Local And State Police To Be Granted New Spy Powers

According to Spencer Hsu and Carrie Johnson in the Washington Post,

The Justice Department has proposed a new domestic spying measure that would make it easier for state and local police to collect intelligence about Americans, share the sensitive data with federal agencies and retain it for at least 10 years.

The proposed changes would revise the federal government's rules for police intelligence-gathering for the first time since 1993 and would apply to any of the nation's 18,000 state and local police agencies that receive roughly $1.6 billion each year in federal grants.

Quietly unveiled late last month, the proposal is part of a flurry of domestic intelligence changes issued and planned by the Bush administration in its waning months. They include a recent executive order that guides the reorganization of federal spy agencies and a pending Justice Department overhaul of FBI procedures for gathering intelligence and investigating terrorism cases within U.S. borders.

Taken together, critics in Congress and elsewhere say, the moves are intended to lock in policies for Bush's successor and to enshrine controversial post-Sept. 11 approaches that some say have fed the greatest expansion of executive authority since the Watergate era.

They're kidding, right? "Some say"? "Since the Watergate era"?

No, they're not kidding. This is post-democratic American simulated journalism at its finest -- which is to say, get used to it!

They can't (or won't) say it, but I can:

These moves are intended to lock in policies for Bush's successor and to enshrine the greatest expansion of executive authority ever!

This is much, much worse than Watergate -- which was considered a national disgrace, remember? ... which was resisted by the Democrats and by the press, remember? ... including a couple of young "reporters", one of whom was actually an intelligence officer, and as we found out years later, the whole thing was a great big charade, designed to oust the by-then completely crazy Richard Nixon and leave the reins of power in the hands of the much more pliable long-time FBI asset, Gerald Ford ... Do you remember that?

And much of this simulated national drama was played out in the editorial offices of ... [drum roll] ... the Washington Post! Do you remember that, too?

We're not supposed to remember anything anymore, apparently. Or not much, anyway. So for the the next several paragraphs, our esteemed authors give us the point of view of government supporters, and they say things like this:

Supporters say the measures simply codify existing counterterrorism practices and policies that are endorsed by lawmakers and independent experts such as the 9/11 Commission. They say the measures preserve civil liberties and are subject to internal oversight.

WOW! Really?? Did somebody actually type the phrase "independent experts such as the 9/11 Commission"? Or did the editors simply copy and paste it in, like I did?

How could you type such a thing? How could such a thought even enter your head?

Actually, it makes as much sense as "internal oversight", doesn't it?

Here's the rub:

Under the Justice Department proposal for state and local police, published for public comment July 31, law enforcement agencies would be allowed to target groups as well as individuals, and to launch a criminal intelligence investigation based on the suspicion that a target is engaged in terrorism or providing material support to terrorists. They also could share results with a constellation of federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and others in many cases.

And that's not all.

On the day the police proposal was put forward, the White House announced it had updated Reagan-era operating guidelines for the U.S. intelligence community. The revised Executive Order 12333 established guidelines for overseas spying and called for better sharing of information with local law enforcement. It directed the CIA and other spy agencies to "provide specialized equipment, technical knowledge or assistance of expert personnel" to support state and local authorities.

And last week, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey said that the Justice Department will release new guidelines within weeks to streamline and unify FBI investigations of criminal law enforcement matters and national security threats. The changes will clarify what tools agents can employ and whose approval they must obtain.

With the FBI having recently refused to assure Congress it wasn't protecting violent criminal informants, and in the wake of one transparent "terrorist" entrapment fiction after another, it's tough to imagine that "streamlining" the FBI's investigations could possibly be a good thing for anybody -- except the FBI.

And it's not even possible to imagine Michael Mukasey -- who wouldn't even admit that waterboarding is torture -- doing anything to protect your Constitutional rights, especially at the expense of the radical "unitary executive".

As even the Washington Post notes:

The recent moves continue a steady expansion of the intelligence role of U.S. law enforcement, breaking down a wall erected after congressional hearings in 1976 to rein in such activity.

Some other interesting points from the same article:

The push to transform FBI and local police intelligence operations has triggered wider debate over who will be targeted, what will be done with the information collected and who will oversee such activities.

To these three easy questions, the answers are: [1] Everybody, especially YOU. [2] Anything they want to do, and [3] Nobody whose interests correspond with yours.

The Post notes that

Many security analysts faulted U.S. authorities after the 2001 terrorist attacks, saying the FBI was not combating terrorist plots before they were carried out and needed to proactively use intelligence.

