Recently in Civil Rights Category

CNN

The congressional oversight committees said Thursday that the Americans targeted included military officers in Iraq who called friends and family in the United States.

The allegations were made by two former military intercept operators on a television news report Thursday evening.

A terrorist surveillance program instituted by the Bush administration allows the intelligence community to monitor phone calls between the United States and overseas without a court order -- as long as one party to the call is a terror suspect.

The fight has only just begun. I understand many people believed that the passing of this new FISA law was going to signal the end of our Constitutionally created country. But the passing of a law -- hell, the passing of an amendment -- is not set in concrete. The only thing set in concrete is the existence of the will of the people.

Hope people. Hope. The Fourth Amendment has not been repealed. It is just a law that was passed. They get struck down quite a bit.

Bark Bark Woof Woof

Friday Blogaround
Did anything happen this week? Ask the Liberal Coalition.

- A Blog Around The Clock: honeybees dancing
- archy: passive aggressive resistance, or just laziness?
- Bark Bark Woof Woof: that morning forty years ago.
- Bloggg: had enough?
- Dohiyi Mir: adventures in babysitting.
- Echidne Of The Snakes: Apparently Granny Clampett is Cal Thomas's ideal woman president.
- Florida Progressive Coalition Blog: If not Hillary, who's the next woman to run for president?
- Left Is Right is asking for your predictions of Republican shenanigans.
- Lefty Side of the Dial: Lefty doesn't like Chris Matthews.
- Musing's musings: Make up and get to work, Dems.
- Pen-Elayne on the Web reviews a new movie by Neil Innes.
- Rook's Rant: Rook is sorry to see Hillary go.
- rubber hose: permanently in Iraq?
- Scrutiny Hooligans: not a bargaining chip.
- SoonerThought: Senate rebukes Bush and Cheny; they lied about Iraq.
- Speedkill: Deceptions.
- Steve Bates, The Yellow Doggerel Democrat: Get well, Tabitha.
- Stupid Enough Unexplanation: Rush Limbaugh explains why it's not his fault the GOP will lose.
- The Invisible Library: face reality, people.
- WTF Is It Now?? No, Sen. McCain, you did not.

Have a good weekend. I still have 2,759 boxes to unpack...

[Sigh] It seems I am being misunderstood all the way around when it comes to my last post about Hillary. I am not sad to see Hillary suspend her campaign. I was sad to see the manner in which she was forced out. Had a man been in Hillary's place, he would have been able to stay in the race right into the convention. I am bemoaning the sexism that is apparent in the push for her to bow out of the race as far back as four months ago.

I've been loathed to post about torture. To actually have to make an argument that torture is wrong seems so ridiculous. It is like writing an essay explaining the importance of breathing. Who the hell needs to have the importance of breathing explained to them?

That we are having any type of discourse over the legitimacy of torture is beyond the pale. Our current leadership is at an intellectual capacity as to render the discourse in this country to an elementary school level. But than, we here in Left Blogstonia have been aware of the childishness of our leader since 2002.

I am having one of those days where I am unhappy with the direction of my life. I am working in a field that is swamped with unnecessary regulations and oversight, filled with dysfunctional people, and poorly funded. That means I am paid squat for the work I do in trying to help others overcome their addictions.

I want to write. Not just blog, but write. I have this novel I've been slowly-hell glacially-working on, but I let the other aspects of life interfere. I am struggling in a low paying job, living in a country that currently despises the lower class of it's citizens, which means I feel alienated and hated.

Yeah, I am fed up. I am angry at my country. I am angry at my country's leadership. I am sick and tired of living in a mockracy, not a democracy. We are currently in the early stages of fascism. Our rights have been eroded away bit by bit, each time with a claim of protecting our freedom. My rights are my freedom. Taking away my freedom to ensure my freedom is insanity. Yet time and again I am faced with another claim of taking my freedom to ensure my freedom.

It's like the drunk who keep drinking with the hope that this time it will result in normal drinking; only to wake up in the morning once again having no memory of the activities of the night before.

The country is falling apart, and I feel powerless to stop its slow, inevitable decent into tyranny.

By way of Blue Girl, Red State:

New York Times

Jose Padilla, the American citizen who was held in military detention for more than three years as an enemy combatant, filed a lawsuit Friday against a former Justice Department lawyer who helped provide the legal justifications for what the suit says was Mr. Padilla’s unconstitutional confinement and “gross physical and psychological abuse.”

The lawyer, John C. Yoo, now a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote or helped prepare a series of legal memorandums on interrogations and the treatment of detainees after the Sept. 11 attacks.

