Bush Ability to “Strike Fear” Trumps The Bill Of Rights

House Approves Wiretap Measure

White House Bill Boosts Warrantless Surveillance

By Ellen Nakashima and Joby Warrick Washington Post

The Democratic-controlled House last night approved and sent to President Bush for his signature legislation written by his intelligence advisers to enhance their ability to intercept the electronic communications of foreigners without a court order.

The 227 to 183 House vote capped a high-pressure campaign by the White House to change the nation’s wiretap law, in which the administration capitalized on Democrats’ fears of being branded weak on terrorism and on a general congressional desire to act on the measure before an August recess.

If BushCo can strike fear into the hearts of our elected representatives, forcing them to enable illegal and unconstitutional acts, then we have elected nothing! This is now a ghost democracy fraught with Black Ops and Shadow Government. Civil war or revolution is no longer an option … because every move we make is scrutinized. Americans are all suspects now. Americans are the enemy. Americans will become the zombies from George Orwell’s ’1984′ where hidden microphones and informers in order to catch potential “thoughtcriminals” who could endanger the security of the Dystopian GOP Party.

The original statute was enacted after the revelation of CIA abuses in the 1970s, and it required judicial oversight for most federal wiretapping conducted in the United States.

Privacy and civil liberties advocates, and many Democratic lawmakers, complained that the Bush administration’s revisions of the law could breach constitutional protections against government intrusion. But the administration, aided by Republican congressional leaders, suggested that a failure to approve what intelligence officials sought could expose the country to a greater risk of terrorist attacks.

Democrats facing reelection next year in conservative districts helped propel the bill to a quick approval. Adding to the pressures they felt were recent intelligence reports about threatening new al-Qaeda activity in Pakistan and the disclosure by House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) of a secret court ruling earlier this year that complicated the wiretapping of purely foreign communications that happen to pass through a communications node on U.S. soil.

 

King George Wins Wiretapping For All Foreigners

Associated Press
House Approves Foreign Wiretap Bill

WASHINGTON –

The House handed President Bush a victory Saturday, voting to expand the government’s abilities to eavesdrop without warrants on foreign suspects whose communications pass through the United States.

The 227-183 vote, which followed the Senate’s approval Friday, sends the bill to Bush for his signature. He had urged Congress to approve it, saying Saturday, “Protecting America is our most solemn obligation.”

Oh well.  What did you really expect?  FISA  neutered,  the 4th Amendment a memory.

The administration said the measure is needed to speed the National Security Agency’s ability to intercept phone calls, e-mails and other communications involving foreign nationals “reasonably believed to be outside the United States.” Civil liberties groups and many Democrats said it goes too far, possibly enabling the government to wiretap U.S. residents communicating with overseas parties without adequate oversight from courts or Congress.

The 227-183 vote, which followed the Senate’s approval Friday, sends the bill to Bush for his signature.

10:38 P.M. –

On agreeing to the resolution Agreed to without objection.

10:37 P.M. –

Considered as privileged matter. On approving the Journal Agreed to by the Yeas and Nays: 205 – 187 (Roll no. 837).

S. 1927:

to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to provide additional procedures for authorizing certain acquisitions of foreign intelligence information and for other purposes

(Click here to see how everyone voted) 

Many congressional Democrats wanted tighter restrictions on government surveillance, but yielded in the face of Bush’s veto threats and the impending August recess.

“This bill would grant the attorney general the ability to wiretap anybody, any place, any time without court review,  without any checks and balances,”  said Rep. Zoe Lofgren,  D-Calif.,  during the debate preceding the vote.   “I think this unwarranted, unprecedented measure would simply eviscerate the 4th Amendment,”  which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.

The House of Faux Representatives must have a VERY good reason to appease the King.  I am sure the Sunday morning talk shows will be filled with excuses and explanations.  This bill is a great tool not bound by accountability.  Gonzales  will be the decider when and where to use his expanded powers.  Woe, I mean Wow,  I feel safer already.  Time to learn sign language.  I think I’ll wear moccasins, too.  They make no sound as you tiptoe across the border into Canada.

Transexual Pakistani Update

Jailed same-sex couple appeal to Musharraf

A court on Monday jailed Pakistan’s first publicly acknowledged same-sex couple for three years for perjury – prompting the defendants to ask the president for help.

The couple clutched at each others arms with expressions of disbelief on their faces, but vowed their love would survive the separation.

The couple, who married last year, had approached the Lahore High Court for protection against harassment by Tariq’s relatives. However, the judge accused them of lying about the gender of Raj, 31.

