is a parley with Feinstein wise?

from EFF: "Congress Keeps Telecoms on the Hook for Illegal Spying":

Full House and Senate Judiciary Committee Each Pass Bills with No Amnesty for Warrantless Surveillance

Washington, D.C. - Both the full House of Representatives and the Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to keep telecommunications companies on the hook for their role in illegal government spying on millions of ordinary Americans -- at least for now.

The bills each make changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). But, despite veto threats from the White House, neither of the two bills give blanket amnesty to telecoms that took part in the massive warrantless domestic surveillance program. Both bills would allow dozens of lawsuits against the telecoms to proceed, thus allowing federal courts to rule on whether dragnet domestic surveillance documented is legal."

I watched the 4 hours of the Senate Judiciary on Thursday. I am not convinced that the Telcom Immunity scandal won't raise the specter of its ugly head again, before the Fisa bill gets voted on in full session. I would give high marks to Senator Dianne Feinstein for her performance on Thursday though. Her call was to slow down in order to ponder the implications of what they were doing.

I haven't written on this up to now, because I have been wondering: Is Feinstein being honest about how she wants to learn more about what it means to grant Telcom Immunity? I have been contemplating communicating with her and spelling it out. But I have also been reluctant because I have been factoring in this logic.

Senator Arlen Specter held some ground, but then he tried to help usher in other advances to strip away more constitutional rights. It was clear from watching the meeting though, that there is far more going on than they were saying. There are other things being spied on than just "Terrorists". They repeatedly referred obliquely to other purposes. There is much much more going on here than watching a handful of terrorists, overseas. One thing clearly jumped out at me: The word "Terrorism" is being used as a code word to cover all manner of operations they are engaged in.

I did notice that Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy's face, looked like that of a jolly old man. But the face of Senator Orrin Hatch seemed frozen like stone, locked in sheer and utter hate and rage, his looked exactly to me, like the face of a Gargoyle. I think it has to do with his Mormon religion. Like Mitt Romney as well, their religion simply will not scale up to encompass the entire country and be able to destroy by force, those who will not surrender to its harsh rigors and strictures and cruel and intolerant demands.

In fact, Mitt Romney recently remarked as how it was "unAmerican" to hold his religion up to him. Excuse me? Romney is running for the most powerful office in the land, expressly to be able to use force to make people surrender in obedience to his religious bent.

Ars Technica writes that AT&T has made a significant purchase of a company with technology to identify files that pass as traffic through their networks -- even those that have been substantially modified:

AT&T announced earlier this year that was planning to introduce content filtering of some sort for all video passing across its network. Exactly what AT&T was thinking remained unclear: would the company truly attempt to reassemble the fragments of peer-to-peer transmissions, then extract video from all sorts of different codecs, then attempt to match it-in real time-to some database of copyrighted works? Would such a thing even be possible?

It's still not clear how AT&T plans to deploy its system, but the company is serious about it. Further evidence of that came today, when a brief Wall Street Journal writeup (subscription) pointed out that the company has just invested in Vobile.

Vobile's core product is a screening technology that it calls "VideoDNA." Like other systems of its kind, VideoDNA develops a unique signature from every frame of video. The signature is meant to be robust enough to survive various transformations and edits, and it can then be used to run matches against incoming content."

What is clear is that AT&T is gearing up to do a whole lot more packet inspections, not less; a whole lot more spying, not less.

The Seoul Times is reporting: "Internet a Threat, Says UN Terror Chief":

The threat of global terrorism is starting to roll back in some areas, but the Internet is a potent weapon being used to rally militants and must be better monitored, the new UN counter-terrorism chief said on Nov.13..

"The Internet is a real worry and I don't think we've found the answer yet," said Mike Smith, an Australian who starts work on Nov.12 as head of the United Nations' Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate in New York.

"In the old days extremists used to have to cross borders to plan and attack sites," Smith told Reuters. "Nowadays a lot of that stuff can happen on the Internet, they can give instructions, they can coordinate, they can recruit through these jihadi websites."

Will doing the bidding of RIAA fall conveniently under the auspices of fighting "Terrorism" now? It is starting to look that way as tools start to fall in place.