But rather than following up on the next logical question, namely: "Why didn't they use the intelligence they were gathering?", Spencer Hsu and Carrie Johnson protect their paychecks (certain lines must not be crossed, wink wink!, nudge nudge!), although they do admit that

civil liberties groups and some members of Congress have criticized the administration for unilaterally expanding surveillance and moving too fast to share sensitive information without safeguards.

But as always in post-democratic American simulated-journalism, nobody's allowed (or sufficiently courageous -- what's the difference?) to state a clear fact without putting it in the mouth of a speaker who is easily dismissed as "political". Thus

Critics say preemptive law enforcement in the absence of a crime can violate the Constitution and due process. They cite the administration's long-running warrantless-surveillance program, which was set up outside the courts, and the FBI's acknowledgment that it abused its intelligence-gathering privileges in hundreds of cases by using inadequately documented administrative orders to obtain telephone, e-mail, financial and other personal records of U.S. citizens without warrants.

This technique hides the obvious fact that "preemptive law enforcement in the absence of a crime" is not law enforcement at all.

It does violate the Constitution and it obliterates due process.

But the authors can't (or won't) say that; instead they attribute a watered-down version of the obvious truth in the words of anonymous "critics" and move on to quote a 9/11 cover-up insider -- sorry: independent expert -- Jamie Gorelick:

Former Justice Department official Jamie S. Gorelick said the new FBI guidelines on their own do not raise alarms. But she cited the recent disclosure that undercover Maryland State Police agents spied on death penalty opponents and antiwar groups in 2005 and 2006 to emphasize that the policies would require close oversight.

"If properly implemented, this should assure the public that people are not being investigated by agencies who are not trained in how to protect constitutional rights," said the former deputy attorney general. "The FBI will need to be vigilant -- both in its policies and its practices -- to live up to that promise."

It's beyond laughable, really. Gorelick blames the state police, emphasizes the need for oversight, and winds up with a conditional recommendation: "If properly implemented".

That's a good one. If my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle. But the Washington Post can't say that either.

To its credit, the Post article does include some critical quotes attributed to a named individual, who hits at least one nail on the head:

[Michael] German, an FBI agent for 16 years [and policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union], said easing established limits on intelligence-gathering would lead to abuses against peaceful political dissenters. In addition to the Maryland case, he pointed to reports in the past six years that undercover New York police officers infiltrated protest groups before the 2004 Republican National Convention; that California state agents eavesdropped on peace, animal rights and labor activists; and that Denver police spied on Amnesty International and others before being discovered.

"If police officers no longer see themselves as engaged in protecting their communities from criminals and instead as domestic intelligence agents working on behalf of the CIA, they will be encouraged to collect more information," German said. "It turns police officers into spies on behalf of the federal government."

But one former FBI officer's opinion doesn't carry much weight against the advancing twin waves of horse manure and tyranny:

Mukasey said the changes will give the next president "some of the tools necessary to keep us safe" ... [and that] the new guidelines will make it easier for the FBI to use informants, conduct physical and photographic surveillance, and share data in intelligence cases, on the grounds that doing so should be no harder than in investigations of ordinary crimes.

If there's one thing we don't need, it's new rules to "make it easier for the FBI to use informants".

And if there's one thing we do need, it's a complete understanding of what it means when "law enforcement" officials claim that collection of intelligence in the absence of a crime should be "no harder" than a criminal investigation.

But the Washington Post can't tell you that, either.

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Chris Floyd: The Torture Election

I'm still hampered by injury; while I'm recovering, blogging poses several difficult questions. One of the few answers I can find goes like this:

Many of my readers are reading Chris Floyd every day already. If you're not one of them, please take the hint!

Floyd's most recent piece is brilliant, as always ... but maybe a little bit more so this time. Here it is, in full and by kind permission, with a cold comment or two along the way.

The Torture Election

As the presidential horse race grows more frenzied and absurd -- Flag pins! Bowling! Obliteration! -- it is important to keep in mind what the election is really about: torture.

Specifically, the use of torture as an openly admitted, formally recognized instrument of national policy, approved at the highest level of government. The Bush Administration has now dropped all pretense that it is not engaging in interrogation techniques and incarceration practices long recognized by both international and U.S. law as blatantly criminal. What's more, the Administration boldly asserts that the president can simply ignore laws prohibiting torture if he feels that circumstances warrant the use of "interrogation methods that might otherwise be prohibited under international law," the New York Times reported over the weekend.

