Or so says the lead editorial from Friday’s Wall Street Journal:

”Since the Treasury story broke, as it happens, no one but Congressman Ed Markey and a few cranks have even objected to the program, much less claimed illegality.”

That’s funny, I could have sworn it was the Wall Street Journal who did the most to expose and oppose Bill Clinton’s “Know Your Customer” big brother bank spying in 1998.

I guess time flies when you’re boot-licking fascists.

James Bovard, the author of the great new book Attention Deficit Democracy, who last week went on MSNBC and FOX “News” to defend the press for telling the truth about this subject and remind viewers that this government lies about everything, including torture, NSA phone taps, records etc., remarked:

“I look forward to the Journal editorial page’s updates on this subject as news leaks out about how this surveillance program ran amok.”

Don’t hold your breath, Jim.

I admit to being a crank, but this bank records search is obviously illegal on its face. The whole process is based around bogus “administrative subpoenas” - where one cop asks another cop for a warrant instead of a judge as required (no-exceptions) by the fourth amendment to the US Constitution:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

The recent attacks on the New York Times for publishing this information have been nothing short of incredible. The Times is the establishment news organ in this country. If the GOP can actually get over on them, they can get over on anyone.

It was Bovard who pointed me to this quote from some dipshit Republican congressman named Ted Poe, a short speech entitled “Benedict Arnold Press?” given on the House floor June 28th. [Note: Thomas.gov does not allow permanent hyperlinks, but if you go to this page and search for “Benedict” it should come right up.]

“Mr. Speaker, we are fighting a war on terror, and now we are being told we are battling the press as well. The United States has rooted out terror on a global scale. They have also gotten unprecedented help from other countries and international banking institutions to seek out accounts used for al Qaeda money laundering, because without a supply of money, the terrorists have no fuse to light.

“Now the New York Times has apparently detailed that security program to the entire world, and we find ourselves pondering what to do when the press willingly reveals national security secrets to terrorists.

“Prior to World War II, the United States had broken the Japanese military communications codes. A journalist published a book revealing this classified information, so right before the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese changed their codes so the United States was unaware of this invasion.

“In 1950, a law was passed making releasing such classified information a crime. If the New York Times has violated this law by becoming the Benedict Arnold press, they need to be held accountable. Not even a journalist from the Times has the right to violate the law just to get a byline.

“And that’s just the way it is.”

Wrong.

First of all, I’m no expert on whatever law he’s citing from the fifties, but if it restricts speech in the way the congressman claims, it is plainly unconstitutional:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

To be fair, he’s wrong about everything else, so who knows?

Secondly, Bovard said he’d never heard of a book published prior to World War II which compromised American intelligence on Japan. Neither had I.

So I sent an email to Robert B. Stinnett, a former radio guest of mine and historian on the particular issue of America’s ability to crack World War II era Japanese codes.

Stinnett is the World War II veteran who proved for all time in his 1999 book Day of Deceit: The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor that Roosevelt deliberately provoked the attack on Pearl Harbor and cut the commanders out of the chain of intelligence so that they would be caught unaware and the administration could to get the previously unwilling American people into the war in Europe.

Stinnett responded:

“The quote outlined in red in your E-mail [Poe’s Pearl Harbor bit] does not make any sense. I am not aware that any journalist either in book form of newspaper form revealed - prior to Pearl Harbor - that the USN broke the Japanese military codes. Further, I am not aware there was a Japanese military invasion of Pearl Harbor. [Ha! -editor]

“The Japanese Navy did make a routine change to their naval operational code on December 4, 1941. I am not aware the code change was ever reported by any news media prior to Pearl Harbor or during World War II.”

I half expect the Ministry of Truth to go back and manufacture the “proof” at this point.

The rest of Poe’s little speech is just as twisted:

“Mr. Speaker, we are fighting a war on terror, and now we are being told we are battling the press as well.”

We are most definitely not fighting a “War on Terror.” “We” are fighting two wars of occupation, and creating more terrorists while we do it. Any legitimacy the Afghan mission may have once had is long-since expired - since, say, around the time Bush let Osama escape from Tora Bora.

There was no jihadi terrorism in Iraq until we invaded. The vast majority of self described mujahideen would rather fight their local governments, “the near enemy,” than take on the US. The invasion has only helped them to split the difference in their argument with bin Laden and Zawahiri as they kill “near Americans” and to recruit a new generation into their ranks.

The fact that “we are being told that we are battling the press as well,” is only instructive in that it helps us to understand just how much the government hates our freedom.

Every anti-American jihadi type on earth assumes that the US is attempting to tap his phone, follow his money trail etc.

