Glenn: There can be no human interaction that is beyond the reach of the U.S. government

i've been saying for many years that there is no electronic communication that is beyond the reach of the u.s. government... what i've come to realize is, as glenn says, there is no form of human interaction or, indeed, human behavior, that is beyond the reach of the surveillance apparatus of the u.s. government... and i'm also reasonably sure that, if you're a "person of interest," surveillance can be conducted wherever you might be on the planet, and that would include in the air, under the oceans or under the ground... with many millions of surveillance cameras in use around the world, with biometric and facial recognition technology, with spy satellites that can spot a gnat scratching its ass in the depths of carlsbad caverns, and with many other technologies undoubtedly in use that we've never even heard of, if "they" want to keep an eye on you, be assured, "they" can do it...

glenn...

If you even go into any normal American city or even, increasingly, small or mid-sized towns, there are all kinds of instruments of surveillance everywhere that you probably don’t even notice. If you wake up in the morning and drive to your local convenience store, you’ve undoubtedly been photographed by all sorts of surveillance cameras on the street. If you go to the ATM to take out money to buy things, that will be then recorded. If you go into a convenience store to buy things you want to buy, you’ll have your photograph taken and will be reported.
 

An article in Popular Mechanics in 2004 reported on a study of American surveillance and this is what it said: “There are an estimated 30 million surveillance cameras now deployed in the United States shooting 4 billion hours of footage a week. Americans are being watched. All of us, almost everywhere.” There is a study in 2006 that estimated that that number would quadruple to 100 million cameras -- surveillance cameras -- in the United States within five years largely because of the bonanza of post-9/11 surveilling.

[...]

The principle being that there can be no human interaction, especially no human communication, not just for international between foreign nations but by America citizens on American soils that is beyond the reach of the U.S. government.

thomas drake, former employee of the nsa...

If you take what has been happening in the post-9/11 security world, what you’re see is the establishment of a surveillance society – the establishment of a surveillance network. People don’t realize the extent to which we’re surveilled in many, many ways. The extent to which vast amounts of our transactional data in all forms – electronic forms, your emails, your tweets, bank records and everything else – are all subject or suspect in terms of surveillance. It raises the specter of the rise of so-called “soft tyranny.” It raises the specter of you being automatically suspicious until you prove that you’re not; the specter of a universal and persistent wiretap on every single person. If not – they can create one. Because what happens if they don’t like you? What if you speak ill will against the government? What if you say something they consider disloyal? That is not the country I took an oath to defend four times in my government career.
 

There is also a fear element. Fear in itself is control. What would people do when they are fearful is they would begin to censor themselves. It sends an extraordinary chilling message that if you speak out – they are going to hammer you hard. Our security has become our state religion, you don’t question it. And if you question it – your loyalty is questioned.

if you feel like someone's watching you, it's not just paranoia...

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So much for protesting ACTA, PIPA and SOPA; the MPAA and RIAA have colluded with the ISPs to spy anyway

can't catch a break...

American ISPs to launch massive copyright spying scheme on July 12

If you download potentially copyrighted software, videos or music, your Internet service provider (ISP) has been watching, and they’re coming for you.

Specifically, they’re coming for you on Thursday, July 12.

That’s the date when the nation’s largest ISPs will all voluntarily implement a new anti-piracy plan that will engage network operators in the largest digital spying scheme in history, and see some users’ bandwidth completely cut off until they sign an agreement saying they will not download copyrighted materials.

Word of the start date has been largely kept secret since ISPs announced their plans last June. The deal was brokered by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), and coordinated by the Obama Administration. The same groups have weighed in heavily on controversial Internet policies around the world, with similar facilitation by the Obama’s Administration’s State Department.

The July 12 date was revealed by the RIAA’s CEO and top lobbyist, Cary Sherman, during a publishers’ conference on Wednesday in New York, according to technology publication CNet.

The content industries calls this scheme a “graduated response” plan, which will see Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and others spying on users’ Internet activities and watching for potential copyright infringement. Users who are “caught” infringing on a creator’s protected work can then be interrupted with a notice that piracy is forbidden by law and carries penalties of up to $150,000 per infringement, requiring the user to click through saying they understand the consequences before bandwidth is restored, and they could still be subject to copyright infringement lawsuits.

Participating ISPs have a range of options for dealing with customers who continue to pirate media, at that point: They can require that an alleged repeat offender undergo an educational course before their service is restored. They can utilize multiple warnings, restrict access to only certain major websites like Google, Facebook or a list of the top 200 sites going, reduce someone’s bandwidth to practically nothing and even share information on repeat offenders with competing ISPs, effectively creating a sort of Internet blacklist — although publicly, none of the network operators have agreed to “terminate” a customer’s service.

It is because of those reasons that the content industries believe this program achieves much more than what might have been possible in the realm of public policy, and the ISPs appear to agree. The voluntary scheme will be paid for mostly by the content industries, which will share some costs with the ISPs.

swell... just swell... what the government doesn't do in the way of spying, our isp's will take care of for them...

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You may be watching us, but by God and sonny Jesus, we are watching you

it's been readily apparent to me for quite a few years, actually well before 9/11 and the exponential increase in domestic surveillance, that literally everything we do via any electronic network - from atm withdrawals to sending emails to cellphone calls to credit card transactions, even to swiping our supermarket affinity cards - is being at least "sniffed" and most likely recorded...

that already unacceptable and constitutionally illegal level of surveillance is now rapidly expanding to include tracking vehicle movements via the recording of license plates with surveillance cameras mounted on traffic lights and on roadsides, and even tracking us as pedestrians courtesy of cameras located in building lobbies and literally everywhere else a "case" can be made for needing heightened "security"... the spreading use of facial recognition software means that, if someone decides we're a "person of interest," we can be tracked anywhere, inside or outside the country...

william rivers pitt...

