A President above the Law

Civil libertarians say the latest revelations of Bush's vow to continue secretly spying on Americans adds to their frustration with the Bush administration. "If we are a nation of laws, then the president must be bound by the rule of law," said Lisa Graves, senior counsel at the ACLU in Washington. "This is clearly in violation of FISA and a violation of the Constitution. The president, no matter who he is, does not have the power to decide which laws he will follow."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121705A.shtml

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President Not Above The Law
http://www.newswithviews.com/baldwin/baldwin273.htm

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No President Is Above the Law
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1219-35.htm

Arianna Huffington
Huffington Post
December 15, 2005

Reading the new reports

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10454316/

about the Pentagon conducting surveillance of peaceful anti-war groups and protests, I feel like I'm having a bad '60s flashback.

But I'm not seeing psychedelic lights and thinking I can fly. I'm remembering how the Defense Department aggressively infiltrated anti-war and civil rights groups during that era, spying and collecting files on over 100,000 Americans -- and how J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI used every dirty trick in the "black bag operation" handbook

http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/bboperations.htm

to sabotage the anti-war and civil rights movements.

Now it looks like those ugly days of government paranoia and officially sanctioned lawbreaking might be making a comeback. A secret DoD database obtained by NBC News

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10454316/

indicates that Pentagon intelligence and local law enforcement agencies are using the guise of the war on terror to keep an eye on the constitutionally protected activities of anti-war activists. And, despite strict restrictions on the military maintaining records on domestic civilian political activity, evidence suggests the Pentagon is doing just that. According to NBC, the DoD database includes "at least 20 references to U.S. citizens," while other documents indicate that "vehicle descriptions" are also being noted and analyzed.

And it's not just the Pentagon. Documents recently obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show

http://www.gazette.com/display.php?id=1312739&secid=1

that the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force has also been recording the names and license plate numbers of peaceful anti-war protesters. [...] Read the rest at http://tinyurl.com/8ypah


© Virginia Metze

Psy-screening and Mandatory Drugs for Everyone? The Genesis of President Bush’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health

by Sue Weibert

December 15, 2005
oped news

Screening for mental illness is the most controversial topic concerning mental health today. Various government entities, private foundations, organizations, think tanks and universities, all flanked by cunning public relations firms, are hard at work trying to make mental health screening as common as a dental checkup. Despite public outrage over screening, these entities are working feverishly to establish this system. With so much clamor of disagreement for such a program, why, then, do these entities push forward with such ferocity? This article reveals exactly how this all got started, who’s really behind “the big push,” and how President Bush was tricked into establishing what might be the most detrimental program in the history of mankind.

In 2002, President George W. Bush established the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health (NFC) and charged it with the mission of reviewing mental health care in the United States. The following year the NFC released its findings and recommendations. The report called for the establishment of an ambitious, Orwellian plan to screen every American for mental illness, from pre-natal to the elderly. The NFC recommended that screening is to be followed by “treatment” and “support,” but these help-oriented euphemisms are a major cover-up for barbaric psychiatric methodologies that include, but are not limited to, powerful, mind-altering drugs to Electro-Convulsive Therapy (ECT) – ultimately proven to create zombies, mass murderers and even death in those subjected to these kinds of “treatments.” Sound comforting? So, then, why would anyone want to forward the progress of such a system? The answer is the same for all of the horrific things committed against the people since the beginning of time – money, power and control. [...] Read the rest at: http://tinyurl.com/93hgg


© Virginia Metze

Eight Current and Former Executives Named as Co-Defendants, Including former CEO O'Dell and New CEO Swidarski
Class Action Suit Alleges Fraud, Insider Trading, Manipulation of Stock Prices, Concealment of Known Flaws in Voting Machines and Company Structural Problems
Blogged by Brad on 12/13/2005 @ 12:15pm PT...

The BRAD BLOG can now report that a Securities Fraud Class Action suit has been filed against Diebold, Inc. (stock symbol: DBD) naming eight top executive officers in the company as co-defendants. The suit has been filed by plaintiff Janice Konkol, alleging securities fraud against the North Canton, Ohio-based manufacturer of Voting Systems and ATM machines on behalf of investors who owned shares of Diebold stock and lost money due to an alleged fraudulent scheme by the company and its executives to deceive shareholders during the "class period" of October 22, 2003 through September 21, 2005.
The suit was filed today in U.S. Federal District Court in Ohio and alleges the company "artificially inflated" stock prices through misleading public information designed to conceal the true nature of Diebold's financial and legal situation. The defendants are also alleged to have attempted to disguise well-known and ongoing problems with Diebold's Voting Machine equipment and software. Additionally, the suit alleges insider trading by defendants resulting in proceeds of $2.7 million. Remedies are sought under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. [...] Read more at Brad's Blog, http://tinyurl.com/cbnkb


© Virginia Metze

By Caroline Drees,
Security Correspondent
Thu Dec 15, 2005 11:05 AM ET
Reuters


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sarah Zapolsky was checking in for a flight to Italy when she discovered her 9-month-old son's name was on the United States' "no-fly" list of suspected terrorists.

"We pointed down to the stroller, and he sat there and gurgled," Zapolsky said, recalling the incident at Dulles International Airport outside Washington in July. "The desk agent started laughing. ... She couldn't print us out a boarding pass because he's on the no-fly list."

Zapolsky, who did not want her son's name made public, said she was initially amused by the mix-up. "But when I found out you can't actually get off the list, I started to get a bit annoyed."

Zapolsky isn't alone.

