We Need Primary Challengers!!!

The spineless fucks in the Senate have done it again. Now they are letting AT&T and Verizon off the hook for trashing the Fourth Amendment and spying on us, by giving that feeble-minded lame duck moron who has occupied the oval via subterfuge and judicial coup what he wanted.

Again.

Democrats…listen the fuck up…we did not give you the majority so you could fellate the fuckwit.

We gave you the majority because we want that feckless bastard brought to heel. It is bad enough that you cowardly whelps won’t impeach the war criminal, and instead give me pathetic, mealy-mouthed platitudes like “history will impeach this administration” and a Democratic Senator who grabs her skirts and jumps up on the table shrieking “Eeek! A terrorist! Here! Take my constituents civil liberties! They will thank me for it!”

Fucking pathetic. They haven’t done a damned thing right and I am in no mood to brook their foolishness.

And while we are certainly not going to send the knuckle-draggin’ mouth-breathin’ SCAMD morons back to the majority, we will sure as hell replace your lame asses. You aren’t representing us. You are pandering to the loser thugs in the Republican party.

You are the god-damned majority party. Stop rolling over and offering your asses to the jackals and perverts.

Telecomm immunity was the last straw.

Senate Democrats and Republicans reached agreement with the Bush administration yesterday on the terms of new legislation to control the federal government's domestic surveillance program, which includes a highly controversial grant of legal immunity to telecommunications companies that have assisted the program, according to congressional sources.

Disclosure of the deal followed a decision by House Democratic leaders to pull a competing version of the measure from the floor because they lacked the votes to prevail over Republican opponents and GOP parliamentary maneuvers.

The collapse marked the first time since Democrats took control of the chamber that a major bill was withdrawn from consideration before a scheduled vote. It was a victory for President Bush, whose aides lobbied heavily against the Democrats' bill, and an embarrassment for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who had pushed for the measure's passage.

The draft Senate bill has the support of the intelligence committee's chairman, John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), and Bush's director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell. It will include full immunity for those companies that can demonstrate to a court that they acted pursuant to a legal directive in helping the government with surveillance in the United States.

Such a demonstration, which the bill says could be made in secret, would wipe out a series of pending lawsuits alleging violations of privacy rights by telecommunications companies that provided telephone records, summaries of e-mail traffic and other information to the government after Sept. 11, 2001, without receiving court warrants. Bush had repeatedly threatened to veto any legislation that lacked this provision. [emphasis added]

Every spineless Democrat in D.C. needs to face the wrath of an angry electorate – and a strong primary challenger – their pathetic records of appeasement and acquiescence need to be held up for public scrutiny, scorn and ridicule.

As for me, I am going to print up some stickers to slap on fundraising mailings to send back to the weenies, sans contribution, in their postage-paid envelopes.

If a Democrat voted to rebuke “MoveOn” for repeating what soldiers in the Perfumed Prince’s command called him, they will get their mailer back with a sticker that says

“I am a MoveOn member, and your willingness to throw over the First Amendment deems you unworthy of my support. Instead I have made a donation of $______ to MoveOn, and encouraged them to support a primary challenger to fill your seat with the fanny of a REAL DEMOCRAT.”

If they are on board with this apostasy, the sticker they get back will read:

“I am a member of the American Civil Liberties Union, and your willingness to throw over the Fourth Amendment deems you unworthy of my support. Instead, I have donated $_____ to the ACLU and will be working locally to find a strong primary challenger to fill your seat with the fanny of a REAL DEMOCRAT.”

The spineless, simpering Democrats that represent me (Claire, Cleaver) need to get through their thick heads that I am no battered wife who will keep coming back for more…I am the bitch who will torch the bed...with your political career in it. Capiche?

Verizon Communications and Blatant Disregard for the Fourth Amendment

Executives from Verizon Communications, admitted to congressional investigators that they had willingly turned over the telephone records of their customers to federal authorities hundreds of times since 2005 without so much as asking to see a warrant or a court order.

The executives maintain that it is not their place to determine the legality or necessity of the requests because “to do so would slow efforts to save lives in criminal investigations.”

The company also revealed that the FBI, through the use of “National Security Letters” sought multiple generations of customer information. They sought, and received, not merely the customers call records, but the records of every person they called and all of the people they called as well. When it comes to information about our private lives, the government is a voracious beast, and Verizon seems all too willing to load up it’s plate in the buffet line.

