Monday, July 30, 2007

The nail that sticks up gets hammered down

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/20070726_pat_tillman_murdered/

#90841 by Mike Mid-City on 7/30 at 9:39 am
(552 comments total)

The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.

Pat Tillman was a patriot and an apparently intelligent one too. He was the prefect propaganda. An successful man sacrifices career for country and looks dam good in uniform.

Once this intelligent, successful man who looked dam good in a uniform figured out what was up, he must have started to make waves.

Better a dead hero than a live squawking, intelligent, successful man pissing on the administration’s plans for invading Iraq.

The White House has it’s finger prints on this one. There is no way that some Generals are going to take one up the pooper for Bush. There will be some very loud noises from the men with Stars.

More information:

http://wonkette.com/politics/dept'-of-political-assassinations/who-ordered-the-execution-of-nflarmy-hero-pat-tillman-284472.php

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Bush-Gonzales Surveillance Scandal Cover Up

The New York Time guesses correctly, even while failing to consider any such possible instances involving subverting the 1st Amendment.

New York Times editorial:

President Bush often insists he has to be the decider — ignoring Congress and the public when it comes to the tough matters on war, terrorism and torture, even deciding whether an ordinary man in Florida should be allowed to let his wife die with dignity. Apparently that burden does not apply to the functioning of one of the most vital government agencies, the Justice Department.

Americans have been waiting months for Mr. Bush to fire Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who long ago proved that he was incompetent and more recently has proved that he can’t tell the truth. Mr. Bush refused to fire him after it was clear Mr. Gonzales lied about his role in the political purge of nine federal prosecutors. And he is still refusing to do so — even after testimony by the F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller, that suggests that Mr. Gonzales either lied to Congress about Mr. Bush’s warrantless wiretapping operation or at the very least twisted the truth so badly that it amounts to the same thing.

Mr. Gonzales has now told Congress twice that there was no dissent in the government about Mr. Bush’s decision to authorize the National Security Agency to spy on Americans’ international calls and e-mails without obtaining the legally required warrant. Mr. Mueller and James Comey, a former deputy attorney general, say that is not true. Not only was there disagreement, but they also say that they almost resigned over the dispute.

Both men say that in March 2004 — when Mr. Gonzales was still the White House counsel — the Justice Department refused to endorse a continuation of the wiretapping program because it was illegal. (Mr. Comey was running the department temporarily because Attorney General John Ashcroft had emergency surgery.) Unwilling to accept that conclusion, Vice President Dick Cheney sent Mr. Gonzales and another official to Mr. Ashcroft’s hospital room to get him to approve the wiretapping.

Mr. Comey and Mr. Mueller intercepted the White House team, and they say they watched as a groggy Mr. Ashcroft refused to sign off on the wiretapping and told the White House officials to leave. Mr. Comey said the White House later modified the eavesdropping program enough for the Justice Department to sign off.

Last week, Mr. Gonzales denied that account. He told the Senate Judiciary Committee the dispute was not about the wiretapping operation but was over “other intelligence activities.” He declined to say what those were.

Lawmakers who have been briefed on the administration’s activities said the dispute was about the one eavesdropping program that has been disclosed. So did Mr. Comey. And so did Mr. Mueller, most recently on Thursday in a House hearing. He said he had kept notes.

That was plain enough. It confirmed what most people long ago concluded: that Mr. Gonzales is more concerned about doing political-damage control for Mr. Bush — in this case insisting that there was never a Justice Department objection to a clearly illegal program — than in doing his duty. But the White House continued to defend him.

As far as we can tell, there are three possible explanations for Mr. Gonzales’s talk about a dispute over other — unspecified — intelligence activities. One, he lied to Congress. Two, he used a bureaucratic dodge to mislead lawmakers and the public: the spying program was modified after Mr. Ashcroft refused to endorse it, which made it “different” from the one Mr. Bush has acknowledged. The third is that there was more wiretapping than has been disclosed, perhaps even purely domestic wiretapping, and Mr. Gonzales is helping Mr. Bush cover it up.

