Obama's latest use of "secrecy" to shield presidential lawbreaking

[ipaint]

"The Obama administration has, yet again, asserted the broadest and most radical version of the "state secrets" privilege -- which previously caused so much controversy and turmoil among loyal Democrats (when used by Bush/Cheney) -- to attempt to block courts from ruling on the legality of the government's domestic surveillance activities. Obama did so again this past Friday -- just six weeks after the DOJ announced voluntary new internal guidelines which, it insisted, would prevent abuses of the state secrets privilege. Instead -- as predicted -- the DOJ continues to embrace the very same "state secrets" theories of the Bush administration -- which Democrats generally and Barack Obama specifically once vehemently condemned -- and is doing so in order literally to shield the President from judicial review or accountability when he is accused of breaking the law.

...What makes this most recent episode particularly appalling is that the program which Obama is seeking to protect here -- the illegal Bush/Cheney NSA surveillance scheme -- was once depicted as a grave threat to the Constitution and the ultimate expression of lawlessness. Yet now, Obama insists that the very same program is such an important "state secret" that no court can even adjudicate whether the law was broken. When Democrats voted to immunize lawbreaking telecoms last year, they repeatedly justified that by stressing that Bush officials themselves were not immunized and would therefore remain accountable under the law.

...Yet here is Obama doing exactly the opposite of those claims and assurances: namely, he's now (a) seeking to immunize not only telecoms, but also Bush officials, from judicial review; (b) demanding that courts be barred from considering the legality of NSA surveillance programs under any circumstances; and (c) attempting to institutionalize the broadest claims of presidential immunity imaginable via radically broad secrecy claims. To do so, he's violating virtually everything he ever said about such matters when he was Senator Obama and Candidate Obama. And he's relying on the very same theories of executive immunity and secrecy that -- under a Republican President -- sparked so much purported outrage. If nothing else, this latest episode underscores the ongoing need for Congressional Democrats to proceed with proposed legislation to impose meaningful limits and oversight on the President's ability to use this power, as this President, just like the last one, has left no doubt about his willingness to abuse it for ignoble ends."


http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/

[tblue]

1. Obama to 'Change' voters: "You were serious about that?"

Sad. Really sad.

[file83]

2. Rec #5, because I rec based on PRINCIPLE, not Party.

After watching Naomi Wolfe's presentation "End of America", this kind of activity should CONCERN US ALL.

[ChiciB1]

3. Should... But I'm Not Gonna Bet Any Bucks On It!! CHANGE??? I Have

some in my "change jars!" Hey, I'm saving money at least!!!

[flyarm]

4. ahh you must be one of those "HATERS, DOOM AND GLOOMERS, WHINNERS,and all the other crap truthellers

are called!..:sarcasm: :sarcasm:

don't you know truth is forbidden here at Du by the cheerleaders?

You will be relegated to Siberia or Mongolia..and the unrec's will begin momentarily!


Don't worry i Rec' you thread, and I thank you for posting this!!

It is important info ..we all must pay attention to what they say..and then what they do!

Actions mean more than flowery speech!
And the Actions we are seeing , have nothing to do with my democratic principles and values!

As much as the Health reform is a scam, so is most of the other important things going on behind the backs of Americans , that aren't paying attention..this effects our constitution directly! And everyone ought to be damn angry!

More of that change no one can any longer believe in! Or only the gullible and pure idiots!

[joeycola]

5. or a Rupug troll. Or what do you want on your puzza mantra's gang..ect ect..

[SammyWinstonJack]

21. +1000

CHANGE!!! :spray:

[ipaint]

6. Who's in Big Brother's Database?

The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency
by Matthew M. Aid

Bloomsbury, 423 pp., $30.00

On a remote edge of Utah's dry and arid high desert, where temperatures often zoom past 100 degrees, hard-hatted construction workers with top-secret clearances are preparing to build what may become America's equivalent of Jorge Luis Borges's "Library of Babel," a place where the collection of information is both infinite and at the same time monstrous, where the entire world's knowledge is stored, but not a single word is understood. At a million square feet, the mammoth $2 billion structure will be one-third larger than the US Capitol and will use the same amount of energy as every house in Salt Lake City combined.

