Hillary and Obama (First Quarter) '08

How big are the stakes in the so-called network neutrality debate now raging before Congress and federal regulators?

Consider this: One side in the debate actually went to the trouble of hiring people off the street to pack a Federal Communications Commission meeting yesterday—and effectively keep some of its opponents out of the room.

Broadband giant Comcast—the subject of the F.C.C. hearing on network neutrality at the Harvard Law School, in Cambridge, Massachusetts—acknowledged that it did exactly that.

McCain should thank the Times also because its semi-steamy story distracted attention from an unsavory story about McCain's dexterity in gaming the system for taxpayer financing of campaigns. Last summer, when his mismanagement of his campaign left it destitute, he applied for public funding, which entails spending limits. He seemed to promise to use tax dollars as partial collateral for a bank loan.

There are two ways for a candidate to get on Ohio's primary ballot -- comply with complex, expensive rules for gathering signatures or simply be certified to receive taxpayer funding. McCain's major Republican rivals did the former. He did the latter.
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When Smith chaired the Federal Election Commission, he voiced skepticism about the wisdom and constitutionality of aspects of McCain-Feingold's campaign regulations. McCain responded characteristically, impugning Smith's character. When, at a 2004 Senate hearing, Smith nevertheless extended his hand to McCain, McCain refused to shake it.

Smith, behaving honorably toward someone who does not reciprocate civilities, today says McCain has an arguable case that, not having cashed any public checks, he should be released from his commitment and the spending ceiling. The FEC must decide, but it cannot act because it lacks a quorum.
WaPo

2.28.2008 At the High Court, Damage Control

Exxon Mobil, the giant oil corporation appearing before the Supreme Court yesterday, had earned a profit of nearly $40 billion in 2006, the largest ever reported by a U.S. company -- but that's not what bothered Roberts. What bothered the chief justice was that Exxon was being ordered to pay $2.5 billion -- roughly three weeks' worth of profits -- for destroying a long swath of the Alaska coastline in the largest oil spill in American history.
Dana Milbank

2.27.2008 GOP Halts Effort to Retrieve White House E-Mails

After promising last year to search its computers for tens of thousands of e-mails sent by White House officials, the Republican National Committee has informed a House committee that it no longer plans to retrieve the communications by restoring computer backup tapes, the panel's chairman said yesterday
Dan Eggen:WaPo

... one key behavioral finding is that people often fail to set aside money for retirement even when their employers offer generous 401(k) plans. If, on the other hand, you automatically enroll workers in 401(k)s but allow them to opt out, most stick with it. Obama's savings plan exploits this so-called "status quo" bias.
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For their part, the Obama wonks tend to be inductive--working piecemeal from a series of real-world observations. One typical Goolsbee brainchild is something called an automatic tax return. The idea is that, if you had no tax deductions or freelance income the previous year, the IRS would send you a tax return that was already filled out. As long as you accepted the government's accounting, you could just sign it and mail it back. Goolsbee estimates this small innovation could save hundreds of millions of man-hours spent filling out tax forms, and billions of dollars in tax-preparation fees.
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Clinton advisers like former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and former U.N. ambassador Richard Holbrooke tend to be "more invested in justifying or glorifying" the Clinton record, says one Obama foreign policy hand, whereas the Obamanauts don't have the same "permanent need to fight for the legacy of your time in government."
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You can see Gration's influence on any number of issues, perhaps none more significant than nuclear doctrine. Gration is a vocal proponent of eliminating nuclear weapons globally. This may sound like a utopian idea, but it would almost certainly enhance stability. "We realize we are trying to deter the actions of non-state actors who don't have population centers, don't care about dying," Gration says, explaining why nuclear stockpiles have outlived their usefulness. "But these weapons can get into the wrong hands." Moreover, eliminating nukes would actually increase American military superiority. (We have a far more powerful conventional force than any other country on the planet.)
Noam Scheiber:The New Republic

2.25.2008 "60 Minutes Report On Rove’s Dirty Politics Blocked In Parts Of Alabama" (The Siegelman case]

2.24.2008 " Health Net Ordered to Pay $9 Million After Canceling Cancer Patient's Policy" (Here)

2.24.2008 "White House says phone wiretaps back on "for now" Reuters

2.21.2008 "Inside the world of war profiteers" Chicagotribune.com

2.21.2008 "Ex-Prosecutor at Guantanamo to Aid Defense"

Davis, now head of the Air Force judiciary, said he believes "there are some very bad men at Guantanamo and some of them deserve the death penalty." But he says civilian political appointees have improperly interfered with the work of military prosecutors.