Same-sex marriage case: Transsexual Shumail Raj freed on bail

* Shahzina’s father threatens to ‘teach the couple a lesson’

LAHORE: Shumail Raj, a transsexual who is the centre of same-sex marriage and is sentenced for perjury, was released on bail from the Kot Lakhpat jail on Monday.
The prison authorities let Shumail leave with his mother and brother and the family immediately left for Faisalabad.

The Lahore High Court (LHC) sentenced Shumail to three years of imprisonment on May 28. The prison authorities had confined him to a separate room in the women’s block and had treated him as a woman. His perjury sentence was appealed at the Supreme Court, which allowed him bail. However, even after the bail grant, Shumail was kept in custody because he could not come up with bail bonds. After an 18-day period of being granted bail, his mother was able to take him home.

When approached by reporters, his mother and brother refused to comment. However, Shumail expressed happiness over the release. He said Shahzina’s (counterpart in the same-sex marriage) father was threatening him and asking him to put his act together or else he would “teach the couple a lesson”. He also said that the threats would not stop him from continuing to fight the case, however he demanded police protection.

He alleged that the Kot Lakhpat jail’s administration tortured him mentally by tying him up and locking him in a separate cell.

The case started with Shumail and Shahzina, who got married on September 9, 2006, reporting to the sessions court that Shahzina’s father, Tariq Hussain and a couple of policemen were harassing them. The additional sessions judge (ASJ) ruled in the couple’s favour, however the pestering continued. The couple then appealed to the LHC. When the matter came to LHC, Tariq told the judge that Shumail was a transman, earlier named Nazia, and he had had his breasts and uterus removed. The judge directed for confirmation and Tariq’s allegation proved to be correct.

Related stories and references

• Shumail Raj and Shehzina Tariq: An identity under scrutiny
• ACTION ALERT: PAKISTAN: TRANSGENDER HUSBAND AND HIS WIFE SEPARATED AND IMPRISONED
• SC ORDERS FOR RELEASE ON BAIL TWO GIRLS INVOLVED IN SAME SEX MARRIAGE

ISLAMABAD, June 28: Supreme Court has suspended 3-year punishment awarded by Lahore High Court to two girls Shumail Raj and Shazia Tariq on their involvement in same sex marriage and issued orders for their release on bail against surety bonds of Rs 50,000 each besides admitting their appeal for regular hearing. Dr Babar Awan appeared on behalf of Shumail Raj and Shazia Tariq. He argued that one could be sentenced to 7 years term if one was charge sheeted or to jail term of 3 months if one was not charge sheeted. The decision given by the judge of Lahore High Court reflects that he indicted them in haste and anger and then awarded punishment. Justice Sardar Muhammad Raza Khan observed it was incomprehensible to him if both were girls then why one of them was sent to male ward and other in female ward.

This is an interesting development in Islamic Law. The conflict between democratic espoused human rights versus Pakistani Islamic legal system seems to be ongoing. If Islamic culture allows parents to take the law into their own hands, then there is no law. Respect for a constitution based legal system takes second place to religious law in a Theocracy. There may as well be no constitution at all. This is what could happen in America if we don’t open our eyes and protect our constitution from religious interlopers.

Bush Wants To Listen And Watch Our Every Word

Bush urges Congress to pass wiretap bill

Lawmakers hustle to act before recess

By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff  |  August 3, 2007

WASHINGTON — Congress is rushing to expand the military’s authority to wiretap phone calls and e-mails on US soil. The Bush administration, warning that terrorists may soon attack again, is pressuring lawmakers to approve the legislation before they leave town this weekend for their annual August vacations.

The proposal, the details of which remain murky, had received little public discussion before this week and has not undergone the normal committee review process. It would apparently give the National Security Agency legal approval to resume one type of the warrantless wiretapping that President Bush authorized after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Doesn’t history remind us that Stalin and Hitler built excuses to spy on their own people to control anyone who opposed their political agendas.  What will your congressman do?  Do you have representation?  Are our ‘inalienable rights’  a terrorist conspiracy?  Our Founding Fathers would be in Guantanamo for fighting for ‘inalienable rights’ as Americans!

Bush, the reincarnation of Hitler,  does this all because his imaginary God has spoken to him and given him the Armageddon Agenda. 