Unlike Borges's "labyrinth of letters," this library expects few visitors. It's being built by the ultra-secret National Security Agency—which is primarily responsible for "signals intelligence," the collection and analysis of various forms of communication—to house trillions of phone calls, e-mail messages, and data trails: Web searches, parking receipts, bookstore visits, and other digital "pocket litter." Lacking adequate space and power at its city-sized Fort Meade, Maryland, headquarters, the NSA is also completing work on another data archive, this one in San Antonio, Texas, which will be nearly the size of the Alamodome.

Just how much information will be stored in these windowless cybertemples? A clue comes from a recent report prepared by the MITRE Corporation, a Pentagon think tank. "As the sensors associated with the various surveillance missions improve," says the report, referring to a variety of technical collection methods, "the data volumes are increasing with a projection that sensor data volume could potentially increase to the level of Yottabytes (1024 Bytes) by 2015."<1> Roughly equal to about a septillion (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) pages of text, numbers beyond Yottabytes haven't yet been named. Once vacuumed up and stored in these near-infinite "libraries," the data are then analyzed by powerful infoweapons, supercomputers running complex algorithmic programs, to determine who among us may be—or may one day become—a terrorist. In the NSA's world of automated surveillance on steroids, every bit has a history and every keystroke tells a story.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23231

[nightrain]

7. thanks for the post. Horrifying. US has $ to spend on this crap and bombing brown babies, but not

for real healthcare. Sad. Scary. Crazy priorities.

Pull the plug on the NSA...

[flyarm]

9. see where your tax money is going ..but not on health care! Cluster bombs and the banks involved!

and is there any wonder people can't get loans for housing or small businesses a closing up shop because they can't get loans..

Our banks and wall street are using our tax dollars to finance Cluster bombs..but fuck us.. if we were to ever get funding for real health care..

** oh and please cheerleaders..spare me of the bullshit that the new guy isn't the same as the old guy..enough already!!



Four Major bailed out US banks finance cluster bombs with taxpayers money


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

***A Big Thank you to DU member Ichingcarpenter for bringing this to my attention!


The top five loan providers were Bank of America , Citigroup , JP Morgan , Barclays and Goldman Sach from your link..and thank you for that link !!

Top banks fund cluster bombs as ban nears -
LONDON, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Leading banks have funded cluster bomb-makers to the tune of $5 billion in the past two years despite an international accord to ban the weapons, a study said on Thursday.

The top five loan providers were Bank of America , Citigroup , JP Morgan , Barclays and Goldman Sachs , the study said on Thursday.
The researchers used publicly available information, such as that supplied by stock exchanges and financial databases, to produce their study.

Bank of America and JP Morgan declined to comment while Citigroup and Goldman Sachs also had no immediate comment.

Nations agreed to outlaw cluster bombs in May 2008. The resulting convention will come into force when 30 countries have ratified it -- 23 have already done so. Neither the United States nor Britain, where the top five loan providers are based, have yet ratified the treaty.
The Convention on Cluster Munitions includes a ban on assisting anyone to make the bombs.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

now why does this not surprise me?? and what group here has many in this current administration??

oh yeah Goldman Sach's..

and does anyone really believe Obama has any intention of stopping the perpetual wars??????

[BeFree]

15. Shucks...

I am sure they have our best interests in mind. They putting Obama in office has made a lot of us very happy whilst they continue on with their power strokes.

Me? I'm happy. Being free is no longer as important as being safe and surely the bombs and advanced record keeping will make us safer, eh?

[flyarm]

17. well since we had shit loads of bombs in the most higly protected air space in the world..

and the best training , and technology and the biggest fucking military in the world..it didn't keep my co-workers safe on 9/11..you know the ones with American Airlines ..or those in buildings or the ground in PA. ..now did it?

How many nukes do we have??

how many sitting air force pilots in aircraft minutes from NY and the Capitol and the Pentagon??

nope it didn't help my co-workers a damn bit!

SAFE??

you gotta be kidding me ..right??

[BeFree]

20. fly, fly. fly

Such a renegade aren't you? Tilting at windmills again, are we?

Sure, they left the barn door open once, but those that did that are all in jail, right? Ohhhh, wait, no no one ever lost their jobs for that screw-up. Hmmmm.

Well, so what. They learned their lesson: they can do whatever, and it's ok, next time they'll do better. Haven't had a hijack since, have we?. That's why they have to have secrets, so they can do whatever they want. And Obama already has a better record.

It's gonna be fine. Being free is highly overated... unless you're king.