"I think the rules are fair," he said. "I think the problem is having political appointees injected into the system. They are looking for a political outcome, not justice." Ben Fox:AP

2.21.2008 The Anti-Lobbyist, Advised by Lobbyists Michael D. Shear and Jeffrey H. Birnbaum:WaPo

2.22.2008 Harry Shearer: "The Unasked Question About the McCain Story" (Who is paying his "unpaid" staffers)

See also Christy Hardin Smith

Just hours after the Times's story was posted, the McCain campaign issued a point-by-point response that depicted the letters as routine correspondence handled by his staff—and insisted that McCain had never even spoken with anybody from Paxson or Alcalde & Fay about the matter. "No representative of Paxson or Alcalde & Fay personally asked Senator McCain to send a letter to the FCC," the campaign said in a statement e-mailed to reporters.

But that flat claim seems to be contradicted by an impeccable source: McCain himself. "I was contacted by Mr. Paxson on this issue," McCain said in the Sept. 25, 2002, deposition obtained by NEWSWEEK. "He wanted their approval very bad for purposes of his business. I believe that Mr. Paxson had a legitimate complaint."

See also emptywheel

In the 2007 National Environmental Scorecard released today by the League of Conservation Voters, John McCain receives a score of ZERO. McCain was the only member of Congress to skip every single crucial environmental vote scored by the organization, posting a score lower than Members of Congress who were out for much of the year due to serious illnesses--and even lower than some who died during the term.
(Here) via ThinkProgress.org

"I said to him that if we come up short and there are some acquittals in our cases, it will at least validate the process," Davis continued. "At which point, [Haynes's] eyes got wide and he said, 'Wait a minute, we can't have acquittals. If we've been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? We can't have acquittals, we've got to have convictions.'"

Davis submitted his resignation on October 4, 2007, just hours after he was informed that Haynes had been put above him in the commissions' chain of command. "Everyone has opinions," Davis says. "But when he was put above me, his opinions became orders."
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Currently, in his capacity as Pentagon general counsel, Haynes oversees both the prosecution and the defense for the commissions. "You would think a person in that position wouldn't be favoring one side," says Colonel Davis
Ross Tuttle:The Nation

"People don't want a course change from Bush; they want deliverance"

2.20.2008 Whistle-blower site taken offline

Wikileaks.org, as it is known, was cut off from the internet following a California court ruling, the site says.

The case was brought by a Swiss bank after "several hundred" documents were posted about its offshore activities.
BBC News

... And just one week ago, President Bush himself lambasted Obama's approach to foreign affairs.

"I certainly don't know what he believes in," Bush said on February 10, about Obama. "The only foreign policy thing I remember he said was he's going to attack Pakistan and embrace Ahmadinejad."
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Here is Obama's August 2 statement at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars:

"I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges... But let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. ... If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf will not act, we will."

And here are some excerpts from Tuesday's Washington Post article.

In the predawn hours of Jan. 29, a CIA Predator aircraft flew in a slow arc above the Pakistani town of Mir Ali. The drone's operator, relying on information secretly passed to the CIA by local informants, clicked a computer mouse and sent the first of two Hellfire missiles hurtling toward a cluster of mud-brick buildings a few miles from the town center.
Sam Stein:HuffPo

We've long held that a President doesn't need a court order under the Constitution to order such wiretaps. But the reality is that, because of these lawsuits, the telephone companies now won't cooperate without the legal protection of a court order. That's how pernicious these lawsuits are. (Here)

How about the Executive sitting down with Congress and working out laws which address our current digital situation? It might work. Who knows? It's never been tried.