(The Washington Post had a similar story -- similarly buried deep inside the paper. A brazen declaration of presidential tyranny -- in the service of torture, no less -- was considered worth mentioning somewhere in the "papers of record," but obviously not worth making a big fuss about.)

The key words here are "openly admitted" and "formally recognized". Torture as an instrument of national policy runs deep in our history. So do death squads, for that matter, and subversion of democracy. Most of that history, of course, has been hidden from American eyes; but nothing is hidden from the "locals". The "recipients" of our "generosity" always know about the "collateral damage".

Torture is at the very heart of the Bush presidency, the most quintessential manifestation of its governing philosophy: a "Commander-in-Chief" state, where presidential directives can override any law in the name of "national security." The use of torture demonstrates that not even the most heinous crimes -- including techniques used by Nazi sadists and KGB brutes -- are beyond the pale of the "unitary executive's" arbitrary will. On the basis of this authoritarian power -- established through a series of presidential orders and "legal" opinions by appointed lackeys -- many other crimes can be "justified": aggressive war; kidnapping and rendition; indefinite detention; secret prisons; warrantless surveillance; even the "extrajudicial killing" of people the president designates as terrorists or terrorist "suspects."

In keeping with the simultaneous perversion of language and culture, it's misleading to refer to systematic torture as an "interrogation technique", "enhanced" or otherwise.

Unlike what you see on "24", or what you hear when our unelected representatives discuss the "merits" and "necessity" of "enhanced interrogation", torture is not typically used to extract information. This is the conclusion drawn by the legal team at Seton Hall which has been studying unclassified DoD records, based on the finding that most of the detainees in Guantanamo were "interrogated" once a month on a regular schedule.

If you had a detainee in your custody who you thought had information that could prevent an imminent terrorist attack, and you only interrogated him once a month, you'd be derelict in your duty. And it's very unlikely that you'd remain in your position. So let's be clear about the Bush administration's use of torture: it's an instrument of dominance and control, it's a tool of humiliation and degradation, it's a source of sadistic pleasure, and if openly proclaimed it has a chilling effect on domestic dissent. But it's not a source of actionable intelligence.

Indeed, under the Bush administration, no "intelligence" is "actionable" anyway, nor is it intended as such. Each bit of "intelligence" is simply a public relations item, fixed around a previously determined policy. And torture helps to produce even more public relations items. So they have all these reasons -- in their eyes -- to do it, and no reason -- again in their eyes -- not to do it.

The "logic" is simple: unencumbered by moral and ethical questions about deliberately and needlessly inflicting pain and fear on defenseless and possibly innocent people, the torturers just ask themselves: "Can anybody stop me?"

The highest officials of the Bush Administration have gone to enormous lengths to twist, pervert and destroy legal precepts that have been in force in Anglo-American law for centuries -- precisely because they know that their policies are criminal under any reasonable understanding of the law. Bush, and the likely prime mover of the torture regime, longtime authoritarian Dick Cheney, were told at the very beginning that the policies they were instigating would leave them and their minions open to criminal charges. That's why the Administration's legal hacks have devoted so much relentless attention on subverting the Geneva Conventions, which are incorporated into and have the full force of American law.

And this is why the Bush "legal" approach is at once so brilliant and so dangerous: if an act recognized worldwide as heinous can be excused based on the proclaimed intention of the perpetrator, then all rules are off, for selected perpetrators.

Bush and his minions know that if the rule of law is ever restored -- even partially and imperfectly -- they will be rightly be subject to prosecution, imprisonment and possibly even execution.

Execution seems most certain in my cold view; it also seems pitifully inadequate, even though the number of minions who would be endangered by such a restoration of law is almost impossible to overestimate.

And this is why torture is the core issue -- perhaps the only real issue -- in the presidential campaign. Iraq is not really an issue; whoever wins, the war will go on, in one form or another. Even under the so-called withdrawal plans of the "progressive" candidates, Americans will be killing and dying in Iraq for years to come. As for the economy, by their own admission none of the presidential aspirants will do anything more than tinker around the edges of the present rapacious system -- an unholy marriage of crony capitalism and corporate socialism that has devastated America's communities, left millions with harsher, diminished lives, corrupted civic society and degraded and homogenized American culture. For the elite factions that thrive on war profits and the brutal economic structure, none of the candidates represents a serious enough threat for any action -- beyond the usual lying, sabotage, vote-rigging and media manipulation to get their favorite into power, of course.

But torture is a different matter. Consider how many very powerful people -- and hundreds of their minions -- face very serious charges if the next president decides to apply the law. Will they really allow this to happen? Or even risk allowing this to happen?