[flyarm]

24. ohh no no no ..they leave the barn door open all the time..try not to be so naive..

lol...did none of these idiots never read Sibel Edmonds????? did none of them know about Denny Hassert? Please..I am a lifelong Flight Attendant..not a rocket scientist..and if I knew..they certainly knew!!..in fact i will go so far as to tell you..i was in NY for the 9/11 commission hearings..and they knew..ok..they silenced Sibel and snuck her into secret hearings ..the 9/11 families marched her in front of the 9/11 commission..they knew..alright..they fucking knew..every media in the world was there..they knew..ok..got it now??

oh and i will go further..I was in a round table discussion with Bob Kerry..at Univ of Tampa..I was an elected democrat in that area..and i confronted him about the drug TRADE IN AFGANISTAN..AND MUCH MUCH MORE..
ONLY 15 OF US WERE ALLOWED TO ASK QUESTIONS..I WAS ONE AND MY HUSBAND ANOTHER.. i can tell you Mr Commissioner Kerry had sweat pouring down his face..pouring down his face..he could not look at me....because i was inches from him and he would not answer any of my highly professional and technical flight crew questions..( i flew for 33 years for American Airlines- 2001 i was flight attendant of the year for the NY base of American Airlines!) or reply to my comments, nor my husbands!..oh and psss..not one media reported it..and there were lots of them there


please spare me the safety crap..i have heard those GOP talking points for entirely too long! and have spent entirely too many years dispelling that bullshit!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Occupiers involved in drug trade: Afghan minister
Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:31:04 GMT

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=110130§ionid=351020403

The Afghan minister of counter narcotics says foreign troops are earning money from drug production in Afghanistan.

General Khodaidad Khodaidad said the majority of drugs are stockpiled in two provinces controlled by troops from the US, the UK, and Canada, IRNA reported on Saturday.

He went on to say that NATO forces are taxing the production of opium in the regions under their control.


( edit to ask..wtf has NYTimes been all these years??? Oh yeah..complicit..fly)

Meanwhile, The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Ahmad Wali Karzai, a brother of the Afghan president, is involved in the opium trade, meets with Taliban leaders, and is also a CIA operative.

The opium trade is the major source of Taliban financing.



xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Four Major bailed out US banks finance cluster bombs with taxpayers money


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

***A Big Thank you to DU member Ichingcarpenter for bringing this to my attention!


The top five loan providers were Bank of America , Citigroup , JP Morgan , Barclays and Goldman Sach from your link..and thank you for that link !!

Top banks fund cluster bombs as ban nears -
LONDON, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Leading banks have funded cluster bomb-makers to the tune of $5 billion in the past two years despite an international accord to ban the weapons, a study said on Thursday.

The top five loan providers were Bank of America , Citigroup , JP Morgan , Barclays and Goldman Sachs , the study said on Thursday.
The researchers used publicly available information, such as that supplied by stock exchanges and financial databases, to produce their study.

Bank of America and JP Morgan declined to comment while Citigroup and Goldman Sachs also had no immediate comment.

Nations agreed to outlaw cluster bombs in May 2008. The resulting convention will come into force when 30 countries have ratified it -- 23 have already done so. Neither the United States nor Britain, where the top five loan providers are based, have yet ratified the treaty.
The Convention on Cluster Munitions includes a ban on assisting anyone to make the bombs.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

now why does this not surprise me?? and what group here has many in this current administration??

oh yeah Goldman Sach's..

[BeFree]

25. Honestly

Did you think every-little-ting was gonna be alright with an Obama admin?

And don't you recognize my name?

[flyarm]

26. i didn't believe a democratic president woukd shit all over the constitution and everything i fought

against in the Bush administration! I never thought a Democratic president would shit all over democratic principles and values..and truth , for god sake!! But i never thought i would be on a democratic message board and see so many champion the same bullshit bush pulled and get chears from the peanut gallery!

where are the democrats i used to know here?? There are many still here who never gave up their principles..but many i see have sold their souls..and their country as far as i am concerned!

and yes i recognize you..i am just surprised you have fallen into the trap of false safety..over what is right and what is wrong!

My soul is not for sale and i will fight for my country over any damn party...or bankers and wall street fuckers who have now bought my party and own it lock stock and barrel.

How is it we can afford to pay billions to trillions to bankers and wall street and yet Americans die for lack of health care..and those fuckers can take my tax money and yours and those dying for lack of affordable health care..and finance Cluster bombs??????????..but they can't help people remortgage their homes or help small businesses out with loans so they don't have to close their doors in record numbers leaving 6 million people out of work and with no hope of getting work in the near future?

oh yeah i know..Obama has many of the fuckers working for his administration!

