this makes me wonder

the first link is the ap story so you'll have to click the link. i can't print ONE WORD of it.

if TRUE, how can FOUR security cameras from four DIFFERENT locations be blank BEFORE the oklahoma city bombing then all come back on line at about 9:02?


AGAIN, if this story is true, are we going to allow our government to get away with ANOTHER HUGE LIE? the story COULD be all coincidences though. i mean i didn't see all four tapes myself and i don't know if they did all indeed go blank right before the explosion. so it's 50-50. the explosion was so intense it COULD have messed up the cameras themselves. no way for me a civilian to tell. i'm just putting this out there

Attorney: Oklahoma bombing tapes appear to be edited

TIM TALLEY
AP News

Lawyer says Oklahoma City bombing tapes edited

BY NOLAN CLAY

A Utah attorney claims the FBI edited some security camera videotapes from the morning of the Oklahoma City bombing before releasing the recordings to him. "Four cameras in four different locations going blank at basically the same time on the morning of April 19, 1995. There ain’t no such thing as a coincidence,” Jesse Trentadue told The Associated Press Sunday.

"The interesting thing is they spring back on after 9:02,” he said. "The absence of footage from these crucial time intervals is evidence that there is something there that the FBI doesn’t want anybody to see.”

Trentadue is conducting a personal inquiry into the attack. Trentadue made similar statements to The Oklahoman in the weeks before giving the newspaper copies of the security camera recordings. He provided them because of their historical value.

The recordings cover hours. The Oklahoman Sunday put online excerpts from the recordings from cameras at Southwestern Bell and the public library........

Read more: http://newsok.com/lawyer-says-oklahoma-city-bombing-tapes-edited/article/3404585?custom_click=headlines_widget#ixzz0SNZ6leRZ
........

Read more: http://newsok.com/lawyer-says-oklahoma-city-bombing-tapes-edited/article/3404585?custom_click=headlines_widget#ixzz0SNYzgsSR

so far so good al!!!

you seem to have some stones AND of course a sense of what's right and what's wrong. you seem to actually WANT TO FOLLOW OUR CONSTITUTION. oh and unlike (it's a guess here on my part, but i'm SURE i'm right) every or any other senator, YOU CAN DRAW A MAP OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, BY STATE, BY MEMORY

Al Franken Reads the 4th Amendment to Justice Department Official

By Daphne Eviatar

Just in case he wasn’t familiar with it, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) decided to read the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution to David Kris, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, who was testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee today to urge reauthorization of expiring provisions of the USA Patriot Act.

Franken, who opened by acknowledging that unlike most of his colleagues in the Senate, he’s not a lawyer, but according to his research “most Americans aren’t lawyers” either, said he’d also done research on the Patriot Act and in particular, the “roving wiretap” provision that allows the FBI to get a warrant to wiretap a an unnamed target and his or her various and changing cell phones, computers and other communication devices...........

shite, now come on

i don't work for the government (but we're still subject to the patriot act. don't get me started on what we have to do because of that). i work for an international financial institution/insurance company.

not only do we have a clear desk policy (we have to have our computers locked, our drawers locked, all papers with work related data on them locked up/off of our desks if we are going to be away from the desk for an hour or over. that includes locking everything up tightly each night. we have tight security to get into the building as well. cameras and security personnel all over. 24/7 (i know because i go in at 3 or 4 am). yet we can't leave a work related paper on our desks over night. oh, we're checked on it from time to time. people do walk around and check. we get notified if we've violated that policy. it's (adhering to it) also a part of our annual/midyear review process. they ARE serious about protecting the data of our customers....

AND all sorts of sites are blocked from our laptops (most of us have laptops with docking stations). no social networking sites like facebook. no youtube. no flickr. no blogger. AND CERTAINLY NOT ANY SITE WITH PEER TO PEER SHARING CAPABILITIES.

i can't imagine an organization responsible for the safety of the citizens of the united states of america being less careful than my company - BUT IT'S TRUE
File Sharing Leaks Sensitive Federal Data, Lawmakers Are Told

By Brian Krebs and Ellen Nakashima

Washington Post Staff Writers

The indiscriminate use of a popular online data-sharing technology has led to the disclosure of sensitive government and personal information -- including FBI surveillance photos of a Mafia hit man, lists of people with HIV, and motorcade routes and safe-house locations for then-first lady Laura Bush, a congressional panel was told on Wednesday.