Democratic lawmakers are asking for a special prosecutor to look into Mr. Gonzales’s words and deeds. Solicitor General Paul Clement has a last chance to show that the Justice Department is still minimally functional by fulfilling that request.

If that does not happen, Congress should impeach Mr. Gonzales.

The domestic criminal law enforcement surveillance leading to my August 5, 2006 ambush occurred only 2 weeks after making this post spot-lighting the masters of the two most important buildings on Washington, D.C.'s South Capitol Street, one day after this other post which speculates about the insistence of this stadium's completion by the start of the baseball season of 2008 .

Please do recall the logical -- yet unreported by the lamestream media -- correlate that this insistence upon 2008 is because that's the last baseball season opening where George W. Bush will still have the opportunity to throw that first ball while still President.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/baseball/
Nationals Ballpark Stadium
with "W"s for Washington and/or G."W." Bush

from: http://www.jdland.com/dc/stadium.cfm

Thursday, July 26, 2007

U.S. Subverts 1st Amendment for Criminal Drug War Inquisition

Ed Rosenthal:
Author, Activist, Civil Rights Victim


http://www.green-aid.com/edrosenthal.htm

Public writings and other political activities against the criminal laws against Marijuana may lead to criminal law enforcement to undermine free speech.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

U.S. Government Subverts 1st Amendment for Major League Baseball: Nationals Ballpark Stadium


I am not the only person who believes that they were criminally targeted by the government for prominently writing against Washington, D.C.'s National Ballpark:
Distributed by the DC Statehood Green Party
http://www.dcstateh oodgreen. org

DEBBY HANRAHAN WINS SETTLEMENT IN FIRST
AMENDMENT-FALSE ARREST LAWSUIT AGAINST AMTRAK; $35,000
TO GO TO LAWYERS GUILD, C.O. GROUP

For Immediate Release: June 5, 2007

Contacts:
Debby Hanrahan, (202) 462-2054
Jim Klimaski, Klimaski & Associates PC, (202) 296-5600

Long-time D.C. Statehood Green Party activist Debby Hanrahan has won a settlement in her First Amendment-false arrest lawsuit against Amtrak (The
National Railroad Passenger Corp.) and has directed that almost all of the settlement proceeds other than lawyers’ fees and her expenses go to two local civil liberties organizations. The two organizations will receive a total of $35,000.

Hanrahan, 68, a leading participant in the No DC Taxes for Baseball coalition which opposed public financing of a new baseball stadium, was arrested without any
warning by Amtrak police in the Grand Concourse in Washington, D.C.’s Union Station on November 22, 2004 during a public rally promoting the naming of the
Washington Nationals baseball team. For quietly holding a poster opposing public financing, she was charged with unlawful entry and jailed for 28 hours
before her release on her own recognizance after a court appearance.

Hanrahan said that a portion of the settlement will go for fees incurred by the law firm of veteran civil liberties attorney James Klimaski. Klimaski’s firm
took the case on a pro bono basis and spent hundreds of hours in legal work before Klimaski negotiated the settlement with Amtrak earlier this month. The suit
was filed in 2005 in D.C. Superior Court, after Hanrahan’s criminal attorney, Paul J. Riley, successfully got the criminal charge dropped in January 2005.

After lawyers’ fees, Hanrahan received $45,000. To help other persons falsely arrested in free speech and other civil liberties cases, Hanrahan has directed
that $25,000 of this go to the D.C. Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild and $10,000 to the Center on Conscience and War’s MCN Legal Fund, an organization
that assists military conscientious objectors. The remaining $10,000 of the settlement will primarily cover expenses incurred by Hanrahan in her criminal
case, as well as deposition and expert witness costs in the civil case.

Hanrahan said that it was her intention from before she filed this suit to contribute proceeds other than attorneys’ fees and criminal and civil case expenses to progressive legal organizations.