A lawyer for Mr. Yoo, Eric M. George, called Mr. Padilla’s suit “a political diatribe” that “belongs, at best, in a journal, not before a federal court.”

Mr. Padilla, 37, was transferred from military custody to the criminal justice system in 2006, and in August he was convicted of terrorism-related charges in Miami. He awaits sentencing.

The new lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, seeks only one dollar in damages. “That’s what Padilla directed us to ask for,” said Jonathan M. Freiman, one of Mr. Padilla’s lawyers. “At bottom, this isn’t about money. It’s about right and wrong.”

I hope the son-of-a-bitch is hung out to dry by Padilla and his legal team. And wouldn't it be just grand if a memo from the President was discovered that directed Yoo to write those heinous legal opinions.

Studs Terkel points out that our government has had a habit of unconstitutional surveillance on the general populace far longer than just during this administration.

Prison Planet.com

So we chose to 'microwave' our cash, over $1000 in twenties in a stack, not spread out on a carasoul. Do you know what exploded on American money?? The right eye of Andrew Jackson on the new twenty, every bill was uniform in it's burning... Isnt that interesting?

Now we have to take all of our bills to the bank and have them replaced, cause they are now 'burnt'.

We will now be wrapping all of our larger bills in foil on a regular basis.

I don't know if this is legitimate, so it's offered without comment.

Washington Post

Verizon Communications, the nation's second-largest telecom company, told congressional investigators that it has provided customers' telephone records to federal authorities in emergency cases without court orders hundreds of times since 2005.

The company said it does not determine the requests' legality or necessity because to do so would slow efforts to save lives in criminal investigations.

In an Oct. 12 letter replying to Democratic lawmakers, Verizon offered a rare glimpse into the way telecommunications companies cooperate with government requests for information on U.S. citizens.

Verizon also disclosed that the FBI, using administrative subpoenas, sought information identifying not just a person making a call, but all the people that customer called, as well as the people those people called. Verizon does not keep data on this "two-generation community of interest" for customers, but the request highlights the broad reach of the government's quest for data.

So, we find out that more and more of the telecom corporations have collaborated with BushCo™ and ignored our constitutional rights. You know, I seem to remember a section of the constitution addressing the existence of corporations. Somehow, their ability to ignore our constitutional rights is not a part of that section.

But, I doubt the drunken members of congress are going to do anything about this situation, they being overly intoxicated with the money tossed liberally by corporations.

Oh, and this:

Verizon and AT&T said it was not their role to second-guess the legitimacy of emergency government requests.

Is fucking bullshit. What they hell do you pay all those lawyers for if not to make sure you are not breaking any laws?

Ah, ya, that's right. It's to keep from having to actually suffer any consequences as a result of breaking laws. My bad.

CNN

PORTLAND, Oregon (AP) -- Two provisions of the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional because they allow search warrants to be issued without a showing of probable cause, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as amended by the Patriot Act, "now permits the executive branch of government to conduct surveillance and searches of American citizens without satisfying the probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment."

Portland attorney Brandon Mayfield sought the ruling in a lawsuit against the federal government after he was mistakenly linked by the FBI to the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people in 2004.

The federal government apologized and settled part of the lawsuit for $2 million after admitting a fingerprint was misread. But as part of the settlement, Mayfield retained the right to challenge parts of the Patriot Act.

Finally! Some constitutional sanity after nearly 6 years of dictatorial madness. Now, if some Democrats in congress can suddenly remember they swore to uphold the constitution, and move to impeach that chimp emperor at 1600 Pensylvania Ave., I'd be a happy man.

Bark Bark Woof Woof

What I have trouble getting past is that all this hue and cry does is prove that in spite of our tough talk about wiping out terrorism, "bring 'em on," and the Nuke Iran lobby making noise in the administration, we're really afraid of him to the point that some were willing to deny him the right to speak and answer questions. We've really lost something when we're that fearful of someone else's point of view, no matter how disgusting it may be. The best thing we can do to prove he's a petty and cruel dictator is let him talk.

Just another addition of "Ya, What He Said."

Paul Krugman

Since I've just published an op-ed about the enduring influence of race on Southern voting, I'm sure to be accused of being a typical Northeastern snob talking about poor white trash who don't know what's good for them. So I thought I'd mention an important point about Southern white voting that didn't fit in 800 words: namely, the poor whites are not the issue.

In fact, if you look at voting behavior, low-income whites in the South are not very different from low-income whites in the rest of the country. You can see this both in Larry Bartels's "What's the matter with What's the Matter With Kansas?" (pdf), Figure 3, and in a comprehensive study of red state-blue state differences by Gelman et al (pdf). It's relatively high-income Southern whites who are very, very Republican. Can I get away with saying that rich white trash are the problem? Probably not.

