CMoore.com

Or, it’s not a lie when Duhbya and John “death squad” Negroponte say you don’t have to tell the truth.

Ordinarily, a company that conceals their transactions and activities from the public would violate securities law. But an presidential memorandum signed by the President on May 5 allows the Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, to authorize a company to conceal activities related to national security. (See 15 U.S.C. 78m(b)(3)(A))

Though it’s not considered one of the signs of fascism, an obsession with secrecy is certainly a hallmark of a despotic government.

If the Executive issues an ad hoc presidential memorandum that authorizes corporations to violate laws passed by the Legislative, how are we not in the middle of Constitutional crisis right now?

Hi there! I’m a bigot with eschatonian delusions of the rapture! Also, I hate brown people.

The latest righty ragegasm is immigration. You probably noticed this already. And what better thing to perfect your onanism with than immigrants? Particularly now that we’ve solved terrrrrism and brought democracy to Iraq.

Every now and then, these cowardly fear addicts go overboard. Like, oh, when they explicitly call for the use of Nazi Germany as the model for how to deal with our immigrant “problem.”

And he will be lying, again, just as he lied when he said: “Massive deportation of the people here is unrealistic – it’s just not going to work.”

Not only will it work, but one can easily estimate how long it would take. If it took the Germans less than four years to rid themselves of 6 million Jews, many of whom spoke German and were fully integrated into German society, it couldn’t possibly take more than eight years to deport 12 million illegal aliens, many of whom don’t speak English and are not integrated into American society.

Note the word usage, “rid themselves.”

Rid. Themselves.

Welcome to your new police state, you know, the one without the free press. Who needs that First Amendment anyway? It just gets in the way of catching terrrrrrists.

A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we (Brian Ross and Richard Esposito) call in an effort to root out confidential sources.

“It’s time for you to get some new cell phones, quick,” the source told us in an in-person conversation.

ABC News does not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.

Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.

Looks like time to add another notch to points 3 and 6 of the defining steps of fascism to me. Probably 13 as well.

Karl Rove Indicted on Charges of Perjury, Lying to Investigators

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent more than half a day Friday at the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm representing Karl Rove.

During the course of that meeting, Fitzgerald served attorneys for former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove with an indictment charging the embattled White House official with perjury and lying to investigators related to his role in the CIA leak case, and instructed one of the attorneys to tell Rove that he has 24 hours to get his affairs in order, high level sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said Saturday morning.

Update: looks like Jason Leopold is not the most trustworthy of sources, so grains of salt. As it has now been two full business days in the week since this report came out, let’s just say it’s veracity is in doubt. For my part, I think it highly likely that Rove will be indicted in the near future. There are very few other possible explanations for Fitzgerald’s actions.

What do you do if you’re a part of a secret police force outside the law when the Law comes a knockin’? Why, you deny them the security clearance the need to investigate your actions, of course!

What would you say about a country with an unaccountable, secret police force? A secret police force that spies on its own citizens – all of them – under the guise of “searching for terrorists”? A police force unburdened by the Rule of Law in its own country. A police force that uses financial coercion and physical intimidation in order to bully non-State actors into complying with their (illegal, if the Rule of Law is in effect) activities. A police force that is answerable only to the Executive, and an Executive who does not feel the Rule of Law applies to him at that? Is it the KGB? Is it the Gestapo? The whatever it is the Chinese are using these days?

Possibly. But it’s also certainly our own NSA.

In addition, the agency suggested that Qwest’s foot-dragging might affect its ability to get future classified work with the government. Like other big telecommunications companies, Qwest already had classified contracts and hoped to get more.

Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was proposing, Qwest’s lawyers asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA court. According to the sources, the agency refused.

The NSA’s explanation did little to satisfy Qwest’s lawyers. “They told (Qwest) they didn’t want to do that because FISA might not agree with them,” one person recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA rejected Qwest’s suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general’s office. A second person confirmed this version of events.

So, kudos to Qwest, for being the only telecomm to refuse to comply with the NSA’s illegal requests absent a court order. If you can switch, by all means do so. Or better still, Working Assets, the only telecommunications company to sign on with the ACLU to stop the illegal wiretapping of US Citizens.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but what the NSA is doing is collecting an immense database of the behaviors and activities of American citizens. Without a warrant. Without probable cause. Outside of the law. This is a shadowy group that even the CIA lifers think are right wing. A group completely amoral, devoted to black ops, and in favor of authoritarianism at every step of the way.

If anyone imagines for even one second that the data the NSA is collecting here is not going to be used or already used for such things as domestic spying, intimidation of protest groups, disruption of reporters who may be investigating actions embarassing to the administration, exposing whistleblowers and the like, then I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

Remember, at first they said they didn’t spy. Then they said they spied only with court approval. Then they said they spied only on international calls, not your calls to your girlfriend or your parents or your fellow little league coaches. And now, they’re spying on we domestic citizens. Outside of the Rule of Law, with no legal authority outside of an authoritarian state.

