Spy for the US Military Exposed: Spent Last Two Years Spying on Activists

By GottaLaff

First BushCo wanted to send American troops into Buffalo. Now it appears that Posse Comitatus was violated again:

A Yale Law School faculty member and military law expert said he is disturbed by allegations that Fort Lewis employed a civilian who spied on an Olympia-based anti-war organization.

Eugene R. Fidell, a former judge advocate for the Coast Guard and the president of the National Institute of Military Justice, said such a practice appeared to violate the Posse Comitatus Act, a federal law that prohibits the use of the Army for conventional law enforcement activities against civilians.

Last week, members of Olympia Port Militarization Resistance presented evidence that John J. Towery, a civilian employee of Fort Lewis Force Protection, infiltrated the group using an assumed name and conducted surveillance of its members for about two years.

OlyPMR member Brendan Maslauskas Dunn said that after the information came to light, Towery admitted that he was spying on members using the name John Jacob. As John Jacob, Towery was one of five administrators of OlyPMR’s listserv e-mail list, giving him names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses of all members.

OlyPMR opposes the Iraq war. [...] OlyPMR member Drew Hendricks has said that Towery was privy to members’ observation strategies and operations before the group conducted protests at local ports.

Hendricks said OlyPMR is committed to nonviolence and has never threatened or tried to harm soldiers. [...]

“What you’ve told me is enough to think that there’s a domestic spying program at Fort Lewis,” [Fidell] said. “And if there is, that’s a big deal.”

Yeah, that's a big deal. The sad thing is, it's not all that surprising any more.

Attorney Larry Hildes of the National Lawyers Guild has made numerous attempts to get information from the military and federal agencies for court cases and civil suits connected to the port protests, only to run into the repeated refusal of Brian Kipnis from the US Attorney’s Office in Seattle to give this information to Hildes and other defense attorneys. Kipnis explicitly told the US Army not to give information to Hildes and others. Kipnis is also the same lawyer that prosecuted Lt. Ehren Watada and was involved with a number of Guantanamo cases. This information is perhaps the beginning of a larger network of surveillance across the nation.

More here and here.

H/t: My former student and forever pal, Matt

She said "blow-WHAT" on live TV to David Shuster?

By GottaLaff

Background on Dickless' assassination ring here. Posts on detainee abuse and torture here.

Marcy Wheeler (aka Emptywheel at Firedoglake) just said the following on MSNBC, live, right there on the Tee Vee Machine... after which David Shuster turned 15 shades of red (actually, here are Tweets by her of what she said):

(click on image to enlarge... no pun)

Homeland Security said to kill spy satellite plan

By GottaLaff

Good:

The Bush administration plan to use satellites for domestic surveillance is reportedly axed after state and local officials say they have higher priorities.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has decided to kill a controversial Bush administration program to use U.S. spy satellites to collect domestic intelligence for counter-terrorism, law enforcement and security, a senior Homeland Security official said Monday evening.

The National Applications Office program was established in 2007 to provide up-to-the-minute electronic intelligence to local and state law enforcement. But it has been delayed due to concerns by privacy and civil liberties advocates -- and by some lawmakers -- that it would intrude on Americans' lives.

The senior Homeland Security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the program is classified, said Napolitano had decided to nix it after consulting with state and local law enforcement officials and learning that they had far more pressing priorities than using satellites to collect information and eavesdrop on people.

How about, she decided to nix it after realizing it was an invasion of privacy?

Feinstein Launches Probe on NSA Wiretapping

By GottaLaff

Roll Call is subscription only, so this is all I could get:

The Senate Intelligence Committee is launching an investigation into a New York Times report that the National Security Agency overstepped its authority to conduct surveillance of U.S. citizens through the use of domestic wiretaps.

And there's this from the L.A. Times:

Justice curbs NSA over surveillance

The Justice Department has reined in electronic surveillance by the National Security Agency after finding the agency had improperly accessed American phone calls and e-mails. The problems were discovered during a review of intelligence activities, the Justice Department said in a statement.

Now back to our regular wiretapping already in progress.

Joshua is angry

By GottaLaff

I love the Joshua Blog. Joshua is a cool guy who is responsive to my Tweets on The Twitter Machine. I went over to his place, and I found a very angry Joshua. He has graciously invited me to copy and paste his entire post:

Now I'm really starting to get pissed off. What the hell is he thinking?! He refused to go after Bush officials for torture, he embraces Bush's executive power grab and protects the domestic spying program and it's telecom conspirators, blackmailed by the Senate GOPers with filibusters his appointees & threatened by the CIA with God only know what, he decides not to release the torture memos as planned and now this bullshit?!

From the NY Times:

Obama to Appeal Detainee Ruling

WASHINGTON — 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.

In a court filing, the Justice Department also asked District Judge John D. Bates not to proceed with the habeas-corpus cases of three detainees at Bagram Air Base outside Kabul, Afghanistan. Judge Bates ruled last week that the three — each of whom says he was seized outside of Afghanistan — could challenge their detention in court.

Tina Foster, the executive director of the International Justice Network, which is representing the detainees, condemned the decision in a statement.

