Another administration lie crumbles:

In 2002, Justice Department said eavesdropping law working well

By Jonathan S. Landay Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - A July 2002 Justice Department statement to a Senate committee appears to contradict several key arguments that the Bush administration is making to defend its eavesdropping on U.S. citizens without court warrants.

Today, senior U.S. officials complain that FISA prevents them from doing that.

So, FISA was ok in 2002? But not now?

What is King George hiding here? Exactly WHO are they spying upon, because it can’t be “terrorists”- the law covers that already.

Oh yeah, as to why the Justice Department didn’t sign on to the lowered standards for FISA? Because it was probably unconstitutional to do so.

Oh yes it certainly can:

ACLU Releases Government Photos

The ACLU of Georgia released copies of government files on Wednesday that illustrate the extent to which the FBI, the DeKalb County Division of Homeland Security and other government agencies have gone to compile information on Georgians suspected of being threats simply for expressing controversial opinions.

For example, more than two dozen government surveillance photographs show 22-year-old Caitlin Childs of Atlanta, a strict vegetarian, and other vegans picketing against meat eating, in December 2003. They staged their protest outside a HoneyBaked Ham store on Buford Highway in DeKalb County.

This proves wiseman DMH’s statement “There is no war on terror”. Unless we’re suddenly at risk from vegans. Nice use of our money, huh? Feel safer?

Since Insight magazine, the rightwing publication of the Washington Times brought it up:

Impeachment hearings: The White House prepares for the worst

The Bush administration is bracing for impeachment hearings in Congress.

Administration sources said the charges are expected to include false reports to Congress as well as Mr. Bush’s authorization of the National Security Agency to engage in electronic surveillance inside the United States without a court warrant. This included the monitoring of overseas telephone calls and e-mail traffic to and from people living in the United States without requisite permission from a secret court.

The wheels on the bus go round and round. Until they come off.

Part of the new Patriot Act expands the powers (and geographic scope) of the Uniformed Division of the Secret Service. Buried in the legalise of the document contains these nifty bits:

make arrests without warrant for any offense against the United States committed in their presence, or for any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such felony;

Thats “reasonable ground” which courts have ruled is not as an exacting as “probable cause”.

This would be a national police force. Which is something our country hasn’t required up to now. Remember those images from New Orleans of troops in the streets?

Ok, just checking.

Senators: White House Stalls Katrina Probe
LARA JAKES JORDAN,

WASHINGTON - The White House is crippling a Senate inquiry into the government’s sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina by barring administration officials from answering questions and failing to hand over documents, senators leading the investigation said Tuesday.

In some cases, staff at the White House and other federal agencies have refused to be interviewed by congressional investigators, said the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. In addition, agency officials won’t answer seemingly innocuous questions about times and dates of meetings and telephone calls with the White House, the senators said.

Gosh, wonder why they don’t want to assist in the investigation? Oh yeah. Their incompetence killed people, thats why.

TTP recommends. Movie of the year, IMHO.

Loot the Vote:

The Bush Faction’s Future Victories are Already in the Bag

By Chris Floyd

01/19/06 “Empire Burlesque” — – Things are looking a bit grim for the Bush Faction these days. Their chief bagman, Jack Abramoff, is in the clink, naming names. Their top congressional enforcer, Tom Delay, is in the dock, sinking fast. Their “war of choice” in Iraq has stalled in murderous quagmire. Their poll numbers are plummeting , as scandal after scandal — corruption, despotism, torture, incompetence, deceit — turn the American people against them. What then will be the fate of these brutal, bungling, bloodstained goons when they face the voters in the coming elections?

In fact, this year’s congressional races and the presidential contest in 2008 are already over, and the Bushists have won. It’s true that some of the candidates have not yet been chosen - including whatever front man the goon squad picks to replace the kill-crazy klutz from Crawford - but the vast machinery of electoral malfeasance that propelled this extremist faction to power over the wishes of the electorate in both 2000 and, yes, 2004, is not only still in place, it’s growing stronger all the time.

Depressing, ain’t it?

In the dark, pre-dawn hours of Friday, the thirteenth of January, near the Afghan-Pakistani border, the buzz of an unmanned robot plane broke the silence. Half a world and 12 and a half time zones away, someone on the sixth floor of CIA headquarters keyed a command into a computer. The digitized message, relayed through the building’s circuitry and transmitted skyward, bounced along an array of aircraft and satellites before arriving at the RQ-1 Predator drone plane hovering above the Bajaur region of Pakistan’s Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA). Four AGM-114N Hellfire II missiles, each purchased by American taxpayers from Lockheed Martin at a cost of $45,000, streaked off toward the hamlet of Damadola, five miles into Pakistan.

The four missiles, each carrying enough explosives to take out an armored vehicle, slammed into three local jewelers’ houses at 950 miles per hour, nearly twice the speed of a passenger jet at cruising altitude. “The houses have been razed,” reported a neighbor, a member of the Pakistani parliament. “There is nothing left. Pieces of the missiles are scattered all around. Everything has been blackened in a 100-yard radius.” The target of this latest assassination attempt via missile strike, Al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri, wasn’t there. At least 22 innocent civilians, including five women and five children, were killed. “They acted on wrong information,” a Pakistani intelligence official said of the Americans.

Read more Ted Rall.

Oh yeah, the real deal.

Veteran reporter says 3,000-4,000 Iraqis killed every month

MADRID, Jan 18, 2006 (PG) - Between 3,000 and 4,000 Iraqis are killed every month, rendering “ridiculous” US President George W. Bush’s estimate of about 30,000 civilian casualties since the start of the war, veteran British journalist Robert Fisk said Wednesday.

“Most of the people we hate we actually created,” he said.