At each new revelation, the 101st Fighting Keyboarders said if you didn’t like what was happening, you loved the terrorists. At each step, they gave tortured justifications or credulously believed the administrations patently absurd legal justifications. At each step, these cowardly bedwetters begged for the paternalistic administration to come tuck them in and save them from the bad people. Well, now they’ve met the bad people, and the bad people wear US Government ID cards.

See also, Greenwald, Glenn. Side note: I can see Glenn’s point that the Constitutional and legal issues aren’t exactly bright lines here (primarily resting on privacy grounds, as in lack thereof in PEN registers), but I think the burden is upon the administration to prove the legality of monitoring citizen activities, using coercion against businesses, and essentialing Taking corporate assets for government use. I should point out that, legally speaking, I think the Constitutional issues are probably non-starters, but that statutory issues are almost ironclad in prohibiting the NSA’s actions here. I’ll try to remember to look up the USC sections later.

Further questions I have:
1) internet – are they tracking our browsing/usage behavior? Are they capturing emails? For those of you not already using encryption such as PGP or GnuPG, ferchrissake, what the hell are you waiting for? For those of you not using Tor, what are you waiting for?

2) VOIP too? If yes to internet, then yes to VOIP.

This may not be the America that I knew, but going forward anyone who contacts me should be under the assumption that the communication is monitored and possibly able to be read if in text format.

… Unless you use encryption. Which is both useful and necessary for our privacy. It’s also super easy to use and install. I’m tired of trying to get people to use encryption. You may be forcing my hand here, but by FSM, I’m going to start encrypting everything I send and if the recipients can’t figure it out… tough. My public key is linked to at the bottom of every page on this site. GnuPG + enigmail (two plugins for Thunderbird). All of this is Open and Free. Learn it, live it, love it.

Tor is the other leg to the encryption side. If your packets aren’t encrypted, they can read them. If they are, they can still do packet analysis to see where you are going. Tor eliminates the packet analysis leg. Use it. If you have spare bandwidth, please donate that as well.

Remember the right wing saying how if guns are outlawed, then only outlaws will have guns? Well, if my government suspects me of being a criminal, then only my government is suspect.

Update: the telcos could be liable for many billions in damages (see also: ACSBlog). Now, who wants to be the first attorney to form a class for a Class Action?

Who’s Crazy Now?

But now those harsh critics have been vindicated. And it turns out that many of the administration supporters can’t handle the truth. They won’t admit that they built a personality cult around a man who has proved almost pathetically unequal to the job. Nor will they admit that opponents of the Iraq war, whom they called traitors for warning that invading Iraq was a mistake, have been proved right. So they have taken refuge in the belief that a vast conspiracy of America-haters in the media is hiding the good news from the public.

Unlike the crazy conspiracy theories of the left — which do exist, but are supported only by a tiny fringe — the crazy conspiracy theories of the right are supported by important people: powerful politicians, television personalities with large audiences. And we can safely predict that these people will never concede that they were wrong. When the Iraq venture comes to a bad end, they won’t blame those who led us into the quagmire; they’ll claim that it was all the fault of the liberal media, which stabbed our troops in the back.

Republican Culture of Corruption

The Wall Street Journal reported today that indicted former California Congressman Randall “Duke” Cunningham may not have limited his good times to partying on a rented yacht. It turns out the FBI is currently investigating two defense contractors who allegedly provided Cunningham with free limousine service, free stays at hotel suites at the Watergate and the Westin Grand, and free prostitutes.

The two defense contractors who allegedly paid most of the bills, said the Journal, were Brent Wilkes, the founder of ADCS Inc., and Mitchell Wade, the founder of MZM Inc.; both firms profited greatly from their connections with Cunningham. The Journal also suggested that other lawmakers might be implicated. I’ve learned from a well-connected source that those under intense scrutiny by the FBI are current and former lawmakers on Defense and Intelligence comittees—including one person who now holds a powerful intelligence post. I’ve also been able to learn the name of the limousine service that was used to ferry the guests and other attendees to the parties: Shirlington Limousine and Transportation of Arlington, Virginia. Wilkes, I’ve learned, even hired Shirlington as his personal limousine service.

I shall dub thee Watergategate. The person who “now holds a powerful intelligence post” is Porter Goss, the head of the CIA, btw.

If someone dictates the terms of something, say a contract, they are deciding the framework of that contract. Thus, the dictator is also the decider.

Dictator. Decider.

“I hear the voices and I read the front page and I know the speculation,” the president told reporters in the Rose Garden. “But I’m the decider and I decide what’s best. And what’s best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense.”

Decider. Dictator.

and why you should support it, presented in a in a two minute clip.

My position on open standards, neutrality, and fairness have been discussed here quite a bit, and this is no different. The internet has been one of the greatest forces for change and democracy in a long time; at the very least, it has been a catalyst for the explosive growth of knowledge and information sharing (not to mention giving The People a voice that they haven’t had – ever. A necessary voice that is the only thing currently safeguarding our democracy on the popular front). There is a slight argument toward a capitalist solution (i.e. neutral providers will attract more customers), but in a monopolistic situation (at best, most people in America effectively only have a duopoly of ISPs from which to choose), I do not think this applies. See also, Wal-Mart).