The basic idea behind setting up this incredibly invasive system, if you listen to its advocates, is that security is paramount in the aftermath of 9/11. There were plenty of people, after the Towers came down, who were very happy to surrender their liberties in the name of security, despite Benjamin Franklin's warning about deserving neither and losing both.

[...]

The advent of the Occupy movement, the length of time that movement has been able to hang fire, and the vast number of cities in which it is taking place, has led to an astonishingly violent reaction from the very state we are supposedly trusting to watch over our every move. There have been a dozen incidents of gruesome official violence against peaceful, non-violent protesters, including the near-murder of an Iraq war veteran by police in Oakland...violence the likes of which has not been seen in America since the dogs and firehoses days of Birmingham, Alabama.

Last Friday, students at UC Davis in California were subjected to an attack by police that beggars likeness.

[...]

Memo to the police and the surveillance state you represent: you are not working in the dark anymore. You may have your own system of surveillance, but We The People are watching you just as closely, and we have our own system of surveillance. It's called exposing your vicious, anti-American and thoroughly unnecessary strong-arm tactics for all to see.

[...]

You may be watching us, but by God and sonny Jesus, we are watching you.

smartphone video, cellphone cams, the internet and social networking all offer us the unparalleled opportunity to beat back the surveillance state by capturing and reporting on events as they happen and, consequently, driving a stake through the heart of the twisted media propaganda spin that would otherwise be our only way to "know" what's going on...

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Juan Cole now, rightly so, questions just how far down the rabbit hole we've gone in pursuit of the National Security State

professor cole asks a question that many of us have been asking for years...

The Congress should revisit the PATRIOT Act in the light of the revelation of what was attempted in my regard, and should repeal the damn thing. Failing that, the federal judiciary should find it unconstitutional, which it is. But one of the things that worries me is that some of the key political and judicial personnel who might want to move against it may themselves already have been victims of surveillance, entrapment and blackmailing. Just how corrupt has our whole governmental apparatus become, that clear violations of our Constitution are blithely accepted?

members of congress and the judiciary all swear oaths to uphold and protect the constitution of the united states... you can't help but wonder why they don't do it...

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Glenn gives us a short guide to understanding U.S. politics

a clear, succinct and devastating indictment... go take a look...

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Wikileaks under Obama, Professor Cole under Bush - continuing to gut the 1st and 4th Amendments

i had often wondered if professor cole hadn't attracted the interest of our propaganda and domestic surveillance-meisters... guess so...

from juan cole's weblog...

Eminent National Security correspondent at the New York Times James Risen has been told by a retired former official of the Central Intelligence Agency that the Bush White House repeatedly asked the CIA to spy on me with a view to discovering “damaging” information with which to discredit my reputation. Glenn Carle says he was called into the office of his superior, David Low, in 2005 and was asked of me, “ ‘What do you think we might know about him, or could find out that could discredit him?’ ”

Low actually wrote up a brief attempt in this direction and submitted it to the White House but Carle says he intercepted it. Carle later discovered that yet another young analyst had been tasked with looking into me.

It seems to me clear that the Bush White House was upset by my blogging of the Iraq War, in which I was using Arabic and other primary sources, and which contradicted the propaganda efforts of the administration attempting to make the enterprise look like a wild shining success.

Carle’s revelations come as a visceral shock. You had thought that with all the shennanigans of the CIA against anti-Vietnam war protesters and then Nixon’s use of the agency against critics like Daniel Ellsberg, that the Company and successive White Houses would have learned that the agency had no business spying on American citizens.

I believe Carle’s insider account and discount the glib denials of people like Low. Carle is taking a substantial risk in making all this public. I hope that the Senate and House Intelligence Committees will immediately launch an investigation of this clear violation of the law by the Bush White House and by the CIA officials concerned. Like Mr. Carle, I am dismayed at how easy it seems to have been for corrupt WH officials to suborn CIA personnel into activities that had nothing to do with national security abroad and everything to do with silencing domestic critics. This effort was yet another attempt to gut the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution, in this case as part of an effort to gut the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

without meaning to discount professor cole, i am nonetheless somewhat amused at his shock and outrage at being targeted... given his clear level of expertise in the middle east, his ability to clearly and reasonably articulate his views, AND his visibility, i would have expected him to be a target... after all, he does everything but wear a neon sign saying, "here i am, i dare you to try to shut me up," which, in this day and age, is like waving a red flag in front of a bull... our fearless leaders, backed by our super-rich elites, don't want anybody out there upsetting their apple cart and certainly not doing so by telling the truth...

flash forward to yesterday...

from firedoglake...

A federal grand jury empaneled to investigate WikiLeaks meets again in Alexandria, Virginia today. David House, co-founder of the Bradley Manning Support Network, is expected to appear before the grand jury. He and others in the Greater Boston area have been subjected to this process, which seeks to embroil them in espionage charges for being linked to WikiLeaks.

It is a tired cliché, perhaps, but, with each new development in the investigation of WikiLeaks—in a process that might be considered a part of a larger war on WikiLeaks—more and more individuals are being made to answer the question, “Do you or have you ever worked for WikiLeaks?” (Soon they will be asked, “Are you or have you ever been supportive or sympathetic toward WikiLeaks?”)