“First, I wanted to show Amtrak through this suit that the First Amendment applies at public meetings held on its publicly-owned [U.S. Department of Transportation] space,” said Hanrahan. “Secondly, I wanted a settlement or verdict large enough to make meaningful allocations to organizations that stand up for people whose rights to freedom of speech, assembly and conscience have been violated.”

The offending poster Hanrahan held called attention in cartoon form to the spiraling cost of the stadium, then at $614 million (and now at least $100 million higher). The poster showed a beaming, top-hatted, cigar-chomping, “fat-cat” team owner with then-Mayor Anthony Williams exulting over the expensive new stadium amid crumbling public schools and libraries and a shut-down D.C. General Hospital.

The charge against Hanrahan was dismissed seven weeks and two court appearances after her arrest. In subsequent proceedings to expunge Hanrahan’s arrest
record, the U.S. Attorney’s office acknowledged in a written filing “that this court would find, by clear and convincing evidence that [Hanrahan] did not commit
the offense for which she had been charged.” As NBC4 reporter Tom Sherwood wrote on the NBC4 web site and in The Current newspapers at the time of her arrest: Hanrahan “held aloft a sign criticizing the baseball deal, but was not disruptive.”

“I hope this case and settlement send yet anot her reminder to police and public officials that they cannot infringe on individuals’ free speech rights because they don’t like the message,” Hanrahan said. “I was attending a public rally in about as public a place as you can imagine, to which members of the public were invited through radio and newspaper announcements, and which featured on the stage Mayor Williams and several members of the D.C. Council and Sports and Entertainment Commission. My ‘crime’ was being out of sync with the message of the rally, and for that I was given no warning and was grabbed in a painful shoulder hold by an Amtrak policeman, pulled out of the rally, arrested, charged with trespassing, incarcerated for 28 hours, and required to give a urine sample in the presence of both male and female court and U.S. Marshal personnel. And I had my free speech rights substantially chilled as I faced this criminal charge during a key time period in the baseball stadium financing fight with a big mid-December [2004] Council vote scheduled.”

Hanrahan praised the work of Klimaski and his associates in the civil case and of Riley in the criminal case. She said Klimaski, despite having a small firm without the deep pockets of major D.C. law firms, “nevertheless took a big financial risk in taking my case because he recognized that my arrest was an outrageous violation of my civil liberties, and that Amtrak had to be shown that there are consequences for arbitrarily arresting nonviolent protesters at public meetings held on public property.”
This case confirms that the government has used law enforcement criminally against those who prominently protest the dirty planning to cram a baseball stadium deal along the east side of Washington, D.C.'s South Capitol Street, blocking the U.S. National Capital Planning Commission's plans for a South Capitol - Frederick Douglass Mall.


2006 version with condos above underground parking


2007 version with above ground parking garages

Illustrations from: http://www.jdland.com/dc/stadium.cfm

Welcome to the state of affairs of planning for the Capital City of the United States of America!


League of Fans (Ralph Nader)

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Standing for ACLU NSA Suit

In the wake of the court's denial of the U.S. National Security Agency surveillance law suit, due to a lack of "standing", I have contacted the ACLU about my situation. I got a reply:
Acknowledge: Standing for Spying Suit (Ticket# LTK69016040512X)
Compact Header|Full Message ViewACLU Membership Questions

Thank you for contacting the ACLU.

Your comments and questions are very important to us and a representative will respond to your query as soon as possible.

Sincerely,
ACLU


> Dear ACLU:

> I was illegally targeted by law enforcement last year as revenge for my internet writings.

> Please see my blogs

> Free Speech Beneath US Homeland Security

> and

> South Capitol Street Frederick Douglas Mall

> Douglas Willinger

Then later that same day, I received a second message from the ACLU:
RE: Standing for Spying Suit (LTK69016040512X)
Compact Header|Full Message View ACLU Membership Questions
Dear Mr. Willinger,

Thank you for contacting the ACLU.

State affiliates of the ACLU handle requests for legal assistance; lobby the state legislatures, and host public forums throughout the year. Your state affiliate is therefore best equipped to handle your concerns.

