."

This week after an allegedly unprovoked shooting that killed nearly a dozen innocent Iraqi civilians, Black Water was asked to leave Iraq by their prime minister - yet they remain and have continued their duties.

This new generation of Brownshirts are now all powerful and completely immune to U.S. Law and Iraqi Law as Ms. Wolf points out.

In Iraq, some of these contract operatives have been accused of involvement in torturing prisoners, harassing journalists and firing on Iraqi civilians. Under Order 17, issued to regulate contractors in Iraq by the one-time US administrator in Baghdad, Paul Bremer, these contractors are immune from prosecution.

4. Set up an internal surveillance system

Enter the Secret Police, watching everyone, hearing everything - and their most valuable agent just might be your next door neighbor.

In Mussolini's Italy, in Nazi Germany, in communist East Germany, in communist China - in every closed society - secret police spy on ordinary people and encourage neighbors to spy on neighbors.

In 2005 and 2006, when James Risen and Eric Lichtblau wrote in the New York Times about a secret state programme to wiretap citizens' phones, read their emails and follow international financial transactions, it became clear to ordinary Americans that they, too, could be under state scrutiny

Total Information Awareness, long thought dead has continued to re-emerge in new and more powerful forms. Tracking tens of millions of international domestic phone calls, emails and financial transactions without any judicial oversight. Clear and obvious violations of the FISA Law, the Pen and Trap restrictions and the 4th Amendment. No checks, no balance - just more paranoia, more fear, and more consolidation of power and influence.

5. Harass citizens' groups

And who better to watch than those peace-loving anti-war Liberals. Clearly they represent the most clear and present danger to the state (of perpetual war).

the American Civil Liberties Union reports that thousands of ordinary American anti-war, environmental and other groups have been infiltrated by agents: a secret Pentagon database includes more than four dozen peaceful anti-war meetings, rallies or marches by American citizens in it's category of 1,500 "suspicious incidents". The equally secret Counterintelligence Field Activity (Cifa) agency of the Department of Defense has been gathering information about domestic organizations engaged in peaceful political activities: Cifa is supposed to track "potential terrorist threats" as it watches ordinary US citizen activists.

That's right you too could be on the Watchlist. But of course you still have freedom of speech, just watch what you say.

6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release

Whether you are a professor Emeritus at Princeton, a U.S. Senator, a former Vice President of the United States, a humble folk singer who has converted to Islam or simply a window washer we are all now well aware that at anytime we could be arbitrarily detained, particularly while attempting to travel by air.

In 2004, America's Transportation Security Administration confirmed that it had a list of passengers who were targeted for security searches or worse if they tried to fly. People who have found themselves on the list? Two middle-aged women peace activists in San Francisco; liberal Senator Edward Kennedy; a member of Venezuela's government - after Venezuela's president had criticized Bush; and thousands of ordinary US citizens.

And we've seen more mundane but violent incidents of arbitrary detention particularly at colleges. In addition to the tasing at last weeks Kerry event, we've had other students who were a less vocal and resistant Iranian Student was singled out, profiled and then tasered into submission for refusing to provide his ID unless other students in the area were similarly questioned at such "Liberal" schools as UCLA. Quicktime Video

An incident late Tuesday night in which a UCLA student was stunned at least four times with a Taser has left the UCLA community questioning whether the university police officers’ use of force was an appropriate response to the situation.

Mostafa Tabatabainejad, a UCLA student, was repeatedly stunned with a Taser and then taken into custody when he did not exit the CLICC Lab in Powell Library in a timely manner. Community Service Officers had asked Tabatabainejad to leave after he failed to produce his BruinCard during a random check at around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Mostafa demanded that he be afforded equal treatment and equal justice while being harassed by security without probable cause - for his impudence he was tased repeatedly, even after he has already been handcuffed.

7. Target key individuals

Threaten civil servants, artists and academics with job loss if they don't toe the line. Mussolini went after the rectors of state universities who did not conform to the fascist line; so did Joseph Goebbels, who purged academics who were not pro-Nazi; so did Chile's Augusto Pinochet; so does the Chinese communist Politburo in punishing pro-democracy students and professors.