House has been targeted consistently by the government for the past months. His lawful association with the Bradley Manning Support Network, which was created to raise funds for the legal defense of Pfc. Bradley Manning, the alleged whistleblower to WikiLeaks now being held at Ft. Leavenworth, has transformed him into a marked man. In November 2010, Department of Homeland Security agents stopped House at O’Hare International airport as he was returning from Mexico.

The agents asked House about his political activities and beliefs. His laptop computer, camera, and a USB drive were all seized. The questioning and seizure of personal property does not appear to have been carried out because House posed a threat to border security. But, House was made to face intrusive and intimidating tactics because he joined a lawful group.

“The search and seizure of my laptop has had a chilling effect on the activities of the Bradley Manning Support Network, by silencing once-outspoken supporters and causing donors to retreat. Our government should not be treating lawful activists like suspects,” explains House.

The ACLU has come to his defense and filed a lawsuit against the DHS. The ACLU has called for the “return or destruction of any of House’s personal data still in the custody of the government and disclosure of whether and to whom the data has been disseminated.” And, if not for the ACLU sending a letter to DHS, House would likely have not been able to get his seized laptop, camera and USB drive back after seven weeks.

Targeting of House is not an anomaly. This practice of searching, copying and detaining travelers’ laptops, cell phones, and other electronic devices in airports or at land crossings has been used on a number of people when DHS knows there is no probable cause to support such harassment.

again, i have to confess a degree of amusement... it was the first of june 2006 that i had my laptop, external hard drive, digital camera, memory cards, flash drive, cd's and dvd's seized at customs in the san francisco airport and kept for three weeks before being returned... i have no doubt that my computer hard drive was copied in full and fully suspect that tracking codes were inserted in my computer to enable remote monitoring... it was then that the full realization of what kind of a police state we were living in finally hit home... sure, i had suspected all along but, like professor cole and david house, the reality of the shredding of our 4th amendment rights is never so real as when it affects you personally...

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Unfettered capitalism is a brutal and revolutionary force that exploits human beings and the natural world until exhaustion or collapse

chris hedges...

We have been gradually disempowered by a corporate state that, as Huxley foresaw, seduced and manipulated us through sensual gratification, cheap mass-produced goods, boundless credit, political theater and amusement. While we were entertained, the regulations that once kept predatory corporate power in check were dismantled, the laws that once protected us were rewritten and we were impoverished. ... The state, crippled by massive deficits, endless war and corporate malfeasance, is sliding toward bankruptcy. ... We are moving from a society where we are skillfully manipulated by lies and illusions to one where we are overtly controlled.

[...]

Now that the corporate coup is over, we stand naked and defenseless. We are beginning to understand, as Karl Marx knew, that unfettered and unregulated capitalism is a brutal and revolutionary force that exploits human beings and the natural world until exhaustion or collapse.

[...]

The good-paying jobs are not coming back. The largest deficits in human history mean that we are trapped in a debt peonage system that will be used by the corporate state to eradicate the last vestiges of social protection for citizens, including Social Security. The state has devolved from a capitalist democracy to neo-feudalism. And when these truths become apparent, anger will replace the corporate-imposed cheerful conformity.

[...]

The noose is tightening. The era of amusement is being replaced by the era of repression. Tens of millions of citizens have had their e-mails and phone records turned over to the government. We are the most monitored and spied-on citizenry in human history. Many of us have our daily routine caught on dozens of security cameras. Our proclivities and habits are recorded on the Internet. Our profiles are electronically generated. Our bodies are patted down at airports and filmed by scanners. And public service announcements, car inspection stickers, and public transportation posters constantly urge us to report suspicious activity. The enemy is everywhere.

Those who do not comply with the dictates of the war on terror, a war which, as Orwell noted, is endless, are brutally silenced. The draconian security measures used to cripple protests at the G-20 gatherings in Pittsburgh and Toronto were wildly disproportionate for the level of street activity. But they sent a clear message—DO NOT TRY THIS. The FBI’s targeting of antiwar and Palestinian activists, which in late September saw agents raid homes in Minneapolis and Chicago, is a harbinger of what is to come for all who dare defy the state’s official Newspeak. The agents—our Thought Police—seized phones, computers, documents and other personal belongings. Subpoenas to appear before a grand jury have since been served on 26 people. The subpoenas cite federal law prohibiting “providing material support or resources to designated foreign terrorist organizations.” Terror, even for those who have nothing to do with terror, becomes the blunt instrument used by Big Brother to protect us from ourselves.

resistance is futile...

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No bit or byte left behind

gosh, i would hate to think that any text message i tapped out, any word i uttered, password i entered, pin number i punched in or any data scooped up when i swiped a card might escape the gaping maw of government surveillance...

U.S. Pushes to Ease Technical Obstacles to Wiretapping

Law enforcement and counterterrorism officials, citing lapses in compliance with surveillance orders, are pushing to overhaul a federal law that requires phone and broadband carriers to ensure that their networks can be wiretapped, federal officials say.

The officials say tougher legislation is needed because some telecommunications companies in recent years have begun new services and made system upgrades that create technical obstacles to surveillance. They want to increase legal incentives and penalties aimed at pushing carriers like Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast to ensure that any network changes will not disrupt their ability to conduct wiretaps.

it's so comforting to know that my country's leaders want to keep an eye on me...