Right now, the torturers control the military and the security apparatus, including many secret forces and units that we know little or nothing about. They have already used these assets to launch a war of aggression, to instigate a system of torture, to spy without restraint on the American people, and to imprison anyone in the world they claim is a terrorist. Why should we imagine that they will draw the line at using these assets to save themselves from prison -- or the poison needle?

Several wars of aggression, now that I think about it. It has seemed to some people -- and it still seems quite possible to me -- that they might even use these assets to stage "another 9/11" in order to prevent another "democratic" election.

It would seem then that the Bush Administration has only two choices: cut a deal with the candidates on torture -- or eliminate them from the race, one way or another.

A potential third choice then would be to eliminate the election itself. But this would be a drastic step which might engender resistance. It may be difficult to imagine whence or from whom such resistance might come, but surely a smoother path to absolute tyranny must seem safer and more secure to the tyrants. So it stands to reason that they would try to hold an "election" if at all possible, under carefully controlled conditions, of course.

If they lost control of the conditions, the balance might tip differently. But for now, at least, it seems we ought to pay attention to the candidates.

It goes without saying that John McCain will do nothing but revel in the authoritarian powers brought into the open by Bush; certainly it is inconceivable that he would ever prosecute the instigators of the Bush torture regime. Thus the focus here falls on the winner of the Democratic nomination.

It is Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton who will have to come to terms with the Bush team on torture. (If they have not already done so, that is. Given the intimate, growing personal ties between the Bushes and the Clintons, one could plausibly surmise that Clinton at least has already signalled her benevolent intentions on this point. But perhaps not. The true relations of our ruling families remain forever obscured from the rabble. Meanwhile, Obama is clearly leaning in the "right" direction, as noted here, although he retains a little wiggle room; perhaps he's not yet sealed the deal.)

It may still be possible to imagine Barack Obama as a "stealth candidate" -- something like George W. Bush in reverse. As you may remember, Bush promised to be "a uniter, not a divider" who would run a "humble foreign policy". We now know that his intention was just the opposite. And it may be true that Bush never would have been elected if the electorate understood what he really wanted. (He was never legitimately elected anyway, but who's counting?)

For a while four years ago I entertained fantasies of John Kerry as a stealth candidate. "It's all tactical," I told myself. "He's trying to outflank Bush on the side of more war because he thinks he can win that way. Then he'll stop the war." But it was always obvious that Kerry meant what he said. He didn't want to end the war. He didn't even want to win the election. Kerry as a "stealth candidate" had been a foolish if hopeful illusion.

This time around, Barack Obama doesn't seem particularly committed to restoring the rule of law or holding the Bush administration accountable for obvious crimes against the nation and against humanity. Why is this? Is it because he really doesn't care? Or is it because he's a "stealth candidate" who knows he can't speak freely about anything this serious and remain a viable and visible presidential candidate?

But what if he wins? Will he then reveal a different agenda? In other words, is Barack Obama secretly riding in on a white horse? Chris Floyd doesn't imagine him coming to the rescue of the republic anytime soon.

In the most benign scenario for these negotiations, perhaps some small fry will be offered up as a PR sop for the victor. Just as Scooter Libby took the fall for Karl Rove (in another obvious backroom deal), we might see John Yoo or that despised putz-for-all-seasons, Doug Feith, put on trial, while Bush, Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Condi Rice and the other "principals" go free.

But it is much more likely that any acknowledgement of criminality will be unacceptable to the torturers. It would establish a principle -- or rather, re-establish a principle -- that would forever leave them open to future prosecution.

And this is precisely the point. They have gone so far to defeat the rule of law -- and to discredit the notion that the rule of law is a good thing -- that they would earnestly wish to avoid seeing it take root again in any form -- on principle and as a matter of existential necessity.

So again, we come down to a stark choice for the Democratic candidate: either agree to "move on" from "bitter partisan rancor" over "enhanced interrogation techniques" -- or else. There are of course several ways to eliminate someone from public life; the tools have been refined somewhat since the days when "lone gunmen" stalked the land, removing inconvenient figures.

Is Obama thinking like this, too? Does he imagine he could become president by slipping under the radar with secret plans to make all the criminals accountable after his inauguration? And if so, what then? With such "treasonous" ideas, how long could he stay in the Oval Office? How long could he stay alive?

Those audacious enough to harbor some hope may be working overtime by now.

But given the proven nature of the Bush team -- and the dire consequences they face from any normal, rightful application of the law -- we should assume that they will do whatever it takes to escape those consequences.

