The Post FISA Amendment Act Action Begins: ACLU Fires The First Salvo – A Working Thread

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As all know by now, July 9, 2008 was a day that will live in infamy. It seems stark to use that historic phrase, but to a lot of us, it really feels that way. The video attached to this post has been so attached to several now, and is of Professor Jonathan Turley on Countdown with Rachel Maddow explaining the gut shot to the Fourth Amendment the FISA Amendment Act constitutes. Turley is exactly right, and as most here know, that is precisely what I have been saying is the real danger of this act for a long, long time.

The foregoing you all know. What many have been asking, and rightfully so, is where do we go from here. You have all dedicated so much passion, time, and effort to the cause of fighting this damnable act of Congress. Cold turkey leaves a void. Well, the next phase is just beginning. There is the Strange Bedfellows fund that can always use your love; and as Jane and Howie have advised, there has been some positive love given to some of the Democrats that actually stood tall for us. And on August 8, there will be a MoneyBombing.

But, by far, the biggest news you need to know about is the activity today by the ACLU. The ACLU has made two filings in response to the passage and signing of the FISA Amendments Act (FAA). The first is a new complaint(attn: large pdf) filed in the Southern District of New York (SDNY). The action is captioned Amnesty International USA et al. v. John M. McConnell et al.; there are several plaintiffs you will recognize, and DNI Mike McConnell, NSA Director Keith Alexander and Mukasey as defendants. The action is for declaratory judgment/injunctive relief which, I will be honest, is not the favorite form of action that Federal courts consider. This is similar to the tact taken in ACLU v. NSA, the 6th Circuit case that Judge Anna Taylor Diggs bounced just to give you an idea of what i mean. In fairness, the ACLU is already saying that the new case is distinguishable because the existence of surveillance, and potential for surveillance, is much more established here, and there is some truth to that. Whether there is enough in that regard or not will only be told Read more →

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White House Confirms: Rove’s “Official Duties” Included Witchhunts of Democrats

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Surprise surprise. Rove was too chicken to give testimony under oath to show up before HJC today. That’s not surprising. What I find surprising (well, not really) are the thin excuses that Republicans are coming up with to excuse Turdblossom from obeying a subpoena.

First, according to the statement Sanchez put out, Fred Fielding did intervene to give a last minute reprieve to Karl–though still without invoking executive privilege.

First, the claims have not been properly asserted here. The Subcommittee has not received a written statement directly from the President, let alone anyone at the White House on the President’s behalf, asserting Executive Privilege, or claiming that Mr. Rove is immune in this instance from testifying before us. Nor is any member of the White House here today to raise those claims on behalf of the President. The most recent letter from Mr. Rove’s lawyer simply relies on a July 9, 2008 letter to him from the current White House counsel directing that Mr. Rove should disobey the subpoena and refuse to appear at this hearing.

The July 9, 2008 letter from White House Counsel Fred Fielding claims that Mr. Rove “is constitutionally immune from compelled congressional testimony about matters that arose during his or her tenure as a presidential aide and that relate to his or her official duties.”2

I’ll take that as confirmation from Nixon’s former lawyer that Karl Rove’s official duties included intervening in criminal investigations and trials to make sure popular Democrats’ careers were ruined.

Frankly, I think that letter, dated July 9, may have arrived very late on yesterday. Sanchez did not mention it in her spoken statement today, nor did Ranking Subcommittee Member Chris Cannon.

Instead of referring to Fielding’s invocation of absolute immunity (but not, apparently, executive privilege itself), Cannon invoked Rove’s busy summer travel schedule. He asked Sanchez whether she knew that Rove had a long-scheduled overseas trip scheduled for today, and complained that Congress had scheduled the hearing to be convenient to the Subcommittee, not to Rove.

So apparently, it’s going to be absolute immunity and the summer vacation privilege that saves poor cowardly Karl from having to testify, under oath, about things he’s all-too-happy to talk about on TV.

No word, thus far, on how this all jibes with the Attorney General’s assertion yesterday that one avenue to find out about Karl’s involvement in the Siegelman prosecution would be to hold a hearing.

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Maybe He Was Helping Banana Republicans Fund Terrorists? Or Back at Gitmo, Overseeing Torture?

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Via CREW, here’s little Where’s Waldo Chertoff game for you to play. You see, CREW decided to find out where Michael Chertoff was when New Orleans was drowning under the Katrina deluge. The first time they asked, DHS gave them Chertoff’s calendars for every day but the day Chertoff oversaw NOLA’s flood.