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Barack, go f*** yourself...

i put up a post about talon, the defense department's domestic spying operation under george bush, all the way back in 2005... now, like a vampire rising from the coffin, it's back under our hopey-changey president obama...

The Pentagon's spy unit has quietly begun to rebuild a database for tracking potential terrorist threats that was shut down after it emerged that it had been collecting information on American anti-war activists.

The Defense Intelligence Agency filed notice this week that it plans to create a new section called Foreign Intelligence and Counterintelligence Operation Records, whose purpose will be to "document intelligence, counterintelligence, counterterrorism and counternarcotic operations relating to the protection of national security."

But while the unit's name refers to "foreign intelligence," civil liberties advocates and the Pentagon's own description of the program suggest that Americans will likely be included in the new database.

FICOR replaces a program called Talon, which the DIA created in 2002 under then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as part of the counterterrorism efforts following the 9/11 attacks. It was disbanded in 2007 after it emerged that Talon had retained information on anti-war protesters, including Quakers, even after it was determined they posed no threat to national security.

DIA spokesman Donald Black told Newsweek that the new database would not include the more controversial elements of the old Talon program. But Jeff Stein at the Washington Post reports that the new program will evidently inherit the old Talon database.

"Why the new depository would want such records while its parent agency no longer has a law enforcement function could not be learned," Stein reports. "Nor could it be learned whether the repository will include intelligence reports on protest groups gathered by its predecessor."

The Pentagon's notice states that the database will collect "identifying information such as name, Social Security Number (SSN), address, citizenship documentation, biometric data, passport number, vehicle identification number and vehicle/vessel license data." As only US residents have Social Security Numbers, it appears the program is being designed at least partly to contain domestic information.

Newsweek cites two unnamed US officials as suggesting that the new program essentially echoes the old one. When CIFA, the DIA division running Talon, was disbanded in 2008, "many of its personnel and some of its functions were transferred" to the new DIA unit running the new database program. The new program will be housed "in the same office space that CIFA once occupied, in a complex near suburban Washington’s Reagan National Airport."

now, 17 months into obama's term of office, i can now say without hesitation, "barack, you can go f*** yourself"...

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I just heard about "Detention Without Trial of Unprivileged Enemy Belligerents"

there have been a lot of little steps taken toward a military/police state in the u.s. over the 8 years of the bush administration, steps that are being expanded by the obama administration...

and, yes, i was a fool to buy the snake oil sold as "hope" by the obama campaign...

"'brand' obama"...

The election of Barack Obama was yet another triumph of propaganda over substance and a skillful manipulation and betrayal of the public by the mass media. We mistook style and ethnicity – an advertising tactic pioneered by the United Colors of Benetton and Calvin Klein – for progressive politics and genuine change. We confused how we were made to feel with knowledge. But the goal, as with all brands, was to make passive consumers mistake a brand for an experience. Obama, now a global celebrity, is a brand. He had almost no experience besides two years in the senate, lacked any moral core and was sold as all things to all people. The Obama campaign was named Advertising Age’s marketer of the year for 2008 and edged out runners-up Apple and Zappos.com. Take it from the professionals. Brand Obama is a marketer’s dream. President Obama does one thing and Brand Obama gets you to believe another. This is the essence of successful advertising. You buy or do what the advertisers want because of how they can make you feel.

nothing has been done to halt our greased slide into the depths of hell...

torture has, if anything, become acceptable...

extraordinary rendition and indefinite, illegal detention are still on the menu...

our government is privy to every electronic communication and transaction over any network of any sort we choose to use, wherever we are, even outside the u.s., and those, along with our movements, are logged and archived for possible future retrieval...

peremptory, extra-judicial assassinations, even of u.s. citizens, are carried out in presidential-approved black ops...

hundreds, maybe thousands, of drones, flown remotely by pilots sitting behind consoles in nevada and new mexico, strike targets in afghanistan and pakistan daily without the specific knowledge or concurrence of those national governments...

"terrorist" has become the magic word that, once applied, can and will place anyone beyond the reach of the law of any country, possibly for the rest of that person's life...

and the list goes on...

now, here we have what looks like the next big step...

On March 4th, Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman introduced a bill called the "Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010" that, if passed, would set this country on a course to become a military dictatorship.

The bill is only 12 pages long, but that is plenty of room to grant the president the power to order the arrest, interrogation, and imprisonment of anyone -- including a U.S. citizen -- indefinitely, on the sole suspicion that he or she is affiliated with terrorism, and on the president's sole authority as commander in chief.

[...]

[I]f at any point, anywhere in the world, a person is caught who might have done something to suggest that he or she is a terrorist or somehow supporting a terrorist organization against the U.S. or its allies, that person must be imprisoned by the military. [emphasis added]

For how long?

As long as U.S. officials want. A subsequent section, titled "Detention Without Trial of Unprivileged Enemy Belligerents," states that suspects "may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners."

when glenn greenwald sounds the four-alarm fire, i tend to pay attention...

As "war on terror"-era legislation goes, Greenwald calls the Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act "probably the single most extremist, tyrannical and dangerous bill introduced in the Senate in the last several decades, far beyond the horrific, habeas-abolishing Military Commissions Act."

so, here i sit in one of my favorite neighborhood cafes in buenos aires (argentina, the home of la guerra sucia - the dirty war - fomented in large part by my own country), while i expound on the continued degradation of the u.s. constitution as i sip cafe con leche and nibble medialunas... life's little ironies, eh...?