[inna]

28. +1. thank you. nt

[BeFree]

32. You never thought?

The setup has been such a long time in the making that the idea that anyone who has been paying attention would have "never thought" that we peons would never get sold out is, well, unthinkable. But here you are.

At least you now recognize the unfolding or rather, as Carlin used to say: the peeling back of the curtain leaving exposed the bloody truth.

I apologize for having made an attempt at using sarcasm in response to you here. Obviously 'twas for naught.

Keep on keeping on, you may just educate a few souls as to the nightmare so many of us have been living.

We little folks mean nothing to the big shot elites who are part and parcel to the PTB: Powers That Be. Their influence and power is so large as to block out the sun from our lives and reap what we sow for their own hoarding.

Face it: no one gets to be the presidente without the PTB's blessing. Be yee not surprised.

[earth mom]

33. Flyarm-I am so glad that you are still here on DU and haven't given up speaking the truth.

It kills me every day that so many here on DU have sold their souls to Obama because of what he represents-NOT because of who he really is!

As you said upthread, "Actions speak louder than flowery words", and that is so damn true in regards to Obama!

The people of this country continue to be used, abused and sold out but because of the color of Obama's skin it's all good!

Sorry but continuing *'s policies and ass kissing corporations at the expense of the majority of the population is NOT ok-whether you're white, black or purple!!!

Is this bizarro world or what?! :crazy:

[Kurovski]

35. My credit card company once played twenty questions with me online,

ostensibly to have identity protection to use as password questions. A whole slew of info, going back to where I lived when I was eight years old. it was multiple choice, and all the info was already there. Nothing that I had volunteered.

It was a;ll gathered together from gosh knows how many records.

They never once used it for identity purpose, and they had the chance to do so, but opted for other methods. Never again using any of the info they had verified.

Puke.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

8. SHHH!

Here's an interesting comment from Greenwald's blog:

Glenn, in that filing, see footnote 8 on page 6.

There the Obama DOJ attempts to slip one by the Court, and US, by explaining the new Obama State Secrets Privilege invocation policy and describing the individual requirements that must be met before they do so with this:

...Section 1.C of the Department’s policy places further limitations on the Government’s defense of a state secrets privilege assertion, for example, by prohibiting such invocations for the purpose of concealing violations of the law or to prevent embarrassment to the Government. Id. § 1.C...

The Obama DOJ claims in the footnote to have met the requirements of Section 1.A, and to have met the requirements of Section 1.B.

But notice that while they describe the requirements of Section 1.C above, nowhere to they assert that they've met those very requirements.

By doing so, the Obama DOJ makes abundantly clear, that it in fact cannot meet the requirements of Section 1.C., and in fact this very state secrets privilege invocation is meant "for the purpose of concealing violations of the law or to prevent embarrassment to the Government".

[ipaint]

11. Also doesn't it follow that if obama can use this

again and again (the first time was in the beginning of feb 09) to prevent lawsuits from seeing the light of day that Bush was also justified in his use of it. And now that both sides of the aisle are in agreement I guess the dangerous people, the people who really threaten our national security are those who challenge, complain loudly or using the new and improved progressive speak "whine".

[Orwellian_Ghost]

12. Yes

I think they have taken that into consideration and as you probably know much of the "anti-terror" legislation speaks to "domestic terrorism" and already we are seeing ramifications for this against activists. I can speak personally to that.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

10. But c'mon, the kids and the dog are just adorable! That said, if this was

still Bushco, there would be 150 recs and at least 100 responses by furious DUers.

The beat here just keeps going on........

[flyarm]

19. doesn't it..does it remind you of the bushbot excuses you are seeing rampantly here now?

I feel like i am living in a time warp..just subsitute Bush with Obama..same lines of bullshit, same double talk, same old, same old!!

heyyy..now you are a gal who was there fighting the bush wars with me..and we fought with truth....and these newbies think they just invented the Obama doublespeak..we witnessed it and fought the same crap with Bush!!..i see no difference now..none at all!,..

:hi: :hi: honey!!

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

31. If anything, I find that the blind

adulation just creeps me out. I am a free thinking adult and it takes quite a bit to earn my trust, let alone love and devotion. I stopped putting up posters on my wall of "idols" when I was 13.

