McCain and senior staffer promote dissent by calling college grad speaker an idiot
Huffington Post » (many links including comments by Jean Rohe who made the speech)
The Nation 1 » 2 » 3 »
More Poetry, Less War »
Maureen Dowd

More War
Bush Corp. declares war
on the free press »
Boston Globe
Journalists., get the rack ready! Our attorney general is coming for us, snarling like a guard dog at Abu Ghraib ... The actions of Gonzales show how little the Bush administration promotes the rights of the press. With every pronouncement, freedom is disappearing, in incremental steps.

How AT&T and Bush spy on you documented
AmericaBlog »
Wired »
In 2003 AT&T built "secret rooms" hidden deep in the bowels of its central offices in various cities, housing computer gear for a government spy operation which taps into the company's popular WorldNet service and the entire internet. These installations enable the government to look at every individual message on the internet and analyze exactly what people are doing. Documents showing the hardwire installation in San Francisco suggest that there are similar locations being installed in numerous other cities.
Listening In »
Seymour Hersh / The New Yorker
We see all the horseshit ...
Now show us the ponies »
Larry Beinhart / Huffington Post

Baby steps to fascism
Jail the messenger »
Glenn Greenwald
The administration's assault on a free and vital press took a huge leap forward this weekend, when Attorney General Alberto Gonazles announced on national television that the Bush administration has the power to imprison journalists who publish stories revealing conduct by the President which the administration wants to conceal.

1 in 136 U.S. Residents Behind Bars »
AP

You're a Terrorist!
February 6th 2006
Testimony before the Senate Judiciary Cmty. on the Bush administration's surveillance of suspected terrorists without warrants:
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales »
First, only international communications are authorized for interception under this program – that is, communications between a foreign country and this country.
Second, the program is triggered only when a career professional at the NSA has reasonable grounds to believe that one of the parties to a communication is a member or agent of al-Qaida or an affiliated terrorist organization. As the president has said, "If you're talking with al-Qaida, we want to know what you're saying."
Third, to protect the privacy of Americans still further, the NSA employs safeguards to minimize the unnecessary collection and dissemination of information about (them).
May 11th 2006
Bush spies on everyone »
USA Today
The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans – most of whom aren't suspected of any crime.
So Much For Privacy – The Telecoms Cave In To Bush's Government »
Daily Kos

Keeping a Democratic Web »
NY Times
One of the Internet's great strengths is that a single blogger or a small political group can create a Web page that is just as accessible to the world as Microsoft's home page. But this democratic Internet would be in danger if the companies that deliver Internet service changed the rules so that Web sites that pay them money would be easily accessible, while little-guy sites would be harder to access, and slower to navigate. Providers could also block access to sites they do not like.

AT&T Hates Your Privacy
... perhaps we should let them know what we think of this collusion with our wallets!
Corporate Giant Eagerly Helps Bush with Domestic Spying ... on your phone »
NY Times
... In the age of unfettered communication, no company should want to get a reputation for allowing the government to listen in on its customers' phone calls, read their e-mail and monitor their Web activity.

Bush's America
FBI Keeps Watch on Activistss »
LA Times
The FBI, while waging a highly publicized war against terrorism, has spent resources gathering information on antiwar and environmental protesters and on activists who feed vegetarian meals to the homeless ... "Any definition of terrorism that would include someone throwing a bottle or rock through a window during an antiwar demonstration is dangerously overbroad," ACLU staff attorney Ben Wizner said. "The FBI will have its hands full pursuing antiwar groups instead of truly dangerous organizations."
Woman Gets $100 Ticket for BUSHIT Bumpersticker »
The Progressive

Preemption begins at home ...
Undercover agents pursue inebriates in a pre-emptive strategy »
Reuters
Texas has begun sending undercover agents into bars to arrest drinkers for being drunk.

325,000 Names on Terrorism List »
Washington Post
"We have lists that are having baby lists at this point; they're spawning faster than rabbits ... If we have over 300,000 known terrorists who want to do this country harm, we've got a much bigger problem than deciding which names go on which list."

Republicans suddenly become reformers »
Joe Conason / The New York Observer

Spy Agency Data Led To Nothing »
NY Times
F.B.I. officials repeatedly complained to the spy agency, which was collecting much of the data by eavesdropping on some Americans' international communications and conducting computer searches of foreign-related phone and Internet traffic, that the unfiltered information was swamping investigators. Some F.B.I. officials and prosecutors also thought the checks, which sometimes involved interviews by agents, were pointless intrusions on Americans' privacy.

Al Gore delivers a great speech:
Warrantless Surveillance an Example of Bush's Indifference to Constitution »
Wahington Post
"The president of the United States has been breaking the law repeatedly and insistently, A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government."
He urged members of Congress to "start acting like the independent and coequal branch of government you're supposed to be."
"The disrespect embodied in these apparent mass violations of the law is part of a larger pattern of seeming indifference to the Constitution that is deeply troubling to Americans in both political parties," Gore said. The Bush administration's actions have "brought our republic to the brink of a dangerous breach in the fabric of the Constitution," he added.
Full text - click here
C-Span Video - click here

An insidious culture of surveillance »
Thomas Oliphant / Boston Globe
It always starts small, almost logically.
In a basically free society, abuses of civil and human rights often initially make sense, which appears to have been the case when President Bush took his baby steps toward a system of warrant-free, electronic surveillance of persons inside the United States – some citizens, some not. Over time, however, the inch that government first takes becomes a mile.