To answer that question CREW filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Department of Homeland Security seeking, among other documents, calendar entries for Secretary Chertoff.

In response, the agency produced pages and pages of calendar entries with one curious omission: August 30, 2005.

So they asked again. And–in spite of the fact they got all these calendars for other dates–they apparently still can’t find one for August 30, 2005.

When pressed by CREW, the agency purportedly redoubled its search, but still came up empty handed. The best it could do was a record of a meeting that it claimed Secretary Chertoff had in Atlanta with the Center for Disease Control and an event with FEMA employees; the document, however, does not even mention the Secretary by name or title.

So here’s a little game, to get you back into the swing of things after the July 4 holiday.

What would be so embarrassing, that DHS has conveniently lost Chertoff’s calendar for that day? 

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Donate to Darcy Burner

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I’m in the middle of some serious weeds on the Ghorbanifar meetings and then I’ve got to empty out a fridge again because Sears can’t deliver on what it says it can deliver on. So I’ll be a while this morning before I say anything interesting.

But in the meantime, please do me a favor and donate to Darcy Burner.

  • Do it because AIPAC is beating Darcy up for sponsoring responsible policies in the Middle East rather than more war-mongering.
  • Do it because Darcy has spoken out early and often against telecom immunity.
  • Do it because her opponent is a sexist prick.
  • Do it because her race is very tight, and winning this race will send almost as strong a message to the capitulation Dems in DC as Donna Edwards beating Al Wynn.

Today’s the last day of the funding quarter, so you should donate to as many better Democrats as you can. But please include Darcy among those you donate to today.

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The Obama & Olbermann Master Plan For Criminal FISA Prosecutions

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Okay, the words "Master Plan" in the title are a joke. So is the idea of criminal prosecutions, by a future Obama Administration, for Bush era FISA violations that has been hawked, to the point of near belligerence, by Keith Olbermann both on his show and in a running flame war with Glen Greenwald. The instant article will attempt to relate some of the glaring reasons, from a practical criminal justice perspective, that the Obama/Olbermann master plan is naive, almost to the point of being comical. Comical that is if we were not literally discussing the life and spirit of the Fourth Amendment and the health and well being of the Constitutional rule of law in this country.

This is the exchange between Olbermann and Dean from which Olbermann appears to have ginned up his Obama genius master plan narrative:

DEAN: Well, I spent a lot of time reading that bill today, and it‘s a very poorly-drafted bill. One of the things that is not clear is whether it‘s not possible later to go after the telecoms for criminal liability. And that something that Obama has said during this campaign he would do, unlike prior presidents who come in and really give their predecessor a pass, he said, “I won‘t do that.” And that might be why he‘s just sitting back saying, “Well, I‘m going to let this go through. But that doesn‘t mean I‘m going to give the telecoms a pass.” I would love it if he gets on the Senate floor and says, “I‘m keeping that option opened.”

OLBERMANN: In other words, let the private suits drop and get somebody in there who‘ll actually use the laws that still exist to prosecute and make the actual statement and maybe throw a few people in jail.

DEAN: Exactly. And it looks to me, as I read this bill and talk to a number of people in Washington familiar with the bill, some who are involved in the negotiations, and they say, “You know – we just didn‘t think about this issue.”

Notwithstanding Olbermann’s fiery preacher in a pulpit exhortations, it should be noted that John Dean himself has walked his statement back from Olbermann’s claims since his original offhand quote:

But even if the bill is unclear there is no question the Bush Administration is not going to do anything to the telecoms, Read more →

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$5.8 Million for Hatfill. $0 for Valerie Wilson.

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Steven Hatfill will no longer have to complain that he can’t get a job anymore because he was once the leading suspect to be the anthrax terrorist. The government just signed a $5.8 million settlement with him, which includes a cash payment now and then $150,000 annual payments for the next 20 years.

The Justice Department has agreed to pay $5.8 million to settle a lawsuit with former Army scientist Steven Hatfill, who was named as a person of interest in the 2001 anthrax attacks.

Hatfill claimed the Justice Department violated his privacy rights by speaking with reporters about the case.

Settlement documents were filed in federal court Friday. Both sides have agreed to the deal, according to the documents, and as soon as they are signed, the case will be dismissed.

Jeebus, between this and his federal monitoring contracts, former AG Ashcroft, who really really wanted you to believe the DOJ was closing in on a suspect in the still-unsolved anthrax case, is sure proving expensive for the US taxpayer, huh?