The "I Adore" and the "I Love our President" just flow forth here and although he has done some good with a few Domestic issues ie wage increases, ending funding for abstinence only etc (I am not including the Banksters and Wall St. Hoodlums in with that). He is just as recent Dems are, a more kinder, gentler kind of fascist.

People here love a person they don't even know. They claim to believe that he operates in a certain way, but how do they know that? Was voting to confirm Rice as SOS a good vote? Was voting for FISA, covering telecom asses a good vote?

You know that I had qualms about him and it was with a last bit of hope for our Republic that I pulled the lever for him but the minute he selected Emanuel as his COS, I knew we were being fucked, again.

And you know something fly? I'm exhausted of all of this bullshit and just want to stop fighting. You know and I know that this country hasn't been ours from before we were born. It's all been a fucking sham.


Meanwhile my love,
:hi: :hug: :loveya:

[Solly Mack]

13. k/r

[nashville_brook]

14. where's all the "Greenwald is a hack" songbirds?

Greenwald is one of the best real journos out there, and this piece exemplifies the excellence of his craft. Thanks for sharing.

[ipaint]

16. From Feb. 9, 2009, the first time the Obama administration used

state secrets to quash a lawsuit by a victim of rendition and torture.



"lawyer for the government, Douglas N. Letter, made the same state-secrets argument on Monday, startling several judges on the panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

“Is there anything material that has happened” that might have caused the Justice Department to shift its views, asked Judge Mary M. Schroeder, an appointee of President Jimmy Carter, coyly referring to the recent election.

“No, your honor,” Mr. Letter replied.

“The change in administration has no bearing?” she asked.

“No, your honor,” he said once more. The position he was taking in court on behalf of the government had been “thoroughly vetted with the appropriate officials within the new administration,” and “these are the authorized positions,” he said.



"Thoroughly vetted with the appropriate officials within the new administration": that's about as explicit as it gets. It will be extremely difficult for even the most loyal Obama followers to deny that this was an active and conscious decision on the part of the Obama DOJ to embrace one of the most extreme abuses of the Bush presidency.

It isn't merely that the Obama DOJ is invoking the privilege for this particular case, which contains allegations of torture that are as brutal and severe as any. That's bad enough. But worse is that they're invoking the most abusive parts of the Bush theory: namely, that the privilege can be used to block the adjudication of entire cases (rather than, say, justify the concealment of specific classified documents or other pieces of evidence), and, worse still, can be used to prevent judicial scrutiny even when the alleged government conduct is blatantly illegal and, as here, a war crime of the greatest seriousness."

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/02/09/state_secrets/

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

18. "Transparency in Government" = meaningless political slogan. K&R

[SammyWinstonJack]

23. Along with HOPE/CHANGE and YES WE CAN

:puke: Throw in BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE or whatever slick slogan was. :eyes:

[ipaint]

22. Fighting against due process. April 11, 2009

"Back in February, the Obama administration shocked many civil libertarians by filing a brief in federal court that, in two sentences, declared that it embraced the most extremist Bush theory on this issue -- the Obama DOJ argued, as The New York Times's Charlie Savage put it, "that military detainees in Afghanistan have no legal right to challenge their imprisonment there, embracing a key argument of former President Bush’s legal team." Remember: these are not prisoners captured in Afghanistan on a battlefield. Many of them have nothing to do with Afghanistan and were captured far, far away from that country -- abducted from their homes and workplaces -- and then flown to Bagram to be imprisoned. Indeed, the Bagram detainees in the particular case in which the Obama DOJ filed its brief were Yemenis and Tunisians captured outside of Afghanistan (in Thailand or the UAE, for instance) and then flown to Bagram and locked away there as much as six years without any charges. That is what the Obama DOJ defended, and they argued that those individuals can be imprisoned indefinitely with no rights of any kind -- as long as they are kept in Bagram rather than Guantanamo.

Last month, a federal judge emphatically rejected the Bush/Obama position and held that the rationale of Boudemiene applies every bit as much to Bagram as it does to Guantanamo. Notably, the district judge who so ruled -- John Bates -- is an appointee of George W. Bush, a former Whitewater prosecutor, and a very pro-executive-power judge. In his decision (.pdf), Judge Bates made clear how identical are the constitutional rights of detainees flown to Guantanamo and Bagram and underscored how dangerous is the Bush/Obama claim that the President has the right to abduct people from around the world and imprison them at Bagram with no due process of any kind.

