"Dishonest," "dishonestly presented," "false urgency" and "information too secret to share"

george bush, just prior to the 2006 elections::

"Put on your track shoes, we're going to run to the finish."

the nyt op-ed says "suddenly," but there's nothing "suddenly" about it... the bush administration told us very clearly back before the november elections that they were going to go full-tilt boogie right up to the day bush leaves office, and that is precisely what they're doing...

Suddenly, Mr. Bush is in a hurry. He has submitted a bill that would enact enormous, and enormously dangerous, changes to the 1978 law on eavesdropping. It would undermine the fundamental constitutional principle — over which there can be no negotiation or compromise — that the government must seek an individual warrant before spying on an American or someone living here legally.

To heighten the false urgency, the Bush administration will present this issue, as it has before, as a choice between catching terrorists before they act or blinding the intelligence agencies. But the administration has never offered evidence that the 1978 law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, hampered intelligence gathering after the 9/11 attacks. Mr. Bush simply said the law did not apply to him.

The director of national intelligence, Michael McConnell, said yesterday that the evidence of what is wrong with FISA was too secret to share with all Americans.

[...]

Mr. Bush’s motivations for submitting this bill now seem obvious. The courts have rejected his claim that 9/11 gave him virtually unchecked powers, and he faces a Democratic majority in Congress that is willing to exercise its oversight responsibilities. That, presumably, is why his bill grants immunity to telecommunications companies that cooperated in five years of illegal eavesdropping. It also strips the power to hear claims against the spying program from all courts except the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which meets in secret.

[...]

The measure would not update FISA; it would gut it. It would allow the government to collect vast amounts of data at will from American citizens’ e-mail and phone calls. The Center for National Security Studies said it might even be read to permit video surveillance without a warrant.

This is a dishonest measure, dishonestly presented, and Congress should reject it.

add that to this...

[T]he President's team has been planning for what one strategist describes as "a cataclysmic fight to the death" over the balance between Congress and the White House if confronted with congressional subpoenas it deems inappropriate. The strategist says the Bush team is "going to assert that power, and they're going to fight it all the way to the Supreme Court on every issue, every time, no compromise, no discussion, no negotiation."

and then ask yourself why any call for bipartisanship, dialog, or reasoned, rational communication with this criminal administration makes any sense...

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Yet another reason why the team at the White House needs to be immediately replaced

they've made it abundantly clear they will do what they want, when they want, and how they want, constitution and the bill of rights be damned...

Quietly implemented in December, the special "Communications Management Unit" (CMU) at [Terre Haute Federal Correctional Institution in Indiana] targeting Muslim and Middle-Eastern inmates was not implemented through the process required by federal law, which stipulates the public be notified of any new changes to prison programs and be given opportunity to voice objection. Instead, the program appears to have been ordered and implemented by a senior official at the Department of Justice.

note the timing, little more than a month after the november elections...

[T]he CMU program, instituted Dec. 11, 2006 -- shortly after the mid-term elections in which Democrats won both chambers of Congress -- is being implemented at Terre Haute Federal Correctional Institution in Indiana.

it looks like a hoosier-state guantánamo, and i'm sure that must be precisely what's intended...

Under the CMU program, telephone communications must be conducted using monitored phone lines, be live-monitored by staff, are subject to recording and must be in English only. All letters must be reviewed by staff prior to delivery or sending, and visits may be non-contact only, live-monitored, and subject to recording, in English.

so, what's "different...?" read on...

[Attorney Peter Goldberger, a Philadelphia-area specialist in criminal appeals and former law professor who has 30 years experience dealing with federal prisons and inmates] notes that "What's different" about the program, "is limitation of contact with friends, family and outsiders -- instead of 300 minutes of telephone time per month, it's one 15 minute call per week, which can be reduced in the Warden's discretion to a mere three minutes once a month."

"Instead of all-day visiting every week or every other week, it's only two hours at a time, twice a month, with no physical contact, presumably sitting on opposite sides of a plexiglas window," Goldberger continued.

"And all letters, except to lawyers, courts, and Congress, will be read and copied, with weeks of delay, instead of cursorily inspected and sent right on," he adds. "It's a totally new and different program."

and why should this be a concern...?

Director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington, D.C. Kate Martin told RAW STORY that restrictions of inmate communications must be narrowly tailored to serve a specific identifiable need of the government. Martin said that there was a clear rationale for restricting communications of those who had previously handled classified information -- for example a former CIA agent who had passed secrets to a foreign government. But with individuals who never possessed classified information, she said, that rationale doesn't exist.

oh, and never mind the fact that it's very likely both illegal and unconstitutional...

[Executive Director of Federal Defense Associates Howard Kieffer, a legal group based in California] believes that the program not only violates federal law but the Constitution as well, saying it abridges their right to freedom of expression and association.

These inmates are "not able to communicate like other inmates," he said.

James Landrith, Jr., who heads "The Multiracial Activist," an on-line journal that covers social and civil liberties issues relating multi-racialism, says the new program set a "very, very bad precedent."

and, par for bushco, it was all done under the table...

It's "interesting that this administration is trying to push these things through covertly" -- things he said he views as unconstitutional restrictions -- "while you have a sitting Vice President who could be charged in the short-term future with having been involved in outing a CIA agent."

He added that the program "makes it very very hard for someone to mount a real defense or appeal when they can't talk to anyone on the outside."

if it wasn't for the serious investigative journalism being conducted by sites such as raw story, this wouldn't be coming to light at all... the part that i find most chilling is how much more DON'T we know...? it has to be one hell of a lot...

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