See also bmaz who says: "Don’t Cry For The Telcos - Bush & Cheney Are The Only Ones That Are Dying For Immunity"

... It is my contention that the telcos have just such indemnification agreements with the Administration/government, that we do not know about because they are classified and hidden, that so protect them for any liability and losses resulting from the litigation they are faced with; thus they do not need immunity to protect them from potential liability verdicts, they are already covered. Telcos have some of the best attorneys and legal departments in the world, and they also recruit heavily from the upper echelons of the Department of Justice (see, for instance: William Barr and Peter Keisler, who is now, of course, conveniently back in the DOJ leadership). Simply put, telco legal departments are huge, experienced, and cutthroat competent. They did not fall off the turnip truck last night, nor any other night; and they have been dealing with wiretapping issues for law enforcement and national security concerns since the telephone came into use. As someone that has had dealings with such entities regarding bad/illegal wiretaps, I can attest that they always protect themselves vis a vis the governmental entity they are working for and are not shy about the use of indemnity provisions. (Here)

More than 350 adverse reactions to the drug have been reported to the FDA since the end of 2007, including a dangerous lowering of blood pressure, breathing difficulties and vomiting. Four patients who took the drug died. One of its two manufacturers, Baxter International, stopped selling its multiple-dose vials of heparin earlier this month, and yesterday the FDA advised doctors to prescribe alternatives. Marc Kaufman:WaPo

2.18.2008 David Denby tries to explain the Coen Brothers (Here)

2.18.2008 The Captain supports Obama:

That's a lot different than plagiarism. In fact, to quote Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction, it "ain't the same [expletive] ballpark, it ain't the same league, it ain't even the same [expletive] sport." When Joe Biden lifted entire passages of British Labour leader Neil Kinnock's speeches and passed them off as his own -- and as James Joyner notes, even including Kinnock's personal anecdotes -- that's plagiarism. Biden was unethical and dishonest, while Patrick wanted Obama to make use of his constructs. Perhaps Obama could have referenced Patrick in the speech, but he wasn't quoting Patrick, and how many other ways could he have said the same thing? (Here)

Bush took a subtle jab at human rights activists who will want to “opine” during the Olympics. “I mean, you got the Dalai Lama crowd. You’ve got global warming folks. You’ve got, you know, Darfur,” he said. “I am not gonna you know, go and use the Olympics as an opportunity to express my opinions to the Chinese people in a public way.”
Think Progress

The online gun dealer who sold a weapon to the Virginia Tech shooter said it was an unnerving coincidence that he also sold handgun accessories to the man who killed five students at Northern Illinois University.
Scott Bauer:HuffPo

2.15.2008 I just heard him say that they need "to get as much information as we possibly can so we can protect you." And I think that he meant it sincerely. The more they get and the less they give out, the more they have and the more they can protect us.

2.13.2008 Bush Administration Hides More Data, Shuts Down Website Tracking U.S. Economic Indicators Amanda:Think Progress

For other examples of information blackouts see Steve Benen and Paul Keil

...In his tendentious attack, Obama never mentions that Hans Blix, the chief United Nations weapons inspectors, declared that without the congressional Authorization for the Use of Military Force the inspectors would never have been allowed into Iraq. Hillary's approach -- and that of the majority of Democrats in the Senate -- was to let the inspectors complete their work while building an international coalition. Hillary's was the road untaken. The betrayal of the American people, and of the Congress, came when President Bush refused to allow the inspections to succeed, and that betrayal is his and his party's, not the Democrats.
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Obama's claim to float uniquely above the fray and avoid polarization will be short-lived. He is no less mortal than any other Democrat -- Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry -- all untouched at the beginning of their campaigns and all mauled by the end. We should never forget recent history.

In order to effect practical change against a determined adversary, we do not need a would-be philosopher-king but a seasoned gladiator who understands the fight Democrats will face in the fall campaign and in governing.

Theodore Roosevelt once commented, "It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly."

If he were around today, TR might be speaking of the woman in the arena. Hillary Clinton has been in that arena for a generation. She is one of the few to have defeated the attack machine that is today's Republican Party and to have emerged stronger. She is deeply knowledgeable about governing; she made herself into a power in the Senate; she is respected by our military; and she never flinches. She has never been intimidated, not by any Republican -- not even John McCain.
Joseph C. Wilson:HuffPo

2.12.2008 "Army Buried Study Faulting Iraq Planning" MICHAEL R. GORDON:NYT via ThinkProgress.org

2.12.2008 Dems: Don't Change the Rules in the Middle of the Game

... So I hope that we can be spared petitions and threats unless Florida and Michigan delegates are seated based on the prior votes or that superdelegates must be neutered. First, superdelegates are not Martians sent to screw up our democracy but governors, senators, representatives and party leaders who are surely interested in Democratic values and winning the White House; all together, they're less a Boss Daley than a huge focus group which wants to win. (And since smoking is prohibited in such venues, at the least critics should avoids references to "smoke-filled rooms.")