To find the contact information for your ACLU affiliate office; please visit http://www.aclu.org/ and select your state from the "Your Local ACLU" menu at the bottom of the page.

Please also consider becoming a member of the ACLU. To join, please visit http://www.aclu.org/contribute/contribute.cfm or call 1-888-567-ACLU.

Sincerely,
D. Barber
Correspondence Manager, American Civil Liberties Union

======= Subject: Standing for Spying Suit Dear ACLU:
I have since contacted the local NY chapter, and await a response.



Giving Standing to Sue


Newsday editorial

A lawsuit challenging the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program was dismissed last week by an appeals court that ruled that the plaintiffs can't sue because they can't prove their calls were among those tapped. If that logic prevails, the courts will have rendered themselves powerless to do anything about what could well be an ongoing violation of the law and the Constitution.

Congress needs to fill that shameful void. It should either explicitly bar the government's unauthorized eavesdropping or pass a bill sponsored by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) that would give citizens standing to sue without a showing of individual harm.

Consider the no-win situation the ruling has created for citizens who think they could be targets of the government's secret monitoring of phone calls and e-mail without probable cause or warrants. The plaintiffs in this case are lawyers, journalists and academics with clients and contacts in the Middle East, making their international communications just the sort that the NSA monitors. Still, the court said they can't sue unless they establish that the NSA in fact monitored their calls. But only the NSA knows whose calls it monitored, and it's not saying.

So the NSA won't talk and the court won't make it - the government invoked the state secrets doctrine, which allows officials to withhold evidence that they contend would compromise national security if it were exposed.

The plaintiffs and their American Civil Liberties Union lawyers should appeal. When an administration is arguably violating federal law and the Constitution, the courts should never go willingly to the sidelines. Someone has to step up here, and if the courts won't, then Congress must.

How Courts May Subvert the Constitution

To what degree shall this decision be applied?

What about instances where there's a definitely suggestive time-line of politically motivated criminal law enforcement, but alas a lack of allowable discovery, as well as the police video being "just grey static"?

By Anne Broache
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

In a setback for foes of a controversial Bush administration wiretapping program, a federal appeals court on Friday threw out an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit that alleged illicit snooping on Americans' calls and e-mails.

In a 2-1 decision (PDF), the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati dismissed a federal district court ruling from last August that found the National Security Agency's Terrorist Surveillance Program violated the U.S. Constitution and ordered it to stop. The majority's ruling did not address the legality of the program; rather, it tossed out the case on narrow procedural grounds.

The move marked the first time an appeals court has weighed in on the numerous pending challenges to the spy program. Friday's decision isn't expected to have any direct impact on two related cases pending in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and more than 40 others that have been consolidated for consideration in a San Francisco district court.

ACLU Legal Director Steven Shapiro said his organization had not ruled out petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court for another look at the 6th Circuit's action.

"As a result of today's decision, the Bush administration has been left free to violate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which Congress adopted almost 30 years ago to prevent the executive branch from engaging in precisely this kind of unchecked surveillance," Shapiro said in a statement. "It is important to emphasize that the court today did not uphold the legality of the government's warrantless surveillance activity."

The ACLU and the journalists, scholars, criminal defense attorneys and Islamic-Americans it represented had argued that the NSA program, which came to light in a November 2005 New York Times report, was trampling on federal laws and the plaintiffs' constitutional rights to free speech and privacy.

Their arguments rested on what they called a "well-founded belief" that the government was tapping their regular overseas communications--some of which, because of the nature of the plaintiffs' professions, they have an ethical duty to keep confidential--without the necessary court approval.

Judges Alice Batchelder and Julia Smith Gibbons, both appointed by President Ronald Reagan, concluded in separate opinions that the parties that sued the NSA didn't have standing to bring their case in the first place. They ordered that the suit be sent back to a lower court and roundly dismissed.