The information is often exposed inadvertently by people who download the technology to share music or other files, not realizing that the "peer-to-peer" software also makes the contents of their computers available to other users, experts said.

The issue is so pressing that the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), said he would introduce a bill to ban such software from all government and contractor computers and networks..........

unclear?????????????

that my dears is a wicked understatement. i have no facts. i have no figures (that's obvious i know). i also know in my heart of hearts for every REAL terrorist they legitimately spied upon, there had to be at least 1,000 INNOCENT CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (who have rights that were trampled upon)

wtf?????????? unclear?????????????? it's as clear as the (noble, roman) nose on my face

U.S. Wiretaps Were of Limited Value, Officials Report
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and JAMES RISEN
WASHINGTON — While the Bush administration had defended its program of wiretapping without warrants as a vital tool that saved lives, a new government review released Friday said the program’s effectiveness in fighting terrorism was unclear.

The report, mandated by Congress last year and produced by the inspectors general of five federal agencies, found that other intelligence tools used in assessing security threats posed by terrorists provided more timely and detailed information.

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.............

jaw dropping

unbelievable. i don't want to believe this. i don't.

could it be true? i'm thinking YES it could be. HOW could it be though? are we THAT insane?

this is fairly long. it's a must read though. it's about our country and OUR LIVES
our safety
shite
shite
shite

Why the FBI Squelched an Investigation of a Post-9/11 Meeting Between White Supremacist and Islamic Extremists
By Mark Levine, AlterNet

The recent shooting at the Holocaust Museum serves as a stark reminder to us all that murderous racial and religious hatred still endures in America. One would expect the FBI to infiltrate and prosecute individuals and organizations that threaten domestic terrorist acts. But as this investigative report details, the large FBI bureaucracy, from the bottom to the very top, may well be more concerned with covering up its agents' own illegal misconduct than it is with actually protecting Americans from terrorist attack.

If the leader of the White Supremacist Organization was uncomfortable meeting the brown-skinned supporter of the Islamic terrorist group in Florida, he tried not to show it. After all, the two men had a common agenda, and in the up-coming War Against the Jews, the Islamic Extremist had agreed, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." It was January 2002 -- a mere four months after 9-11 -- and both men were intent on following up on that deadly terrorist attack with a "summit meeting" to discuss how their respective organizations could cement an alliance to cause more death and destruction in the United States and around the world.

It was the first meeting between the men. To break the ice, the White Supremacist mentioned his admiration for Adolf Hitler. The Islamic Extremist readily agreed that he shared that admiration and looked forward to joining with the White Supremacist in the goal of fomenting civil war in the USA. They both approved of suicide bombings. And they discussed how the White Supremacist Organization could launder money and provide financial assistance to the Islamic Terrorist Organization, which had already received arms shipments from Iran...........

i don't give a shite, i'm NOT going to be politically correct

at all. i don't care. it's an ugly (i don't mean physically) country full of ugly (not physically) MEN. with ugly rules and ugly laws.

they treat women worse than possessions (they have to have permission from one of their menfolk before they can even have surgery and that's just the TIP of the iceberg). they keep 'slaves'. yes, i believe they do. indentured servants who are slaves. foreigners who are lured there by talk of a better life. once they get there, they're doomed to a life of slavery. and camel jockeys (even though they supposedly OUTLAWED the practice, i think it continues) are yet another whole story.

they are a worse than suppressive/repressive society. they also (and there is NO doubt in my mind about this) fund and/or protect terrorists.

they have oil, that's why they are our buds. well they're NOT MY BUDS. eff 'em

Saudis coerced bombing suspects to blame Iran, shield al Qaeda

By Gareth Porter / IPS

When a truck bomb exploded outside a housing unit in Saudi Arabia in 1996, killing 19 US service members, the Saudis quickly concluded that the plot had been carried out by Hezbollah with the backing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. FBI Director Louis Freeh was prepared to accept the confessions obtained by the Saudis as proof, but the Department of Justice suspected they had been obtained through torture.