It is Americans who are the victims of these abuses, not terrorists. The Times was informing the people of this land, whose rights are being continuously violated by their so-called servants, what these impostors are really up to. It’s about time they did something besides lie us into war.

These clowns in congress seem to be trying their best to make us prefer an imperial president to their lousy rule. Try to resist.

As long as the we’re going after the New York Times for the evil of publishing the stories about the NSA terrorist wiretapping, terrorist bank record spying, etc., I say let’s lynch the treacherous scum in the Bush White House!

Get a load of this statement by some “senior official” Benedict Arnold describing what the administration told the leaders of the heroic Kadima party in Israel, warning them to not go “too far” in their triumphant re-invasion of the Gaza strip:

“‘The Israeli measures might not only affect innocent civilians but could build support for Hamas,’ said the senior official in an interview with Reuters.

“‘We have told them to be careful because plainly when you have this kind of military force deployed close to civilian populations there is a very high risk of accidents and I think that can further worsen this crisis.’”

Collective Punishment counterproductive? How dare you lying traitors imply that The Terrorists™ could possibly be motivated by the policies of the Israeli government?!

Everyone knows Hamas hates Israel for their Freedom.

by Jim Lobe

In a major defeat for President George W. Bush with potentially far-reaching implications for his conduct of the “war on terror,” the U.S. Supreme Court Thursday ruled that military tribunals established by the Pentagon to try suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, violated the U.S. Constitution.

Writing for a 5-3 court majority, Justice John Paul Stevens also rejected the administration’s long-held position that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to suspected al-Qaeda detainees or so-called “unlawful combatants.”

In so doing, Stevens appeared also to reject the administration’s legal claims that the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed by Congress after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon, combined with his position as commander in chief in wartime, gave Bush sweeping powers to ignore existing laws and treaties.

The administration has relied on those claims not only to set up the military tribunals and deny Geneva protections to suspected terrorists, but also to disregard existing laws with respect to the wiretapping of citizens and other controversial actions in carrying out its “global war on terror.”

“This is a huge victory for the rule of law and for the role that the founders envisioned for the court, which is as a check on executive power,” said Elisa Massimino, Washington director of Human Rights First. “Its rejection of the reliance on the AUMF is hugely significant and reaffirms the role of Congress.”

“The Supreme Court is saying that the president can’t go and create some new legal universe where he makes the rules,” said Barbara Olshansky, the deputy legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), which represents some 200 of the 450 detainees who remain in Guantanamo. “This is an astounding blow to the notion of a unitary executive.”

The case was brought by Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former chauffeur of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, and one of about three dozen Guantanamo detainees who were to face trial by military commissions established by the Pentagon. Like many of the detainees, Hamdan was captured in Afghanistan in late 2001 and was sent to Guantanamo Bay, which opened in early 2002.

Lawyers for Hamdan, who was charged with conspiracy, argued that the commissions lacked authority to try him for two reasons: first, because conspiracy is not a violation of the law of war; and second, because the commissions’ procedures violate basic due process under U.S. and international law, including the Geneva Conventions.

After a federal district court ruled in his favor, an appeals court, which included the current Supreme Court chief justice, John Roberts, reversed the decision, essentially upholding the administration’s claims that it had the power on its own to create tribunals and establish procedures that fell short of fundamental due process.

But five of the Supreme Court justices upheld Hamdan’s claims, finding that, in Steven’s words, Bush lacked the authority to take the “extraordinary measure” of setting up special military commissions for detainees in which they were denied due process protections available to defendants under either U.S. criminal law, the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), or a key section of the Geneva Conventions, known as Common Article 3.

“In undertaking to try Hamdan and subject him to criminal punishment, the executive is bound to comply with the rule of law that prevails in this jurisdiction,” wrote Stevens, who stressed that there was nothing in the AUMF’s language or legislative history “even hinting” that Congress intended to give the executive the power to ignore or supersede existing laws and treaties on the rights of detainees held by the U.S. military.

The majority’s holding that the United States is bound by Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, however, potentially goes far beyond the specific procedures of the military commissions at Guantanamo.

Article 3 provides that all detainees are legally entitled to humane treatment “in all circumstances” and may not be subject to “cruel treatment and torture” or “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment.”

“This holding would not only apply to the handful of Guantanamo detainees charged with crimes,” according to a statement by Human Rights Watch (HRW), “but to all the detainees held by the United States in the ‘global war on terror,’ including those at Guantanamo and at Bagram [air base] in Afghanistan, as well as the ‘ghost detainees’ held at secret prisons.”

“The broad decision today will have an impact on United States detention and interrogation policies not just at Guantanamo Bay, but across the board,” agreed Massimino, who noted that the decision comes amid continuing struggles inside the administration over the rules governing interrogations.