And that's why torture is the decisive issue of this campaign. But this decision will not be in the hands of the voters; it will be made -- as most of the decisions that govern our lives are made -- in the inner sanctums of elite power.

And that means, unless I am much mistaken, that the key decisions are already made.

We would never have been led down this evil road if we were meant to turn back.

Oh no. The big decisions were made years ago. All the rest has been implementation.

Hungry President Devours Tasty Morsel Without Delay

As expected, our hungry president has wasted no time in devouring the tasty morsel offered up by Congress this weekend. As usual, the feast was garnished with a dollop of Orwellian nonsense.

As reported by the AP via USA Today,

CAMP DAVID, Md. (AP) — President Bush on Sunday signed into law an expansion of the government's power to eavesdrop on foreign terror suspects without the need for warrants.

The law, approved by the Senate and the House just before Congress adjourned for its summer break, was deemed a priority by Bush and his chief intelligence officials.

Bush signed the bill into law on Sunday afternoon at his retreat at Camp David, Md.

The power-feast brings to a close another tidy series of seemingly well-orchestrated events. The House passed the bill late Saturday night, after the Senate passed it on Friday night, after the president and his charming representative, Dana Perrino, threatened to cancel their summer vacation.

Thus are Congressional priorities and motivations revealed. And now for the dollop:

"When our intelligence professionals have the legal tools to gather information about the intentions of our enemies, America is safer," Bush said. "And when these same legal tools also protect the civil liberties of Americans, then we can have the confidence to know that we can preserve our freedoms while making America safer."

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to notice that all this blather is conditional. Hypothetical. When this, When that ...

But listen: When do the same legal tools that authorize warrantless surveillance -- in direct contravention of the Fourth Amendment -- protect the civil liberties of Americans?

How could that ever happen?

How can broadening a program that allows secret wiretapping protect anyone's civil liberties?

Other than those of the unitary executive, of course.

Civil liberties groups and many Democrats say it goes too far, possibly enabling the government to wiretap U.S. residents communicating with overseas parties without adequate oversight from courts or Congress.

Possibly? One cannot help but laugh at the weakness of the so-called protests. This law will definitely enable the government to wiretap U.S. residents -- and foreigners -- communicating with anyone at all (or even communicating with nobody -- just sending themselves reminders via email!). And there will be no oversight at all from courts or Congress.

The new law has been sold and passed as a vital tool in the fight against terrorism, but al-Q'aeda terrorists, trained in CIA-style tradecraft, meet in person for critical communications since they know their phone and email channels are insecure. So the new law's anti-terrorist implications will be quite limited.

But law-abiding American citizens are not nearly so circumspect. And aside from its negligible anti-terrorist implications, the new law will allow the government to wiretap any and all political opponents -- or as the administration considers them, "enemies" -- without even leaving a paper trail behind.

It's quite a tasty feast indeed. But as always when feeding the hunger for power, each meal only serves to increase the appetite. Thus, according to the administration, the new law doesn't go far enough, or last long enough, so it will have to be renewed, and expanded, again and again and again ...

Bush wants deeper, permanent changes.

"We must remember that our work is not done," Bush prodded.

And that's exactly right.

There's always an element of truth in the spin, and this is our truth for today:

Their work is not done, and it never will be.

Eliminating the inalienable rights of 300 million people is a big job.

It's hard work.

This is going to be a long war.

Federal Appeals Court Says Warrantless Wiretaps Can Continue

A divided federal appeals court today dismissed a case challenging the National Security Agency’s program to wiretap without warrants the international communications of some Americans, reversing a trial judge’s order that the program be shut down.

The majority in a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, ruled on a narrow ground, saying the plaintiffs, including lawyers and journalists, could not show injury direct and concrete enough to allow them to have standing to sue.

Because it is extremely difficult to show concrete injury from the highly classified program, the effect of the ruling was to insulate the program from judicial scrutiny in ordinary federal courts.

All this and more from Adam Liptak of the New York Times.

The majority did not rule on the merits of the case, though the appeals judge who wrote the lead opinion, Alice M. Batchelder, said the case provoked “a cascade of serious questions.” Those questions included whether the program violated a 1978 law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, along with Constitution’s First and Fourth Amendments.

But Judge Batchelder was implicitly critical of the decision last year by Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of the Federal District Court in Detroit, whose ruling striking down the program was stayed during the appeals. “The district court answered all of these questions in the affirmative,” Judge Batchelder wrote, “and imposed an injunction of the broadest possible scope.”