Happy Afghans – Happy Taliban – Buying Power

Another record poppy crop in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON (AP) — Afghanistan will produce another record poppy harvest this year that cements its status as the world’s near-sole supplier of the heroin source, yet a furious debate over how to reverse the trend is stalling proposals to cut the crop, U.S. officials say. As President Bush prepares for weekend talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, divisions within the U.S. administration and among NATO allies have delayed release of a $475 million counternarcotics program for Afghanistan, where intelligence officials see growing links between drugs and the Taliban, the officials said.

… counterdrug proposals by some U.S. officials have met fierce resistance, including boosting the amount of forcible poppy field destruction in provinces that grow the most, officials said. The approach also would link millions of dollars in development aid to benchmarks on eradication; arrests and prosecutions of narcotraders, corrupt officials; and on alternative crop production.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>

“Afghanistan is providing close to 95 percent of the world’s heroin,” the State Department’s top counternarcotics official, Tom Schweich, said at a recent conference. “That makes it almost a sole-source supplier” and presents a situation “unique in world history.”   (entire article)

So, here we go again. Just like Viet Nam (remember that one?) the CIA was an accomplice with the drug cartel of SE Asia. What makes this any different?   We talk big, but the bottom line is, to make the local war lords happy we must allow their economy to flourish. They let us destroy a field here and there to show the media, but the big money always wins. They must also line the pockets of the Narcotics Police – it’s economics after all!

Four US Contractors Missing – No One Looks For Them

Cutting Costs, Bending Rules, And a Trail of Broken Lives

Ambush in Iraq Last November Left Four Americans Missing And a String of Questions About the Firm They Worked For

By Steve Fainar Washington Post Foreign Service

BAGHDAD — The convoy was ambushed in broad daylight last Nov. 16, dozens of armed men swarming over 37 tractor-trailers stretching for more than a mile on southern Iraq’s main highway. The attackers seized four Americans and an Austrian employed by Crescent Security Group, a small private security firm. Then they fled.

None of the hostages has been found, eight months after one of the largest and most brazen kidnappings of Americans since the March 2003 invasion.

Crescent is shuttered, like dozens of other companies that have come and gone in Iraq’s booming market for private security services. The firm leaves behind a trail of broken lives and a record of alleged misconduct. In March, the U.S. military barred Crescent from U.S. bases after it was found with weapons prohibited for private security companies, including rocket launchers and grenades, according to documents and interviews with former Crescent employees and U.S. officials.

Crescent violated U.S. military regulations while being paid millions of dollars to support the U.S.-led mission in Iraq. The company routinely sacrificed safety to cut costs.

By this year, the Private Security Company Association of Iraq, a trade group based in Baghdad’s Green Zone, listed 177 active foreign and Iraqi security companies. The Pentagon has said that some 20,000 security contractors support the U.S.-led coalition, although some estimates are considerably higher.

The industry is largely unregulated by the U.S. and Iraqi governments, leaving companies to establish their own standards for operating on the battlefield.

These contractors are not security cleared, but will be soon according to new pentagon rules are lowering the standards as we speak. Crescent had managers with criminal records and allowed employees to carry armaments which is a felony. Maybe this is why the US is not looking for them. The US is not very good at admitting it’s shortcomings. Few countries are. Cutting corners with contractors is one thing, but, cutting corners with the Constitution is quite another. Lets get rid of these lying bastards ASAP

When They Come Home Will Gangs Be Worse

Gangs Spreading In The Military

CBS Story

Evidence of gang culture and gang activity in the military is increasing so much an FBI report calls it “a threat to law enforcement and national security.” The signs are chilling: Marines in gang attire on Paris Island; paratroopers flashing gang hand signs at a nightclub near Ft. Bragg; infantrymen showing-off gang tattoos at Ft. Hood.

“It’s obvious that many of these people do not give up their gang affiliations,” said Hunter Glass, a retired police detective in Fayetteville, North Carolina, the home of Ft. Bragg and the 82nd Airborne. He monitors gang activity at the base and across the military.

“If we weren’t in the middle of fighting a war, yes, I think the military would have a lot more control over this issue,” Glass said. “But with a war going on, I think it’s very difficult to do.”

Gang activity clues are appearing in Iraq and Afghanistan, too. Gang graffiti is sprayed on blast walls – even on Humvees. Kilroy – the doodle made famous by U.S. soldiers in World War II – is here, but so is the star emblem of the Gangster Disciples.

Gangs Using Military For Training, Experts Say

“When individuals go into the military, they are taught how to use weapons, defensive tactics, and the use of a lot of sophisticated techniques,” said LaRae Quy, of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. “They take that back on the streets with them. This is a legitimate concern for law enforcement.”

