Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who has figured prominently in recent political news for his attempts to begin impeachment hearings against President George W. Bush, today announced that the congressional subcommittee he chairs will look into reports of peace groups being surveilled by police and private investigators.
“[M]ost people would be upset to know that police were spying on lawful citizens and infiltrating peaceful organizations, rather than chasing down real criminals,” said Kucinich in a press release delivered to RAW STORY. “At a minimum, such police spying is clearly a waste of taxpayer dollars and a diversion from the mission of protecting and serving the people.
“I want the subcommittee to determine how widespread these activities are and who ordered them,” the Ohio Democrat and former presidential candidate said.
Kucinich chairs the House Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
The press release referred to reports that Maryland state police officers infiltrated peace and anti-death penalty groups and that private investigators working on behalf of “several large corporations” had surveilled environmental groups.
Such surveillance is apparently not limited to law enforcement and private investigators. In January 2007, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released a report showing “widespread Pentagon surveillance of peace activists.”
The House has sent articles of impeachment against George Bush to the House Judiciary Committee, however Speaker Nancy Pelosi now says that an actual impeachment VOTE isn’t on the table. On Wednesday’s Countdown, Jonathan Turley gives his expert analysis on this epic fail as well as the latest attempt by the president to obstruct Congressional oversight by claiming executive privilege in the CIA/Plame leak investigation.
As for Bush’s executive privilege claims, Turley goes right for the jugular. Attorney General Michael Mukasey all but begged the president not to make him testify about Dick Cheney’s role in the Plame case and has ignored a subpoena to appear to testify about the matter before Congress — which Turley says should prompt Congress to charge him with Inherent Contempt. That’s not likely to happen, and as Jonathan points out, Democrats who voted for Mukasey are now getting what they paid for:
“…This is why, when Senators Shumer and Feinstein saved Mukasey’s confirmation, this is what they purchased. And, what Congress needs to do, the only thing they can do, is bring back Inherent Contempt and to say they’re going to start to exercise contempt on their own, that the deal is off. Attorney General Mukasey has broken a very long standing promise to be a faithful broker, to bring these cases to the grand jury - he won’t. And Congress has a right to now say we’re going back to doing this stuff ourselves.”
A federal court has issued two rulings, the New York Times reports: One favoring President Bush’s indefinite detentions of “enemy combatants,” and another granting one of said “enemy combatants” the opportunity to challenge his detention in court.
The court effectively ruled that President Bush has the same right to indefinitely detain a civilian on American soil as he does an enemy soldier on a battlefield.
Ali al-Marri, the only “enemy combatant” to be held in the continental United States, is in military custody in Charleston, South Carolina. He was arrested in Peoria, Illinois on December 12, 2001 on charges of credit card fraud and lying to federal agents before being sent to Charleston in 2003. A 5-4 majority of the United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit, said that a sworn statement from an intelligence official as the government’s sole testimony in an earlier proceeding was “inadequate.” The official, Jeffrey N. Rapp, said that al-Marri was an al-Qaeda sleeper agent whose objective in the United States was to “commit mass murder and disrupt the banking system.”
The other ruling effectively reverses an earlier ruling by a three-judge panel with the same court that ordered that al-Marri be either charged with a crime or released.
Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse, saying that al-Marri had “already received all the process he was due,” added that the decision recognize the president’s authority to “capture and detain [al-Qaeda] agents who, like the 9/11 hijackers, come to this country to commit or facilitate warlike acts against American civilians.”
“This decision,” countered Jonathan L. Hafetz, counsel for al-Marri, means the president can pick up any person in the country–citizen or legal resident–and lock them up for years without the most basic safeguard in the Constitution, the right to a criminal trial.”
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is considering letting the FBI investigate Americans without any evidence of wrongdoing, relying instead on a terrorist profile that could single out Muslims, Arabs or other racial and ethnic groups.
urrently, FBI agents need reasons — such as evidence or allegations that a law probably has been violated — to investigate citizens and legal residents. The new policy, law enforcement officials say, would let agents open terrorism investigations after mining public records and intelligence to build a profile of traits that, taken together, are deemed suspicious.
