the coca kingpin...,
2005-12-19 12:40:25
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the case for war against, well, US...,
2005-12-20 11:40:48
bush's illegal order to break the law:
so far as I understand the substance is that Bush issued secret executive orders to monitor international phonecalls made by American citizens without warrant, and similar feats of criminality. I read the NYT's article when it came out and the only thing I was surprised by is that so many a) noticed, b) cared, and c) that President Bush turned around so quickly to not only admit it but defend it. That's pretty freakin bold.
Apparently there's some narrow legal issue involved in these acts of spying on US persons that differs from all the spying on US persons that has been going on since, well, at least World War I, that has enraged normally benign opinion makers. The President of the United States is now directly defending the giving of secret, illegal orders to spy on citizens without due process in contravention of the law, and that is perhaps a new thing.
As an example of how this unnecessary and absurd breach has protected us from perverse terrorist attempts to injure the American public, via Juan Cole and Co.:
A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung's tome on Communism called "The Little Red Book."
...The eavesdropping was apparently done without warrants....
Brilliant. Protecting YOU from Catholic Workers!
At times, the documents show aggressive attempts by the FBI to link PETA, Greenpeace and other mainstream organizations to activists associated with the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) or Earth Liberation Front (ELF), said the ACLU. PETA, in particular, is repeatedly and falsely singled out as a “front” for militant organizations although in at least one document released today the FBI appears to acknowledge that it has no evidence to back up such assertions.
But the sigint specialists emphasized repeatedly that keeping tabs on Americans is way beyond the bounds of what they ordinarily do". That's some conspiracy the crazy nuts at the FBI have put together there.
update: FOX claims this illegal order was was followed 18,000 times, with the apparently misunderstanding that that's how many FISA warrants were issued, not how many times they had no warrant. Another report notes the FBI's classification of a gay-kiss-in as a "credible threat".