Second, if they should make the margin of difference, it's not that they'd be ignoring voters but, in effect, helping break a tie because voters themselves are essentially split between two evenly matched and superior candidates. For all but the most intense Obamamanics and Clintonistas surely now get that we have two extremely skillful center-left aspirants, each with 75%+ favorable ratings among Dems and each likely to prevail against a McCain seeking a 3rd Bush term.
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For now, every petition circulated, every threat made is a stalking horse for McCain. The most important thing by far is that Dems unite behind either Clinton or Obama. After eight years of serial catastrophes, I'll be happy with a Democratic president who's law-abiding, fact-based, progressive and competent -- which describes both aspirants. Remember disaffected, sanctimonious Democrats who in 1968 found such fault with Hubert Humphrey that they then indirectly helped Richard Nixon win?

That was brilliant.
Mark Green:HuffPo

Charting that progression is almost not worth doing anymore, so familiar are the various feints and steps. First, the administration breaks the law in secret. Then it denies breaking the law. Then it admits to the conduct but asserts that settled law is not in fact settled anymore because some lawyer was willing to unsettle it. Then the administration insists that the basis for unsettling the law is secret but that there are now two equally valid sides to the question. And then the administration gets Congress to rewrite the old law by insisting it prevents the president from thwarting terror attacks and warning that terrorists will strike tomorrow unless Congress ratifies the new law. Then it immunizes the law breakers from prosecution.
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Let me say that again, for the benefit of folks who believe this matter might be resolved by the passage of pending legislation to force the CIA to use only those techniques permitted in the U.S. Army Field Manual. It doesn't matter to this president what the laws say. FISA was a law once, too.
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The only thing the Three Mikes did know beyond a reasonable doubt was that the legality of water-boarding has nothing to do with international treaties, secret legal memos, acts of Congress, or their personal interpretations of same. The claim on which they were all perfectly clear is that the legality of future torture will be determined by the president and the attorney general as the occasion arises. It will not be measured by any objective standard of conduct but will turn on "the circumstances" surrounding them (in McConnell's formulation) or the value "of the information you might get" (in Mukasey's). It will be a secret decision, made using shifting, subjective standards, for which neither the torturers nor the legal decision-makers will ever be held to account.
Slate via Cursor.org

"We're going to have to see how willing the judges are to interpret the rules so as to give defense counsel some kind of chance to actually defend their clients," said Navy Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, a defense attorney for detainee Omar Khadr. "That means litigating these discovery issues and that takes time."
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At one of the hearings this week, the government inadvertently released a witness account that raised doubt over whether Khadr threw the grenade. Prosecutors later said they had planned to hand out a redacted version, but Kuebler said he believed the government meant to keep the witness account from the public.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080209/D8UMRGR80.htmlmyway via Cursor.org

The State Department is considering supporting the Palestinian Authority in its quest to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in judgments won by American victims of Palestinian terrorist attacks in Israel, according to Palestinian officials and defense lawyers involved in the cases
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The Palestinian Authority initially argued that it had sovereign immunity, meaning that as a state it was beyond the reach of the U.S. legal system. Former attorney general Ramsey Clark, who was hired to defend the Palestinians, described in a court hearing how he had to "break my neck climbing over literally rubble" of Arafat's compound in Ramallah in 2003, only to be told to ignore the cases.
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With a new set of lawyers -- Richard A. Hibey and Mark J. Rochon of the Washington firm Miller & Chevalier -- the Palestinian Authority last year said the Knox judgment should be nullified because the authority was now prepared to litigate the case and offer a vigorous defense. Citing Rice's letter to Abbas, the new legal team urged U.S. District Court Judge Victor Marrero to request a "statement of interest" from State because of the "international ramifications."