The two judges' reasoning, which differs at times, boils down to one general result: the parties that sued the NSA hadn't shown adequate evidence that they have been "personally" subject to the eavesdropping program. Even if the plaintiffs had wanted to supply evidence to back such a claim, they would have been stymied by the government's assertion of its "state secrets" privilege, which permits the derailing of lawsuits that might otherwise lead to the disclosure of military secrets.

Ruling on NSA Warrantless Wiretapping



Ronald Lee Gilman, the dissenting Judge
http://thatslifeinthecity.blogspot.com/2007/07/ruling-on-nsa-warrantless-eavesdropping.html

While the two judges in the majority did not rule on the legality of the program, the third judge -- Judge Gilman -- agreed with Judge Taylor's finding that the President's program violated FISA. He thus wrote that he "would affirm its judgment," and he rejected the administration's standard two defenses for that behavior (i.e., (1) that Authorization For Use Of Military Force , (AUMF), implicitly authorized FISA violations and (2) the President has "inherent authority" under Article II to eavesdrop with no warrants). In fact, just as was true for Judge Taylor, Judge Gilman found that while the "standing" issue was a close one, the actual merits -- i.e., whether the President broke the law -- was not close:
The closest question in this case, in my opinion, is whether the plaintiffs have the standing to sue. Once past that hurdle, however, the rest gets progressively easier . . . .

See previous related blog entries:

Monday, July 16, 2007

How Courts Subvert the Constitution

Court ruling authorizes warrantless Web snooping

By Greg Moran UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

July 10, 2007

Federal agents do not need a search warrant to find out the Web page addresses people visit or the e-mail addresses they correspond with, a federal appeals court has ruled in a case involving an Escondido drug lab.

The decision by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals hands law enforcement a powerful surveillance tool that it can employ with virtually no check or balance or judicial oversight, legal experts said.

It was the first time a federal court has decided the constitutionality of government surveillance techniques that capture the “to” and “from” addresses of e-mails sent by individuals, and the unique addresses of Web pages that an individual visits.

Known as Internet Protocol, or IP, addresses, they are a sequence of numbers that serve as a kind of street address for Web sites.

In their decision on Friday, the judges ruled that individuals have no privacy expectation when it comes to e-mail or IP addresses because they should know that all of their communications are going through a third party -- the user's Internet service provider.

By voluntarily turning over information to third parties, Internet users are therefore giving up any expectation of privacy, the court said.

The court likened the tactic to the use of a “pen register” -- a device that records the numbers dialed from a specific phone. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1979 ruled that police did not have to get a search warrant for that activity.

But one legal expert said that analogy ignores the fact that more information can be gleaned from an IP address than from a phone number.

“It overlooks the important differences between these kinds of communications,” said Shaun Martin, a law professor at the University of San Diego School of Law.

“Getting a list of IP addresses reveals far, far more information than a pen register ever would. And if it didn't, the government wouldn't be looking to get this information in the first place,” he said.

The 1979 decision said people should not expect privacy when it came to the numbers they dialed because the numbers went through a third party -- the phone company's switching equipment that completed a call.

The Supreme Court also ruled the pen register tactic was legal because police were collecting just the phone number and not the content of the communication.

In this case, the judges applied that logic to computer users. Simply gathering the electronic addresses is like collecting phone numbers, or reading addresses on envelopes and packages sent through the mail, Judge Raymond Fisher wrote in his opinion. Courts have held that obtaining information from the outside of mail without a warrant is also allowable.

Fisher said that by using the IP address tactic, the government is getting only basic information. It can learn who the person is e-mailing or what Web sites are being viewed, but does not “find out the contents of the messages or the particular pages on the Web sites the person viewed.”

The judge cautioned that the ruling only goes so far, “and does not imply that more intrusive techniques or techniques that reveal more content information” are acceptable.

The ruling said surveillance that tracks the Web pages a person visits on a site “might be more constitutionally problematic.” So while the government is now free to know that someone visited, for example, signonsandiego.com, it might be barred from knowing a user went to the Web page displaying this story.

Still, Martin said, many people who send an e-mail or visit a Web site probably expect that they are doing so in private.