From the harassment of Ward Churchill for daring to state that the 9/11 hijackers might actually have a reasons for wanting to strike back at the World Trade Center, to the attacks to the Smearboating of John Kerry and John Murtha - those who speak out against the authoritarians have a target painted directly on their forehead. Disabling and neutralizing potential leaders stalls organization of larger movements and protests against the status quo.

Besides the Death Threat used against the Dixie Chicks for speaking out, there's the case of one elderly black minister, Rev Lennox Yearwood of the Hip Hop Caucus, who was pulled out of line, wrestled to the ground and dog piled by Capital Police (resulting in a fracture of his leg) in the Halls of the Capital Building for having the temerity for being "one peacenik too many" while trying to enter the hearing room where Gen Petreaus was scheduled to testify just last week.

<> Youtube Video

If you have any doubts that we are rushing head-long into becoming a fascist state - this video should correct that mis-presumption.

8. Control the press

Italy in the 1920s, Germany in the 30s, East Germany in the 50s, Czechoslovakia in the 60s, the Latin American dictatorships in the 70s, China in the 80s and 90s - all dictatorships and would-be dictators target newspapers and journalists. They threaten and harass them in more open societies that they are seeking to close, and they arrest them and worse in societies that have been closed already.

As Dan Rather lawsuit has now revealed, CBS was completely manipulated by the Administration to stall the Killian Memo's story, they also attempted to block release of the Abu Ghraib story just as they had with the Secret CIA Prisons Story, the NSA Domestic Surveillance Story and the Financial Tracking Story.

In addition to pressuring the corporate media, the Administration has used sympathetic outlets such as Fox News to present uncritical stenography of their view of the world such as when Fox's Brit Hume allowed Gen Petreaus use his program to give an extended power point briefing on the Surge.

And lastly, they've actually used government agencies to generate literally fake news. Paying for favorable reporting from the likes of Armstrong Williams, Maggie Gallagher, Micheal McManus and Dave Smith - not to mention completely fake "journalists" such as Jeff Gannon/Guckert - and then used government facilities to release imitation local news reports that are then rebroadcast nationally as if actual reporters had generated them.

9. Dissent equals treason

Cast dissent as "treason" and criticism as "espionage'. Every closing society does this, just as it elaborates laws that increasingly criminalize certain kinds of speech and expand the definition of "spy" and "traitor".

It has been quite common for anyone who criticizes the tactics of the Bush Administration to be labeled as "Traitor" or "Aider and Abetter". I have documented this in detail here and here - noting that time and time again, whether it's Ann Coulter, Melanie Morgan, Rush Limbaugh, Tom Delay, Dennis Hastert, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney or George Bush himself - the language of "treason" is always not far from the tip of their tongue.

Naomi argues that this salty rhetoric is not just a reflex, not just a political pose, it's meant by quite literally those who invoke it. Eventually we will see an American Citizen tried for Treason simply because they said the "wrong thing" at the wrong time. (Arguably, it may have already occurred with one particular attorney of a terrorism client whose name I don't currently recall) But then again, maybe there won't even be a trial, maybe they'll simply be deemed an "Enemy Combatant" with no evidence, hearing or access to Habeas Corpus and disappear into our modern day Gulags. And if it did happen, how would we even know?

10. Suspend the rule of law

Final stop, all aboard on this well paved road to hell.

The John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007 gave the president new powers over the national guard. This means that in a national emergency - which the president now has enhanced powers to declare - he can send Michigan's militia to enforce a state of emergency that he has declared in Oregon, over the objections of the state's governor and it's citizens.

This of course is in direct violation of the Posse Commitatus act which restricts the ability of the Federal Government to use Military forces against it's own citizens. In effect, Posse Commitatus has now been nullified, just as Habeas Corpus and the War Crimes Act had been previously.

There is now literally nothing standing in the way of Martial Law other than the President making a determination that he will or will not invoke it.

He can do this any time he feels like. Congress granted him this power, just as they granted him the authority to invade Iraq and the eviscerate FISA. This happened on Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid's watch, not when the Republicans had control of Congress and considering how incredibly ineffective they've been so far at ending the War they helped start in Iraq, once we cross this rubicon the likelihood of our ever coming back remains extremely remote.

This has been like a bolder rolling down the hill toward our Constitution for the past 30 years, ever since Nixon resigned and many Presidential "powers" were severely curtained by oversight and laws intended to protect the public from the abuse of power by the government such as FISA.