The Intelligence Community sure appears to be gearing up for something far bigger than fighting Middle Eastern terrorists.

Thinking of agitating to attract like minded rebel-rousers via your blog? That's why this could be a one-size-fits-all political control law.

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Hatch, 2nd Look [w/UPDATE]

While Sen. Orrin Hatch has somehow managed to rise above his cult leader personality a slight bit on stem cells, on other wedge issues he remains much like his fellow LDS faithful and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney: he still surely believes in Mormon magic underwear for all.

Glenn Greenwald, as he so consistently does, nailed what must be 99% of the content in Hatch's head and his every thought, (so eerily reminiscent of that schizophrenic obsession shared by former US Rep. Mark Foley):

Sen. Hatch: As he always does, Sen. Hatch makes clear that -- even as we battle the Global Epic War of Civilizations against Islamo-fascism -- his primary concern is that the Department of Justice is not doing enough to battle the evils of what even he calls "mainstream, adult pornography."

Hatch explains that "pornography and obscenity consumption harms individuals, families, communities." Unfortunately, Hatch said, the DOJ has a "terrible record enforcing adult obscenity law" -- such enforcement stopped during the Clinton administration and there is not much more to show for it during the Bush administration.

The problem, Hatch explained, is that the DOJ is only prosecuting "extreme" obscenity -- not what he calls "mainstream obscenity." Since most consumers only access "mainstream obscenity," not "extreme obscenity," this strategy is misguided -- it prosecutes "too narrow a range of obscenity." Also, warned Hatch, there are far too few FBI resources being devoted to "mainstream obscenity prosecutions."

Now this may or may not seem ok to a cult leader, but sheesh, how does he know? Hatch has a career dedicated in toto to dogma, not reason; to religious orthodoxy, not rationality. Remember how Friedrich Nietzsche DID instruct:

Morality is the best of all devices for leading mankind by the nose."

So then, why should we not peg Hatch as just one more wannabe despot, in a long line of control freaks?

At least Orrin Hatch provides us with a terrific modern day parallel by which to analyze the advent and working dynamics of the periodic historical Witch Trials.

I remember how Hatch once bragged on the floor of the Senate, how what he enjoys most about his office as senator is being able to use his power to get back at all of those that have, (in his mind), ever wronged him. That and I remember he had a penchant for reading raw FBI files.

Violate Blue at SFGate continues the points:

In a previous DoJ confirmation hearing, Hatch impressed on former Attorney General Gonzales that prosecuting "mainstream porn" was far more important than pursuing terrorism. Let's not forget how powerful a dude like Hatch really is. Gonzales later implemented this idea into policy, much to the protestation of his own departments, especially the FBI.

During and following the Reagan years, lawmakers advanced the notion that, the National Endowment for the Arts should not even exist, let alone continue making grants, for pornography.

Ha Ha. "You always have commercial pornography", they told us and then passed law after law, trampling the First Amendment, one law at-a-time. Judges, often colluded too. (.pdf)

I would even settle for a remake of Pretty Baby in just IMAX at this point.

[UPDATE]

from Reason, dated same day as this post:

[I]n substantial part to the rise of the Internet, where the United States alone has a staggering 244 million Web pages featuring erotic fare. One Nielsen survey found that one out of every four users say they visited adult sites in the last month.

So in the last two decades, we have conducted a vast experiment on the social consequences of such material. If the supporters of censorship were right, we should be seeing an unparalleled epidemic of sexual assault. But all the evidence indicates they were wrong. As raunch has waxed, rape has waned."

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Restoring Rights and Reason

from The Smirking Chimp:

[The next] president's first act should be to sign a law that reads as follows: 'The federal government of the United States having been illegitimate and illegal since January 20, 2001, all laws, regulations, executive orders, and acts of commission or omission enacted between that infamous day and 12 noon Eastern Standard Time on January 20, 2009 are hereby declared invalid and without effect."

from Slashdot:

Former Intel CEO [Andrew S.] Grove rips on the medical research community, contrasting their lack of progress with the tech industry's juggernaut of breakthroughs over the past half-century or so."

from the original Newsweek article:

On Sunday afternoon, Grove ... unleash[ed] a scathing critique of the nation's biomedical establishment. In a speech at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, he challenge[d] big pharma companies, many of which haven't had an important new compound approved in ages, and academic researchers who are content with getting NIH grants and publishing research papers with little regard to whether their work leads to something that can alleviate disease, to change their ways."