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The perpetrators continue to defend their crimes and their former boss

i don't know about yoo you but i'm getting sick and tired of the parade of self-righteous, former bush administration criminals trying to shake off accountability... for instance...

from an article on john yoo in today's wapo...

Yoo has been traveling across the country to give speeches and counter critics who dispute his bold view of the president's authority. Now a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, he engages in polite but firm exchanges with legal scholars over conclusions in their academic work. This month, he wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal defending his actions and labeling critics' arguments as "absurd" and "foolhardy" responses to "the media-stoked politics of recrimination."

michael hayden trying to cover his butt in an op-ed in today's nyt...

The recent report of inspectors general on the President’s Surveillance Program operated by the National Security Agency has led some to make hasty and deeply flawed judgments about the value and legality of what was a critical part of protecting America from further attack after Sept. 11.

The program was crucial in addressing one of the most stinging criticisms of the 9/11 commission — the need to reduce the gap between foreign intelligence and domestic security. This was an especially difficult task, which helps explain both the program’s importance and its sensitivity. The program was lawful, effective and necessary.

The reflexive judgments to the contrary seem hasty at best.

there's only one way to settle this... appoint a special prosecutor, someone with unimpeachable credentials, and let's dig our way to the bottom where i suspect we will find obfuscation, outright lying, illegality, criminality, and legions of victims of state-sponsored terrorism... however, whatever emerges, even if it's complete exoneration, will be better than the mess of unfinished business we have now...

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It's still not too late to dump the bastards...! A call to action...!

thanks to ralph lopez at daily kos...

From Impeachment Left to Right

The 110th Congress isn’t over. We’re starting our work, and then we’re doing it in a period where the Congress is in recess. I’m calling everybody back. We’ve got a huge amount of work to engage in.- John Conyers on DemocracyNow Radio, Aug.14,2008

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers has taken the highly unusual step of calling his committee back from summer recess in order to investigate allegations by Ron Suskind that the Bush administration forged a letter to buttress the links made between Saddam and 9/11, and Saddam and WMD. The congressional Authorization for the Use of Force Against Iraq, the ""War Resolution" which, as far short as it fell of a congressional declaration of war, gave the invasion its constitutional legal cover, and gave Bush the authorization to invade only after he had certified to congress the existence of these two critical links. If Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, and if he did not possess WMD, the war was off.

The Authorization for the Use of Force stipulated:

Sec. 3 (b) Presidential Determination.--

In connection with the exercise of
the authority granted in subsection (a) to use force the President
shall, prior to such exercise or as soon thereafter as may be feasible,
but no later than 48 hours after exercising such authority, make
available to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the
President pro tempore of the Senate his determination that--

(2) acting pursuant to this joint resolution is consistent
with the United States and other countries continuing to take
the necessary actions against international terrorist and
terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations,
or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the
terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.

On March 23, 2003, the president certified just that:

-"I have also determined that the use of armed force against Iraq is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001." -George Bush, certification to Congress to authorize the use of force in Iraq, March 23, 2003

"Armed force against Iraq is consistent with...actions against...nations...who...aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11..." are the operative words in that statement without the subordinate clauses.

After the flurry of impeachment articles embodied in HR 1345, read on the House floor on June 9, 2008, Rep. Dennis Kucinich followed up on July 10 with a single article which lasers in on the exact war lies Suskind's alleged forgery has called attention to. Not that the document is needed to show Bush lied. He admitted as much, which in a courtroom is prima facie evidence which supercedes any other.

In a press conference with Tony Blair in Jan. of 2003, Bush said:

[Adam Boulton, Sky News (London):] One question for you both. Do you believe that there is a link between Saddam Hussein, a direct link, and the men who attacked on September the 11th?

THE PRESIDENT: I can't make that claim.

THE PRIME MINISTER: That answers your question.

And on Sept. 18, 2003, on Meet the Press, Bush drove the nail in all the way:

-"No, we've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th.

Conyers' reconvening of his committee was the result of enormous public pressure, most poignantly that coming from military families wanting to know why their loved ones are dead. Despite the exquisite, shining clockwork political operation now in place at the Executive Branch, working hand in glove with the media spin machine, it's still not that easy to get 4100 Americans killed over lies. Bush knew Americans would not subject their troops to such an uncertain fiasco over 17 violated UN resolutions, or Saddam's brutal but by no means unique human rights record. If we attacked every country which violated UN resolutions, we'd be bombing Tel Aviv.

So Bush lied.

What is needed now is a full-court press by the public, especially those citizens up until now silent, to transform the Suskind investigation into true impeachment hearings. Public pressure, and only public pressure, resulted in the stunning but buried hearings of July 25, 2008. On that day only 17 out of hundreds of citizens from across the country who packed the hallway outside the Judiciary chambers were allowed into the room. As people chanted "Shame!" it was explained by Judiciary staff that the rest of the seats were taken by the media. The joke turned out to be on you, the public. Media packed the room, but not one American newspaper, not one network news station, reported the dramatic six-hour testimony which outlined some of the most serious charges which can be made against a U.S. president.

This country is now learning what many already know: that democracy is not given. It is demanded. Few politicians are interested in your right to freedom from search and seizure without a warrant, or your right to a jury trial even if George Bush thinks you are an "enemy combatant." They already belong to a class of the powerful who will merit special consideration. Some, with good reason, may argue that we already have a two-tier system of justice, for the rich, and for the poor. But like the movie says, you ain't seen nothing yet.