Now it's at full speed - and we will not manage to stop it on a "dime". Even if we do manage to recognize the danger in time, even if we do manage to muster a million man human chain of activists, journalists (and a few genuinely brave politicians) to stand in the way of this behemoth and either slow it down or change it's inevitable course toward full-on fascism, we won't do so without taking casualties.

We aren't leaving this fight without putting some skin in the game. We will have setbacks, as we have this week with the failure of the Webb "Dwell Time" amendment, the collapse of Habeas yet again, Reid-Feingold going down in flames only to have Levin-Reed bar-b-qued right beside it. Congress is simply not going to be able to end this war with a snap of their fingers or by attempting the disastrous strategy of cutting of the funding for the troops.

That ain't gonna happen, largely because we have yet to recognize exactly what it is we are truly fighting against. It's not just about the War, it's much, much more than that.

But we have to keep pushing, we have to keep fighting - as Naomi points out so clearly - we are headed directly down a incredibly dark and dangerous path. We can't say "It'll never happen here" - because even our own relatively recent history with McCarthyism proves this simply isn't true. I can happen, it has happened and now it's happening again. Back then it was just the ravings of one lone lunatic in the Senate, but today it's much worse. It's not just the President or the most extreme wingnuts in his party, it's the Democrats too - those who continue to cower and collapse when the pressure is applied, those who condemn MoveOn for simply saying the same type of thing that has been said about General Batiste, General Eaton and General Zinni when they dared to criticize the President's repeated failure after failure after failure. They are indeed "aiders and abettors" but not to al Qaeda, they have aided the rise of a New American Fascism. An America that is Patriotic as all get-out and rotten to the core.

Yes, it's happened before, it can happen to again - but only if we let it. Only if we're too busy with Brittany flashing her shaven poontang all over town or this nonsense of OJ stealing his own sh*t back to really Pay Attention, then stand and be counted as a personal defender of freedom. It's not just the job of the soldiers - it's our job as well and we have to take it back. Spread the word, spread the truth. It's won't be easy, it won't happen tomorrow, people won't listen, they won't believe, they won't respond - they'll ridicule us as being extremists and moonbats (heck, they already do) - it might take 20 or more years, but we have to do it and keep doing it.

The future of our Democracy really and truly is at stake.

Vyan

Authors Website: http://www.truth2powerproject.com

Matthews says Bush administration has "finally been caught in their criminality"

October 4, 8:04 PM

Playing Hardball with the Prez



"Hardball" host Chris Matthews addresses attendees at Thursday night's ten-year anniversary of "Hardball," which took place at the Decatur House in Washington, D.C.

Chris Matthews had barely finished praising his colleagues at the 10th anniversary party for his “Hardball” show Thursday night in Washington, D.C. when his remarks turned political and pointed, even suggesting that the Bush administration had "finally been caught in their criminality."

In front of an audience that included such notables as Alan Greenspan, Rep. Patrick Kennedy and Sen. Ted Kennedy, Matthews began his remarks by declaring that he wanted to "make some news" and he certainly didn't disappoint. After praising the drafters of the First Amendment for allowing him to make a living, he outlined what he said was the fundamental difference between the Bush and Clinton administrations.

The Clinton camp, he said, never put pressure on his bosses to silence him.

“Not so this crowd,” he added, explaining that Bush White House officials -- especially those from Vice President Cheney's office -- called MSNBC brass to complain about the content of his show and attempted to influence its editorial content. "They will not silence me!" Matthews declared.

"They've finally been caught in their criminality," Matthews continued, although he did not specify the exact criminal behavior to which he referred. He then drew an obvious Bush-Nixon parallel by saying, “Spiro Agnew was not an American hero."

Matthews left the throng of Washington A-listers with a parting shot at Cheney: “God help us if we had Cheney during the Cuban missile crisis. We’d all be under a parking lot.”

Following his remarks, a few network insiders and party goers wondered what kind of effect Matthews' sharp criticism of the White House would have on Tuesday's Republican debate in Dearborn, Michigan, which Matthews co-moderates alongside CNBC's Maria Bartiromo.