He said under the ruling, the government can obtain such information from Internet service companies about anyone -- not just those suspected of a crime -- without a warrant.

The ruling opens the door to wider government surveillance, Martin said.

“The reason this is a novel issue is that up to now, police don't do this that much,” he said. “One of the important things about this decision is that once you say it is OK to do it, you are going to see police do it a lot more.”

The decision came in the case of Dennis Alba, a former Carlsbad man convicted in 2003 of leading a drug ring that produced massive amounts of the drug Ecstasy at an Escondido lab.

At the time, authorities said it was the largest Ecstasy operation they had seen -- pouring out 1.5 million pills a month and netting an estimated $10 million in profit per month.

In May 2001, authorities began to snoop on Alba's e-mail and Internet activity. They later used the information to obtain a search warrant to further investigate the case.

Alba's lawyer, Michael Crowley, objected to the tactics but was rebuffed by the trial judge. Crowley said he would seek a review of the decision by a larger panel of the appeals court.

“It's too important a decision to be decided by a three-judge panel,” he said. “It just gives the government unbridled authority to do what they want. There is no judicial oversight, no check or balance.”

Alba's appeal was joined with that of his co-leader of the drug ring, Mark Forrester. While upholding Alba's 30-year sentence, the judges reversed Forrester's identical prison term because of errors by the trial judge.

Todd Robinson, the federal prosecutor on the case, said the government will retry Forrester. Because Forrester's retrial is pending, the prosecutor declined to comment on the appeals court ruling on Alba's case.

This violates not only the 4th Amendment, but also the 8th Amendment with its 30 year sentence: hence making the former almost a dead letter as the latter.




Sunday, July 08, 2007

How Criminal Law Enforcement Nullifies the 4th Amendment


Target people by stating that they have committed a traffic offense, regardless of whether that’s true.

Handcuff people immediately upon ordering them out of their vehicles, and later justify this by stating that the person tried to escape, whether or not that’s true

Use anything as an excuse for a “drug” dog, such as a tissue in one’s pocket with staph infected band aids, and NO contraband as “marijuana” for being soft.

Have a “drug” dog that does not visible sign, (e.g. not by barking and scratching) after being placed inside of car, and NOT walked around the car, and later claim that the dog “signed” after walking around the car, whether or not true. Such a dog becomes automatic probable cause whether or not it actually smells anything as if it is trained to “sign”, it can do so for a treat.

Take key from person by force, and later state that it had been left in the ignition.

To cover up the testilying , ensure that the police video is NOT working.

Bear False Wittness. TESTILIE!!! Lie under oath! The politicians bore false wittness when they passed these laws -- Cannibas 0 deaths; Tobacco 40 million worldwide annually -- so you must do the same.

The Ends Justify the Means and White is Black and Black is White whenever we say.

U.S. President G.W. Bush throwing the 1st ball of the baseball season

G.W. Bush, Pope John Paul II, and Laura Bush

U.S. President G.W. Bush, Cardinal Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts

I made a post regarding McCarrick only 2 weeks prior to my August 5, 2006 ambush

Karl Rove, G.W. Bush, Pope Benedict

Nationals Baseball Stadium Blocks the South Capitol Mall


http://www.whitehouse.gov/baseball/2005/11.html

How Criminal Law Enforcement Nullifies the 1st Amendment

Target people based upon “information” – aka orders w/o any detailed info to distinguish whether political.

“Research” people without looking at their writings, hence failing to look at the possibility of politically motivated surveillance and enforcement.

And then violate the 4th Amendment, testilie, and claim that the police video was "just grey static".
How Courts and State Legislatures Nullify the Constitution

Accept police testimony without reservation, creating situation intrinsically anti-defendant via discouraging counter testimony from defendants, while nullifying the constitutional presumption of innocence..

Don’t question instances where the police video is supposedly “just grey static”.

Don’t require working police video.

Don’t allow discovery of such things as inter-agency memos or even police reports from the arresting officers.