Without net neutrality, the inernet as you know it will likely die. Many scenarios have already unfolded, such as Comcast Cable blocking Vonage packets… and then rolling out their own VOIP solution a few months later. As things stand, even with the many to many access model, ISPs are our gateways, and are still subject to control from the anticompetitive, antipeople corporations. If the internet had not been developed the way it had and been nurtured via universities, we would currently have a “net” of walled communities, to which we would have to pay to access. Think this wasn’t what the Suits wanted? Imagine a world where the “internet” are competing AOLs.

That’s the future we are heading toward, and the Suit lobbyists from AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon, in coordination with the corrupt GOP Congress are trying to turn back the clock and destroy the internet as we know it. For the businesses, it makes sense to try and control content. For the government, it makes sense to try and control information, and there has not been a governmental body in history that has not tried to coopt and control any and all technologies that increase the amount of information available to the people.

We must not allow the internet to become a series of walled gardens, run by warlords, robber barons, and tinpot dictators. Let your Congresscritter know how you feel.

If nothing else convinces you, imagine how much the temperature in hell dropped when they realized that Instacracker and MoveOn were on the same side of this issue. And if that inbred, mouthbreathing, genocidal racist twit can come around to the correct viewpoint… hell, everyone should.

US – Iran locked into spiral conflict

Both the Bush administration and the Iranian clerical regime are reeling from historic low support figures from their constituent populations. United States politicians know that attacking Iran is a sure-fire political winner with the American public. Iran has become America’s all-purpose bogeyman. Foolish declarations, such as the State Department assertion that Iran is America’s “greatest security threat” are received uncritically by voters throughout the nation. Similarly in Iran, the United States can be freely demonized without serious question. The leaders of the Islamic republic regularly blame the United States for their own failings in managing economic development, border control and corruption.

It makes no sense for either nation, but a war between Iran and the US makes sense for both rulers of both countries as a way to shore up domestic support (caveat: the real rulers of Iran are the mullahs, not Ahmadinejad). And usually, when two power mad dictators want a fight, they get one. War? What’s it good for? The GOP’s domestic agenda and midterm elections, that’s who. Also, the mullahs, American and Iranian.

That Bush hears voices and has a messianic complex is just icing on the cake. Practical meets the wishful in one bow-wrapped Iranian nuking. In his warped menagerie of dusty cobweb-filled corners and coke-burnt passageways of a mind, that is.

This is madness. Sheer madness. And it’s probably going to happen anyway. What an interesting time in which to live.

Bush on keeping Rummy

Bush: I say I listen to all voices but mine’s the final decision and Don Rumsfeld is doing a fine job. He’s not only transforming the military, he’s fighting a war on terror – He’s helping us fight a war on terror. I have strong confidence in Don Rumsfeld. I hear the voices and I read the front page and I know the speculation but I’m the decider and I decide what is best and what’s best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the Secretary of defense.

These same voices are the one that tell him to wear a tutu, smear peanut butter all over his chest, and try to copulate with a Civil War era spitoon, but they are voices nonetheless. And they are speaking to him. Slowly. Using simple words.

Bush values loyalty above all things. Bubble boy can’t abide criticism and the entire Cheney administration is filled with yes persons and Cheney and Rummy. Cheney and Rummy aren’t yes men, but they’re sociopaths with the attendant self-preserving ability to shamelessly lie and fawn when needed. Well, it looks like Rummy’s rusty trombone job worked. Bush, you see, thinks that Cheney and Rummy are loyal… that is, when he’s not thinking about the pretty birds that go tweet.

not with a bang, but with a whimper. As the media and corporate interests collude to hand over the citizenry’s fundamental rights to the government (even though the media and the corporations are composed of the People, the decisionmakers are not of the People). The latest: AT&T forwards all Internet traffic into NSA

“The evidence that we are filing supports our claim that AT&T is diverting Internet traffic into the hands of the NSA wholesale, in violation of federal wiretapping laws and the Fourth Amendment,” said EFF Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston.

“More than just threatening individuals’ privacy, AT&T’s apparent choice to give the government secret, direct access to millions of ordinary Americans’ Internet communications is a threat to the Constitution itself. We are asking the Court to put a stop to it now,” said Bankston.

Easy Fourth Amendment violation right there. Well, it was a violation until the busheviks took over and smilin Sammy scAlito was mortared into place using the hooves of the traitorous Dem sellouts, that is.

You know, when my back’s against the wall, I’ll think on all of the quislings and cowards that let us inch into this situation. Then I’ll track them down in whatever afterlife they’ve chosen and kick ‘im in the nether regions.

Also, in case it’s not too late, you can still join the EFF and the ACLU (the ACLU has a companion case going against the NSA). Oh, and if you aren’t using Tor, you should be.