Gareth Porter reports that by 2003, it had become apparent that the Saudis routinely tortured terror suspects and coached them into making confessions that would not implicate al Qaeda. By that time, however, Freeh had embarked on a new career as the chief defender of the Saudis’ response to the Khobar plot.

This is the final installment of a five-part series, “Khobar Towers Investigated: How a Saudi Deception Protected Osama bin Laden”. The work on this series was supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism.................

this dude was recently arrested in connecticut

and i wrote about it here

now the feds have 'em and i couldn't be happier. one more raving whack job off of the street (at least for the time being. they always get let go for some reason or another)

FBI Arrests White Supremacist Blogger Hal Turner For Threatening To Kill Federal Judges

Today, FBI agents went to the New Jersey home of white supremacist blogger/radio host Hal Turner and arrested him “on a federal complaint filed in Chicago alleging that he made internet postings threatening to assault and murder three federal appeals court judges in Chicago in retaliation for their recent ruling upholding handgun bans in Chicago and a suburb,” according to a statement released by the Justice Department. A summary of Turner’s dangerous tirade against the judges:

Internet postings on June 2 and 3 proclaimed “outrage” over the June 2, 2009, handgun decision by Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook and Judges Richard Posner and William Bauer, of the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, further stating, among other things: “Let me be the first to say this plainly: These Judges deserve to be killed.” The postings included photographs, phone numbers, work address and room numbers of these judges, along with a photo of the building in which they work and a map of its location........

yeah, bodyarmor

question: why don't our deployed troops have enough body armor?

answer: because the fbi is using it to raid houses of whistleblowers

Bush FBI sent 18 armored agents to search my house, wiretap whistleblower says

By John Byrne

The Bush Administration’s FBI sent 18 agents in body armor to the home of a man who revealed details of the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program, according to a little-noticed account of the whistleblower published Thursday.

Thomas Tamm, a former Justice Department lawyer in the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review, revealed details of the wiretapping program to the New York Times in 2004. In 2007, FBI agents raided his Potomac, Maryland home.

Tamm wasn’t there. His college-aged son, wife and young daughter were — but their father had never told them of his leak to the Times.

“They asked me questions like ‘Are there any secret rooms or compartments in the house’?” Terry Tamm, his son, told Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff last December. “Or did we have a safe? They asked us if any New York Times reporters had been to the house. We had no idea why any of this was happening.”............

from milk to beer to bourbon

he's right, the gateway theory does NOT work.

Milk is a gateway drug to bourbon
-- Stephen C. Webster

You have never before seen -- nor will you ever see again -- FBI director Robert Mueller so thoroughly humbled in a discussion about drug policy before the United States Congress.

In this instance, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) gets Mueller to admit that marijuana has never killed anybody, then smashes into tiny bits the decades-old "gateway drug" argument with a unique analogy of milk and bourbon.....................

this is eye opening

and frightening and sad and a national tragedy


The FBI's Least Wanted

Special agent Bassem Youssef was one of the FBI's up-and-comers—fluent in Arabic, ambitious, with a record of spotting threats and cracking terrorist cells. So of course the bureau sent him to rot in a desk job.

—By Bruce Falconer

The FBI's highest-ranking Arabic-speaking agent is a ghost. He goes to work each day, but walks the halls like an empty suit. Fellow agents whisper about his loyalty and talk about throwing him "off the roof." Bassem Youssef, after all, is the whistleblower at the center of two of the FBI's biggest ongoing scandals: its rampant abuse of national security letters to access confidential information on US citizens, and its failure to recruit Arabic-speaking agents. He's sued the bureau for discrimination and has been sidelined to a paper-pushing job. Yet he won't quit—he remains determined, he says, to fight the war on terror, even if he has to battle his bosses to do it.

