Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Texas: 49,000+ questionable electoral names found ... but NONE voted ...

Nov. 28, 2007, 9:58AM | 49,000 questionable names found on voter rolls | Auditors say none of them cast ballots in the May election | By JANET ELLIOTT | Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau ...
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He noted that the auditors were unable to verify that the 23,114 possible felons and 23,576 possibly deceased voters actually should be removed from voting lists.

"We can't remove someone from the voter roll unless it's a strong match because we don't want to take away an eligible voter's right to vote," Haywood said. ...

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Supreme Court Allows Warrantless Searches of Welfare Applicants' Homes

Supreme Court Allows Warrantless Searches of Welfare Applicants' Homes | Posted by Richard Blair, The All Spin Zone at 6:26 AM on November 27, 2007

Richard Blair: In the view of the Roberts court, it is better that ten innocents suffer than one guilty person escape.

This post, written by Richard Blair, originally appeared on The All Spin Zone

With their refusal to hear a San Diego County case yesterday regarding unannounced searching of homes of public assistance applicants, the Supreme Court once again turned noted English jurist William Blackstone on his head. In the view of the Roberts court, it is better that ten truly needy people suffer than one potential fraudster escape.

Back in the mid-1980's, when big companies started requiring employees to submit to random drug and alcohol screenings, it was quite apparent that privacy and fourth amendment constitutional protections were under serious attack. There were two lines of reasoning that courts eventually approved of the screenings -- workplace safety and, hey, if someone didn't want to submit to the testing, they were free to quit the job.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court decline to hear a fourth amendment case from San Diego County, California that seems almost nazi-ish in nature:

The Supreme Court rejected a challenge Monday to a county's practice of routinely searching welfare applicants' homes without warrants and ruling out assistance for those who refuse to let them in.
The justices refused, without comment, to intervene in the case from San Diego County, where investigators from the local District Attorney's office show up unannounced at applicants' homes and conduct searches that include peeking into closets and cabinets. The visits do not require any suspicion of fraud and are intended to confirm that people are eligible for government aid...

Monday, November 26, 2007

Former [AL-DEM] state governor -- could be tried on charges that many observers consider to be trumped-up, ... would be almost unbelievable

The permanent Republican majority: Part one: How a coterie of Republican heavyweights sent a governor to jail | Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane | Published: Monday November 26, 2007
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For most Americans, the very concept of political prisoners is remote and exotic, a practice that is associated with third-world dictatorships but is foreign to the American tradition. The idea that a prominent politician -- a former state governor -- could be tried on charges that many observers consider to be trumped-up, convicted in a trial that involved numerous questionable procedures, and then hauled off to prison in shackles immediately upon sentencing would be almost unbelievable.

But there is such a politician: Don Siegelman, Democratic governor of Alabama from 1999 to 2003. Starting just a few weeks after he took office, Siegelman was targeted by an investigation launched by his political opponents and escalated from the state to the federal level by Bush Administration appointees in 2001. ...
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State and county Democrats quickly requested another Baldwin County recount with Democratic observers present, as well as a state-wide recount. But before the Baldwin County Democratic Party canvassing board could act, Alabama’s Republican Attorney General William Pryor had the ballots sealed.

Unless Siegelman filed an election contest in the courts, Pryor said, county canvassing boards throughout the state did not have the authority “to break the seals on ballots and machines under section 17-9-31” of the constitution.
...
It would take a Riley campaign attorney -- long-time Alabama Republican Dana Jill Simpson -- to finally blow the whistle on the Republican governor. In a 2007 affidavit and sworn testimony, Simpson stated unequivocally that dirty tricks had sealed her boss’s victory in the 2002 election, and she named Karl Rove and the US Department of Justice as conspirators in the case.
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Expanding on her original allegations, Simpson testified on Sept. 14 before lawyers for the House Judiciary Committee and dropped a bombshell revelation. In this additional testimony, Simpson described a conference call among Bill Canary, Governor Riley's son Rob and other Riley campaign aides, which she said took place on November 18, 2002 -- the same day Don Siegelman conceded the election. Simpson alleged that Canary had said that “Rove had spoken with the Department of Justice” about “pursuing” Siegelman and had also advised Riley's staff “not to worry about Don Siegelman” because “‘his girls’ would take care of” the governor. ...

AP about US charges for photographer: "Every claim we've checked out has proved to be false, overblown or microscopic in significance,"

AP Chief Slams Case Against Photographer | By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | Published: November 24, 2007

NEW YORK (AP) -- The U.S. military is making a mockery of American democratic principles by bringing a criminal case against an Associated Press photographer in Iraq without disclosing the charges against him, AP President and CEO Tom Curley said Saturday.

