Today's Fresh Blogs...

• Contempt Of Everyone Dept.: Breaking: Was Gonzales... Less Than Truthful???

  Published: July 26, 2007, 11:30 am

  Tags: Alberto Gonzales, Contempt Of Everyone Dept, John Negroponte, Letters, Lies, Warrantless Wiretapping

  In the first reported case ever of John Negroponte being vaguely (if inadvertently) involved in something that could, in the long run, maybe be vaguely good for democracy, a letter from him presents...

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• FISA "Reform": What's the Rush?

  Published: July 31, 2007, 5:30 pm

  Tags: Nsa, Warrantless Wiretapping, Alberto Gonzales

  The changes include allowing warrantless wiretapping of Americans on American soil, so long as someone on the other end is a target in a foreign country.  Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell misleadingly states that the problem is that they need "to obtain court orders to collect foreign intelligence about foreign targets

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• FISA "Reform": Stop the Rush to Amend

  Published: August 1, 2007, 6:10 pm

  Tags: Fisa, Warrantless Wiretapping, Alberto Gonzales

  administration on domestic wiretapping, of all things. Stop this train before it wrecks completely.

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• Darcy Burner Takes on the FISA Dems

  Published: August 8, 2007, 9:55 pm

  Tags: Wa 08, Darcy Burner, Fisa, Warrantless Wiretapping

  listening either. The warrantless wiretapping bill won’t make us safer, but it will strip us of the rights so many of our families have fought to preserve, including mine."

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• Domestic spying cases on tap today

  Published: August 15, 2007, 1:07 pm

  Tags: Fisa, Warrantless Wiretapping, Domestic Spying, Nsa

  NSA's (previously) illegal warrantless domestic surveillance programs. How's it looking? Here's case one: In 2003, Room 641A of a large telecommunications building in downtown San Francisco was filled with powerful data-mining equipment for a "special job" by the National Security Agency, according to a former AT&T technician. It was

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• Whose Deadline Is It Anyway?

  Published: August 20, 2007, 7:32 pm

  Tags: Patrick Leahy, Fred Fielding, Warrantless Wiretapping

  for information on the warrantless domestic wiretapping program, Senator Patrick Leahy's office had a four-word response: The deadline is 2:30. And so it was.  And naturally the administration once again refused to comply, so this afternoon Senator Leahy held a press conference and boldly proclaimed: When the Senate comes back in

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• The Warrantless Debate Over Wiretapping

  Published: August 21, 2007, 11:35 pm

  Tags: Domestic Spying, Source Ny Times, Warrantless Wiretapping

  an unstated assumption that warrantless surveillance is lawless surveillance. There is, however, judicial precedent for warrantless searches, even if you can't tell this from the public debate. The president of the American Bar Association objected to the new statute by sarcastically observing, The last time I checked, the Fourth Amendment is

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• Checks and balances?

  Published: September 7, 2007, 11:48 am

  Tags: George W Bush, Warrantless Wiretapping, Domestic Spying, Data Mining, National Security Letters, Advise, Presidential Records Act

  One of the most valuable but least mourned traditions destroyed by the George W. Bush administration is the quaint notion that the government won't do stuff that's against the law. It used to be the case that Congress could outlaw something, and by virtue of it being outlawed, it could safely be assumed that -- for the most part, at least --

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• Your Privacy Helps The Terrorists: Your telephone company wants the government ...

  Published: September 20, 2007, 11:56 am

  Tags: At Amp T, Lawsuits, Privacy, Telcos, Terror, Warrantless Wiretapping, Your Privacy Helps The Terrorists

  Your telephone company wants the government to forbid you from suing them for cooperating with said government in spying on you. All the lobbyists are Bush family connected, except the ones who are...

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• Your Privacy Helps The Terrorists: Your telephone company wants the government ...

  Published: September 20, 2007, 11:56 am

  Tags: At Amp T, Lawsuits, Privacy, Telcos, Terror, Warrantless Wiretapping, Your Privacy Helps The Terrorists

  Your telephone company wants the government to forbid you from suing them for cooperating with said government in spying on you. All the lobbyists are Bush family connected, except the ones who are Democrats. But have you seen those new Wes Anderson AT&T ads? [Newsweek]

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• Worth Losing Elections Over

  Published: October 9, 2007, 11:59 am

  Tags: Warrantless Wiretapping, Democrats, Nsa, Fisa

  I’ve no tolerance for what is happening to our civil liberties in the name of Homeland Security. None. To me, the ceding of rights to a government in the hopes that it can protect us from unnamed evils is not only unacceptable, but it goes against the grain of those principles upon which this country was founded. I don’t

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• You live in a Banana Republic

  Published: October 11, 2007, 9:00 pm

  Tags: Nsa, Domestic Spying, Warrantless Wiretapping, Fisa, Qwest, Joseph Nacchio

  This is a huge and wide-ranging story. Let me see if I can draw upon some of what's already been written about it to compress it into a manageable narrative. OK, first there's this: The National Security Agency and other government agencies retaliated against Qwest because the Denver telco refused to go along with a phone spying program,

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• Congress suckered on surveillance. Telco immunity, next?

  Published: October 13, 2007, 6:12 pm

  Tags: Fisa, Domestic Spying, Terrorism, Warrantless Wiretapping, Nsa

  as the main impetus for its warrantless surveillance efforts. And, as the Wired blog reports: Qwest CEO Not Alone in Alleging NSA Started Domestic Phone Record Program 7 Months Before 9/11 By Ryan Singel October 12, 2007 4:23:55 PMCategories: NSA, Surveillance Startling statements from former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio's defense documents

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• What Would Frank Church Do?

  Published: October 24, 2007, 4:50 pm

  Tags: Fisa, Frank Church, Forrest Church, Church Committee, Warrantless Wiretapping

  that our current version of warrantless spying never be investigated by granting the telecoms amnesty for their activities. What we don't have in 2007 is a fourth estate, in large part, that has the principle and the gumption to fill it's role exposing government abuses. Partly as a result, we also don't have an electorate that is shocked and

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• Stopping Telecom Amnesty

  Published: October 24, 2007, 2:05 pm

  Tags: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Fisa, Warrantless Wiretapping

  act of Bush law-breaking -- warrantless eavesdropping and illegal spying on millions of Americans -- will not only go unpunished, but will also remain un-investigated forever. Telecom amnesty will provide Bush and Cheney with full and virtually insurmountable protection from any consequences for their illegal spying. Sitting around hiding on

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