According to the Transportation Security Administration, more than 28,000 people have applied to the TSA redress office to get on the "cleared list," which takes note of individuals whose names are similar to those on the terrorism watch list, but does not guarantee an end to no-fly list hassles. [...] Read it all at: http://tinyurl.com/74ka4


© Virginia Metze

Don't dilute UC's science requirement

Sacramento Bee
Published 2:15 am PST Thursday, December 15, 2005
Story appeared in Editorials section, Page B8

It is one thing for private Christian high schools to offer courses that, as one textbook says, "put the Word of God first and science second." That is their right, and it is part of the mosaic of educational opportunities that students and their parents have in the United States.

It is quite another thing, however, for those schools to demand that the University of California and California State University systems accept those courses toward admission.

That is exactly what Calvary Chapel Christian School in Riverside County is doing. It and the Association of Christian Schools International are suing to force the state university system to accept credits from religious classes as science. [...] Read the rest at: http://tinyurl.com/7gumz


© Virginia Metze

The Rant
By DOUG THOMPSON
Dec 16, 2005, 07:32
Capitol Hill Blue

When President George W. Bush gathered his shell-shocked cabinet together in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, he turned to then attorney general John Ashcroft and said “John, you do whatever is necessary to make sure something like this never happens again.”

Those instructions to Ashcroft are documented in Steven Brill’s book, After: How America Confronted the September 12 Era,

http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/brill.html

about the days following 9/11 and the Showtime docudrama on the event. It is also well-known that Ashcroft, a zealot who doesn’t allow the Constitution to get in the way of his crusades, took Bush’s command to heart, creating the rights-robbing USA Patriot Act, the controversial law that allows the federal government to spy on Americans without cause, without court order and without restraint.

But Bush went even further, turning the giant communications monitoring apparatus of the National Security Agency into a personal machine to snoop into the lives of Americans and setting Adm. John Poindexter loose to create the Terrorist Information Awareness (TIA) program.

Congress thought it shut down TIA but Bush ran an end around on the Hill by transferring TIA into the Pentagon’s “black bag” operations, a fact we first reported in June of last year. We also reported the program used technology developed by the National Security Agency to snoop on phone calls and emails and that some NSA employees were pissed about being involved in spying on Americans. [...] Read more of his "I told you so" at http://tinyurl.com/afmcz


© Virginia Metze

Salon WAR ROOM by Tim Grieve
Dec. 16, 2005

As we noted

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2005/12/16/spying/index.html

earlier today, the New York Times is out with a story

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/politics/16program.html?hp&ex=1134795600&en=c7596fe0d4798785&ei=5094&partner=homepage

in which it says the Bush administration has been monitoring -- without warrants -- telephone calls and e-mail messages originated in the United States. What we didn't mention, and should have, is this snippet from the piece: "The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting."

Our question: When did the White House make its request, and what does "a year" mean? The Times is awfully light on details here, leaving itself open for speculation from the left as to whether the Times sat on the story through last year's presidential election. At the same time, the right is free to speculate about the Times' decision to run the story now, just as the Senate was about to take up and -- as it turns out -- vote down

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/patriot_act;_ylt=AqiRhmXtYUmNAT6NsNIFUOes0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act. [...] Read the rest at http://tinyurl.com/7mc7t


© Virginia Metze

Nation magazine editorial | posted December 15, 2005 (January 2, 2006 issue)

[...] it does mean the Iraq debate has evolved from a contest over how to manage the US occupation into the question of whether the occupation should continue. That question will be a central--perhaps the central--issue of the 2006 Congressional elections.

In our November 28 cover editorial, "Democrats and the War," we took the stand that "The Nation will not support any candidate for national office who does not make a speedy end to the war in Iraq a major issue of his or her campaign." We urged voters to join us. In recent weeks, as more Democrats have spoken out against the war and for a timely exit, we have come to believe even more firmly that antiwar candidates, with the requisite credentials, can prevail next fall. The first step in that process is, of course, to encourage support for such candidates, as we are doing this week and as we will continue to do throughout 2006.

Among leading Democratic Representatives and strategists, there is a palpable unease about laying out a withdrawal timeline. The DC insiders fear that doing so might provoke a voter backlash, despite the evidence of the polls. It is encouraging that recent weeks have seen significant if incomplete movement in the House Democratic caucus toward embrace of an exit strategy, especially since minority leader Nancy Pelosi endorsed Murtha's plan.

But the same cannot be said for the Senate caucus, which continues to send dramatically mixed messages. A handful of members, like Russ Feingold, clearly support a timeline, but others, like Joe Lieberman, still back Bush's "stay the course" talk. And top Democrats, like minority leader Harry Reid and Hillary Clinton--who has attracted an antiwar primary challenge from former National Writers Union president Jonathan Tasini--continue to try to have it both ways, expressing ever-increasing impatience with Bush's approach but rejecting a firm exit strategy. [...] Read the rest of the article at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060102/editors1 or http://tinyurl.com/7hboz

David Sirota has a full analysis of the Nation article above. Read it at Sirotablog on WorkingforChange. This link will get you there: http://tinyurl.com/eyhwd


© Virginia Metze

By KATHERINE SHRADER
Associated Press Writer
San Francisco Chronicle
Friday, December 16, 2005

Dismayed lawmakers demanded on Friday that Congress look into whether the highly secretive National Security Agency was granted new powers to eavesdrop without warrants on people inside the United States.

"There is no doubt that this is inappropriate," declared Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He promised hearings early next year.

President Bush refused to discuss whether he had authorized such domestic spying, saying to comment would tie his hands in fighting terrorists.

Nor would other officials confirm or deny whether the nation's largest spy agency was permitted to gather communications from Americans under a presidential directive signed in 2002.

Instead, they asserted in careful terms that the president would do everything in his power to protect the American people while safeguarding civil liberties. [...] Oh, how they lie... Read the whole article at San Franciso Chronicle, sfgate.com. http://tinyurl.com/9eye7


© Virginia Metze