The Democrats have conspired to give Bush everything he wants. We're going to get screwed. Nobody should pretend to be a hero here.

Update: Woo hoo! You lose. Dodd's amendment to strip retroactive immunity fails spectacularly, 31-67. I have to say that what constantly amazes me is just how damn little it costs corporate America to buy our elected officials. Pennies on the dollar, really, for what they get.
Jane Hamsher:Firedoglake

Because he was acting in the role of a talk show host when he made the comment. Talk show hosts are not news people, they give their opinions and are often wrong and misguided. I should know, I am one. We talk for hours on end and often say stupid things. If you suspend or fire every talk show host who says something inappropriate, you would have three hosts left in the country. And they would be the three most insipid people you've ever met.
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The problem is MSNBC doesn't know which universe it's in. Among cable news stations, it's stuck between Fox News Channel and CNN. They haven't decided what their identity is. I'm not even sure they realize they have this problem.
Cenk Uygur:HuffPo

The military commission system has been troubled almost from the start, when it was set up in an order by President Bush in November 2001. It has been beset by legal challenges and practical difficulties, including a 2006 decision by the Supreme Court striking down the administration’s first system at Guantánamo. Although officials have spoken of charging 80 or more detainees with war crimes, so far only one case has been completed, and that was through a plea bargain.
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Tom Fleener, an Army Reserve major who was until recently a military defense lawyer at Guantánamo, said that bringing death penalty cases in the military commission system would bog down the untested system. He noted that many legal questions remain unanswered at Guantánamo, including how much of the trials will be conducted in closed, secret proceedings; how the military judges will handle evidence obtained by interrogators’ coercive tactics; and whether the judges will require experienced death-penalty lawyers to take part in such cases.

“Neither the system is ready, nor are the defense attorneys ready to do a death penalty case in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba,” Major Fleener said.
WILLIAM GLABERSON:NYT

2.10.08 Mythbusting Canadian Health Care -- Part I Sara Robinson:Campaign for America's Future

2.10.08 Bush move on Darfur law criticized

The act authorizes state and local efforts to divest from companies with certain business ties to Sudan, such as in power production, mining, oil drilling, and the production of military equipment. The act also forbids investors from suing a mutual fund's managers for breach of fiduciary duty if divesting from such companies causes the fund to earn less money.

The Bush administration opposed the legislation, telling Congress that while the White House shared its concern about Darfur, the legislation would undercut the president's constitutional powers over foreign affairs. Congress passed the bill anyway, by unanimous votes in both chambers.

Bush signed the bill into law and then asserted in a signing statement that the act was unconstitutional.
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"The president has the constitutional authority to make foreign policy," Fratto said. "If he then has to go back to state and local governments to, in essence, negotiate their compliance with the foreign policy he's set, that gets you into constitutional friction."

But Frank and several witnesses - including Patricia Wald, the former chief judge of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia - criticized Bush's legal theories.

They pointed out that the Constitution explicitly gives Congress the power to "regulate commerce with foreign nations," arguing that there was nothing improper about the Sudan act.
Charlie Savage:Boston.com

2.10.08 "Bush to renew drive to confirm nominees - But Senate Democrats say the president won't see much success on the nearly 200 names awaiting approval due to his refusal to consult and appointments that circumvent the system."
James Gerstenzang, Los Angeles Times

2.9.08 "Will President McCain enforce or expand McCain-Feingold regulation of political speech to bloggers?" Mark Tapscott Clever ploy.

2.8.08 Yikes!

For more than seven months, the nation’s top public health agency has blocked the publication of an exhaustive federal study of environmental hazards in the eight Great Lakes states, reportedly because it contains such potentially “alarming information” as evidence of elevated infant mortality and cancer rates.
Sheila Kaplan:Center for Public Integrity

Could a Clinton-Obama or Obama-Clinton ticket be our future? I hope so. I think America would benefit from the strengths of either individual, but if those strengths were combined, we might just have the Democratic powerhouse the country needs to turn itself around, and back into peace, prosperity and opportunity.