Although President George W. Bush has disavowed targeting suspects based on their race or ethnicity, the new rules would let the FBI consider those factors among traits that could trigger a national security investigation.
Among factors that could make someone subject of an investigation is travel to regions of the world known for terrorist activity, access to weapons or military training, along with the person’s race or ethnicity. Law enforcement officials say the policy would help them find terrorists before they strike.
“We don’t know what we don’t know. And the object is to cut down on that,” said one FBI official.
FBI agents wouldn’t be allowed to eavesdrop on phone calls or dig deeply into personal data — such as the content of phone or e-mail records or bank statements — until a full investigation was opened.
More than a half-dozen senior FBI, Justice Department and other U.S. intelligence officials familiar with the new policy agreed to discuss it on condition of anonymity.
The change, expected later this summer, is part of an update of Justice Department policies amid the FBI’s transition from traditional crime fighting to protecting the nation from attacks. Attorney General Michael Mukasey acknowledged the overhaul was under way in early June.
If adopted, the guidelines would be put in place in the final months of a presidential administration that has been dogged by criticism that its counterterrorism programs trample privacy rights and civil liberties.
Critics say the presumption of innocence is lost in the proposal. The FBI could begin investigations simply “by assuming that everyone’s a suspect, and then you weed out the innocent,” said Caroline Fredrickson of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Courts across the country have overturned criminal convictions when defendants showed they were targeted based on race. Racial profiling generally is considered a civil rights violation, and former Attorney General John Ashcroft condemned it in March 2001 as an “unconstitutional deprivation of equal protection under our Constitution.”
Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the guidelines wouldn’t give the FBI more authority than it now has.
“Any review and change to the guidelines will reflect our traditional concerns for civil liberties and First Amendment liberties and our traditional investigative emphasis on using the least intrusive means feasible,” he said Wednesday.
Just days before the Senate will convene to give a final blessing to President Bush’s secret, warrantless wiretapping program, a federal court judge ruled that his legal justification for the surveillance has no legal merit.
He’s the same judge Congress is trying to save the nation’s telecoms, such as AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, from having to face in court.
Late Wednesday, U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn Walker issued a ruling (.pdf) in a case against the government alleging illegal spying, finding that in 1978 Congress had clearly set out the rules for wiretapping inside the United States and that Bush’s claims to have inherent authority outside of those rules did not pass Constitutional muster.
Congress appears clearly to have intended to — and did — establish the exclusive means for foreign intelligence surveillance activities to be conducted. Whatever power the executive may otherwise have had in this regard, FISA limits the power of the executive branch to conduct such activities and it limits the executive branch’s authority to assert the state secrets privilege in response to challenges to the legality of its foreign intelligence surveillance activities.
Walker, the chief judge of the Northern District of California, affirmed that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is the exclusive legal method for conducting surveillance inside the United States against suspected spies and terrorist. The Bush Administration argues that Congress’s vote to authorize military force against Al Qaeda and the president’s inherent war time powers were exceptions to the exclusivity provision.
Not so, according to Walker:
This provision and its legislative history left no doubt that Congress intended to displace entirely the various warrantless wiretapping and surveillance programs undertaken by the executive branch and to leave no room for the president to undertake warrantless surveillance in the domestic sphere in the future.
As Threat Level pointed out last night, the ruling is likely to have little real consequence other than embarrassing Congress for failing to have the courage to stand up to defend the laws it itself passed. Instead of holding hearings and sending subpoenas, Congress is set to largely legalize dragnet surveillance being set up inside American telecom infrastructure and to make it very clear that they are serious about stopping warrantless wiretapping, they are adding exclamation points to the exclusivity provision.
They will also likely give retroactive amnesty to telecom companies that agreed to illegal and sweeping surveillance requests from the same government agencies that dole out fat secret contracts to the very same telecom companies.
So thanks to Congress’s pending meddling with the courts in capitulation to the President, Vaughn Walker’s ruling is the closest we will likely come to a judicial ruling on the limits of presidential power to spy on Americans.
Judge Vaughn Walker is no raging San Francisco liberal. He was appointed to the bench by President George H W Bush, and is known for his intellect and libertarian streak.
Walker also ruled that the government’s claims that the case would endanger national security did not overrule the provisions of law that let a spied-upon person sue the government for breaking the law.