It wasn't always so. In the mid-1990s, if you were to call the FBI and ask for Bassem Youssef, the switchboard operator would tell you there was no such person. Known in those days by his alias, Adam Shoukry, Youssef was a star counterterrorism specialist, one of only a few agents in bureau history whose work was deemed so sensitive that the attorney general allowed him to go undercover within the FBI itself. Almost a full decade before the 9/11 attacks, he managed to penetrate "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel-Rahman's Islamic Group, which carried out the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. (Some of its key members later joined Al Qaeda, which Youssef identified as a threat long before it was on most intelligence agents' radar.).........

i've always said

i'm more afraid of the terror(ists) from within than without. there ARE terrorists here. born of america. why wasn't this man on someone's radar (before it was too late)? how can one by uranium over the internet from an AMERICAN company (depleted or not)?


Report: Slain US Nazi hated Obama, had parts for 'dirty bomb'
Stephen C. Webster
Claim: Depleted uranium purchased over the Internet from an American company
Trust fund millionaire James G. Cummings, an American Nazi sympathizer from Maine who was slain by his wife Amber in December, allegedly had the radioactive components necessary to construct a "dirty bomb," a newly released threat analysis report states.

The man, allegedly furious over the election of President Obama, purchased depleted uranium over the Internet from an American company.

"According to an FBI field intelligence report from the Washington Regional Threat and Analysis Center posted online by WikiLeaks, an organization that posts leaked documents, an investigation into the case revealed that radioactive materials were removed from Cummings’ home after his shooting death on Dec. 9," reported the Bangor Daily News.

"Amber (Cummings) indicated James was very upset with Barack Obama being elected President," reported the Washington Regional Threat and Analysis Center (PDF link). "She indicated James had been in contact with 'white supremacist group(s).' Amber also indicated James mixed chemicals in the kitchen sink at their residence and had mentioned 'dirty bombs.'"..............

(my previous posting on this)

an interesting story

i just happened upon

and by interesting i mean down right effing scary

Report: 'Dirty bomb' parts found in slain man's home
By Walter Griffin
BDN Staff
BELFAST, Maine — James G. Cummings, who police say was shot to death by his wife two months ago, allegedly had a cache of radioactive materials in his home suitable for building a “dirty bomb.”

According to an FBI field intelligence report from the Washington Regional Threat and Analysis Center posted online by WikiLeaks, an organization that posts leaked documents, an investigation into the case revealed that radioactive materials were removed from Cummings’ home after his shooting death on Dec. 9.

The report posted on the WikiLeaks Web site states that “On 9 December 2008, radiological dispersal device components and literature, and radioactive materials, were discovered at the Maine residence of an identified deceased [person] James Cummings.”

The section referring to Cummings can be read here.

It says that four 1-gallon containers of 35 percent hydrogen peroxide, uranium, thorium, lithium metal, thermite, aluminum powder, beryllium, boron, black iron oxide and magnesium ribbon were found in the home. ........

do you think it's reasonable while waiting to board a plane

or actually already on board and waiting for takeoff, to discuss where the safest place to sit is? i sure do. i think it would be a reasonable conversation. haven't we ALL heard one similar? i know i have

well get this

'Safest' seat remarks gets Muslim family kicked off plane
By Mike M. Ahlers
CNN
Decrease font Decrease font
Enlarge font Enlarge font

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Muslim family removed from an airliner Thursday after passengers became concerned about their conversation say AirTran officials refused to rebook them, even after FBI investigators cleared them of wrongdoing.

Atif Irfan said federal authorities removed eight members of his extended family and a friend after passengers heard them discussing the safest place to sit and misconstrued the nature of the conversation.

Irfan, a U.S. citizen and tax attorney, said he was "impressed with the professionalism" of the FBI agents who questioned him, but said he felt mistreated when the airline refused to book the family for a later flight.

AirTran Airways late Thursday said they acted properly and that the family was offered full refunds and can fly with AirTran again.

