Be sure to vote Democratic because the Republicans are too scary! Ya, right...!

the previous post, once removed, in which i complained about being burned out, is largely related to this kind of stomach-turning news, emerging in a seemingly never-ending stream from our hopey-changey president...

glenn, after an absence of a few days due a bad case of food poisoning exacerbated by long-haul travel, shares his pain...

At this point, I didn't believe it was possible, but the Obama administration has just reached an all-new low in its abysmal civil liberties record. In response to the lawsuit filed by Anwar Awlaki's father asking a court to enjoin the President from assassinating his son, a U.S. citizen, without any due process, the administration late last night, according to The Washington Post, filed a brief asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit without hearing the merits of the claims. That's not surprising: both the Bush and Obama administrations have repeatedly insisted that their secret conduct is legal but nonetheless urge courts not to even rule on its legality. But what's most notable here is that one of the arguments the Obama DOJ raises to demand dismissal of this lawsuit is "state secrets": in other words, not only does the President have the right to sentence Americans to death with no due process or charges of any kind, but his decisions as to who will be killed and why he wants them dead are "state secrets," and thus no court may adjudicate its legality.

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I would hope that nobody needs me or anyone else to explain why this assertion of power is so pernicious -- at least as pernicious as any power asserted during the Bush/Cheney years. If the President has the power to order American citizens killed with no due process, and to do so in such complete secrecy that no courts can even review his decisions, then what doesn't he have the power to do? Just for the moment, I'll note that The New York Times' Charlie Savage, two weeks ago, wrote about the possibility that Obama might raise this argument, and quoted the far-right, Bush-supporting, executive-power-revering lawyer David Rivkin as follows:

The government's increasing use of the state secrets doctrine to shield its actions from judicial review has been contentious. Some officials have argued that invoking it in the Awlaki matter, about which so much is already public, would risk a backlash. David Rivkin, a lawyer in the White House of President George H. W. Bush, echoed that concern.

"I'm a huge fan of executive power, but if someone came up to you and said the government wants to target you and you can't even talk about it in court to try to stop it, that’s too harsh even for me," he said.

Having debated him before, I genuinely didn't think it was possible for any President to concoct an assertion of executive power and secrecy that would be excessive and alarming to David Rivkin, but Barack Obama managed to do that, too. Obama's now asserting a power so radical -- the right to kill American citizens and do so in total secrecy, beyond even the reach of the courts -- that it's "too harsh even for" one of the most far-right War on Terror cheerleading-lawyers in the nation. But that power is certainly not "too harsh" for the kind-hearted Constitutional scholar we elected as President, nor for his hordes of all-justifying supporters soon to place themselves to the right of David Rivkin as they explain why this is all perfectly justified. One other thing, as always: vote Democrat, because the Republicans are scary!

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"This is the price of living in a modern society"

trust me, reading this entire op-ed WILL make your head explode...

first, there's the title...

Too much FISA oversight?

then there's the co-authors, shameless bushco apologists...

David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey are partners in a Washington law firm and served in the Justice Department under presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

then, there's THIS...

Our privacy is compromised daily by government and nongovernment actors. This is the price of living in a modern society.

no, you horse patoots, it's not...

and, if your head hasn't exploded yet...

The real problem with the FISA amendments isn't about civil liberties at all. It is that they allow an unprecedented and constitutionally problematic review of the executive branch's foreign intelligence activities by the FISA court. As a check on the NSA's surveillance activities, the FISA court will be able to retroactively review the key ground rules that the agency uses to structure the surveillance of foreign terrorists who deliberately communicate into the United States -- and require changes in those rules. This proposal is certainly less onerous for the NSA -- less time-consuming and therefore less likely to block the gathering of important intelligence -- than having to get warrants on a case-by-case basis. Unfortunately, it raises some troubling constitutional and policy problems.

As a rule, the Constitution limits the judicial power of the United States to individual cases and controversies and to the issuance of warrants. Under the FISA amendments, the FISA court would instead, arguably, be issuing a broad advisory opinion, which the NSA would have to implement if it wished to continue a particular surveillance. That may violate the Constitution's separation of powers principles.

In effect, under this arrangement, the government will now have to obtain a judicial imprimatur to the procedures used to intercept all overseas communications coming into the United States. Thus, for example, if the Chinese defense minister calls into the United States, the procedures used to govern his surveillance must be submitted to the FISA court for review. Such a rule clearly cuts into the president's core authority as the nation's "sole organ" (former Chief Justice John Marshall's term) in foreign affairs, as well as his powers as commander in chief.

what a gigantic load of steroid-inflated, disease-ridden bollocks... i defy ANYONE to unearth a single instance from the invention of the telephone to the present where the outgoing communications of ANY foreign entity, government or otherwise, to the u.s. or to some other country, WASN'T considered fair game for interception, and ANYBODY who thinks THIS arrangement will alter that in any way, is smoking stuff way stronger than i've had the opportunity to sample...

what THIS arrangment means, in simple terms, is that ALL voice and data communication that is routed through ANY path owned by or physically located in the united states, originating or terminating in any foreign country, can and WILL be subject to intercept, without warrant, subject only to the review of alberto gonzales... and, for those who think that communication can be routed AROUND the united states had better think again... why do you think the u.s. was so adamant at the world summit on the information society, held in tunis back in november 2005, on keeping icann (internet corporation for assigned names and numbers) under u.s. control... that's one way the u.s. can INSURE that all traffic is routed where it chooses...

gotta keep puttin' these pieces together, dontcha know... it's amazing just how stupid they think we are...

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