"I find it hard to believe that Republican candidates will feel as if they're being given a fair shot at Tuesday's debate given the partisan pot-shots lobbed by Matthews this evening," said one attendee.

When reached, the White House declined to comment and NBC refused requests to release video of the event. The event included such NBC/MSNBC brass as NBC Senior Vice President Phil Griffin (the former "Hardball" executive producer called "Hardball" the "best show on cable television"), "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert, "Today" show executive producer Jim Bell, NBC News Specials Executive Producer Phil Alongi, "Meet the Press" Executive Producer Betsy Fischer, NBC chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell, MSNBC Vice President Tammy Haddad, "Hardball" correspondent David Shuster and Vice President for MSNBC Prime-Time Programming Bill Wolff.

On a side note: Matthews was overheard discussing his Tuesday appearance on "The Daily Show," which featured a heated exchange with host Jon Stewart. According to one source, Matthews was steadfast in his belief that the debate left Stewart crestfallen, and Matthews victorious.

Now Read The Truth: Lieberman-Kyl DEFANGED Because of YOU by thepen Page 1 of 1 page(s) http://www.opednews.com

WE THE PEOPLE CUT THE HEART OUT OF THE LIEBERMAN-KYL AMENDMENT

It has taken a couple days for the actual disposition of the Lieberman-Kyl amendment to leak out, but in FACT, the two most offensive paragraphs (3 and 4), which we were objecting to so strenuously as amounting to a declaration of war on Iran, were REMOVED IN THEIR ENTIRELY prior to the vote. Which means we WON.


Behold your victory:

Yes, you did it, with your TENS of thousands of emails and phones to Congress this last Monday and Tuesday. We are so proud of our participants on this one. Claim your win.

What was left was not great, but ultimately it means nothing with the actual teeth of the amendment extracted, not that that's any excuse for those who voted yes (or did not vote at all). So the Senate called some people a terrorist organization. Big deal, it's not binding anyway, no more than their groundless and hypocritical condemnation of MoveOn a week ago. And for those who may say this gives Cheney and Bush an excuse to do anything, this White House doesn't think it needs an excuse to do anything, that's the whole POINT of impeachment.

Once again this PROVES that activism works. We beat them back this time in a major way, folks, and why? Because we actually spoke out, that's why! We dismissed the voices of defeatism and took action. Fancy that, participatory democracy works. Are the evil ones going to give up? Of course not, and that's why we're not going to give up either. Let's say it together, we're going to keep ON speaking out in even greater numbers.

There are many dirty secrets in Washington, but the biggest one of all they are trying to keep may be that when you write and call in mass numbers, members of Congress tremble, shaking in their socks, especially in the House where they have to get reelected every two years. Oh, sure, sometimes they send us their form letter responses trying to sluff us off, trying to con us into thinking we are not having an impact. But we know the truth, which is that they work for us, and we do have the POWER with our personal messages to enforce that.

WHAT DO WE DO NEXT? WHY, IMPEACHMENT OF COURSE

This week yet another video of Dick "Five Deferments" Cheney surfaced from the early nineties, again articulating his views as to why trying to occupy Iraq would be lead to nothing but a disastrous quagmire. And yet this is the same man who not only lied the country into doing just that once he seized power himself, but is still the most aggressive force in the White House pushing for an even more monumental debacle in Iran.

H. RES 333 ACTION PAGE: http://www.usalone.com/hres333.php

Recognizing the gravity of the increasingly loud drumbeats for more war coming from the Vice President's office, this week Dennis Kucinich, who had already gotten 20 cosponsors for H.Res 333 to impeach Cheney, said he was seriously considering forcing the House of Representatives to take up the issue of impeachment by bringing it as a privileged resolution.

We have a major win in our pocket this week. We have slowed them down. But we also recognize that the only thing that will stop them completely is confronting the White House, and Cheney in particular, with impeachment. Each and every member of the House must be called to account at this moment in American political history, by the demands of you, their constituents, whether they will stand up for the Constitution and stop Dick Cheney's delusional march to Iran . . . or not.

Already more than 110,000 of your fellow constituents have voted in the National Cheney Impeachment Poll. If we had a million people call in one week, impeachment would be the centerpiece on the table so fast it would make their heads spin. We're going to do it. We're going to crank up our efforts to a new level this week. And when Dennis Kucinich DOES introduce his privileged resolution, we're going to crank it up even more.

