January 26, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
Four young men, aged 24 to 25, have been arrested and charged with entering federal property under false pretense, with the purpose of committing a felony. The charges are in connection with an alleged attempt to carry out a plot to wiretap the phones at one of Democratic senator from Louisiana Mary Landrieu’s offices. The charges could result in fines up to $250,000 and up to 10 years in prison.
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July 22, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is filing a federal lawsuit to force release of documents the intelligence community has refused to turn over in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. US intelligence agencies keep records of internal reports and investigations of alleged wrongdoing, and are obliged to report that wrongdoing to the Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB), but may have failed to do so in recent years.
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July 11, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Former US vice president Dick Cheney has been linked to the 8-year long cover-up of a secret CIA project about which Congress was never briefed, until last month. The current director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, only learned of the secret project —details of which have still not been released— last month. He immediately ordered its closure. Now, it has been revealed that in a closed-door briefing last month with members of Congress, Panetta revealed that former vice-president Cheney ordered the project be concealed from Congress.
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April 17, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
The Justice Dept. of Pres. Barack Obama yesterday released a series of memos, reported as ‘only lightly redacted’ (for security purposes), detailing the advice the Department gave the Bush White House concerning the legality of harsh interrogation techniques proposed for use by the CIA. Pres. Obama sought to preclude a political firestorm by pledging not to prosecute CIA agents who may have implemented the techniques, if they had been advised the techniques were legal, but no such immunity was offered to administration officials who may be liable for having deliberately misinterpreted existing law or authorized illegal techniques.
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July 11, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
President George W. Bush yesterday signed an update to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) into law, after the Senate passed the controversial legislation, giving telecommunications firms retroactive immunity for cooperating with warrantless wiretapping conducted on American citizens, with no foundation in US law and in direct violation of the original FISA law, and the US Constitution. A federal court had ruled that the warrantless wiretaps violated the US Constitution, prompting a move by Pres. Bush and his allies in Congress to pass a new law correcting the legal problem.
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June 23, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Democratic and Republican leaders have reached an agreement on legislation that would expand the government’s legal right to wiretap foreign suspects on American soil, including up to 7 days surveillance on Americans, where such a method is deemed necessary to target foreign suspects. Warrants will not be passed over completely, and the bill should bring government policy in line with Constitutional provisions on privacy.
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August 14, 2007 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
When Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder asked Pres. Bush to “leave this world alone” in song, online viewers watching Lollapalooza via AT&T’s ‘Blue Room’ webcast were not able to hear it. The company cut the political lyrics from the webcast in what band-members, fans and net-neutrality advocates have called blatant censorship. AT&T blamed an outside contractor and apologized for the ‘mistake’.
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August 18, 2006 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
A federal judge in Detroit ruled early yesterday that Pres. Bush’s NSA surveillance program, which uses wiretaps implemented with no judicial oversight, is unconstitutional. The ruling strongly enforced the point that there are “no powers not created by the Constitution” rejecting the AG’s claim that the Congressional Authorization for the Use of Military Force (in Afghanistan) as a legal platform for sweeping new domestic powers.
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May 17, 2006 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
NSA EXPERT HISTORIAN EXPECTS INTERNET COMPANIES ALSO COOPERATED WITH DOMESTIC SPY PROJECTS Historian and expert NSA researcher Matthew Aid has told Salon.com that he believes it will be revealed in time that Internet service providers and cellphone companies also cooperated with the NSA spying and data mining programs. He offered no proof, but cited past [...]
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January 17, 2006 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Former US Vice President Al Gore gave what is being described as an historic non-partisan speech, calling for a passionate nationwide movement to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States. Gore gave the speech in a non-partisan context, speaking at the Daughters of the American Revolution hall, with the express support and participation of Representative Bob Barr, Republican of Georgia.
The speech was attended by both Republicans and Democrats and thousands of people who fear that new arguments made by the Executive branch for expanded police powers pose a serious threat to the nation’s system of government and the rule of law.
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January 16, 2006 :: staff :: One Comment
Congressman Barr and I have disagreed many times over the years, but we have joined together today with thousands of our fellow citizens-Democrats and Republicans alike-to express our shared concern that America’s Constitution is in grave danger.
In spite of our differences over ideology and politics, we are in strong agreement that the American values we hold most dear have been placed at serious risk by the unprecedented claims of the Administration to a truly breathtaking expansion of executive power.
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January 2, 2006 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
A contract is legally binding only when: all signatories freely and voluntarily agree to its provisions; all provisions are themselves legal; none of the provisions is inherently unreasonable or deceptively worded. Neither contracts nor “terms and conditions” including indemnities disclaimers, can be classified as legislation. They do not make or construct legal limits by themselves.
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