“Though he has made many promises regarding the need for our country to rejoin the world community of nations, by filing this appeal, President Obama has taken on the defense of one of the Bush administration’s unlawful policies founded on nothing more than the idea that might makes right,” she said.

read more

NOT OK.

Joshua has a point. I really don't want to get this upset with President Obama, he's really terrific in so many ways... but regarding these topics, I'm starting to simmer. I'm still in wait-and-see mode before I get to the same boiling point as Joshua, but right now, I don't like what I'm seeing while I wait.

Let's hope there's more to this than meets the eye, and that we will feel some sense of relief, not dread or vindication for our outrage.

Illegal wiretaps + President Obama = What are they thinking?

By GottaLaff

Via BuzzFlash, an excellent summary of something that has really gotten under my skin:

Illegal wiretapping cases could spell trouble for President Obama. What can the Obama Administration be thinking?

At the Obama presidential campaign website, barackobama.com, a page titled "Plan to Change Washington" describes problems in government and then presents "The Obama/Biden Plan" to correct such problems. Here's the section on the problem of government secrecy:

Secrecy Dominates Government Actions: The Bush administration has ignored public disclosure rules and has invoked a legal tool known as the "state secrets" privilege more than any other previous administration to get cases thrown out of civil court.

But then in the section on Obama's planned solutions, the state-secrets legal tool doesn't come up again. Was that an oversight or a deliberate omission? Was there actually no Obama/Biden plan to challenge or curtail the state-secrets claim that the Bush administration used so often? It seems so.[...]

To summarize, the DOJ wants to allow the NSA to keep doing unrestricted electronic surveillance; the DOJ wants to keep the NSA's secret documents from being used in court; and they want the Jewel v. NSA case thrown out. The EFF wants Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable invasion of privacy upheld for American citizens. They want the case to be heard. They seek to stop what they call the government's "iillegal, unconstitutional, and ongoing dragnet surveillance ... of millions of Americans." As Ken Bankston told BuzzFlash, the EFF "believes and alleges" that the NSA is viewing and analyzing the transactional information, but also the contents, of "practically everyone's" emails and phone calls illegally. And the "wholesale surveillance" continues on President Barack Obama's watch. [...]

[B]ut what of the political side to this story? Many Obama supporters are losing faith. [...]

Will President Obama be able to restore that loss of faith, or even try? Doesn't he realize his base is boiling mad about domestic spying and warrantless wiretaps? The disconnect between campaign rhetoric and courtroom maneuvering is a problem the President must confront -- on this issue as well as on others.

Domestic spying is not a progressive value, or even a centrist or conservative value. It's a breach of the inalienable 4th Amendment rights of all Americans.

Please go read the post in full. This is the one Obama administration position that not only greatly concerns me, it's one that I would actively campaign against. I need a talking down, A.S.A.P.

Political Carnival EXCLUSIVE: First-hand knowledge of Cheney's assassination ring's existence

By GottaLaff

One of our Commenters, who must remain anonymous, has generously shared what little information he is able to with me about Dick Cheney's horrific "executive assassination ring", originally reported by Seymour Hersh. Anonymous and I have e-mailed back and forth for a few months now, and he was going to allow me to use some of his Iraq experiences for a series of posts.

However, things have changed for reasons that are explained below. This is all Anonymous is now allowed to reveal:

I can confirm for each of you that the assassination ring does exist. I spoke with one member of the Delta Forces on a regular basis. I can not repeat anything that I was told, but I can tell you that even the so-called terrorist knew exactly where they were housed on our base at an undisclosed location in Iraq. Laffy, i'm sure you know who I am. I can not repeat anymore than what I have typed from fear of reprisal. Which is also the reason why I never came back to you on what happened to my wife and me while being in Iraq last year.

[W]e have people out there that can and will hunt me down. [...] But those guys would have to come by our tent to pick up all their cargo that would be airlifted from random parts of the world. I can tell you that I know for a fact that it truly does go on. But I swore that I'd never repeat anything that was ever told, or pictures that I saw with my own eyes. Pictures that those guys could be severely punished for showing anyone out of their official channels.

Yes, I realize this is coming from an anonymous source, although I do know his name and have for some time, and have seen photos (from his time in Iraq and other venues) of him and his wife and even his friends. I also understand that he is not saying any of this under oath, but neither was Sy Hersh... yet. It is all hearsay for the time being.

I posted this to buttress Hersh's words. And I wanted to buttress Hersh's words to emphasize the following:

Dick Cheney and George Bush must be prosecuted. There must be a thorough investigation, and they must be prosecuted. How many more posts about these criminals will I have to write before this will happen? What does it take?

President Obama, I'm a fan, but I strongly disagree with your belief that "we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards". That is a very bad precedent when it comes to dealing with very bad people doing very, very bad things. Please, for the sake of your country, reconsider.

Let's hope that Attorney General Holder has other ideas.

Jay Rockefeller On Hardball About Illegal Wiretaps

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Skip to 12:30 and tell me what that was about. Back when the final FISA fight was going on, there was TONS of speculation that Rockefeller was "compromised" somehow, that his stand on the bill was just not kosher. Check out the links you get on a google of Jay Rockefeller + FISA.