THANK DENNIS KUCINICH PERSONALLY FOR HIS LEADERSHIP

Once again, Dennis Kucinich stands out as the leading voice calling for restoration of our Constitution. Isn't that enough reason to make whatever donation you can to him, to encourage him to speak out even stronger on the issues more and more every day? If you have not done so already, please do so now if you can.

DENNIS KUCINICH CONTRIBUTIONS:
http://www.usalone.com/donations_kucinich.php

http://www.peaceteam.net

Behold your victory:

Yes, you did it, with your TENS of thousands of emails and phones to Congress this last Monday and Tuesday. We are so proud of our participants on this one. Claim your win.

What was left was not great, but ultimately it means nothing with the actual teeth of the amendment extracted, not that that's any excuse for those who voted yes (or did not vote at all). So the Senate called some people a terrorist organization. Big deal, it's not binding anyway, no more than their groundless and hypocritical condemnation of MoveOn a week ago. And for those who may say this gives Cheney and Bush an excuse to do anything, this White House doesn't think it needs an excuse to do anything, that's the whole POINT of impeachment.

Once again this PROVES that activism works. We beat them back this time in a major way, folks, and why? Because we actually spoke out, that's why! We dismissed the voices of defeatism and took action. Fancy that, participatory democracy works. Are the evil ones going to give up? Of course not, and that's why we're not going to give up either. Let's say it together, we're going to keep ON speaking out in even greater numbers.

There are many dirty secrets in Washington, but the biggest one of all they are trying to keep may be that when you write and call in mass numbers, members of Congress tremble, shaking in their socks, especially in the House where they have to get reelected every two years. Oh, sure, sometimes they send us their form letter responses trying to sluff us off, trying to con us into thinking we are not having an impact. But we know the truth, which is that they work for us, and we do have the POWER with our personal messages to enforce that.

WHAT DO WE DO NEXT? WHY, IMPEACHMENT OF COURSE

This week yet another video of Dick "Five Deferments" Cheney surfaced from the early nineties, again articulating his views as to why trying to occupy Iraq would be lead to nothing but a disastrous quagmire. And yet this is the same man who not only lied the country into doing just that once he seized power himself, but is still the most aggressive force in the White House pushing for an even more monumental debacle in Iran.

H. RES 333 ACTION PAGE: http://www.usalone.com/hres333.php

Recognizing the gravity of the increasingly loud drumbeats for more war coming from the Vice President's office, this week Dennis Kucinich, who had already gotten 20 cosponsors for H.Res 333 to impeach Cheney, said he was seriously considering forcing the House of Representatives to take up the issue of impeachment by bringing it as a privileged resolution.

We have a major win in our pocket this week. We have slowed them down. But we also recognize that the only thing that will stop them completely is confronting the White House, and Cheney in particular, with impeachment. Each and every member of the House must be called to account at this moment in American political history, by the demands of you, their constituents, whether they will stand up for the Constitution and stop Dick Cheney's delusional march to Iran . . . or not.

Already more than 110,000 of your fellow constituents have voted in the National Cheney Impeachment Poll. If we had a million people call in one week, impeachment would be the centerpiece on the table so fast it would make their heads spin. We're going to do it. We're going to crank up our efforts to a new level this week. And when Dennis Kucinich DOES introduce his privileged resolution, we're going to crank it up even more.

THANK DENNIS KUCINICH PERSONALLY FOR HIS LEADERSHIP

Once again, Dennis Kucinich stands out as the leading voice calling for restoration of our Constitution. Isn't that enough reason to make whatever donation you can to him, to encourage him to speak out even stronger on the issues more and more every day? If you have not done so already, please do so now if you can.

DENNIS KUCINICH CONTRIBUTIONS:
http://www.usalone.com/donations_kucinich.php

http://www.peaceteam.net

Saddam Wanted Out, Bush Lied About It

September 28th, 2007

Saddam Wanted Out, Bush Lied About It

By: Nicole Belle

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How much money does Bush think a US soldier’s life is worth? How much money does Bush think the lives of our allies’ soldiers or innocent Iraqis are worth?