There is nothing partisan about impeachment. Just as politics should stop at the water's edge (except for John McCain, who injected himself into the Georgia crisis in a manner which would have earned Obama a withering barrage,) it stops when the very process by which we govern ourselves is in peril.

This is why someone like Bruce Fein, a former Reagan deputy attorney general who "trashed the Roe v. Wade abortion decision, stating that it required a "hallucinogenic intellectual flight" on the part of Justice Harry Blackmun to draft the opinion," according to CommonDreams.org, has come out as one of the most effective spokemen for a Bush impeachment. Why? CommonDreams goes on:

This is what did it: The disclosure that the National Security Agency (NSA) is engaged in the domestic wiretapping of American citizens in the United States without first obtaining warrants. The Bush Administration had crossed the line. Within twenty-four hours, Fein went into constitutional combat mode. And he hasn’t stopped since.

For Fein, there is nothing really to debate; the law is settled. In 1978, Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, permitting the government to conduct electronic surveillance on citizens in the United States if it first gets a warrant from the FISA court, which exists for that reason only. The FISA court rarely has denied such a request.

Fein says:

"The President could pick and choose which statutes to obey in gathering foreign intelligence and employing battlefield tactics on the sidewalks of the United States."

Please do three things:

1. Call Judiciary Committee members, give a message saying we know the difference between a show, and impeachment. This is fast.

2. Participate in the campaign to reach Judiciary members' campaign contributors, to ask them as one citizen to another to withhold contributions until the member does this clearest of patriotic duties. Why this route? Because congressmen have shown themselves to be impervious to any amount of constituent pressure. Rep. John Olver (D-MA) even said, at a town meeting "Spare me, I know full well the overwhelming majority of my constituency is in favor of impeachment" as he told the packed room he would not co-sponsor any resolutions against either Bush or Cheney. We used to think that representatives were there to represent us. We have learned better. But we're not done with them.

3. Start now to prevail on the media to cover important hearings when they happen. Participate in the advertiser boycott.

There will be naysayers, and the Pelosians who seems to think that a super-majority of Pelosians is the answer. These are the same people who betrayed Americans by failing to stop the Iraq War, when they were given a majority to do just that. Better the Pelosians understand that doing their duty to impeach will be seen as a down-payment on regaining the trust of the rank-and-file, and the American people. Otherwise all promises are empty. Any national healthcare will be written by big pharma and the insurance companies. Presidents will continue to get their blank checks for war. As for the naysayers on impeachment, as the saying goes, either lead, follow, or get out of the way.

From Impeachment Left to Right

DIARIST'S NOTE ON COMMENTS: An awful lot of the good folks here are commenting along the lines of "I can dream that it's really true," that's great, but please don't forget to call and write as well. No one is taking care of our rights for us, we've got to do it ourselves. Conyers is not there to convince us he is going to really do something. We are here to convince him he must. I would trade every hand-wringing comment across the Internet on this topic for a one strong email to congressmen/contributors/news media.

he's right... we simply can't give up on this... it's way too important...

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C.O.G. = Continuity of Government = martial law

a thorough, but chilling rundown of what might be in store for those of us considered "threats to the state" in the case of a national emergency... it's worth reading the whole thing, but here's a teaser...

from ich...

Under law, during a national emergency, FEMA and its parent organization, the Department of Homeland Security, would be empowered to seize private and public property, all forms of transport, and all food supplies. The agency could dispatch military commanders to run state and local governments, and it could order the arrest of citizens without a warrant, holding them without trial for as long as the acting government deems necessary. From the comfortable perspective of peaceful times, such behavior by the government may seem farfetched. But it was not so very long ago that FDR ordered 120,000 Japanese-Americans—everyone from infants to the elderly—be held in detention camps for the duration of World War II. This is widely regarded as a shameful moment in U.S. history, a lesson learned. But a long trail of federal documents indicates that the possibility of large-scale detention has never quite been abandoned by federal authorities. Around the time of the 1968 race riots, for instance, a paper drawn up at the U.S. Army War College detailed plans for rounding up millions of "militants" and "American negroes" who were to be held at "assembly centers or relocation camps." In the late 1980s, the Austin American-Statesman and other publications reported the existence of 10 detention camp sites on military facilities nationwide, where hundreds of thousands of people could be held in the event of domestic political upheaval. More such facilities were commissioned in 2006, when Kellogg Brown & Root—then a subsidiary of Halliburton—was handed a $385 million contract to establish "temporary detention and processing capabilities" for the Department of Homeland Security. The contract is short on details, stating only that the facilities would be used for "an emergency influx of immigrants, or to support the rapid development of new programs." Just what those "new programs" might be is not specified.

In the days after our hypothetical terror attack, events might play out like this: With the population gripped by fear and anger, authorities undertake unprecedented actions in the name of public safety. Officials at the Department of Homeland Security begin actively scrutinizing people who—for a tremendously broad set of reasons—have been flagged in Main Core* as potential domestic threats. Some of these individuals might receive a letter or a phone call, others a request to register with local authorities. Still others might hear a knock on the door and find police or armed soldiers outside. In some instances, the authorities might just ask a few questions. Other suspects might be arrested and escorted to federal holding facilities, where they could be detained without counsel until the state of emergency is no longer in effect.

* According to a senior government official who served with high-level security clearances in five administrations, "There exists a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived 'enemies of the state' almost instantaneously." ... [T]he database is sometimes referred to by the code name Main Core.

according to the article, the bulk of this has been in place since the 80s... no surprises here... at least not for me...