The Extra-Legal Executive »
The Progressive
Bush wants to spread democracy abroad – and dismantle it at home.
Spying and Lying »
The Nation
Congress Explicitly Said War Resolution Did Not Expand Executive Power »
Think Progress
Now I hear Big Brother loud, clear »
Denver Post
Even righties are getting in on the action:
President Bush presents a clear and present danger to the rule of law »
Washington Times
Conservative Scholars Argue Bush’s Wiretapping Is An Impeachable Offense »
Think Progress

F.B.I. Watched Activist Groups »
NY Times
"You look at these documents and you think, wow, we have really returned to the days of J. Edgar Hoover, when you see in F.B.I. files that they're talking about a group like the Catholic Workers league as having a communist ideology." – Ann Beeson, associate legal director for the A.C.L.U.

US terror watchlist 80,000 names long »
Yahoo News
The classified list, which carried just 16 names before the September 11, 2001 now stands at 80,000 ... airlines must check each passenger flying to a US destination against the list.

Looking in the wrong direction ... once again
FBI Labels Michigan Affirmative Action and Peace Groups as Terrorists »
ACLU
Terror From the Right »
Southern Poverty Law Center:
60 terrorist plots uncovered in the U.S.
Ten years after the Oklahoma City bombing left 168 people dead, the guardians of American national security seem to have decided that the domestic radical right does not pose a substantial threat to U.S. citizens.
A draft internal document from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that was obtained this spring by The Congressional Quarterly lists the only serious domestic terrorist threats as radical animal rights and environmental groups like the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front. But for all the property damage they have wreaked, eco-radicals have killed no one – something that most definitely cannot be said of the white supremacists and others who people the American radical right.

Is this how a democracy is suppsosed to work? What's the national security issue?
Bush's own Nov. 2001 Decree bestows him control over Roberts' Memos »
LA Times
A little-noticed order issued by President Bush almost four years ago gives White House lawyers the right to block the release of memos written by Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. when he worked for President Reagan.

The order, signed by Bush in November 2001, said the "incumbent president" had the right to approve the release of papers from the presidential libraries of his father, George H.W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan.

White House officials said the president's order simply set up a process for releasing documents, one that allowed the administration to protect national security, privacy and other concerns.

House Votes for Permanent Patriot Act »
NY Times
The legislation, approved 257 to 171, would make permanent 14 of the 16 provisions in the law that were set to expire at the end of this year. The remaining two provisions - giving the government the power to demand business and library records and to conduct roving wiretaps - would have to be reconsidered by Congress in 10 years.

Competing bill passed last month ... would broaden the government's powers by allowing the Federal Bureau of Investigation to demand records in terrorism investigations without a judge's order and to have sole discretion in monitoring the mail of some terrorism suspects.

Rights Groups Detail Growing Police State »
Antiwar.com
The FBI is carrying out "unwarranted investigations for religious or political reasons," according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which charges that "the agency has sunk back into the kind of political monitoring it did in the 1960s and 1970s."

The Washington-based advocacy group said a series of FBI inquiries across the country shows that the agency is conducting investigations based on the targets' political activities or religious affiliations.

Arrest for heckling Ann Coulter raises hackles – and concern »
Houston Chronicle
He first thought they were there to tell him to leave, Raj said. Instead, he was told he was under arrest.

"That's the scary part of it ... I asked them what for?" he said Friday. "I kind of recoiled a little bit. They said they didn't know actually. They were just following orders from I don't know who. They were just following orders."

How your vote can get you fired »
Ted Rall
You arrive at work early, work hard and leave late. You're quiet, respectful and well liked. You keep your nose clean: when someone brings up politics, you're smart enough to shut up or walk away. You wouldn't want to say anything that might annoy one of your coworkers.

Once you get home, though, you get to be yourself: a committed political activist. You work the phone bank at Republocratic headquarters, update your blog with scathing takedowns of opposing politicians and chat up your neighbors to urge them to vote for your favorite candidates. But when you clock back in, you leave it at the door. You're cool. One morning, your boss calls you into her office. "It has come our attention that you're a Republocrat," she says. "We don't want your type working here. Gather your things and get out. You're fired."

Secrecy and propaganda sweeping US »
Inter Press Service

FBI seeks expanded search powers »
NBC
FBI Director Robert Mueller asked lawmakers to expand the bureau’s ability to obtain records without first asking a judge, and he joined Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in seeking that every temporary provision of the anti-terrorism Patriot Act be renewed.

The central concern of opponents is that it allows the government to seize records of people who are not suspected terrorists or spies.

Renewal greeted with opposition left and right

Across U.S., citizens fight Bush administration for access to records »
AP
Ed Lambert, Al Lima and Mike Miozza never thought of themselves as activists, just regular guys. Then an energy company announced plans to build a liquefied natural gas terminal in this small community on the Taunton River. The men — the mayor, a city planner and an engineer — had nightmare visions of gas igniting into a huge fireball on the river, and asked for government-held reports that studied the threat to the town if the plant or a tanker were attacked.

"We're denied information that could put our community at risk," Lambert said during an interview in his sixth-floor office ...

neighborsforpeaceandjustice.org