"This is a poor example -- and not the first of its kind -- of the way our government honors the democratic principles and values it says it wants
to share with the Iraqi people," Curley wrote in an opinion piece in The Washington Post.
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Military officials have refused to disclose the content of the complaint to the AP, despite repeated requests. Hussein's lawyer will enter the case ''blind,'' with no idea of the evidence or charges, Curley wrote.

''In the 19 months since he was picked up, Bilal has not been charged with any crime, although the military has sent out a flurry of ever-changing claims. Every claim we've checked out has proved to be false, overblown or microscopic in significance,'' said Curley. ...
...
''How is Gardephe to defend Bilal? This affair makes a mockery of the democratic principles of justice and the rule of law that the United States says it is trying to help Iraq establish,'' Curley wrote.

Judge ... no longer confident in government briefs ... similar representations made in the Moussaoui case were false

Moussaoui judge questions government | By MATTHEW BARAKAT, Associated Press Writer | Tue Nov 20, 6:55 PM ET

McLEAN, Va. - A federal judge expressed frustration Tuesday that the government provided incorrect information about evidence in the prosecution of Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and raised the possibility of ordering a new trial in another high-profile terrorism case.
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The prosecutors have asked her to dismiss the defense request. The government has denied the allegations but has done so in secret pleadings to the judge that defense lawyers are not allowed to see. Even the lead prosecutors in the al-Timimi case have not had access to the information; they have relied on the representations of other government lawyers.

After the hearing, the judge issued an order that said she would not rule on the prosecutors' motion until the government grants needed security clearances to al-Timimi's defense lawyer, Jonathan Turley, and the lead trial prosecutor so they can review the secret pleadings.

Brinkema said she no longer feels confident relying on the government briefs, particularly since prosecutors admitted last week that similar representations made in the Moussaoui case were false. ...
...
Brinkema made no rulings during the brief, 20-minute hearing in Alexandria, but her displeasure at the government was apparent. Prosecutors did not have the opportunity to speak during the hearing, except to note their appearance for the record. ...

Tasers a form of torture, says UN ... weapons causes acute pain ... 3 killed in last week alone ...

Tasers a form of torture, says UN | AFP | From correspondents in Geneva | November 24, 2007 04:44pm

TASER electronic stun guns are a form of torture that can kill, a UN committee has declared after several recent deaths in North America.

"The use of these weapons causes acute pain, constituting a form of torture,'' the UN's Committee against Torture said.

"In certain cases, they can even cause death, as has been shown by reliable studies and recent real-life events,'' the committee of 10 experts said.

Three men, all in their early 20s, were reported to have died in the United States this week, days after a Polish man died at Vancouver airport after being Tasered by Canadian police. ...

Friday, November 23, 2007

Bush, Cheney lied about Plame, ex-press chief says

Bush, Cheney lied about Plame, ex-press chief says | MATT APUZZO | Associated Press |
November 20, 2007 at 6:21 PM EST

WASHINGTON — Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan blames U.S. President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney for efforts to mislead the public about the role of White House aides in leaking the identity of a CIA operative.
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“There was one problem. It was not true,” Mr. McClellan writes, according to a brief excerpt released Tuesday. “I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice-president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself.”

Mr. Bush's chief of staff at the time was Andrew Card. ...

Monday, November 19, 2007

alleged the National Security Agency illegally listened to its calls. The charity had wanted to introduce as evidence a top-secret call log ...

November 16, 2007 5:53 p.m. PT | Court deals blow to wiretapping case | By PAUL ELIAS | ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal appeals court on Friday dealt a near-fatal blow against an Islamic charity's lawsuit challenging the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program, concluding that a key piece of evidence is protected as a state secret.

The lawsuit, filed by the Oregon-based U.S. arm of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, alleged the National Security Agency illegally listened to its calls. The charity had wanted to introduce as evidence a top-secret call log they received mistakenly from the Treasury Department.

But the three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the log could not be used because it fell under the "state secrets" privilege invoked by the government, and without it, the court said, the foundation had little proof it was wiretapped. ...

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Judge orders White House to hold e-mails ... White House has destroyed e-mails in violation of federal law ???

Judge orders White House to hold e-mails | By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer | Mon Nov 12, 6:21 PM ET

WASHINGTON - A federal judge Monday ordered the White House to preserve copies of all its e-mails, a move that Bush administration lawyers had argued strongly against.

U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy directed the Executive Office of the President to safeguard the material in response to two lawsuits that seek to determine whether the White House has destroyed e-mails in violation of federal law. ...

A total of 64% of American voters say that President George W. Bush has abused his powers as president

November 13, 2007 - Impeachment | American Research Group, Inc.