The disclosures, in a letter from Verizon to three Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee investigating the carriers' participation in government surveillance programs, demonstrated the willingness of telecom companies to comply with government requests for data, even, at times, without traditional legal supporting documents. The committee members also got letters from AT&T and Qwest Communications International, but those letters did not provide details on customer data given to the government. None of the three carriers gave details on any classified government surveillance program.

From January 2005 to September 2007, Verizon provided data to federal authorities on an emergency basis 720 times, it said in the letter. The records included Internet protocol addresses as well as phone data. In that period, Verizon turned over information a total of 94,000 times to federal authorities armed with a subpoena or court order, the letter said. The information was used for a range of criminal investigations, including kidnapping and child-predator cases and counter-terrorism investigations.

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

The letters were released earlier in the week as Congress deliberated whether or not to grant immunity to telecommunications companies for their complicity and willingness to assist the government in spying on Americans. The incumbent executive, the companies, and their Republican cronies in Congress want the companies to be granted immunity in cases where they are sued by customers, pissed off about the invasion of their privacy. House Democrats refuse to consider such immunity without first learning just exactly how complicit the companies and the government are in these breaches of privacy.

"The responses from these telecommunications companies highlight the need of Congress to continue pressing the Bush administration for answers. The water is as murky as ever on this issue, and it's past time for the administration to come clean," said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), who, along with Chairman John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) and Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.)launched the investigation.

…[The]13-page Verizon letter indicated that the requests went further than previously known. Verizon said it had received FBI administrative subpoenas, called national security letters, requesting data that would "identify a calling circle" for subscribers' telephone numbers, including people contacted by the people contacted by the subscriber. Verizon said it does not keep such information.

"The privacy concerns are exponential each generation you go away from the suspect's number," said Kurt Opsahl, senior staff attorney with the EFF. "This shows that further investigation by Congress and the inspector general is critical."

Earlier this year, the Justice Department's inspector general found that the FBI may have improperly obtained phone, bank and other records of thousands of people inside the United States since 2003 by using national security letters and exigent letters, or emergency demands for records.

Michael Kortan, an FBI spokesman, said the bureau has suspended use of community-of-interest data "while an appropriate oversight and approval policy" is developed. He added that the inspector general is reviewing the use of those data.

Democrats have seen their efforts to force the Bush administration to admit the scope and breadth of the domestic spying it has engaged in since September 11, 2001. What revelations have come to light have been unmasked via press reports, FOIA lawsuits filed by advocacy groups, and Inspector General’s reports.

Verizon is certainly a company I would drop like a bad habit if I had any services through them. Fortunately, I don’t.

The Fourth Amendment wins another round

U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled Wednesday that two provisions of the USA Patriot Act - secret searches and wiretaps to gather criminal evidence instead if intelligence gathering - are unconstitutional. "For over 200 years, this nation has adhered to the rule of law - with unparalleled success," the judge wrote in her ruling. "A shift to a nation based on extra-constitutional authority is prohibited, as well as ill-advised."

It all started with a misidentified fingerprint in the wake of the Madrid train bombings in 2004, which led investigators to Brandon Mayfield, an attorney in Portland, Oregon and a convert to Islam. The FBI secretly searched his home and his office, and both were bugged.

Mayfield was wrongfully detained for two weeks. Eventually, the FBI apologized to the Portland man for their grievous error and settled the lawsuit he brought fir $2 million dollars. But Mayfield wasn't done. He challenged the act that authorized the searches and surveillance on the grounds that it violated civil liberties of Americans. The U.S. Attorney General's office asked that Mayfield's challenge be dismissed.

Judge Aiken declined the request, averring that the use of the Patriot Act to authorize secret searches and wiretaps to gather criminal evidence is in direct violation against the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. She rebuked the U.S. Attorney, stating that the governments request amounted to "asking this court to, in essence, amend the Bill of Rights, by giving it an interpretation that would deprive it of any real meaning. This court declines to do so."

Mayfield's attorney, Elden Rosenthal, issued a statement on his behalf, praising Judge Aiken. In his statement, Mayfield said Judge Aiken "has upheld both the tradition of judicial independence, and our nation's most cherished principle of the right to be secure in one's own home."