A second appeals court judge, Julia Smith Gibbons, concurred in the judgment dismissing the case but did not join in Judge Batchelder’s extensive and technical discussion of whether the plaintiffs had standing to sue. Judge Gibbons agreed, however, that the case turned “upon the single fact that the plaintiffs have failed to provide evidence that they are personally subject to the program.”

This is what's become of our "justice system". If you can't prove they're spying on you, you have no right to challenge them for spying on other people.

This warrantless spying program is clearly illegal, and the president has proclaimed his intention of continuing it regardless of any ruling from any court. Where does he get the legal standing to do that?

And meanwhile, nobody else has legal standing to challenge him? And all because the illegal warrantless spying program is so highly classified?

The most ridiculous aspect of this travesty is often overlooked: FISA warrants -- the warrants the president insists on doing without -- are easy to get! The government can even apply for the warrant after they start the wiretap. So when the president says he needs to work outside the FISA structure, he's blowing smoke.

But FISA warrants leave a paper trail, and that's one of the things the president is trying to avoid. The other thing he's trying to avoid is any form of accountability under the law. And he's getting away with it -- on what amounts to not much more than a technicality.

Another fine thought for a Friday afternoon.

Court Head-Slaps Chimp, Appeal Is Certain

The Chimp Administration never takes "NO" for an answer, no matter where it comes from, and especially if the source happens to be a court of law. "Rule of Law is for the weak, and we are strong," his chimperial drunkenness maintains, "therefore the rule of law is our enemy and we must fight it wherever possible." Which explains virtually every aspect of the administration's policies about virtually everything.

If I were able to blog full-speed, I would be writing reams about yesterday's court decision, which was reported by Adam Liptak of the New York Times as follows:

In a stinging rejection of one of the Bush administration’s central assertions about the scope of executive authority to combat terrorism, a federal appeals court ordered the Pentagon to release a man being held as an enemy combatant.

“To sanction such presidential authority to order the military to seize and indefinitely detain civilians," Judge Diana Gribbon Motz wrote, “even if the President calls them ‘enemy combatants,’ would have disastrous consequences for the Constitution — and the country.”

As Carol D. Leonnig of the Washington Post reported,

Civil libertarians who championed Marri's case had warned that if the administration prevailed in its argument, the military could next round up U.S. citizens and jail them without trial. The court appeared to agree.

"The President cannot eliminate constitutional protections with the stroke of a pen by proclaiming a civilian, even a criminal civilian, an enemy combatant subject to indefinite military detention," the panel found.

Back to Adam Liptak of the NYT:

“We refuse to recognize a claim to power,” Judge Motz added, “that would so alter the constitutional foundations of our Republic.”

The ruling was handed down by a divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., in the case of Ali al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar and the only person on the American mainland known to be held as an enemy combatant.

Mr. Marri, whom the government calls a sleeper agent for Al Qaeda, was arrested on Dec. 12, 2001, in Peoria, Ill., where he was living with his family and studying computer science at Bradley University.

He has been held for the last four years at the Navy Brig in Charleston, S.C.

Judge Motz wrote that Mr. Marri may well be guilty of serious crimes. But she said that the government cannot circumvent the civilian criminal justice system through military detention.

Mr. Marri was charged with credit-card fraud and lying to federal agents after his arrest in 2001, and he was on the verge of a trial on those charges when he was moved into military detention in 2003.

The government contended, in a partly declassified declaration from a senior defense intelligence official, Jeffrey N. Rapp, that Mr. Marri was a Qaeda sleeper agent sent to the United States to commit mass murder and disrupt the banking system.

Two other men have been held as enemy combatants on the American mainland since the Sept. 11 attacks. One, Yaser Hamdi, was freed and sent to Saudi Arabia after the United States Supreme Court allowed him to challenge his detention in 2004.

The other, Jose Padilla, was transferred to the criminal justice system last year just as the Supreme Court was considering whether to review his case. He is now on trial on terrorism charges in federal court in Miami.

The Jose Padilla saga is a full indictment of the so-called GWOT and our so-called legal system, all by itself. This decision will do nothing for him. And neither will it effect the goings-on at Gitmo, much less the clandestine CIA torture facilities that we still don't know much about.

The decision does not appear to affect the rights of men held at the American naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Judge Motz stressed that the court analysis was limited to those who have substantial connections to the United States and are seized and detained within its borders.

A dissenting judge in today’s decision, Henry E. Hudson, visiting from the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, wrote that President Bush “had the authority to detain al-Marri as an enemy combatant or belligerent” because “he is the type of stealth warrior used by Al Qaeda to perpetrate terrorist acts against the United States.”