....In the wake of Judge Bates' ruling that foreign detainees shipped to Bagram at least have the right to a hearing to determine their guilt, what is the Obama DOJ doing? This:

The Obama administration said Friday that it would appeal a district court ruling that granted some military prisoners in Afghanistan the right to file lawsuits seeking their release. The decision signaled that the administration was not backing down in its effort to maintain the power to imprison terrorism suspects for extended periods without judicial oversight. . . .

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/11/bagram/


"And so what you have is you have a situation where the Bush administration, was free to, and the Obama administration will continue to be free to, create a prison outside the law. The Obama administration may ultimately change other things at Bagram; they may treat prisoners more humanely and comply with the Geneva Conventions, they may cease bringing prisoners seized outside of Afghanistan to Bagram as part of a global war on terror, they may provide a fair process to those who are held, or they may not.

But what was troubling about what the Obama administration did on Friday is they said, the courts don't even have a role in evaluating or saying whether we're following the law. They basically continued the task of cutting the courts out of the equation, and I think that's problematic because we've seen at Guantanamo and elsewhere what happens when there is no judicial oversight, especially when you're doing things and you're not adhering to the strict requirements of the Geneva Conventions. And I think that's where you go down this road and you get Guantanamo all over again."

Jonathan Hafetz ACLU

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/radio/2009/02/24/aclu/index1.html

[flyarm]

27. Thank you IPAINT for your truthtelling..it is a breath of fresh air in some damn polluted air space

[ipaint]

29. Obama Administration To Preserve Bush-Era Policy Of Intrusive Laptop Searches

"The Obama administration will largely preserve Bush-era procedures allowing the government to search -- without suspicion of wrongdoing -- the contents of a traveler's laptop computer, cellphone or other electronic device, although officials said new policies would expand oversight of such inspections.

The policy, disclosed Thursday in a pair of Department of Homeland Security directives, describes more fully than did the Bush administration the procedures by which travelers' laptops, iPods, cameras and other digital devices can be searched and seized when they cross a U.S. border. And it sets time limits for completing searches.

But representatives of civil liberties and travelers groups say they see little substantive difference between the Bush-era policy, which prompted controversy, and this one.

"It's a disappointing ratification of the suspicionless search policy put in place by the Bush administration," said Catherine Crump, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union. "It provides a lot of procedural safeguards, but it doesn't deal with the fundamental problem, which is that under the policy, government officials are free to search people's laptops and cellphones for any reason whatsoever."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/27/AR2009082704065.html



"Under the policy begun by Bush and now continued by Obama, the government can open your laptop and read your medical records, financial records, e-mails, work product and personal correspondence -- all without any suspicion of illegal activity," said Elizabeth Goitein, who leads the liberty and national security project at the nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice.

Goitein, formerly a counsel to Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), said the Bush policy itself "broke sharply" with previous Customs directives, which required reasonable suspicion before agents could read the contents of documents. Feingold last year introduced legislation to restore the requirement.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/08/28/obama-bush-laptop/

[flyarm]

30. well i am going out of the country this week..i don't take laptop and no cell with me ..buttttt

if they want to listen to my Ipod..there is damn good music on it!! and a few good movies as well!..i guess i will know the NSA guys if i see them rocking to my beat!! I carry 6 ipods ( 4 shuffles ) so i don't have to recharge them in Europe..so if i see them jiving to my sounds..i will spot them right away!

Ha, ha
It's Mr. 305 checkin' in for the remix
You know that S 75 Street Brazil?
Well this year's gon' be called Calle Ocho
Ha, ha

Que ola cata, que ola omega
And this how we gon' do it, dale

One two three four
Uno dos tres cuatro

I know you want me, want me
You know I want cha, want cha
I know you want me
You know I want cha, want cha

fly

[Kurovski]

34. Almost makes the teabagger's complaints legit.

makes the claims of "assault on our rights" by the right ring true. Of course the teabagging classes don't often understand that it started years ago.

[ipaint]

37. Yes, they are 8 years too late and can't for the life of them understand how that happen

because bush was their cowboy hero. They run on pure reaction, fomented by their bigoted tv heros on fox, and no thought.


I don't think the folks who have been criticizing bush for years for the identical massive cover up of war crimes can use that excuse now that obama has adopted the policy.

[slipslidingaway]

36. knr nt

[Orwellian_Ghost]

38. Bump

[tomp]

39. not voting for obama 2012.

join me.