The rise in gang activity coincides with the increase in recruits with records. Since 2003, 125,000 recruits with criminal histories have been granted what are known as “moral waivers” for felonies including robbery and assault.

Sub-cultures abound within larger societies. The military, prisons, cities, neighborhoods spawn small groups who survive with the tools available to them. Gangs are the natural tribal inclinations for humans who feel threatened and angry at the wealth and respect outside their reach. Yes, the military will rehabilitate a great number of gang members, but those who have really bad experiences will take their training back to their gangs. They will continue to prey upon the same citizens, but this time with military, leadership, battlefield experience and blood on their hands. Gangs are our domestic terrorists, and our recruiting wavers allow us to train them better ways to kill.

Update:  I just had to borrow this cartoon from BrainsandEggs, it fits my point!

Bush Terror Production Impending – News Max Breaking News

Breaking from NewsMax.com

U.S. General: Terror Attack Could ‘Happen Any Day,’ Need
to Prepare for Nuclear Threat

Special: Bin Laden Targets 7 U.S. Cities: NY, D.C., Vegas, More

Special: Terror ‘Chatter’ Extremely High, Prepare Your Family

Experts Praise TSA’s Airport Security Warning

Special: 6 Days of Hell: the Coming War With Iran

Important: Homeland Security Has Advised Every Family to Have an Emergency Radio — and one not dependent on electric outlet power. Please check out our free offer for one of the best emergency radios available — Go Here Now.

I hate to plug a Reich Wing rag, but, here it is. Rumors that BushCo is preparing a “terrorist” incident to enable their plan to put the US under Marshal Law are getting a lot of play right now. Be prepared for Bush to arrange some awful disaster he can blame “on the enemies of American Freedom”. This will be the excuse he will use to postpone or cancel 2008 elections and suspend the Constitution. A national crisis will be the distraction. He is counting on America to be enraged and vulnerable and ready to strike back at whoever is in reach. Bush will then become the righteous dictator of biblical proportions that he was told he would be, by those who control his mind. We will officially become his subjects – as we seem to be right now.  All these Reich Wing warnings are seeping through the floorboards now, so they can stand proudly and say “I told you so”.

BossKitty is updating that passport!

Tillman Murdered? From Threat To Hero In 3 Shots!

OpEdNews has a provocative article by by Rob Kall:

There is mounting evidence that Pat Tillman was assassinated to silence his opinions about the Iraq War. The 2300 page report is raising more suspicion that Tillman was murdered. If this atrocity is not investigated NOW, then Tillman will become a mystery just like Kennedy. Motives abound for Kennedy’s assassination, and motives for stopping Tillman are unfolding every day.

The Tillman report also states that “No evidence at all of enemy fire was found at the scene – no one was hit by enemy fire, nor was any government equipment struck.”

Tillman had become so vocal in his ‘Anti-War’ rant, that he was a serious threat to the ‘Bush Mafia’ disinformation machine. His return to the US would have been a media disaster for the administration. The White House puppeteers would have to do something to protect their enterprise. SO! What better way than to turn a threat into an asset. Lets make Tillman a dead hero. Someone in the White House is a marketing genius … who could THAT be?

The Bush Mafia Crime Machine is more transparent every day. Here is the dilemma we face with the mountains of proof:

1. Is it more efficient to Impeach Cheney?
2. Impeach Bush?
3. Cut war funding?
4. Indict one Bush / Cheney aide at a time?
5. Keep tally of this administration’s crimes as they are revealed?
6. Bitch and Moan?
7. Update our passports so we can escape to a more rational country?

BossKitty is updating that passport, how about you?

Indict Bush After Immunity Is Gone, Like Chirac

Chirac on trial

No other former president in the nearly 50-year history of the Fifth Republic has been questioned by a judge investigating criminal activities.

France’s Chirac Queried in Probe of Party Financing

PARIS — A judge questioned former president Jacques Chirac for more than four hours Thursday in an investigation into a party financing scandal that dates to his time as mayor of Paris, his attorney said.

Chirac faces investigators, his immunity gone

Mr. Chirac lost his presidential immunity from prosecution on June 16, a month after he left office. He has denied committing any wrongdoing during his time as mayor of Paris.

France: Chirac Faces Corruption Inquiry

In light of these developments surrounding France’s Ex-President prior criminal activities, this country must have the resources to do the same to the Bush Crime Syndicate! Someone, please, gimme a legal take on what we must do to hold them accountable if impeachment fails!

Beware! Bush has a terrorist production in the wings to postpone coming elections! He is laughing from his ass now that the polyps are gone …