As we’re finding out, not very much. On March 17, 2003 President Bush issued the warning: “Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict commenced at a time of our choosing ,” yet now thanks to a transcript leaked to the Spanish newspaper El Pais, we learn that more than three weeks prior to that Bush had told former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar that “The Egyptians are speaking to Saddam Hussein. It seems he’s indicated he would be prepared to go into exile if he’s allowed to take $1 billion …” When confronted about the leaked transcript yesterday, Whitehouse spokeswoman Dana Perino did not dispute its accuracy.

Just last week we learned from former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan that the real reason behind the war in Iraq was oil , and now we are finding out that the entire war could have been averted for letting him get away with $1 billion. That’s just than one tenth of 1% of what this insane invasion and occupation of Iraq, that continues claim the lives of our country’s bravest men and women, has now been forcast to cost. Think about that just for a second. Every single death, Iraqi and American coalition alike, could have been saved and Bush could have had Saddam’s oil, but apparently he didn’t even seriously consider it. Topping that, he then lied in public to the entire world about it just so he could have his war regardless. How’s that for compassionate conservatism?

Kucinich 'seriously thinking' about forcing vote on Cheney impeachment Nick Juliano

Kucinich 'seriously thinking' about forcing vote on Cheney impeachment

Rep. Dennis Kucinich says he is so concerned about what he sees as the Bush administration's push for a war with Iran that he is considering using a parliamentary measure to force the House of Representatives to vote on impeaching Vice President Dick Cheney.

"We're preparing for another war, and they're going to destroy America," the Ohio Democrat said Thursday on the Ed Schultz show. "We have a government in place right now that has to be challenged. I'm seriously thinking about calling a privileged resolution on impeachment of the vice president and forcing a vote on the floor of the House."

A privileged resolution would force the full House to debate about whether to proceed with impeachment, but it remains unclear precisely how, when or whether Kucinich would be able to introduce such a resolution. Privileged measures "may be called up on the floor whenever another measure is not already pending" and the House agrees to consider it, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Privileged measures can include questions of House privileges or resolutions of inquiry, according to the CRS report.

A conservative site set up to push for former President Bill Clinton's impeachment lays out a strategy to bring such a measure to the House floor.

"According to Jerome Zeifman, however, it is possible that such a resolution could be called up for an immediate vote," the Conservative Caucus site observes. "But that option appears to be within the control of the Speaker of the House and the Majority Leader."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who took control after last year's Democratic takeover of Congress, maintained that impeachment is "off the table" as recently as this week in an interview with CNN.

Kucinich introduced a resolution calling for Cheney's impeachment this spring. Since then the bill has gained more than a dozen co-sponsors, but it seems to be dying a slow death in the House Judiciary Committee. It's chairman, John Conyers, has stood with Pelosi in refusing to debate the impeachment resolution or bring it to the House floor for a vote.

A Kucinich spokeswoman declined to comment when contacted by RAW STORY. An official in the House Parliamentarian's office did not return a call seeking comment.

The following audio clip is from The Ed Schultz Show, broadcast on September 27.

Saddam asked Bush for $1bn to go into exile

By DAVID GARDNER - More by this author » Last updated at 23:45pm on 26th September 2007

Saddam Hussein is said to have offered to go into exile for $1bn

George Bush was convinced that Saddam was serious about going into exile

Saddam Hussein offered to step down and go into exile one month before the invasion of Iraq, it was claimed last night.

Fearing defeat, Saddam was prepared to go peacefully in return for £500million ($1billion).

The extraordinary offer was revealed yesterday in a transcript of talks in February 2003 between George Bush and the then Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar at the President's Texas ranch.

The White House refused to comment on the report last night.

But, if verified, it is certain to raise questions in Washington and London over whether the costly four-year war could have been averted.

Only yesterday, the Bush administration asked Congress for another £100billion to finance the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Read more...

• Revealed ... Bush's guide to those funny foreign names

The total war bill for British taxpayers is expected to reach £7billion by next year.

More than 3,800 American service personnel have lost their lives in Iraq, along with 170 Britons and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians.

However, according to the tapes, one month before he launched the invasion Mr Bush appeared convinced that Saddam was serious about going into exile.

"The Eqyptians are speaking to Saddam Hussein," said Mr Bush.

"It seems he's indicated he would be prepared to go into exile if he's allowed to take $1billion and all the information he wants about weapons of mass destruction."