A total of 64% of American voters say that President George W. Bush has abused his powers as president. Of the 64%, 14% (9% of all voters) say the abuses are not serious enough to warrant impeachment, 33% (21% of all voters) say the abuses rise to the level of impeachable offenses, but he should not be impeached, and 53% (34% of all voters) say the abuses rise to the level of impeachable offenses and Mr. Bush should be impeached and removed from office.
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A total of 70% of American voters say that Vice President Dick Cheney has abused his powers as vice president. ...

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

"they’re doing a huge, massive domestic dragnet on everybody in the United States"

AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein to Senate: "they’re doing a huge, massive domestic dragnet on everybody in the United States" | Submitted by lambert on Wed, 2007-11-07 13:54.
...

My name’s Mark Klein; I used to be an AT&T technician for 22 years.

What I figured out when I got there [AT&’s secret room at 611 Folsom Street, SSan Francisco] is that they were copying everything flowing across the Internet cables, and the major Internet links between AT&T’s network and other company’s networks, and it struck me at the time that this is a massively unconstitutional, illegal operation.

It affects not only AT&T’s customers, but everybody, ‘cause these links went to places like Sprint, Qwest, a whole bunch of other companies, and so they’re basicallly tapping into the entire Internet.

But isn’t the government only monitoring suspected terrorsits and not ordinary Americans?

To perform what they say they want to do, which is look at international traffic, none of this makes any sense. These installations only make sense if they’re doing a huge, massive domestic dragnet on everybody, in the United States. ...

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Levin waterboarding could be illegal torture unless performed in a highly limited way and with close supervision.

Bush Administration Blocked Waterboarding Critic | Former DOJ Official Tested the Method Himself, in Effort to Form Torture Policy | By JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG and ARIANE de VOGUE | Nov. 2, 2007

A senior Justice Department official, charged with reworking the administration's legal position on torture in 2004 became so concerned about the controversial interrogation technique of waterboarding that he decided to experience it firsthand, sources told ABC News.

Daniel Levin, then acting assistant attorney general, went to a military base near Washington and underwent the procedure to inform his analysis of different interrogation techniques.

After the experience, Levin told White House officials that even though he knew he wouldn't die, he found the experience terrifying and thought that it clearly simulated drowning.

Levin, who refused to comment for this story, concluded waterboarding could be illegal torture unless performed in a highly limited way and with close supervision. And, sources told ABC News, he believed the Bush Administration had failed to offer clear guidelines for its use. ...
...
Bush Administration Blocked Critic

The administration at the time was reeling from an August 2002 memo by Jay Bybee, then the head of the Office of Legal Counsel, which laid out possible justifications for torture. In June 2004, Levin's predecessor at the office, Jack Goldsmith, officially withdrew the Bybee memo, finding it deeply flawed.

When Levin took over from Goldsmith, he went to work on a memo that would effectively replace the Bybee memo as the administration's legal position on torture. It was during this time that he underwent waterboarding.

In December 2004, Levin released the new memo. He said, "Torture is abhorrent" but he went on to say in a footnote that the memo was not declaring the administration's previous opinions illegal. The White House, with Alberto Gonzales as the White House counsel, insisted that this footnote be included in the memo.

But Levin never finished a second memo imposing tighter controls on the specific interrogation techniques. Sources said he was forced out of the Justice Department when Gonzales became attorney general. ...

Caging is a voter suppression tactic in which a political party, campaign, or other entity sends mail marked “do not forward” or “return to sender” to

Twelve senators introduce bill to outlaw voter 'caging' | RAW STORY | Published: Monday November 5, 2007

In a press release late Monday afternoon, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) announced that he had introduced legislation to ban the practice of "voter caging," a practice in which groups send mail to voters' addresses and then use "return to sender" envelopes to challenge the legitimacy of individual votes.

Wikipedia defines 'caging' as "a term of art in the direct mail industry, as well as a term applied to a technique of voter suppression. A caging list is a list or database of addresses, updated after a mailing program is completed, with notations on responses received from recipients, with corrections for addresses that mail has been returned undelivered from, or forwarded onward from."

In October 2004, the BBC reported on a list of "caging" targets that had been culled from an email allegedly sent by the Bush campaign. The email, which was errantly sent to GeorgeWBush.org instead of GeorgeWBush.com, contained "a list of 1,886 voter names and addresses in largely African-American and Democratic areas of Jacksonville."

“The practice of ‘caging’ is reprehensible and has absolutely no place in our democracy," Kerry said in the release. "Here in America, every citizen, regardless of race, gender, religion or sexual orientation has the right to cast his or her vote. These are the very foundations of our democracy and this bill will ensure that we protect fundamental freedoms for millions of voters across our country.” ...