Oh hell, Paul, I think you can. At least, I'd agree. I'd also suspect high-income Southern whites are residual plantation stock, carrying on the tradition of pappy in the finest of efforts.

New York Times

WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 -- The 21-year-old Jordanian immigrant was in shackles when he was brought into the courtroom of Judge Michael B. Mukasey in Federal District Court in Manhattan.

It was Oct. 2, 2001, and the prisoner, Osama Awadallah, then a college student in San Diego with no criminal record, was one of dozens of Arab men detained around the country in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks as potential witnesses in the terrorism investigation.

Before the hearing, Mr. Awadallah told his lawyer that he had been beaten in the federal detention center in Manhattan, producing bruises that were hidden beneath his orange prison jumpsuit. But when his lawyer told this to Judge Mukasey, the judge seemed little concerned.

"As far as the claim that he was beaten, I will tell you that he looks fine to me," said Judge Mukasey, who was nominated by President Bush last week to be his third attorney general and is now facing Senate confirmation hearings. "You want to have him examined, you can make an application. If you want to file a lawsuit, you can file a civil lawsuit."

Even though Mr. Awadallah was not charged at the time with any crime and had friends and family in San Diego who would vouch that he had no terrorist ties, Judge Mukasey ordered that he be held indefinitely, a ruling he made in the cases of several other so-called material witnesses in the Sept. 11 investigations. A prison medical examination later identified the bruises across his body.

I'll admit, I am concerned about this account. However, I also am willing to give benefit of the doubt, considering just how soon after 9/11 this particular incident occurred. Hopefully, he will answer the questions asked him at his hearing. If they are asked.

Update: Good point. Ah, okay, very good point. (scroll down a bit)

Minnesota Monitor

The social conservatives' buzz over the Iowa court decision striking down that state's Defense of Marriage Act continues in Minnesota as right-wing types ratchet up the push for a constitutional amendment in the next legislative session. The common denominator among them seems to be Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten.

Oh, for Christ's sake. We've got bridges to build, bridges to repair, roads to repair, schools to fund, and an economy to manage. But no, instead, our Republican congress critters in the Minnesota State government deem that failed amendment more important.

When are they going to pull their collective heads out of their asses and see the people of this state have bigger concerns? Ya, I know, never.

Still, enough already. How about our elected officials start doing the business of the people, not sticking their collective noses into the business of the people.

The Blotter

The controversial interrogation technique known as water-boarding, in which a suspect has water poured over his mouth and nose to stimulate a drowning reflex, has been banned by CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden, current and former CIA officials tell ABCNews.com.

Well, it's about damn time. So, can we now start to see some movement away from the other "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques?"

Normally, I'd insert some snide quip, full of sarcasm. But I'm going to actually hold out some hope that we might see other EIT's banned.

Ya, to be honest I surprised myself on this flash of optimism. I've scheduled an appointments to up my meds.

Blue Girl, Red State

• Only 15% of Americans can identify the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (John Roberts). To contrast: 66% know at least one of the judges on American Idol.
• Only 30% realize that the Supreme Court is the last stop on the litigation train. 32% believe that Supreme Court decisions can be appealed, and 38% either "didn't know" or "weren't sure."
• 55% do not know that when the Supreme Court rules 5-4 on a case, that decision is the law of the land and must be followed.
• 14% believe that 5-4 decisions are sent back to congress for further consideration, 7% believe it goes back to the lower courts, and 34% simply "don't know."

I'm siding with BG, RS on this. The ignorance of the American populous scares me as much as any overt attempt by BushCo™ to overthrow the constitution. If you do not understand the makeup and duties of the Judicial Branch, then of course you are not going to notice the erosion of your civil rights. All things said and done, it's the Judicial Branch that is responsible for upholding the law of the land. And that law originates with the Constitution.

Know the Constitution, understand the rights it gives us citizens, then you can recognize when Congress passes laws that infringe upon those rights. That allows you to be able to better enter a court room, where your rights are ultimately upheld, or taken away.

But many public schools boards across the country have been overrun with religious zealots intent on gutting the Constitution and establishing a theocracy. They don't give a damn about civil rights. The look for a return to the days of intolerance and religious persecution. So, as a result, they have weaken the teaching of important subjects, such as the Constitution and "unalienable" rights, and instead are mired in controversies involving separation of Church and State, or worse, wasting time teaching students how to pass a NCLB test.