Asked by the Spanish premier whether Saddam - who was executed in December last year - could really leave, the President replied: "Yes, that possibility exists. Or he might even be assassinated."

But he added that whatever happened: "We'll be in Baghdad by the end of March."

Mr Bush went on to refer optimistically to the rebuilding or Iraq.

The transcript - which was published yesterday in the Spanish newspaper El Pais - was said to have been recorded by a diplomat at the meeting in Crawford, Texas, on February 22, 2003.

Mr Bush was dismissive of the then French President Jacques Chirac, saying he "thinks he's Mr Arab".

Referring to his relationship with Downing Street, he said: "I don't mind being the bad cop if Blair is the good cop."

The President added: "Saddam won't change and he'll keep on playing games.

"The time has come to get rid of him. That's the way it is."

Days before the invasion began on March 22, 2003, the United Arab Emirates proposed to a summit of Arab leaders that Saddam and his henchmen should go into exile.

It was the first time the plan had been officially voiced but it was drowned out in the drumbeat of war.

A spokesman for Mr Aznar's foundation had no comment on its authenticity.

Bomb attacks killed 57 people in Iraq yesterday.

MIKE: IRAQ IS LIKE 1776

ONLY THIS TIME, 'WE'RE THE BRITISH'

By DAVID SEIFMAN City Hall Bureau Chief

September 26, 2007 -- In his most detailed comments on the Iraq war, Mayor Bloomberg last night suggested the United States was in the same difficult position as the British in the Revolutionary War - facing a determined band of insurgents.

Bloomberg said the comparison occurred to him when he visited his mother recently and was driving through Lexington, Mass., where a scrubby group of farmers rose up against a well-trained militia more than 200 years ago.

"We're the British," the mayor said during an interview with Tom Brokaw at Cooper Union, part of a series featuring potential presidential contenders hosted by former Gov. Mario Cuomo.

Bush Defends No Child Left Behind: "Childrens Do Learn"

Bush Defends No Child Left Behind: "Childrens Do Learn"

"The No Child Left Behind Act is working," Bush said with first lady Laura Bush, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I) and School Chancellor Joel Klein at his side. "I say that because the nation's report card says it's working. Scores are improving, in some instances hitting all-time highs."
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A few moments later, he added, "As yesterday's positive report card shows, childrens do learn when standards are high and results are measured." The official White House transcript later corrected the statement to "children."

Read the entire article here.

Parts of Patriot Act Thrown Out

Part of Patriot Act ruled unconstitutional

Provisions allow search warrants issued without probable cause, she says

The Associated Press

Updated: 8:40 a.m. ET Sept 27, 2007

PORTLAND, Ore. - Two provisions of the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional because they allow search warrants to be issued without a showing of probable cause, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as amended by the Patriot Act, "now permits the executive branch of government to conduct surveillance and searches of American citizens without satisfying the probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment."

Portland attorney Brandon Mayfield sought the ruling in a lawsuit against the federal government after he was mistakenly linked by the FBI to the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people in 2004.

The federal government apologized and settled part of the lawsuit for $2 million after admitting a fingerprint was misread. But as part of the settlement, Mayfield retained the right to challenge parts of the Patriot Act, which greatly expanded the authority of law enforcers to investigate suspected acts of terrorism.

Mayfield claimed that secret searches of his house and office under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act violated the Fourth Amendment's guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure. Aiken agreed with Mayfield, repeatedly criticizing the government.

"For over 200 years, this Nation has adhered to the rule of law — with unparalleled success. A shift to a Nation based on extra-constitutional authority is prohibited, as well as ill-advised," she wrote.

By asking her to dismiss Mayfield's lawsuit, the judge said, the U.S. attorney general's office was "asking this court to, in essence, amend the Bill of Rights, by giving it an interpretation that would deprive it of any real meaning. This court declines to do so."

Elden Rosenthal, an attorney for Mayfield, issued a statement on his behalf praising the judge, saying she "has upheld both the tradition of judicial independence, and our nation's most cherished principle of the right to be secure in one's own home."

Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr said the agency was reviewing the decision, and he declined to comment further.

