Surveillance State « Pine Belt Progressive

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Evidence Against Bush-Rove-RNC? Interesting

1 March, 2009, 2:23 am
Filed under: Elections, Media, Politics, Progressive, Surveillance State | Tags: Alabama, Karl Rove, Tennessee

Locust Fork:

In just a little while, we will be heading over to Broad Street with a video camera to try and find out if it’s true that the key evidence against Bush administration officials in their perversion of democracy is still backed up on computer servers with the company that produced and stored Websites and e-mail accounts for the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush and the Republican National committee.

Smartech still boasts on its Web site about being the “official hosting provider” for the 2008 Republican National Convention and brags that they “will ensure the site is always up and available. Smartech’s infrastructure gives companies that host with them the most security and redundancy, ensuring that their website is always up and running.”

So if they are so reliable, they must have saved backup copies of all those e-mails from Karl Rove on that RNC Blackberry he used to run the administration’s political ops from the White House. Like the Zen Master said, “We will see.”

I’m doing my best to keep my expectations low and my fingers crossed on this one.

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An Open Letter to President Obama

12 February, 2009, 8:14 pm
Filed under: Authoritarian, Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Media, Militarism, Politics, Progressive, Surveillance State, wake up

Dear Mr. President,

What Sara said.

This is a life or death situation and it is deteriorating. The history and the pathologies that got us to this point are well-documented by organizations like SPLC and by independent scholars. Some of us are trying to understand and deal with the situation in a sane and appropriate manner. We could use some support from our government and some leadership from you right now.

I know you inherited a bad situation. I understand you’re still getting things in order and you have a lot on your plate. Saving the world economy must be taxing the resources of the executive branch to the limit. But a lot of us put our feelings aside and supported you despite the fact that we totally disagree with you on many issues, and despite the fact that you sold us out on FISA.

Since you have given us no indication that you intend to dismantle the surveillance apparatus, I hope these domestic terrorists are very high on your list of “legitimate threats.” Please put everything you can spare into shutting this down, Mr. President. These people are bent on exterminating us.

A lot of us would be proud of you if you used the bully pulpit and the power of the executive branch to take a strong stand on this and shut down the virulent media actors who are inciting political violence against us. Since you are a brilliant and well-respected legal scholar, I am sure you understand the implications of the Rwanda Media Case.

It is time to deal with this issue. It needs to change. I think you can save some lives if you show some leadership here. You can probably score a lot of points, too. It seems like a win-win to me.

Respectfully,

-geneo

(cross-posted at The Mighty Corrente Building)

1 Comment

Called it!

10 February, 2009, 1:44 am
Filed under: Economy, Politics, Surveillance State | Tags: Alabama, Law, Obama, Progressive

Left in Alabama takes a leap and a bound.

Extra Credit: Compare these two comments threads to Obama’s speech and count the talking points the commenters nailed. ( h/t Sundog)

Lambert critiques Obama’s performance.

I’ve got Surveillance Envy.

Monkeyfister does the math.

Legal Issues Everywhere.

2 Comments

Don’t Like Bush Lawyers? Attack Their Credentials!

14 April, 2008, 10:25 pm
Filed under: Authoritarian, Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Politics, Strategy, Surveillance State, Tactics | Tags: Alberto Gonzales, Law

I’ve been discussing how to address some of the legal issues that we’re struggling to deal with several people lately, including E.M. of the Grievance Project. I have a post at Left in Alabama that provides a short explanation of the Grievance Project. Basically, it’s a plan to go after lawyers and judges (like Alberto Gonzales) who enable the administration’s crimes by raising questions about their conduct with people who have to power to revoke their legal credentials: state bar associations.

I think it’s a smart plan. It doesn’t require lobbying of legislators, and the bar associations haven’t yet been thoroughly consolidated by the neocons and their ilk. So it might work, if enough people catch on and file complaints.

4 Comments

John Yoo: Not Even Good at Being Authoritarian

8 April, 2008, 9:03 pm
Filed under: Authoritarian, Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Politics, Surveillance State, war

John Yoo, the man the Bush administration trusted to make decisions about what the Constitution means and all sorts of other important stuff, is inviting people to compare him and the administration the Nazis. I’m not kidding. The man brought up the Nazis himself. O.k, then:

WriteChic:

The fact that Yoo carefully, thoughtfully enumerates all that might happen to a suspect in U.S. custody under certain specific conditions puts him right up there with the pen-pushing Gestapo Adolph Eichmann. Yoo differs only in degree not in kind. Where Eichmann is completely morally void, Yoo may claim a single sliver of moral dimension; Yoo advises against suffering “that is equivalent to the pain that would be associated with serious injury so severe that death, organ failure, or permanent damage resulting in a loss of significant body functions will likely result.”

Austin Cline, writing under the General’s banner:

” According to a footnote in a John Yoo memo, his office had concluded that “the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations . . . “

. . . Would it be inappropriate to point out that Adolf Hitler at least had the decency to obtain explicit legislative approval before his Machtergreifung? In comparison, George W. Bush has moved in a manner that depends more on legal sophistry than the mechanisms of real government. Then again, Hitler had Carl Schmitt whose arguments on behalf of authoritarian government were at least based on serious legal reasoning and political philosophy — that’s part of what made his writings so dangerous. Bush only had John Yoo, whose arguments on behalf of authoritarian government can’t be described as even remotely serious.

Cline also notes that the administration seems to regard its warrantless surveillance program as a military operation.

Both these posts are more than worth the time it’ll take to read the rest!

1 Comment

Mississippi Blogs!

2 April, 2008, 5:43 pm
Filed under: Blogs, Civil Liberties, Iraq, Mississippi, Politics, Religion, Surveillance State, war

I discovered two new Mississippi blogs today.

Left-handed Leftist was at the protest today. If you want to see a genuine pic of me, head over there and give me a look. I’m the goateed guy in the last two pics, in the blue shirt and the jaunty hat.

Vjack from Mississippi Atheists stopped by early this morning and left a comment. Hooray, Freethinking!

I’ll have a post on government surveillance at Left in Alabama and my own protest pics up later tonight.

For you readers in or near the Hub City, the next protest will be the first Wednesday of May, and Drinking Liberally! will be at Keg and Barrel beginning at 5:30 on April 10.

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Eyes on the Prize