Meanwhile, Valerie Wilson, who had her career ruined by the Vice President and his lackey Scooter Libby, gets nothing in compensation.

Just to put some persepective on things, you know… 

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HJC Testimony: Mr. Unitary Executive and Mr. Yoo, Two

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Coverage of the hearing is on CSPAN3, the Committee stream, and good coverage (featuring Scott Horton and Jane Mayer) on KPFA.

Scott; Yoo, any discussion of SERE techniques?

Yoo: Can’t discuss.

Nadler: We need to know why.

Yoo: According to DOJ, privilege both attorney-client privilege and classified.

Nadler: Attorney-client not valid here. Classified is valid if it applies.

Yoo: I have to follow it.

Nadler: It’s difficult to assert your assertion of privilege on this issue bc Bradbury testified earlier this year and said it was adapted from SERE. How can this be privileged?

Yoo: Recognize that a-c does not apply. It is their privilege to raise. If you and DOJ have disagreement.

Nadler: Bradbury is the one making the decision on these privileges, but he answered the question.

Scott; Addington, SERE?

ADD: no, I don’t think I did, but no reason to dispute what Bradbury said.

Scott: Is torture illegal?

ADD: as defined by statute, it would be illegal.

Scott: international agreement of when it’s torture and when it isn’t?

ADD: Is a treaty in effect …

Scott: Don’t people know when it’s torture and when it’s not.

ADD: Senate put in reservation.

Scott: 9/11 did not change definition of torture.

Schroeder: it’d be hard to prosecute on opinion.

Scott: Does Administration have ability to write up such an opinion and torture people based on ridiculous memo.

Schroeder: No.

Scott: is it an excuse to torture if you got good information.

Schroeder: Treaty admits no exceptions.

Scott: If you’re going to go around torturing based on your memo, how do you know beforehand whether you’re going to get good information.

Yoo: Disagree with the premise of question.

Scott: If you can’t get information via other techniques, can you use harsher techniques?

Yoo: Nothing in statute that says anything about that.

Watt: Schroeder. Comment on your testimony, policy and law. In 22 years I practiced law, I had a client, who when he didn’t like my advice, he would say the lord told him to do otherwise. Are there things that go beyond Yoo’s memo?

Schroeder: Hope I’m not joining ADD and Yoo, not able to answer your question. We’ve read reports that water-boarding used on some subjects.

Watt: Would that go beyond Yoo’s memo?

Schroeder: I’d need to know more on water-boarding.

Watt: Recourse that public and Congress would have would be impeachment?

Schroeder: [Pondering] It would be difficult under legal theory in August 2002, to think of what remedy would be available other than impeachment.

Watt: What recourse does the public have against an Read more →

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HJC Testimony: Mr. Unitary Executive and Mr. Yoo

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Here’s a post I did on David Addington’s testimony at the Libby trial.

Here is John Yoo’s prepared testimony.

Note this hearing is a Subcommittee Hearing–so it’s Jerrold Nadler’s baby, not Conyers’. That means a subset of HJC’s better questioners will appear today: Nadler, Davis, Wasserman Schultz, Ellison, Conyers, Scott, Watt, and Cohen, with Franks, Pence, Issa, King, and Jordan for the bad guys.

Nadler: Subject of utmost importance to integrity of nation. Will not be permitted to be disrupted–anyone will be expelled immediately. Legal memos defining torture out of existence. I speak for many of my colleagues when I say the more we hear the more appalled we become. One testifying voluntarily, one testifying under subpoena. We will not be deterred by unchecked delcaration of privilege.

Franks: Almost 60 hearings on detainee treatment. Torture banned by various laws. Severe interrogations do not involve torture and they are legal. Results of waterboarding KSM, Abu Zubaydah, and al-Nashiri valuable. Alan Dershowitz says we can torture, so everything’s okay.

Franks just asked to submit evidence into the record. Nadler went, whuh? Nadler complains about Addington stiffing the committee for written testimony, but then submitting his own exhibits.

Nadler: I want to defend Dershowitz against allegations he’s an ultra-liberal. He just wrote a book advocating torture through warrants.

Conyers: More concerned about what we’re going to do, not any individual citizen. I don’t know why giving someone a lawyer is shocking to anyone. We have reports stating that our witnesses played a central role in drafting legal opinions on torture.

[Note: both sides look unusually prepared today, with Franks and Conyers both showing video from earlier hearings.]