May they both release the desire to receive for oneself alone -- and save the world together.
Rosie O'Donnell:HuffPo

Today, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Asian Law Caucus, two civil liberties groups in San Francisco, plan to file a lawsuit to force the government to disclose its policies on border searches, including which rules govern the seizing and copying of the contents of electronic devices. They also want to know the boundaries for asking travelers about their political views, religious practices and other activities potentially protected by the First Amendment. The question of whether border agents have a right to search electronic devices at all without suspicion of a crime is already under review in the federal courts. The lawsuit was inspired by two dozen cases, 15 of which involved searches of cellphones, laptops, MP3 players and other electronics. Almost all involved travelers of Muslim, Middle Eastern or South Asian background, many of whom, including Mango and the tech engineer, said they are concerned they were singled out because of racial or religious profiling.
Ellen Nakashima:WaPo

2.6.08 "Prosecutor May Have Known of CIA Tapes" LARA JAKES JORDAN:via Huffpo

2.5.08 "The Conservative Agenda For 2008 — A Third Bush Term" Think Progress

2.5.08

Huckabee's legions have their own cause -- a pious populism that doesn't have much sway in urban areas. But consider what animates conservatives' support for Mitt Romney. It's not that they have warmed to his shifting agenda or his elusive charisma. They simply hate John McCain, who threatens their cosmology by waging a campaign that does not put them at the center of the political universe. That, certainly, is what animates Rush Limbaugh and the right-wing talkocracy, who feel their power ebbing with each McCain success.
Harold Meyerson:Wapo

I like today's headline: CIA says waterboarding used three times.
I know which three times they are talking about: The past, the present, the future.

2.3.08 A Bush Power Grab I can Support

Bush is going to stop using verbal 'earmarks' passed in to agencies by members of Congress, and is going to make them to put the earmarks into the plain text of the law? Cool.

Spending-by-committee-report seems to me like a horrible and non-transparent way to conduct the Nation's business. As an avid fan of the Sunlight Foundation's efforts to find information on the workings of our government, I like that secret budgetary measures will be forced onto the books and into a vote.

I am all for the Congress passing a law saying that a certain portion of the Health budget needs to be spent to fund a new building for the Center's for Disease Control, but if they want to slip in a 'Bridge to Nowhere" provision, I want it where I can see it and where I can hold people accountable.

Under current practice, earmarks have even been inserted into the law after the laws have been voted upon. One of the few advantages of our Majority may not be through their more noble actions, but in the fact that at least some of the checks and balances of our system can start to kick in.
Take Back the House:Kos

Grand Jury Subpoenas such as the one issued to Risen have as their principal purpose shutting off that avenue of learning about government wrongdoing -- the sole remaining avenue for a country plagued by a supine, slothful, vapid press and an indescribably submissive Congress. Mukasey has quickly demonstrated that he has no interest in investigating and pursuing lawbreaking by high government officials, but now, he (or at least the DOJ he leads) seems to be demonstrating something even worse: a burgeoning interest in investigating and pursuing those who expose such governmental lawbreaking and turning those whistleblowers and investigative journalists into criminals.
Glenn Greenwald:Salon via NewsTrust.net

In my years making documentaries, I have traveled to remote regions, from small villages in South America, to townships in South Africa, to the hollows of Appalachia. Every trip, every film, I meet people who still keep photographs of my family on their walls. They cry when they meet me, simply because they were touched by my father, Robert Kennedy. In part, this is because my father supported policies and legislation that helped the disenfranchised. But it is also, and perhaps more importantly, because they felt that my father understood their pain. Senator Obama has that quality too. He has an open heart and an energizing spirit. Rory Kennedy:HuffPo

Let me be clear: Our ability to track and monitor terrorists overseas would not cease should the Protect America Act expire. If this were true, the president would not threaten to terminate any temporary extension with his veto pen. All surveillance currently occurring would continue even after legislative provisions lapsed because authorizations issued under the act are in effect up to a full year.
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In order to defeat the violent Islamist extremists who do not believe in human rights, we need not give up the civil liberties, constitutional rights and protections that generations of Americans fought to achieve. We do not need to create Big Brother. With the administration's attempts to erode FISA's legal standing as the exclusive means by which our government can conduct electronic surveillance of U.S. persons on U.S. soil, this is unfortunately the path the president is taking us down.
Richard Clarke (former head of counterterrorism at the National Security Council) :Philadelphia Inquirer via Glenn Greenwald