But Walker dismissed the underlying case, which was based on a Top Secret document accidentally provided to American lawyers for a Muslim charity that the government was in the process of designating as a terrorist organization. The plaintiffs have been barred from using the document to prove they were spied on and thus can not prove standing. If they can find another way to prove they were spied on, they can refile the suit.
He’s the same judge who’s overseeing all the cases against the telecoms.
When the Senate votes Tuesday, they are voting to keep Judge Walker from examining whether the nation’s largest telecoms massively violated federal privacy laws by helping the government spy on Americans.
The vote for or against amnesty not about whether telecoms participate in the future. In the future, they are supposed to get court orders — that’s the promise of the bill.
The planned July 8 vote is whether or not Americans can get justice for a violation of federal law, or whether some of the nation’s largest companies — and by extension, the nation’s highest elected officials — are above the law.
Transcript:
Some Democratic Leaders say Impeachment is off the table.
So, let us set a new table for our nation, upon which we place the Constitution and where we demand that all those who have taken an oath to defend it .. keep their promise and protect our nation from the threat within.
Please go to kucinich.us now and sign the petition, which calls for impeachment. This is the one petition that will make a difference because I will be delivering it personally to your member of congress. Please circulate word of this petition far and wide, to all your friends and family. This is the one opportunity that we have right now to actually change events in this country.
Two hundred and thirty-two years ago, our nation was conceived in liberty. We have once again reached a moment of truth, one that Lincoln recognized at Gettysburg as to whether “this nation or any nation so conceived or so dedicated can long endure”.
Through the ashes of war, Lincoln prayed that “this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom…and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
This Fourth of July, 2008, we face a different kind of war; one which is trying our souls.. a war based on lies. But with the power of truth and the power of the people we can achieve a new birth of freedom, standing up for what is good in America, insisting on the rule of law, demanding adherence to the Constitution, and supporting the impeachment of a President who lied to take us into a war against Iraq.
Be the answer to Lincoln’s Prayer. Please pledge your support now to restoring the rule of law in America. As we once again celebrate our Independence, let us celebrate freedom from fear and pledge that this government of the people will survive in this land that we love.
Please go to kucinich.us now. This is your chance to make a difference; truly celebrate our Independence. Thank you.
Four young residents of a North Philadelphia house who circulated petitions questioning police-surveillance cameras were rousted from their home Friday and detained 12 hours without charges while police searched their house.
Daniel Moffat, 28, a co-owner of the house, said police had no warrant when they entered. The house was examined by officials from several government agencies and then shuttered by the city’s Department of Licenses and Inspections.
“This leaves me homeless, without access to things I need. My whole life is disrupted,” Moffat said yesterday.
The raid on the property on Ridge Avenue near Parrish Street was led by 9th District Police Capt. Dennis Wilson, who was quoted in an online story by the City Paper as saying of the residents: “They’re a hate group. We’re trying to drum up charges against them, but unfortunately we’ll probably have to let them go.”
Reached yesterday by the Daily News, Wilson said he was unable to comment.
Police spokesman Lt. Frank Vanore said police had gone to the property because a nearby surveillance camera had been spray-painted and rendered inoperable, and interviews with neighbors led police to suspect that “people in this house were possibly involved.”
Vanore said that when Moffat and others declined to identify themselves and cooperate, police entered the property because “they had probable cause to believe there was trespassing or even burglarizing.”
Once inside, Vanore said, police saw things that prompted them to obtain a search warrant, such as protest literature, anti-police graffiti on walls, and the construction of what police thought might be a bunker on the roof.
Before the day ended, the property also was visited by members of the state police, the Fire Marshal’s Office, and the Philadelphia Housing Authority. Details of the story are in dispute.
Viewed from the sidewalk, the property doesn’t look inhabited. The first floor is a decrepit storefront covered by a metal gate. The second-floor windows are covered with plywood.
But Moffat said that since he and Robert Gilbert bought the place four years ago, they’ve repaired the roof and worked to restore the interior. Moffat said he and three friends who live there are active in the Francisville community, distributing free food at times and helping with a community garden. Co-owner Gilbert does not live there.