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8500 National Security Letters in 2000, 47000 in 2005, as the FBI tracks our every move

more so-called "news" in the category of, "yeah, so tell me something i DIDN'T know"...

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been routinely monitoring the e-mails, instant messages and cell phone calls of suspects across the United States -- and has done so, in many cases, without the approval of a court.

Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act and given to the Washington Post -- which stuck the story on page three -- show that the FBI's massive dragnet, connected to the backends of telecommunications carriers, "allows authorized FBI agents and analysts, with point-and-click ease, to receive e-mails, instant messages, cellphone calls and other communications that tell them not only what a suspect is saying, but where he is and where he has been, depending on the wording of a court order or a government directive," the Post says.

But agents don't need a court order to track to track the senders and recipients names, or how long calls or email exchanges lasted. These can be obtained simply by showing it's "relevant" to a probe.

[...]

Some transactional data is obtained using National Security Letters. The Justice Department says use of these letters has risen from 8,500 in 2000 to 47,000 in 2005, according to the Post.

[...]

The new revelations show definitively that telecommunications companies can transfer "with the click of a mouse, instantly transfer key data along a computer circuit to an FBI technology office in Quantico" upon request.

the incredibly naive notion that the fbi is illegally monitoring ONLY the electronic transactions of "suspects" is truly astounding... they are and have been monitoring every goddam electronic transaction for YEARS, and, bit by painful bit, we are finally having this godawful reality confirmed...

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Why would we be surprised that our military would be involved in domestic surveillance...?

yes, it's chilling, but i've made the assumption for quite some time that everything we do that involves an electronic network that isn't under our absolute individual control is either accessible or actively being scrutinized by any and all agencies of our government... that the defense department has adopted the same tactics as the fbi - the use of national security letters (nsl's) - to dig even deeper, should be no surprise to anybody... it's just a further indication of what i've thought right along, that we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg, and that there's still a massive bulk of shocking revelations lurking below the surface...

The military is using the FBI to skirt legal restrictions on domestic surveillance to obtain private records of Americans' Internet service providers, financial institutions and telephone companies, according to Pentagon documents.

The American Civil Liberties Union expressed outrage at the new revelations, based its conclusion on a review of more than 1,000 documents turned over by the Defense Department after it sued the agency last year for documents related to national security letters, or NSLs, investigative tools used to compel businesses to turn over customer information without a judge's order or grand jury subpoena.

"Newly unredacted documents released today reveal that the Department of Defense is using the FBI to circumvent legal limits on its own NSL power," said the ACLU, whose lawsuit was filed in Manhattan federal court.

ACLU lawyer Melissa Goodman said the documents the civil rights group studied "make us incredibly concerned." She said it would be understandable if the military relied on help from the FBI on joint investigations, but not when the FBI was not involved in a probe.

shocking... just shocking... NOT...! stay tuned... there's a LOT more to come...

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Total Information Awareness

the aclu posts a diary on daily kos...

By Barry Steinhardt, director the ACLU Technology and Liberty Project.

Yesterday’s report in The Wall Street Journal about the NSA’s domestic spy dragnets should be major, major news. It is nothing less than the return of TIA: "Total Information Awareness." Yet there has been barely any followup coverage of the story in the mainstream media. I know the media thinks the sexual behavior of the governor of New York is earth-shatteringly important for American life – but this NSA report actually is.

I mean, when we warn about a "surveillance society," this is what we’re talking about. This is it, this is the ballgame. Mass data from a wide variety of sources – including the private sector – is being collected and scanned by a secretive military spy agency. This represents nothing less than a major change in American life – and unless stopped the consequences of this system for everybody will grow in magnitude along with the rivers of data that are collected about each of us – and that’s more and more every day.

The TIA program, you may recall, was a massive Pentagon plan (run by Admiral John Poindexter of Iran-Contra fame) to tap into as many databases containing personal information about Americans as possible (program materials listed "Financial, Education, Travel, Medical, Veterinary, Country Entry, Place/Event Entry, Transportation, Housing, Critical Resources, Government, Communications"). All that information would then be pulled together and scanned for "suspicious" patterns. Given the density of the "data trails" that we all create in our daily lives today and in the future, it was a recipe for the routine surveillance of Americans and their every move.

TIA was supposed to have been killed off by Congress in 2003 amid widespread objections to its sweeping Orwellian scope. There have been always been hints about a secret annex to the law that permitted some limited aspects of TIA to operate within the Pentagon’s black budget for intelligence and with respect to foreigners only. Now it appears that, like a vampire that can’t be killed except with a stake through its heart, TIA has arisen again from its coffin in full body with its voracious appetite for privacy of Americans and foreigners alike.

The reporter on the Journal piece, Siobhan Gorman, describes stunning new spying capabilities that flow from a distributed collection of new domestic spying capabilities (each of which the ACLU has long warned against):

• TIA and data mining more broadly


• The NSA’s illegal wiretapping program, the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP)


• The Patriot Act’s broadening of FBI power to collect third-party personal information without a subpoena through Section 215 searches and National Security Letters.


• The Treasury Department’s expanded surveillance of financial transactions through Cash Transaction Reporting and Suspicious Activity Reporting.


• The CIA’s illegitimate access to the SWIFT database to monitor international financial transactions.


• DHS’ efforts to increase collection and monitoring of airline passenger data.


• Partnerships between government agencies and private sector entities to collect and monitor customers’ data and transactions.


• The erosion of privacy through the judicial creation of a distinction between content and "transactional" or "addressing" information (such as the recipients of e-mails or phone calls and the times and dates of each communication) through the Patriot Act and prior developments.
  

