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Latest Articles: Dead Constitution
The Gestapo Inheritance
Post Date: 2007-10-26 06:18:58 by Ada
2 Comments
'We do not torture': Groans from the CIA's black sites beg to differ Soon after real-time terror hit home, the president gave the CIA authority to interrogate suspected terrorists in its secret prisons, wholly outside our laws or the UN International Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of prisoners. Eventually, hard evidence of torture kept emerging from victims of the CIA's "enhanced interrogation techniques" (as the president likes to call them); from human-rights organizations; and from reports in the European and American press (including this column). In response, the Republican-controlled Congress gave CIA ...
In His Words: Giuliani on Torture {On Waterboarding "I’m not sure it is either. It depends on how it’s done."}
Post Date: 2007-10-25 20:38:47 by Zipporah
5 Comments
In His Words: Giuliani on Torture By Michael Cooper DAVENPORT, Iowa — At a town hall meeting here last night, Rudolph W. Giuliani expanded upon his views of torture. Here is a transcript of the exchange. Linda Gustitus, who is the president of a group called the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, began her question by saying that President Bush’s nominee for attorney general, Michael B. Mukasey (who happens to be an old friend of Mr. Giuliani’s) had “fudged” on the question of whether waterboarding is toture. Video “I wanted to ask you two questions,’’ she said. “One, do you think waterboarding is torture? And two, do you think the ...
Apocalypse Now? (REVIEW OF CHALMERS JOHNSON'S "NEMESIS")
Post Date: 2007-10-25 17:16:01 by aristeides
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Apocalypse Now? Is there anything historically unprecedented about the Bush Administration's military adventurism, intense secrecy and fearmongering? This question is vexing, especially to those historians and political scientists who, however appalled by current US foreign policy, cannot be genuinely surprised by the most recent incarnation of an imperial presidency. But it remains a critical question, not least because the answer to it could shed light on what progressives can hope to achieve after Bush. Chalmers Johnson, a former Navy man, cold war consultant to the CIA and emeritus professor at the University of California, San Diego, helps us unravel this mystery by breathing ...
Cheney falls asleep during Cabinet meeting on wildfires.
Post Date: 2007-10-25 14:33:00 by aristeides
11 Comments
Cheney falls asleep during Cabinet meeting on wildfires. During a cabinet meeting yesterday, Vice President Cheney fell asleep on camera while President Bush was discussing wildfires in California. A Cheney spokeswoman “laughed it off,” telling CNN that the vice president was “practicing meditation.” CNN’s chyron reported that Cheney was seen “meditating” — rather than sleeping — during the cabinet meeting.
'Denied in Full': Federal Judges Grill CIA Lawyers on JFK Secrets
Post Date: 2007-10-25 13:12:05 by Horse
9 Comments
Lawyers for the Central Intelligence Agency faced pointed questions in a federal court hearing Monday morning about the agency's efforts to block disclosure of long-secret records about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Three appellate judges probed for explanations of the agency's rationale for withholding records concerning a deceased undercover CIA officer named George Joannides whose role in the events of 1963 remains unexplained. For the past three and a half years, CIA has blocked the release of the Joannides files, denying my Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and spurning scholarly appeals for full disclosure. At stake is the viability of the 1992 ...
House Passes Thought Crime Prevention Bill
Post Date: 2007-10-25 12:51:17 by Horse
23 Comments
The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed HR 1955 titled the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. This bill is one of the most blatant attacks against the Constitution yet and actually defines thought crimes as homegrown terrorism. If passed into law, it will also establish a commission and a Center of Excellence to study and defeat so called thought criminals. Unlike previous anti-terror legislation, this bill specifically targets the civilian population of the United States and uses vague language to define homegrown terrorism. Amazingly, 404 of our elected representatives from both the Democrat and Republican parties voted in favor of this bill. ...