Moffat grew up in Southern California and attended San Francisco State University before moving to Philadelphia in 2003.
He said he isn’t a member of any political group, but he said he and others in the house recently circulated petitions that raised questions about the appearance of surveillance cameras in the neighborhood and about the beating of three suspects by police that was seen on a TV video.
Moffat said police did not mention damage to any surveillance camera when they arrived Friday morning. He said Wilson had told him police had received a complaint that the residents of the house were living there illegally.
Moffat said he had been intimidated by the presence of the officers and told Wilson, falsely, that he didn’t own the property, but could call the owner. He said he asked Wilson if he had a warrant, and none was produced.
Moffat said he was handcuffed and placed in a patrol car while police entered the building, began a search and arrested the other three residents. Moffat said once the search began and L&I officials were called, he told Wilson that he owned the property and could show him a deed inside, but that Wilson wasn’t interested. He asked what they were accused of.
“You’re not being charged,
you’re being investigated,” he said Wilson told him. At another point Wilson said, “call it a kidnapping.”
Then after about two hours, Moffat said, he was taken to jail.
“We’re going to do you a favor,” Moffat said Wilson told him. “It’s a very hot day, and we’re going to bring you down the district and put you in a cell so you don’t overheat.”
Moffat and his housemates weren’t released until after midnight. but Moffat said he was told the house was sealed, and they could only come in the next day with a police escort to retrieve personal belongings.
“When I got to my room, it had been thoroughly searched,” Moffat said. “All my photographs on the floor, all my filing cabinets emptied. It was a wreck. Some of the stuff from my room was in other rooms.”
Moffat said he was given a property receipt indicating his laptop computer is now in the possession of the State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation, Intelligence Division.
State Police spokeswoman Cpl. Linette Quinn said she didn’t know anything about the raid or whether state police had the computer.
“You have to talk to Philadelphia police,” she said.
Philadelphia police spokesman Vanore said he didn’t know why the state police were brought in, but said there may have been protest literature involving the issue of police-surveillance cameras in other states.
Vanore said when police entered the property, they saw anti-police graffiti on walls, including the phrase, “kill the pigs.” He said there was spray paint, including some that matched the color spayed on the police surveillance video.
And he said the structure on the roof “was similar to what we saw on Osage Avenue,” referring to the rooftop fortification built by the radical group MOVE before the 1985 confrontation that killed 11 people.
The bunker charge provoked a chuckle from Moffat.
“It’s a greenhouse,” he said.
Moffat said the anti-police graffiti was on the wall of an adjacent building accessible from his roof, he said, and it was there when they moved in.
Moffat said they had a box with some spray paint, since they’d been doing renovations. But he adamantly denied having anything to do with spraying the surveillance camera.
Kirk Dorn of the Philadelphia Housing Authority said the city called his agency to seal up the property because they’d determined it was unfit for human habitation. It didn’t have proper running water and had holes in walls and floors.
Moffat acknowledged that he didn’t have proper permits for renovations he was doing, but insisted that the place had running water and flushing toilets, and that any holes in floors were “tiny, where vents had been.”
Vanore said police will conduct a forensic examination of the items taken from the property to see if any charges are warranted.
Moffat and co-owner Gilbert said they’re exploring their legal options. Moffat is now staying with friends. *
By now, it is widely known that the Supreme Court has weighed in on the debate over the rights of the prisoners at Gitmo. The court has stated that the detainees’ habeas corpus rights (the protection against an indefinite detention without charges and a trial) ought to be respected.
Referring to the human beings who are still being detained at Guantanamo Bay, McCain stated, “These are people who are not citizens. They do not and never have been given the rights that citizens in this country have” (emphasis added).
So our rights are given to us? Interesting.
I might ask McCain at the out-set, since you apparently believe that only citizens have rights (presumably “given” to them in the Constitution) where exactly in text of the Constitution does the Constitution give this right the right of habeas corpus?
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You won’t find it. The Constitution only puts limits on the removal of habeas corpus, which implies that human beings possess this right naturally, and that habeas corpus is not some peculiar civil privilege, such as welfare, or some right that only citizens have, such as voting in our elections.