A spokesman for the Justice Department would only say that the agency was reviewing the decision and declined further comment.

Garrett Epps, a Constitutional Law expert at the University of Oregon said that the Mayfield case shows that pushing the Partiot Act to the limit may backfire on the Bush administration.
"They've been so aggressive in their assertions of statutory and constitutional authority that it has alienated courts," Epps said. "Judges just don't trust them. The Bush administration has shot itself in the foot."

The ruling is not expected to have any immediate effect on enforcement, but if the Justice Department appeals, and the ruling is upheld, the impact could be far-reaching. Michael Greenberger, director of the Center for Health and Homeland Security at the University of Maryland called Aikin's analysis of the law "extraordinarily sound" and said that the governments bungling of the investigation that focused on Mayfield had opened the door for the challenge to the law by illustrating that the government is using the FISA court to bypass the Constitution.

Although the ruling was not expected to have any immediate effect on enforcement under the Patriot Act, it could have a major impact if it is appealed and upheld, said director of the Center for Health and Homeland Security at the University of Maryland."The high irony of this is that, if the government had never heard of Brandon Mayfield, they would not have this ruling today," Greenberger said. "They essentially got caught with their pants down."

Yesterdays ruling was the second major legal setback the administration has been dealt this month. In a New York court, the ACLU won a Patriot Act challenge on behalf of an internet service provider that received a "National Security Letter" demanding customer phone and computer records. The judge in that case ruled that the FBI must justify to a court the need for secrecy for "more than a brief and reasonable period of time."

One would think that the Justice Department wishes they had never heard of Brandon Mayfield. His case has been a humiliating embarrassment fir the feds. Last year, the Justice Department's internal monitoring body chided the FBI for sloppy work in the case, citing the FBI's leap to judgment in connecting Mayfield to the Madrid bombings. That report said federal prosecutors and FBI agents "had made inaccurate and ambiguous statements to a federal judge to get arrest and criminal search warrants against Mayfield."

The Patriot Act was passed with little debate in the fervor and fear that gripped many in America and virtually everyone in Washington D.C. after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The law gave the feds the authority to search phone records, read email and expand the Treasury Departments regulation of financial transactions involving foreign nationals. The saw was renewed in 2005, and in August of this year, the Bush administration, by use of lies and manipulation, convinced a feckless congress to expand their specious powers further, allowign the government to listen in on foreign communications even when an American was a party. The expanded powers sunset next year - BUT - and this is the part they don't tell you, any investigations underway at the time of the sunset will continue for a full year after the law expires. As citizens call bullshit, Congress is said to be taking a closer look at the law and many, mostly Democrats, want to rein in the language that many consider casts too wide a net.

My Senator attempts to explain herself after selling out the Fourth Amendment

I sure have been getting some quintessentially pathetic, lame-assed correspondence from my elected representatives lately. The kind of drivel that makes people think Democrats don't have the intestinal fortitude for knock-down, drag-out, bare-knuckle politics.

First, Emmanuel Cleaver tried to sell me on the notion that "history would impeach" this administration. I was absolutely stunned that he would piss on my leg like that and try to tell me it was raining.

But then, today, Claire McCaskill broke my heart.

I emailed her office expressing my disappointment with her roll-over vote on FISA, in her haste to get her vacation started the day she stabbed me in the back.

Here is her response to my concerns.

Dear [Blue Girl]:

Thank you for contacting me regarding the Protect America Act of 2007 (S. 1927). I appreciate hearing from you, and I welcome the chance to respond.

On August 1, 2007, I was faced with a stark reality: the Director of National Intelligence sent a letter warning the Senate of the heightened threat of international terrorism, and urging us to modernize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) before the August recess "to ensure that we do not have critical gaps in our ability to provide warnings of threats to the country". The call to quickly revise FISA in order to reflect developments in telecommunications technology was echoed by four Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. I chose to heed these urgent warnings. [It did not occur to you that you might be getting played? Seriously? You were a prosecutor! Your bluff was called that easily? Not inspiring my confidence here.]