More than 755,000 on US terrorist watch list
Post Date: 2007-10-25 01:56:12 by kiki
5 Comments
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US terrorist watch list includes more than 755,000 names and continues to grow, the US Government Accountability Office said Wednesday. The list exploded from fewer than 20 entries before the September 11, 2001 attacks to more than 150,000 just a few months later, after the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) was created in December 2003 to keep tabs on terrorist suspects, according to the GAO, the non-partisan investigative arm of Congress. Including known pseudonyms of suspects, the list's 755,000 names as of May 2007 represents, in fact, around 300,000 people, according to TSC estimates. Tasked with gathering data on individuals "known or appropriately ...
General Says Bush Personally Ordered Torture Tactics
Post Date: 2007-10-24 21:52:50 by Peetie Wheatstraw
9 Comments
More than 100,000 pages of newly released government documents to demonstrate how US military interrogators "abused, tortured or killed" scores of prisoners rounded up since Sept. 11, 2001, including some who were not even expected of having terrorist ties, according to a just-published book. In Administration of Torture, two American Civil Liberties Union attorneys detail the findings of a years-long investigation and court battle with the administration that resulted in the release of massive amounts of data on prisoner treatment and the deaths of US-held prisoners. "[T]he documents show unambiguously that the administration has adopted some of the methods of the most ...
Police cleared in use of Taser on student (FLA-Jeb Bush's State)
Post Date: 2007-10-24 15:55:35 by angle
5 Comments
GAINESVILLE, Florida - University of Florida police were justified when they used a Taser against a student who refused to stop questioning Senator John Kerry at a campus event, according to a state investigation released Wednesday. A 17-page executive summary of the 300-page Florida Department of Law Enforcement report was released by the University of Florida after some questioned the use of force against student Andrew Meyer. The scuffle between Meyer and police started during the Sept. 17 speech when Meyer refused to leave the microphone after his allotted time was up, police said. The videotaped altercation and Meyer's cries of "Don't Tase me bro!" were played ...
Rep. Pete Stark Should STFU. How Dare He Say Such Outrageous Things?
Post Date: 2007-10-24 14:52:21 by ghostdogtxn
2 Comments
Police State Rules in NJ High Schools
Post Date: 2007-10-24 08:50:04 by innieway
13 Comments
On the morning of Friday, October 12, 2007, Steinert High School in Hamilton Township, New Jersey, was flooded by police with five drug-sniffing dogs accompanied by a prosecutor and school officials. The whole student body was arrested by being detained in various classrooms and forced to wait while the search of their lockers verified that each student was innocent of drug possession. Every locker got searched. And every student was under technical arrest until cleared of drug possession, approaching unlawful imprisonment. The school sent us a letter home with our son saying it was a "...pre-planned search of student lockers using trained narcotics detections dogs." It ...
Michael Mulkasey and the Constitution
Post Date: 2007-10-24 06:01:44 by Ada
3 Comments
Another Loyal Bushie The Michael Mukasey Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing has demonstrated that Mukasey cannot be relied upon to function independently as U.S. Attorney General. Nevertheless, Senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee seem so thrilled that Mukasey is not Alberto Gonzales that they're willing to vote for him even though he's another loyal Bushie. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, backed down on his promise to hold up the confirmation hearing until the administration turned over material his committee had requested regarding several investigations. Leahy said of Mukasey after the hearing, "He's at least ...
Students protest constitutional changes in Venezuela
Post Date: 2007-10-24 01:54:49 by Pinguinite
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CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Thousands of university students scuffled with police and government supporters during a protest Tuesday against constitutional reforms that would let President Hugo Chavez run for re-election indefinitely. art.venez.ap.jpg Police tossed tear gas canisters into the crowd of opposition students after bottle-throwing clashes broke out with a smaller group of pro-Chavez demonstrators near the National Assembly. Journalists estimated there were about 20,000 protesters, but pro-Chavez lawmakers said there were far fewer. The students said they fear civil liberties would be severely weakened under the constitutional changes. "With this reform, the president is ...