Similarly, human beings possess the rights in the Bill of Rights naturally, and as such, government is prevented from infringing upon them in the first ten amendments to the Constitution. But the rights are not granted by the government or the Constitution; we already had the rights as human beings!
I recommend that McCain read the Declaration of Independence. He has admitted that he is ignorant of economics, so perhaps he needs to brush up on his political theory and History, as well.
The Declaration of Independence declares the self-evident truth that God gave us our rights and that we are “endowed by our creator” with “unalienable rights,” such as, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Unalienable. Can’t be taken away. God-given natural rights. This is extremely important. Pay attention.
You see, if governments have “given” you “rights,” well then guess who can take them away at their will. Governments! McCain’s dangerous philosophy of rights as privileges is a recipe for tyranny. Government gives us our liberty? Is he serious? Well then that makes the state our god.
In reality, when something is granted, it is not a right at all. Something that is granted is, by nature, a mere privilege that can be revoked upon the whim of the entity which granted it–in this case, government…a scary notion, indeed.
A right, on the other hand, is unalienably possessed by somebody because he is the rightful owner of his life, liberty, and property. His own body, his thoughts, his decisions to move about, his money and possessions, etc.
These rights are his naturally. They are his property.
Rights are rooted in ownership of the property in question, and this very concept is God-ordained, thus we say that our rights are “God-given.”
They are NOT granted by government. They are NOT merely a privilege of citizenship.
Under the American philosophy of government where our rights are natural, or God-given, we have the power of free action that is limited only by the equal rights of others. And only when we impede upon the rights of others can government legitimately intervene to punish the criminal aggressor…and it can only do that through due process (they have to prove your guilt in a fair, speedy, jury trial).
The right of habeas corpus has been recognized as a basic right since the Magna Carta.
McCain is reversing the progress of human rights 800 years.
It doesn’t take the great mind of an ACLU liberal to figure this out.
As Ronald Reagan said, “The very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.” McCain, once again, betrays conservative values of limited government and God-given property rights. His is the view that the state is supreme.
Liberty and justice for all. But for McCain…just the privileged few. Just pray that you stay in the good graces of an arbitrary McCain government, because where the government grants “rights,” it can take them away. So watch yourself dissenters…especially because McCain has a “volcanic temper.” Will the American people let this man be the next ‘decider’?
[Scott Ritsema teaches Economics, Government, and Advanced Placement U.S. History at a Christian high school, and possesses a master's degree in those three disciplines. Visit his new site CIVICS NEWS.com ...news with a conscience.]
D.C. police will seal off entire neighborhoods, set up checkpoints and kick out strangers under a new program that D.C. officials hope will help them rescue the city from its out-of-control violence.
Under an executive order expected to be announced today, police Chief Cathy L. Lanier will have the authority to designate “Neighborhood Safety Zones.” At least six officers will man cordons around those zones and demand identification from people coming in and out of them. Anyone who doesn’t live there, work there or have “legitimate reason” to be there will be sent away or face arrest, documents obtained by The Examiner show.
Lanier has been struggling to reverse D.C.’s spiraling crime rate but has been forced by public outcry to scale back several initiatives including her “All Hands on Deck” weekends and plans for warrantless, door-to-door searches for drugs and guns.
Under today’s proposal, the no-go zones will last up to 10 days, according to internal police documents. Front-line officers are already being signed up for training on running the blue curtains.
Peter Nickles, the city’s interim attorney general, said the quarantine would have “a narrow focus.”
“This is a very targeted program that has been used in other cities,” Nickles told The Examiner. “I’m not worried about the constitutionality of it.”
Others are. Kristopher Baumann, chairman of the D.C. police union and a former lawyer, called the checkpoint proposal “breathtaking.”
“I think they tried this in Russia and it failed,” she said. “It’s just our experience in this city that we always end up targeting poor people and people of color, and we treat the kids coming home from choir practice the same as we treat those kids who are selling drugs.”
The proposal has the provisional support of D.C. Councilman Harry “Tommy” Thomas, D-Ward 5, whose ward has become a war zone.
“They’re really going to crack down on what we believe to be a systemic problem with open-air drug markets,” Thomas told The Examiner.
Thomas said, though, that he worried about D.C. “moving towards a police state.”