I voted for two measures to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. I preferred the legislation offered by Senators Rockefeller and Levin; however, it failed to gather the 60 votes needed to pass. I also voted for the Bond-McConnell version, which did receive enough votes to pass. Corresponding legislation was later approved by the House of Representatives, and the President quickly signed the bill into law. [I follow this stuff, too. You should have voted "No" on Bond's bill, too. You sold me out, and you betrayed the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. Ah well, it had a 220 year run. It could have been longer. It should have been longer. But our representation in D.C. is feckless, faithless, and fearful. I am utterly disgusted and appalled by the lack of will I detect on behalf of my congressional delegation. Not one more dime for you, and I have decided that in 2012, you need a primary challenge. I absolutely can not wait until I get a request for cash or shoeleather. i have my rap ready.]

It is important to recognize that this legislation is a temporary fix to provide our intelligence community with the most immediate tools needed to protect our country – it will be in place for only six months, and it cannot be renewed before it is thoroughly reviewed and authorized by Congress. This gives us six months to create a more acceptable permanent intelligence collection process that that allows us to effectively monitor terrorist communications overseas while also protecting the privacy of law-abiding American citizens. I can assure you I will be one of the Senators working hard to re-establish the constitutional protections that have been eroded by this President and this temporary FISA legislation. [I call bullshit. This is NOT just a six-month fix. I read the text. It stays in effect a full 12 months after the sunset. Lie to a gullible sap, if you must. But don't fucking lie to me, I will call your ass on it. Every. Fucking. Time. Telling me you will do the job I busted my ass to elect you to next time ain't good enough. Do the fucking job I got you elected to right the first god-damned time! That I even have to say this disgusts me.]

Again, thank you for taking the time to share your concerns with me. Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can be of any further assistance. [With five years left on your term, you are sure to regret those words. Because I will share my concerns. Frequently. With you, and with the readers of this blog.]

All best,
Senator Claire McCaskill

Like I said...Lame. Lame, lamer, lamest. An absolutely perfect specimen of fecklessness and cowardice. "Oh! The DNI scared me! I grabbed my skirts and jumped on the table shrieking 'Eeek! There are terrorists in the world!'"

Holy Chocolate Covered Christ, Claire! The DNI is a Bush political appointee! Ya think maybe you could have stretched your head around the fact that these jackals might be lying to you to get their mitts on the rest of the fourth amendment? I mean, they lie all the fucking time. Distrust ought to be your default position!

You have the honor of holding the Class I seat that Harry S Truman once occupied. For the love of all that is sacred - start fucking behaving in a matter that indicates you deserve it at least a little.

Six years ago today

Six years ago today, I woke to a phone call. I turned on the TV and I watched in horror. Most of us did.

If you had told me that day that six years later the perpetrator of the attack would be free, but we wouldn't -I would have called you daft. And today I would owe you an apology.

Six years, and though we know the identity of the largest mass murderer in our history, we can not apprehend him.

So why, exactly have they found it necessary to suspend Habeas Corpus and the Fourth Amendment, and infringe on a whole bunch of the others, in order to fight terrorism, when they can't bring in the most wanted and well known criminal on the planet? But they find it necessary to spy on the Quakers.

Can we get some freakin' accountability going here, please?

I've said it before but it bears repeating. Sometimes, I feel like I'm watching four year olds play government. Other times I feel like I am watching drunken monkeys play with loaded handguns.

Score one for the Fourth Amendment!

Attention all in need of a little GOOD news...

Earlier today, U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero struck down the National Security Letters provision of [that apostasy known as] the 'Patriot' Act. The NSL provision has been abused by the FBI practically since before the ink was dry in the Resident's signature on the revised legislation.

In his ruling, Judge Marrero stated that investigators must have the approval of a court before ordering Internet service providers to turn over customer records without informing the customers.

Judge Marrero found that the government orders must be subject to "meaningful judicial review" and that the revised 'Patriot' Act "offends the fundamental constitutional principles of checks and balances and separation of powers."

The challenge to the law was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, which argued that the provision allowed the FBI to demand sensitive personal information on American citizens without the sort of court order and oversight required for other types of Government searches.

Since Judge Marrero is a Clinton appointee who understands that the entire Constitution applies to every American, not just the Third Amendment, which says we don't have to quarter soldiers in our homes - (the only part of the Constitution, it seems, that the Bushies have left unmolested) - brace yourselves for the right wing to commence with the "activist judge" venom in 5...4...3...2...1