Henry E. Hudson needs to wash his brain out with soap. There is no provision anywhere in our Constitution or in any other other civilized legal system that gives the president -- or anyone else -- the authority to detain people indefinitely without charge or hearing, based on anything -- let alone an uncorroborated accusation that the person being held is of a certain "type".

Jonathan Hafetz, the litigation director of the Liberty and National Security Project of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law and one of Mr. Marri’s lawyers, said of the court’s decision: “This is landmark victory for the rule of law and a defeat for unchecked executive power. It affirms the basic constitutional rights of all individuals — citizens and immigrants - in the United States.”

Let's not get carried away, Jonathan. It is a step in the right direction, but it is a very minor step -- one sure to be appealed forever and a day -- and it doesn't really guarantee anything, especially given the Chimp administration's track record when it comes to compliance with legal strictures.

Writing for the majority, Judge Motz ordered the trial judge in the case to issue a writ of habeas corpus directing the Pentagon “within a reasonable period of time” to do one of several things with Mr. Marri. He may be charged in the civilian court system; he may be deported; or he may be held as a material witness; or he may be released.

“But military detention of al-Marri,” Judge Motz wrote, “must cease.”

We'll see how long it takes for them to get around to complying. Who decides what constitutes "a reasonable period of time"? The Pentagon itself?

And what happens if the Pentagon fails to issue such a writ "within a reasonable period of time"? I'm certainly not planning to hold my breath.

For a much more thorough treatment of this case and the issues it raises, please visit Chris Floyd's excellent site, Empire Burlesque, and read what he has to say about this. I'll get you started:

Now we've got something going on. Now there's a little something to play for. This ruling draws a clear line in the sand on one of George W. Bush's most egregious abuses of the illegitimate power he was given (by the courts) in 2000: his self-proclaimed, arbitrary, unchecked right to designate anyone he pleases an "enemy combatant" and keep them locked up indefinitely in military detention.

Now it seems certain that the case will reach the Supreme Court, and we will have a clear-cut answer at last: Are we still a semblance of a Republic, where our liberties are inalienable – or is our freedom simply the "gift" of an autocrat (elected or otherwise), who can bestow it or take it away at his own will?

Please go read the rest. Click a few links, too.

No problem; you can thank me later.

Do The Hokey Pokey: Spin Takes Over As Bush Threatens To Veto Senate Intel Bill

The Senate is trying to pass a bill which would make the White House and the nation's secret intelligence agencies a bit more responsive to their only source of "legitimate" funding, the US Congress.

Apparently the bill is so onerous that it can't be nullified by a simple presidential signing statement, so Bush is taking the unusual step of threatening to veto it.

Why? Katherine Shrader of AP spells out the administration's objections
in TIME magazine:

Bush Threatens Intel Bill Veto

(WASHINGTON) — President Bush is threatening to veto a Senate intelligence bill laced with provisions that would force the White House and spy agencies to be more responsive to Congress.

In a policy statement released Thursday, Bush's advisers said the bill fails to provide enough money, "with sufficient flexibility," to adequately pay for spying operations.

It's the same old Bush line: Can the restrictions, just give us the money. We've seen it over and over and over, but lately it's been more blatant than ever.

The Senate has struggled for two years to pass a spending blueprint for the roughly $45 billion-a-year spying budget. Senate Intelligence Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., made the legislation a top priority when he took over in January. "These provisions are all intended to improve our ability to make decisions, leading to better intelligence for the military and policy makers," Rockefeller said on the Senate floor.

If only it worked that way! Most of the time the policy makers decide what they want to do, then they go about gathering "intelligence" to "justify" their chosen course. This is the norm even for a reality-based government. But for a government that claims to make its own reality, it's only a starting point. It's a very serious point for Georgie the Boy Chimperor, though:

Among the provisions in the intelligence bill that the Bush Administration rejects:

Yearly disclosure of the total amount spent on intelligence. The Administration has long argued that releasing the figures would be a threat to national security.

Well that all depends on what you mean by national security, doesn't it? If by "national security" you mean the use of unaccountable secret funds for unaccountable secret purposes then by all means releasing the figures would be a threat. Not much of a threat, since the vast majority of the annual intelligence budget comes not from Congressional or Presidential appropriation, but from the international market of heroin, cocaine, and other delicacies. We're not supposed to know about that, by the way. We weren't supposed to know how much poppy was being grown in southeast Asia thirty-five or forty years ago, either. Just one more happy coincidence?