Addington: 3 points. Iran-Contra said I was working for Cheney, in fact designee for Broomfield of MI. An author of prep for minority views, I had left before the report was written. More important, Conyers mentioned, wanted to give benefit of doubt. There’s one subject in which there’s no doubt, I believe everyone on this committee want to defend this country, protect it from terrorism, differences on how that’s accomplished. Thank you.

Nadler: Sorry I gave you too much credit. Is that the entirety of your statement?

[Nadler seems befuddled by ADD]

Yoo: Thank you, appreciate Conyers open mind. Waive rest of my time.

Nadler: You don’t want to summarize it?

Yoo: I don’t need to. Read more →

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Is Mark Schauer a Better Cook than Cindy McCain?

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You’ve no doubt heard that Cindy McCain got caught–again–plagiarizing someone else’s recipes.

Frankly, I’m not really sure why we insist our candidates’ spouses prove their authenticity by whipping out family recipes they may or may not have (though you’d think Cindy might just avoid getting in trouble the next time by revealing Budweiser’s recipe for piss-water).

But I do think there’s something to be said for candidates who can negotiate the banal world of everyday existence. When the spouse of the $100,000,000 Sugar Momma tells Ohioans that the crummy economy is all in their heads, and when the President needs the press corps to tell him that gas is (was) approaching $4 a gallon, it’s gratifying to know that some politicians can still negotiate the little errands that you and I run on a daily basis.

Which is why I think this video of Blue America-endorsed candidate for MI’s 7th Congressional District, Mark Schauer, is so cool. Mark’s making his wife’s pasty recipe (for the uninformed, a "pasty"–with a soft "a": paasty–is the hand-held pot pie that MI’s Upper Peninsula is famous for). And doing so damned competently. If you had any doubt he’s used this recipe once or twice before, those doubts will be answered by the way he crimps the pie-crust.

And just as importantly, he does the shopping too, knowing from experience which onion to get for the recipe (if this were mr. emptywheel, at the point he got the onion bin, he’d be likely to call me to figure out exactly what we needed).

Now, they’ve re-released this YouTube as part of a fundraising gig: Mark’s going to pick one donor out of a hat; not only will he make pasty for that donor, but he’ll do the dishes, too. So if you’re local to MI’s 7th CD, see if you can win a pasty from MI 7th’s next Congressman. But if you’re just feeling the need to support better Democrats this week (I know I am), donate through Blue America.

Cindy’s abject failure to produce her own cookie recipe will likely have little effect on whether her husband decides to "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran." But having a Congressman who knows his way around the average grocery store would sure be a welcome addition to MI’s congressional delegation.

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Mourning The Loss Of A Giant Recently Passed – Sunset Musings II

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PrickyDespite the wall to wall coverage, not just on NBC and MSNBC, but all the networks, the hand wringing, the eulogizing, the lionization, the body lying in state at the Kennedy Center, and the funeral worthy of royalty, not enough has been said about the recent passing of a giant. Probably because all that bleating was about Saint Tim of Russert. I am talking about a different giant. A giant in my own family has passed. Granpa Pricky.

Granpa Pricky was our 24 foot tall saguaro cactus that majestically guarded the east entrance to Casa de bmaz since at least several decades before Casa de bmaz was built, and our house is almost fifty years old. Just woke up one morning and there it was, keeled over into the road. Saguaros are truly Pricky 1grand and majestic entities, standing tall as the guardians of the Sonoran desert. Granpa Pricky was not just a centurion, he was a home as well. There are now a couple of homeless woodpeckers. Actually these peckars don’t even peck wood that much. They like to perch on my chimney and wail on the metal vent cover on the top. Sounds like a freaking machine gun or jackhammer in the house. Very annoying. Metalpeckers.

At any rate, an autopsy was conducted. Any and all of these photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

The whitish material in the center is very squishy. There is simply a ton of moisture in saguaros. And we don’t even have the cacti on drip systems; all they get is rain water, and it does not rain that much here. It is kind of fibrousPricky 3 pulp like stuff. People trying to survive in the desert desperate for water cut up that pulp and put chunks in their mouth to suck the water (and there is a lot) out. The cactus does produce a red, bulbous, pretty sweet fruit that is fully edible and not bad. Granpa Pricky died on June 5. Here is a photo just taken of the same cross section depicted above.

Note how the pulp is shrinking as opposed to the outer shell and especially the spine. The spine is the circle of dowel like looking things in the middle. When you tap on the outer surface of the pulp, which has hardened, you can tell from the sound that Read more →

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