In the ongoing battle over FISA and the NSA’s warrantless spying program (which appears to be but one part of this larger effort), the government has been saying in effect, "trust us." Why should we trust an agency that has been running this secret program in contravention of the Wyden Amendment, the law passed by Congress shutting down TIA.

It’s time for Congress to find out exactly what is going on here, inform the public, and put a stop to what appears to be the construction of a sweeping infrastructure for the routine mass surveillance of innocent people.

anybody who wants to believe that this shit started with the bush administration is certainly entitled, but, when it all comes rolling out into the cold, hard light of day - as it will, eventually - there are many of us who will not be in the least bit surprised to learn that it's been going on at least since echelon was revealed in the mid-90s and probably for quite a bit longer than that...

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Don't support terrorism, support LOVE!

Mark Fiore


Click on image to play

(thanks to avedon at atrios...)

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Warrantless search and seizure at U.S. Customs

two years ago this coming june 1, my laptop, digital camera, flash drive, and a number of cd's were seized as i was coming through u.s. customs at san francisco international airport... all were returned three weeks later, altho' i'm positive that the contents of my hard drive were copied... it seems like the high-handedness of george's illegal police state is starting to really piss some people off, and that's a good thing...

The seizure of electronics at U.S. borders has prompted protests from travelers who say they now weigh the risk of traveling with sensitive or personal information on their laptops, cameras or cellphones. In some cases, companies have altered their policies to require employees to safeguard corporate secrets by clearing laptop hard drives before international travel.

Today, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Asian Law Caucus, two civil liberties groups in San Francisco, are filing a lawsuit to force the government to disclose its policies on border searches, including which rules govern the seizing and copying of the contents of electronic devices. They also want to know the boundaries for asking travelers about their political views, religious practices and other activities potentially protected by the First Amendment. The question of whether border agents have a right to search electronic devices at all without suspicion of a crime is already under review in the federal courts.

The lawsuit was inspired by some two dozen cases, 15 of which involved searches of cellphones, laptops, MP3 players and other electronics. Almost all involved travelers of Muslim, Middle Eastern or South Asian background, many of whom, including Mango and the tech engineer, said they are concerned they were singled out because of racial or religious profiling.

i was astounded when i found out that i had no ability to stop them... literally, a huge chunk of my entire life is conducted electronically, and, without my laptop and internet access, i am crippled... but that doesn't matter to our overlords...

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The inexorable march to the surveillance state

they're not gonna stop until there's a cctv camera watching as we take a shit...

[The FBI] is expected to announce in coming days the awarding of a $1 billion, 10-year contract to help create the database that will compile an array of biometric information -- from palm prints to eye scans.

Kimberly Del Greco, the FBI's Biometric Services section chief, said adding to the database is "important to protect the borders to keep the terrorists out, protect our citizens, our neighbors, our children so they can have good jobs, and have a safe country to live in."

But it's unnerving to privacy experts.

"It's the beginning of the surveillance society where you can be tracked anywhere, any time and all your movements, and eventually all your activities will be tracked and noted and correlated," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Technology and Liberty Project.

The FBI already has 55 million sets of fingerprints on file. In coming years, the bureau wants to compare palm prints, scars and tattoos, iris eye patterns, and facial shapes. The idea is to combine various pieces of biometric information to positively identify a potential suspect.

unnerving...? UNNERVING...?? uhhhhhh... yeah... just a bit...

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Pick up the phone and call Harry Reid, fercryinoutloud

the only thing i've run across today that seems at all worth moving a muscle for (and that includes putting up a post) is this...

i gave the s.o.b. a call from argentina... how about you...?

Dear Friend,

By Wednesday night, the debate over government eavesdropping will end in the Senate.

In less than three days, we will know who stood up for civil liberties and who failed freedom. Help put Senator Reid on notice before the Senate votes.

Our demands are simple and unwavering. Stay true to your oath to protect the Constitution. Stand up against an overreaching executive branch. And, don’t grant blanket immunity to huge corporations that sold out Americans’ privacy.

Call Senator Senator Reid toll-free in Nevada at 1-866-SEN-REID (736-7343), or call his Las Vegas office at (702) 388-5020 and say something like this:

I am calling about the spying bill currently being considered by the Senate. I urge you to fight for a bill that’s constitutional and respects the rule of law. Please vote NO on the current Senate Intelligence Committee spying bill, and keep telecom immunity out of any bill that comes up for a vote.

Please reject any bill that allows for the warrantless surveillance or “bulk collection” of Americans’ phone calls and emails.

When you are finished, log your call here.

Your actions have made a difference in this fight. Together, we have jammed congressional switchboards, flooded the Capitol in a sea of email and buried lawmakers in a mountain of petitions.

After all the twists and turns in this debate, we are finally down to the wire. Every lobbyist, lawyer and organizer at the ACLU is determined to win this fight, whether we have to do it in Congress or in the Courts. But right now it is absolutely essential that the voice of freedom be heard throughout the halls of Congress.

Please call Senator Reid right now.

Help us finish the work we started in December 2005, when the warrantless wiretapping program was first exposed by the New York Times. Together, we will bring the government’s surveillance programs in line with the Constitution and the rule of law.

We will be in touch later this week about next steps in this fast-moving legislation.

Thank you for standing with us.

Sincerely,

Caroline Fredrickson, ACLU
Caroline Fredrickson, Director
ACLU Washington Legislative Office

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