When lawmakers with jurisdiction ask for intelligence assessments and other information, the bill requires spy chiefs to turn the materials over within 15 days. The measure "would foster political gamesmanship and elevate routine disagreements to the level of constitutional crises," the Administration says.

It would only elevate the disagreements to the level of a crisis -- constitutional or otherwise -- if the agency in question refused its legal requirement to share the information it had been collecting at taxpayer expense! (well, partially, anyway.) Who do these people work for? Not the ones who pay them. Did you ever notice that? There's your constitutional crisis!

A mandate that the White House brief all members of the intelligence committees on extraordinarily sensitive matters — not just Congressional and intelligence committee leaders, as is often the practice now.

As well-documented by our friend Larisa Alexandrovna, the current practice consists of bottlenecking the intelligence to as few people as possible.

Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush issued an order to the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State Department, and his cabinet members that severely curtailed intelligence oversight by restricting classified information to just eight members of Congress.

"The only Members of Congress whom you or your expressly designated officers may brief regarding classified or sensitive law enforcement information," he writes, "are the Speaker of the House, the House Minority Leader, the Senate Majority and Minority Leaders, and the Chairs and Ranking Members of the Intelligence Committees in the House and Senate."

The order is aimed at protecting "military security" and "sensitive law enforcement."

But what was said to be an effort to protect the United States became a tool by which the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Pat Roberts (R-KS) ensured there was no serious investigation into how the administration fixed the intelligence that took the United States to war in Iraq or the fabricated documents used as evidence to do so.

Coupled with limited access to intelligence documents, RAW STORY has found that Roberts and a handful of other strategically-placed Washington players stymied all questions into pre-war intelligence on Iraq and post-invasion cover-ups, including the outing of a CIA covert agent, by using targeted leaks and artfully deflecting blame from the White House.

Why would they do this? The easier to control the spin? Who can tell? ... In fact anyone can tell who has half a dozen brain cells to rub together and the inclination to use more than three of them at the same time. In so many cases the brain cells are not in question, but the inclination seems to have evaporated, or should I say vaporized, along with key pieces of steel on the morning of 9/11.

TIME continues:

Required reports on interrogation activities and secret prisons, which the Administration says would raise "grave constitutional issues" and jeopardize sensitive information that should not be widely distributed.

Grave constitutional issues indeed, such as how and why can he current occupants of the White House possibly remain there? And if they do, how and why can the Constitution be considered still in effect? And as a side note, do the answers to these questions reflect badly on the classification of the USA as a civilized country?

Oh no, that was rhetorical. Of course they don't. The answers to these questions don't matter in the slightest. The mere fact that they must be asked shows clearly that the USA is no longer a civilized country.

Creation of a statutory inspector general for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence who would have the power to direct watchdogs in any of the 16 spy agencies. The Administration says the existing watchdogs are best suited to do the job without "dysfunctional interference" from the proposed new inspector general.

The so-called "dysfunctional interference" wouldn't be so dysfunctional if it could interfere with the dysfunctional habit of providing the White House with the intelligence that it wants, cherry picked and all sexed up to provide the basis for the spin that will provide the basis for the illusion that there is any support at all for whatever the administration has already decided to do. Make that what country the administration has decided to attack next. Maybe it wouldn't be so dysfunctional if it made sure that sensitive documents got translated accurately, and in a timely fashion. And maybe it wouldn't be dysfunctional at all if it ensured that investigations into possible terrorists training or living in the USA were followed up rather than suppressed. But then the real terrorists would surely see it as "interference" and it might make them a bit "dysfunctional" and that must be why Bush is threatening to veto the bill. Or could it be

A requirement that the heads of the National Security Agency, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and National Reconnaissance Office be subject to Senate confirmation, as well as the CIA's deputy director. The Administration calls that unnecessary.

Given the past six years, it's fair to say that the administration sees any attempt at oversight by either of the other two branches of government as not only unnecessary but thoroughly unacceptable, and that's just oversight, let alone the quaint constitutional notion of checks and balances.

In fact the current administration seems to find unacceptable and unnecessary everything it is supposed to protect and defend, such as the Constitution, the well-being of the nation, and even -- perhaps most especially -- the sanctity of truth in a rational view of the world. Instead we now live in a bizarre web of lies in which it's almost always a safe bet that whatever any representative of the administration says is the exact inverse of a current and perhaps somewhat controversial truth.

In other words, if you want to know what's going on, listen carefully to what they say, and assume the opposite.

Kids know this better than adults, or so it seems:

You do the Hokey Pokey and you turn yourself around. That's what it's all about.