More Tyranny

Do you still have any doubts that the administration prefers tyrannical dictatorship to democratic process? These stories from the June 14 issue of “The Progress Report” which is the newsletter of www.americanprogressaction.org ought to help clear the water.

ETHICS -- TOP WHITE HOUSE AIDES SUBPOENAED IN U.S. ATTORNEY PROBE: Yesterday, the House and Senate Judiciary Committees issued subpoenas to former White House counsel Harriet Miers, "who first suggested a mass firing of prosecutors after the 2004 elections," and former White House political director Sara Taylor, who figured prominently in efforts to name Karl Rove-protege Tim Griffin as U.S. attorney in Arkansas. "Let me be clear: this subpoena is not a request, it is a demand on behalf of the American people for the White House to make available the documents and individuals we are requesting to help us answer the questions that remain. The breadcrumbs in this investigation have always led to 1600 Pennsylvania," said House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers (D-MI). The White House has continued to insist that it is willing to make officials available only for private interviews with no transcripts. But as Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) notes, "The White House cannot have it both ways -- it cannot stonewall congressional investigations by refusing to provide documents and witnesses, while claiming nothing improper occurred." Taylor's lawyer said yesterday that he would accept the Senate Judiciary Committee's subpoena. But this move does not mean that Taylor will testify, because the "White House appears likely to assert executive privilege try to block the subpoena." If the White House refuses the subpoenas, "Leahy and Conyers could move to hold the White House in contempt, then forward those citations to the full House and Senate for approval."

CIVIL LIBERTIES -- FBI SEEKING TO CREATE CONTROVERSIAL SIX-BILLION RECORD DATABASE: In the name of fighting terrorism, the FBI is seeking to create a new $12-million data-mining program that "bears a striking resemblance" to the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness program. Documents predict that this new program "will include six billion records by FY2012. This amounts to 20 separate 'records' for each man, woman and child in the United States." Citing the FBI's "track record of improperly -- even illegally -- gathering personal information on Americans," House Science and Technology Committee members Brad Miller (D-NC) and James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) requested last week that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigate the proposal. In 2005, the GAO found that the FBI's Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force did not comply with all privacy and security laws. Earlier this year, an Inspector General's report found that the FBI had repeatedly violated regulations while using National Security Letters to "obtain the personal records of U.S. residents or visitors." In addition, an internal FBI audit published today by the Washington Post found "that the bureau potentially violated the law or agency rules more than 1,000 times while collecting data about domestic phone calls, e-mails and financial transactions in recent years." "[T]wo dozen of the newly-discovered violations involved agents' requests for information that U.S. law did not allow them to have." These repeated violations of federal law are made worse in light of the fact that such data mining techniques have yet to be proven effective in counter-terrorism operations. A recent Cato Institute study found that programs similar to this new FBI program are likely do little but "flood the national security system with false positives -- suspects who are truly innocent."

CIVIL RIGHTS -- SENATORS GRILL FEC NOMINEE OVER CONTROVERSIAL TENURE AT JUSTICE DEPARTMENT: A Senate committee confirmation hearing on four nominees to the Federal Election Commission grew "heated" yesterday as senators focused in on one of the nominees, Hans von Spakovsky, who has become a lightning rod for criticism over his controversial tenure in the Justice Department. On Tuesday, the day before the hearing, six former officials in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division wrote a letter to the committee, asserting that von Spakovsky "was the point person for undermining the Civil Rights Division's mandate to protect voting rights." Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), the chairwoman of the committee, said it was "very unusual" that so many career lawyers at the Justice Department publicly questioned his actions. Asked about his alleged role in blocking a 2004 investigation into voter discrimination against Native Americans in Minnesota, von Spakovsky claimed that he did not "remember that complaint at all." Von Spakovsky's claim of a faulty memory led Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D-IL) to remark, "[Y]our memory failed you, but we have seen that that is an affliction that many people in the Department of Justice suffer from," referring to the frequent use of the phrase "I don't recall" in recent congressional testimony by other Justice officials such as former Missouri U.S. Attorney Bradly Schlozman and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The committee did not vote on the nominees yesterday, as Feinstein wanted to give von Spakovsky a chance to respond in writing to the letter from the former Justice officials, as well as for him to fill in details he said he could not remember during the testimony. Feinstein has said she is "leaning toward" voting against von Spakovsky.

In a closing quickie, the newsletter points out that the focus of civil rights litigation has shifted from issues related to race to those having to do with religion. Now, given the administration’s argument that it would never appoint prosecutors based on political orientation, how do you suppose that could have happened?

In the meantime, the Pentagon has reported that 40% of the soldiers returning from Iraq are suffering mental health problems and that 25% of them are presenting serious problems like PTSD and significant depression.

Our troops are being held in-country under dangerous and unstable circumstances too long for them to be able to escape these effects. Then when their problems surface, we not only fail to have adequate services to help them, but company commanders and others ridicule them and add immeasurably to the problem.

All of which goes to support the bumper sticker on my car – “Support our troops. Impeach our president.”

And what are the Democrats going to do about all this? They will maintain the status quo, pointing out Republican errors, but doing nothing to correct them. After all why rock the boat? As they see it, the only important thing they deal with is the effort to regain control in Washington, D.C. After that, they can start relining their friends’ pockets in the same way the Republicans do for theirs. What their actions say is that nothing else matters.

Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi

Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR