Once again, President Obama is adopting positions inconsistent with his campaign promises and consistent with his predecessor. His Department of Justice is taking a position that the US government is immune to all claims of warrantless wiretapping, a position even more damaging to privacy rights that Bush’s. The DOJ claims that the U.S. Government is [...]
Posts Tagged ‘DOJ’
Obama = Bush Light, part 2
Posted: 10th June 2010 by Brant in politicsTags: civil liberties, DOJ, Obama, Obama administration, privacy, wiretapping
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NSA’s warrantless wiretapping ruled illegal (updated)
Posted: 31st March 2010 by Brant in politicsTags: Bush administration, civil liberties, DOJ, justice, Obama administration
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Finally. A federal judge, Vaughn R. Walker, has ruled that George Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program was in fact illegal. This despite the efforts of the Obama administration to fight the result. In a 45-page opinion, Judge Vaughn R. Walker ruled that the government had violated a 1978 federal statute requiring court approval for domestic surveillance [...]
Reality TV and reality (updated x2)
Posted: 28th November 2009 by Brant in culture, politicsTags: DOJ, media, Obama, TV
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It seems that various incidents involving reality TV have recently been causing news. On the first was the entire balloon boy incident, when an aspiring reality TV “actor” sought publicity by faking a purported accidental balloon flight by his son. This triggered a large emergency rescue effort, putting rescuers of a non-existent threatened child in [...]
Terrorism prosecutions: a report from the DOJ
Posted: 15th November 2009 by Brant in politicsTags: civil liberties, DOJ, Holder, justice, Obama administration
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For those concerned about the likelihood of success in the upcoming 9/11 prosecutions in New York, you should understand that the DOJ believes it can be successful. For example, the United States Department of Justice, in a June, 2006, report, outlined its overwhelming success in prosecuting terrorism suspects in the United States courts. I would [...]
Don’t bogart that joint, dude (updated)
Posted: 19th October 2009 by Brant in politics, scienceTags: DOJ, healthcare, Obama administration
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The Obama administration has announced that Federal prosecutors will no longer go after medical marijuana users or distributors. Finally, some action to reflect the will of the voters. People who use marijuana for medical purposes and those who distribute it should not face federal prosecution, provided they act according to state law, the Justice Department [...]
CIA heads seek to stop torture inquiry
Posted: 19th September 2009 by Brant in politicsTags: CIA, DOJ, justice, Obama administration, torture
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Several former directors of the CIA have asked the Obama administration to drop the Department of Justice inquiry into detainee torture. Why? They give three reasons: (1) charges should not be brought based on a change in administration, (2) continuing the investigation would help Al Qaeda, and (3) the results of the investigation may cause [...]
Restoring civil liberties: one case at a time
Posted: 5th September 2009 by Brant in politicsTags: Bush administration, civil liberties, DOJ
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Three judges on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals have ruled that weeks-long detentions of innocent people as “material witnesses” violates the Constitution. From the New York Times: In the decision, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, was sharply critical of the Bush administration’s [...]
Holder to appoint prosecutor to investigate torture (updated x2)
Posted: 24th August 2009 by Brant in politicsTags: Bush administration, DOJ, justice, torture
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Eric Holder is going to appoint a career prosecutor to investigate special prosecutor to examine whether Bush administration interrogations conducted by the CIA were legal. Good for him. But the real question is whether the prosecutor will have the authority to examine not only (or even primarily) the front-line interrogators, but whether the prosecutor is [...]
DOJ ethics office recommends abuse investigations
Posted: 24th August 2009 by Brant in politicsTags: Bush administration, CIA, DOJ, justice, torture
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The way to correct mistakes is to fully understand what happened and why. Then lessons can be drawn to avoid them in the future. The ethics office of the Department of Justice has recommended just such a course of action in the case of claims of detainee torture as part of the so-called war on [...]
Bush’s brain
Posted: 12th August 2009 by Brant in politicsTags: Bush administration, DOJ, justice, Rove
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Karl Rove was knee deep in the US attorneys firing scandal from 2006. And it is now proven by the release of testimony and emails according to the New York Times. Another Bush Administration perversion of the justice system. Aides to former President George W. Bush have asserted that the Justice Department took the lead [...]
John Yoo: Shameless
Posted: 16th July 2009 by Brant in politicsTags: Bush administration, civil liberties, DOJ, privacy, wiretapping
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John Yoo has a piece in today’s WSJ. I won’t quote it, except to say it is the same old argument, louder and with even less substance. To wit, the President of the US has unlimited power to do anything that the President decides is necessary to protect the country, notwithstanding statutes or even apparent [...]
Warrantless wiretaps of limited value
Posted: 11th July 2009 by Brant in politicsTags: Bush administration, civil liberties, DOJ, justice, privacy, wiretapping
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The Bush administration not only invaded the privacy of telecommunications in apparent violation of the Constitution, but the wiretaps were not even partiularly helpful in combatting terrorism. Most intelligence officials interviewed “had difficulty citing specific instances” when the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program contributed to successes against terrorists, the report said. While the program obtained [...]
Bush warrantless wiretapping program kept secret within DOJ (updated)
Posted: 10th July 2009 by Brant in politicsTags: Bush administration, Cheney, civil liberties, DOJ, wiretapping
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It appears that there may finally be some progress on investigation into Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program. There is an unclassified summary written by five inspectors general, according to the Washington Post. The inspectors general from the Departments of Justice and Defense, as well as the CIA, the NSA and the office of the Director of [...]
FBI not investigating Palin
Posted: 5th July 2009 by Brant in politicsTags: DOJ, Palin, republicans
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According to an Alaskan FBI spokesman, as reported in the LA Times, there is no investigation by the FBI of Sarah Palin. “There is absolutely no truth to those rumors that we’re investigating her or getting ready to indict her,” Special Agent Eric Gonzalez said in a phone interview Saturday. “It’s just not true.” He [...]
NYT on DOJ pro-DOMA brief
Posted: 16th June 2009 by Brant in politicsTags: civil rights, DOJ, Obama, Obama administration
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The New York Times is not always timely, but they finally have taken an editorial position the brief filed by the Obama DOJ defending the indefensible Defense of Marriage Act: If the administration does feel compelled to defend the act, it should do so in a less hurtful way. It could have crafted its legal [...]