DOD to carry out 'military missions' during pandemic, WMD attack
Post Date: 2007-10-23 19:35:22 by Zipporah
11 Comments
DoD to carry out 'military missions' during pandemic, WMD attack --By Lori Price, www.legitgov.org On Thursday, the Bush administration issued a directive that, 'establishes a National Strategy for Public Health and Medical Preparedness (Strategy), which builds upon principles set forth in Biodefense for the 21st Century (April 2004) and will transform our national approach to protecting the health of the American people against [with] all disasters.' HOMELAND SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE/HSPD-21, issued 18 October 2007, states that within one year of the directive's date, 'the Secretaries of Health and Human Services and Defense, in coordination with the ...
Abdallah Higazy coerced by FBI agent to plead guilty by torture
Post Date: 2007-10-23 19:16:09 by Zipporah
5 Comments
This story is wild. (updated) The long and the short of it was that an Egpytian national, Abdallah Higazy, was staying in a hotel in New York City on September 11 and the hotel emptied out when the planes hit the towers. The hotel later found in the closet of his room a device that allows you to communicate with airline pilots. Investigators thought this guy had something to do with 9/11 so they questioned him. According to Higazi, the investigators coerced him into confessing to a role in 9/11…Higazi first adamantly denied any involvement with 9/11 and could not believe what was happening to him. Then, he says, the investigator said his family would go through hell in Egypt, where ...
General claims Bush gave 'marching orders' on aggressive interrogation at Guantanamo
Post Date: 2007-10-23 18:46:29 by Zipporah
4 Comments
New book says US uses 'methods of the most tyrannical regimes' More than 100,000 pages of newly released government documents demonstrate how US military interrogators "abused, tortured or killed" scores of prisoners rounded up since Sept. 11, 2001, including some who were not even expected of having terrorist ties, according to a just-published book. In Administration of Torture, two American Civil Liberties Union attorneys detail the findings of a years-long investigation and court battle with the administration that resulted in the release of massive amounts of data on prisoner treatment and the deaths of US-held prisoners. "[T]he documents show unambiguously ...
The Kiddie Porn Excuse
Post Date: 2007-10-23 16:54:26 by aristeides
2 Comments
The Kiddie Porn Excuse by emptywheel Remember when Alberto Gonzales called for Google to preserve all its search data to support potential child porn investigations? We crazy moonbats suggested that that sounded like an invitation for abuse, that once Google had preserved the records, such records would be accessed for other purposes. Now Cannonfire points to one such case. In brief: An incendiary comment appeared on a blog called the Deerfield Beach Insider -- which uses the Blogger service. (So do I.) The anonymous "pundit" was upset about alleged corruption at the Public Works Department. "Nothing will be done until somebody brings in a gun and shoots up the whole ...
Clinton says she would cough up powers Bush/Cheney have grabbed
Post Date: 2007-10-23 16:50:05 by Mekons4
28 Comments
NEW YORK (AP) -- If elected president in 2008, Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton would consider giving up some of the executive powers President Bush and Vice President Cheney have assumed since taking office. In an interview published Tuesday in Guardian America, a Web site run by the London-based Guardian newspaper, Clinton denounced the Bush Administration's push to concentrate more power in the White House as a ''power grab'' not supported by the Constitution. Asked if she would consider giving up some of those powers if she were president, Clinton replied, ''Oh, absolutely ... I mean, that has to be part of the review that I undertake when I get to the White ...
U.S. loses terrorism case, may have to rethink prosecutions
Post Date: 2007-10-23 15:56:27 by Mekons4
6 Comments
US may rethink terror cases after mistrial-experts 23 Oct 2007 19:37:04 GMT Source: Reuters Alert Me | Print | Email this article | RSS XML [-] Text [+] By Randall Mikkelsen WASHINGTON, Oct 23 (Reuters) - The U.S. government's failure this week to win a conviction in a major case of alleged terrorism financing is a sign it may be targeting the wrong suspects and needs to rethink its prosecution strategy, legal experts say. A judge in Dallas declared a mistrial on Monday on most counts against an Islamic charity -- the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development -- and several men linked to it who were accused of illegally funneling money to the militant Palestinian group Hamas. ...
Volunteer Radar Gunslingers Nail Speeders
Post Date: 2007-10-23 13:24:38 by who knows what evil
5 Comments
Speeders beware. Your neighbors might have you on their radar. That's the message police departments across the country are trying to send by loaning residents radar guns and turning them into neighborhood speed watchers. Volunteers can't ticket the drivers they catch breaking the speed limit, but their reports can result in warning letters being sent by police, depending on how fast the drivers were going. Police say the program is worth it if it can make even a few motorists obey speed limits. "It's one more element of enforcing speed," says Lt. Daniel Furseth of the DeForest Police Department in Wisconsin. For the past year, the village has allowed residents to ...
The Reality of Red-State Fascism
Post Date: 2007-10-22 17:05:11 by aristeides
5 Comments
The Reality of Red-State Fascism Year's end is the time for big thoughts, so here are mine. The most significant socio-political shift in our time has gone almost completely unremarked, and even unnoticed. It is the dramatic shift of the red-state bourgeoisie from leave-us-alone libertarianism, manifested in the Congressional elections of 1994, to almost totalitarian statist nationalism. Whereas the conservative middle class once cheered the circumscribing of the federal government, it now celebrates power and adores the central state, particularly its military wing. This huge shift has not been noticed among mainstream punditry, and hence there have been few attempts to explain it ...
Mainstream Media Openly Discusses Fixing the Election
Post Date: 2007-10-22 15:50:30 by aristeides
8 Comments
Mianstream Media Openly Discusses Fixing the Election Rat Says: Ron Paul is now a free loader according to Jennifer Senior of New York Magazine. All of these pundits have a North Eastern big media bias but this actually goes deeper than simple snobbery. Chris Mathews needs to be ashamed of himself for keeping a straight face as he ask these shill pundits if the media should limit the public’s choices in the upcoming Presidential election. The head media oligarchs have solidified their new strategy, “blatant exclusion.” This is an “in your face” strategy and they will try to spin it as “helping the voters focus.” They are scared to death of the Ron Paul ...
American Justice, Cheney-Style
Post Date: 2007-10-22 15:09:50 by aristeides
1 Comments
American Justice, Cheney-Style The verdicts have to be arranged for the election, don't they: Politically motivated officials at the Pentagon have pushed for convictions of high-profile detainees ahead of the 2008 elections, the former lead prosecutor for terrorism trials at Guantanamo Bay said last night, adding that the pressure played a part in his decision to resign earlier this month. Er: I think these have historically been described as show trials. And, in the past, they have been preceded by similar kinds of prisoner treatment. Kleiman notes that a politicized uniformed officer is the source. I'm not surprised either.
Mistrial in Muslim Charity Case, but Retrial Is Expected
Post Date: 2007-10-22 15:01:01 by aristeides
1 Comments
Mistrial in Muslim Charity Case, but Retrial Is Expected By LESLIE EATON Published: October 22, 2007 DALLAS, Oct. 22 — In a major setback for the government, a judge declared a mistrial today in the case of several former leaders of a Muslim charity who were charged with financing Middle Eastern terrorists, after jurors failed to reach a verdict. The decision came during a morning of confusion for jurors and those on both sides of the case, in which federal prosecutors were trying to show that the charity, based in a Dallas suburb, was not simply trying to help poor Palestinians, as officials said, but was in fact an arm of the radical Islamic group Hamas. The jury delivered no ...
Say What You Like, Just Don't Say It Here
Post Date: 2007-10-22 06:43:25 by Ada
1 Comments
The American commitment to free speech is the most robust in the world. But these days that tolerance stops at the border. Two cases pending in federal court in Manhattan will soon test how far the government can go in keeping Americans safe from what a State Department manual calls the “irresponsible expressions of opinion by prominent aliens.” One case concerns a decision by the Bush administration to bar a Muslim scholar from visiting the United States. The other is a criminal prosecution of two Brooklyn businessmen for transmitting Hezbollah’s television station on their satellite service. The government’s actions in these cases are reminiscent, civil liberties ...
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