Three justices dissented from the majority decision with one of them, Clarence Thomas, feeling strongly enough to read his opinion aloud for the first time in his 15-year tenure. Echoing the administration’s position, he warned that the decision would “sorely hamper the president’s ability to confront and defeat a new and deadly enemy.”

Chief Justice Roberts, who had sided with the administration in the appeals court decision, would probably have provided a fourth dissenting vote, but he recused himself from the case because of his prior ruling.

Asked about the decision at a joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Bush himself stressed that he was prepared to work with Congress to devise new procedures for military tribunals and that, in any event, the court’s decision “won’t cause killers to be put out on the street.”

In recent weeks, Bush and other top administration officials have appeared more sensitive to international demands that the Guantanamo facility, where three detainees committed suicide earlier this month, be shut down, and some observers suggested that the court’s decision may hasten that prospect.

“Now the president must act,” said CCR president Michael Ratner. “Try our clients in lawful U.S. courts or release them. The game is up. There is no way for President Bush to continue hiding behind a purported lack of judicial guidance to avoid addressing the illegal and immoral prison in Guantanamo Bay.”

(Inter Press Service)

Do you guys read Lukery?

He rules. That is, he blogs every damn thing on earth. For example, this great piece by Laura Rozen in the Post about Iranian exiles and their lies that I had missed.

Update: Also, the guy is fucking brilliant - for a Tazmanian.

Also the KAOS Report archives have finally been updated, that is last week and this one.

And there are 8 new stickers for sale at http://scotthortonshow.com/stickers

Two more:

in honor of his dissent [page 25] in the Hamdan case, and Our freedom is more important than your good idea the way I always wanted to say it:

Check out this great article about DDT in the NYT Magazine from 2004.

“Probably the worst thing that ever happened to malaria in poor nations was its eradication in rich ones. That has made one of Africa’s leading killers shockingly invisible. ”’Silent Spring’ had a clear message about things at home Americans could see and touch and feel,” said Brooks B. Yeager, vice president of the Global Threats Program for the World Wildlife Fund. ”Americans who live on the Carolina coast know the brown pelicans have come back” since DDT spraying was halted. ”Malaria is a long way away. You have to read about it or see in person its devastation, and not many Americans have the opportunity to do it.”

Lawrence Barat, the World Bank’s adviser on malaria control, said, ”When I tell people I work on malaria, sometimes I get, ‘Gee, I didn’t know it still existed.”’

One of the most depressing aspects of talking about malaria is that you get to hear the phrase ”the powerful AIDS lobby,” a term no one but a malariologist would use. AIDS in the third world is still criminally underfinanced, but at least it gets some money and a lot of attention. Malaria gets AIDS’s dregs. AIDS was a sudden plague, very visible in its choice of victims, and it has a vocal constituency in rich countries. Even in Africa, malaria gets nowhere near the attention of AIDS. It has always been around, and it kills not middle-class adults but rural 4-year-olds, who don’t have much of a lobby.”

Hat tip: Lew

John Roberts’ Decision overturned!

Washington -AP, June 29, 2006 - The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President Bush overstepped his authority in ordering military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees.

The ruling, a rebuke to the administration and its aggressive anti-terror policies, was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, who said the proposed trials were illegal under U.S. law and Geneva conventions.The case focused on Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who worked as a bodyguard and driver for Osama bin Laden. Hamdan, 36, has spent four years in the U.S. prison in Cuba. He faces a single count of conspiring against U.S. citizens from 1996 to November 2001.

Two years ago, the court rejected Bush’s claim to have the authority to seize and detain terrorism suspects and indefinitely deny them access to courts or lawyers. In this followup case, the justices focused solely on the issue of trials for some of the men.

The vote was split 5-3, with moderate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy joining the court’s liberal members in ruling against the Bush administration. Chief Justice John Roberts, named to the lead the court last September by Bush, was sidelined in the case because as an appeals court judge he had backed the government over Hamdan.Thursday’s ruling overturned that decision.

Take that you liberty destroying sonsabitches!

“New maps, anytime
On a different issue, the court ruled that state legislators may draw new maps as often as they like — not just once a decade as Texas Democrats claimed. That means Democratic and Republican state lawmakers can push through new maps anytime there is a power shift at a state capital.

The Constitution says states must adjust their congressional district lines every 10 years to account for population shifts. In Texas the boundaries were redrawn twice after the 2000 census, first by a court, then by state lawmakers in a second round promoted by DeLay after Republicans took control.

That was acceptable, justices said.”

I can’t wait to see where this precident takes us…

Weep here.

95.9 and 92.7 FM in Austin, TX, KAOS959.com to stream.