Received apology from FBI
Mayfield, a Muslim convert, was taken into custody on May 6, 2004, because of a fingerprint found on a detonator at the scene of the Madrid bombing. The FBI said the print matched Mayfield's. He was released about two weeks later, and the FBI admitted it had erred in saying the fingerprints were his and later apologized to him.

Before his arrest, the FBI put Mayfield under 24-hour surveillance, listened to his phone calls and surreptitiously searched his home and law office.

The Mayfield case has been an embarrassment for the federal government. Last year, the Justice Department's internal watchdog faulted the FBI for sloppy work in mistakenly linking Mayfield to the Madrid bombings. That report said federal prosecutors and FBI agents had made inaccurate and ambiguous statements to a federal judge to get arrest and criminal search warrants against Mayfield.

NSA 'may not realize' it collected info on innocent Americans, top US spy says

NSA 'may not realize' it collected info on innocent Americans, top US spy says

David Edwards and Nick Juliano

Powerful supercomputers are vacuuming up so much information that logs of calls to or from innocent Americans could exist in government databases indefinitely, the nation's top intelligence official said Tuesday.

"You may not even realize it's in the database because you do lots of collection," Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell said, referring to the "inadvertent collection" of Americans' communications through a vast surveillance program instituted after 9/11.

An untold number of communication logs on US citizens could exist within a National Security Agency database of information gained through warrantless wiretaps of foreigners abroad, McConnell said, because NSA spies do not examine the full contents on all the information it collects until it has a reason to do so.

"If it's foreign intelligence, it's treated the way we discussed," and the government works to secure a warrant against anyone within the US it has reason to believe deserves further surveillance, McConnell said during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday. "If it's now recognized as incidental, it would be expunged from the database."

The full scope of Americans who have been inadvertently and unknowingly snared in the warrantless wiretapping program remains murky and elusive. On Tuesday, Sen. Russ Feingold pressed McConnell on whether recent updates to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act authorized "bulk collection" on calls from abroad into America.

"It would be authorized, if it were physically possible to do so," McConnell said. "But the purpose of the authorization is for foreign intelligence."

Feingold pressed, "So there is no language actually prohibiting this?"

As long as the communication is "foreign, in a foreign country, for intelligence purposes," there's not, McConnell said.

McConnell told the El Paso Times last month that "100 or less" US persons were targets of foreign intelligence gathering. But that number only represents those for whom the government received a warrant to spy on, McConnell clarified in later congressional testimony.

The intelligence director then insisted that a "small" number of Americans had been spied on -- purposefully or not -- although he noted that designation should be judged in context of the "billions of transactions" monitored by the NSA.

President Bush initiated a warrantless wiretapping scheme he later referred to as the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" soon after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Details on the early days of the program and its legal justifications remain out of view as the White House has steadfastly refused to hand over documents on the program requested by congressional judiciary and intelligence committees.

Just before a month-long summer recess -- and in a week when Republicans raised terror fears with a "bogus" bomb plot aimed at the Capitol -- the Democratic Congress approved sweeping new wiretapping powers that critics say sweepingly authorized the extra-legal powers President Bush had claimed for himself.

The Protect America Act, as spying-expansion was called, set a six-month limit on its expansions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. McConnell has been scuffing the corridors of Capitol Hill since early last week pushing Congress to not only make permanent the FISA expansions, but to give the government more authority and immunize telecommunications companies that have helped the government collect data on its citizens.

McConnell's testimony has been carefully crafted to give lawmakers the impression that analysts are accessing little information beyond their specific surveillance of known terror targets, but a careful parsing of his statements reveals a program that could be collecting far more information that the administration has acknowledged.

"They obtain an enormous amount [of information] ... that they can search by computer," Lisa Graves, deputy director of the Center for National Security Studies, told RAW STORY.

McConnell stresses the "minimization" efforts that are in place requiring that information unrelated to terror investigations be expunged from national security databases. But his clarification that NSA analysts must first examine the collected data leaves open the question of how much information on Americans continues to be subject to data-mining efforts of information electronically swept into government databases, Graves said.

Analysts, Graves said, are trying to examine "the ocean of communication, to look in it for grains of said, when the vast, vast, vast majority of communications are innocent." The following video is from C-SPAN 3, broadcast on September 25.

In the following video, Senator Feingold is critical of 'broad and ambiguous' spying law