For an utter stellar crash course on a vast amount of information relavent to Grove's comments, please invest the 88 minutes to watch this entire video, "Social Justice and Stem Cell Research: Who gains? Who loses?", *(requires Real Player)*. In this extraordinary video, none other than Sen. Orrin Hatch is said to be in less opposition to stem cell research than even Sen. Arlen Specter is.

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Solid reason vs. Rove's talking points on Gonzo

two major media outlets, more often than not known for defending (or at least not attacking) bush, aren't at all happy that gonzales is still in office...

USA Today

Blame monumental stubbornness, misplaced loyalty or failure to grasp reality. Whatever the reason, President Bush insists on keeping Alberto Gonzales, an old friend and legal adviser, as attorney general.

[...]

Monday's vote doesn't — and shouldn't — mean that the Gonzales case is closed. Questions about the prosecutors' firings remain, ones that can be answered only by White House officials, including political adviser Karl Rove.

The White House has said it will allow the officials to testify only in private, with no transcript and not under oath. That's flatly unacceptable.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has authorized subpoenas for the officials. Now it's time to get to the bottom of the White House role in the firings and, just as important, in running the department.

The Justice Department and the American people deserve better than a discredited, wounded attorney general. Even if the Senate can't muster enough votes to pass a no-confidence resolution, it's long past time for the president to channel his legendary loyalty away from his old friend and toward the public interest.

WaPo

[T]wo fundamental points: First, the president's apparently unshakable confidence in his attorney general is sadly misplaced. Second, the disturbing behavior uncovered in the investigation of the firing of U.S. attorneys cannot be dismissed as mere partisan politics, as much as the president would like to do so. Partisan politics was at work, yes, but in Mr. Bush's Justice Department...

[...]

Mr. Gonzales was the wrong choice to become the nation's chief law enforcement officer, and his conduct on the job has only served to underscore his unfitness.

meanwhile, george and the other loyal bushies stick to their scripted talking points...

our prez...

"This process has been drug out a long time, which says to me it's political," President Bush said yesterday. "There's no wrongdoing. . . . And therefore, I ascribe this lengthy series of news stories and hearings as political."

tony snow...

The Senate took time out to perform a little political theater Monday.

[...]

Gonzales doesn't deserve this. He is a man of great dedication and integrity.

[...]

The best way ... to create the foundation for some comity and cooperation in the nation's capital — is to stop slinging mud and start rolling up sleeves.

Real work beckons.

and orrin hatch...

This is purely a publicity stunt, designed to put something on the president's desk to embarrass him.

[...]

The nation's business waits while this fishing expedition continues.

real work, stunt, theater, partisan, fishing expedition, slinging mud, politics, publicity, no wrongdoing, man of integrity... note them well... they're all the same, they're all from the dark and twisted mind of karl rove, and, for sure, you haven't heard the last of them...

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Orrin Hatch and Kyle Sampson

well, this appears to be quite cozy...

Sampson has agreed to testify on Thursday before the Judiciary Committee in the US Senate, a body where he used to work. One of the senators hearing his testimony, Orrin Hatch of Utah, is a former employer. Sampson served as counsel to Senator Hatch from 1999-2001. Records filed with the Federal Election Commission also show that Hatch received a $250 campaign donation in March 2006 from Sampson.

Senator Hatch made it clear in a Judiciary Committee hearing last week authorizing the issuance of subpoenas that he wants Sampson treated well before the Committee.

"I personally feel badly for young Kyle Sampson. He worked on this committee. He's a very honest, decent, honorable person. And he had the unenviable job of handling these matters," Hatch explained.

He added, "And, frankly, I will resent anybody who tries to hurt the man."

i don't know anything about congressional precedents in situations like this, but it seems to me that it would be appropriate for hatch to recuse himself...

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