"AirTran Airways complied with all TSA, law enforcement and Homeland Security directives and had no discretion in the matter," the company said in a prepared statement.

Family members disagreed.

"The FBI agents actually cleared our names," said Inayet Sahin, Irfan's sister-in-law. "They went on our behalf and spoke to the airlines and said, 'There is no suspicious activity here. They are clear. Please let them get on a flight so they can go on their vacation,' and they still refused."

"The airline told us that we can't fly their airline," Irfan said...........

and this my dears is EXACTLY why we're

f**king up in afghanistan AND elsewhere

(see previous posting)

our right hands don't know what our left hands are doing. our government is promising people that help them payment or other incentives, then backing out. our government uses whatever means necessary (again see previous story) then denies denies denies. one agency swings one way, another agency swings another and no one knows what's in the middle (or who is caught there).

the ONLY people i feel sorry for are the troops who have lost their lives or come back unwhole AND the innocent people of the countries we've 'brought our form of democracy' to

Tangled U.S. Objectives Bring Down Spy Firm
Private Agents Snared Afghan Drug Kingpin
By Richard Leiby
Washington Post Staff Writer
After a federal jury in New York swiftly convicted a major Afghan heroin trafficker and Taliban supporter named Haji Bashir Noorzai, the government promptly issued the usual celebratory news release thanking the men and women of the DEA and FBI for their "countless sacrifices" in making the case.

Left out was any credit to the party most responsible for the government's victory: an unusual three-man private intelligence firm called Rosetta Research and Consulting.

At the instigation of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Rosetta agents lured Noorzai to America and delivered him right into the feds' hands. He spent 11 days in an Embassy Suites Hotel in Manhattan in 2005, enjoying room service and considering himself a guest of the U.S. government -- until he was arrested. He was imprisoned for three years awaiting his trial, which concluded in September. He faces up to life in prison when he is sentenced in January. .......

this is ugly

not shocking because i knew it was happening. the sad part is the military seems to be taking ANYONE who signs on these days. i do NOT want nazis given guns (well, i don't want them given ANYTHING). i don't want nazis given a green light to kill. that is NOT my america and i sure as hell hope it's NOT YOUR america either

[Shawn Stuart, Iraq War veteran, at a 2006 neo-Nazi rally in Olympia, WA.]

Two years ago, the Southern Poverty Law Center ran a devastating report describing the infiltration of neo-Nazis into the ranks of the American military. The Pentagon's official response was steadfast denial of the problem.

The SPLC's David Holthouse just published a follow-up report, and found, predictably, that the problem is getting worse as the conflict in Iraq drags on:

A new FBI report confirms that white supremacists are infiltrating the military for several reasons. According to the unclassified FBI Intelligence Assessment, "White Supremacist Recruitment of Military Personnel Since 9/11," which was released to law enforcement agencies nationwide: "Sensitive and reliable source reporting indicates supremacist leaders are encouraging followers who lack documented histories of neo-Nazi activity and overt racist insignia such as tattoos to infiltrate the military as 'ghost skins,' in order to recruit and receive training for the benefit of the extremist movement."...............

to me, this is absolutely mind boggling

IF this is true (and they're sayin' they have YEARS worth of evidence, but then again they convicted don siegelman on 'evidence' too) HOW STUPID is this dude? (well are THESE dudes?)

wrigley stadium? the trib? SELLING SENATE SEATS?

was it (allegedly) greed?

was it (allegedly) as blago said, his lack of funds (if a GOVERNOR is broke think how his PEEPS are getting by)

really, i am SO at a loss here. IF true, this is the saddest, most moronic thing i have heard in a LONG LONG LONG TIME.

doesn't he know about wire taps?

shite, didn't he ever watch the wire? the sopranos? see donnie brasco? READ THE "BLEEPING" PATRIOT ACT?


i guess he is NOT a citizen above suspicion

FBI Arrests Ill. Governor Rod Blagojevich
Complaint Alleges Gov. Tried to Sell Obama's Senate Seat

By Carrie Johnson, Peter Slevin and William Branigin

Washington Post Staff Writers

FBI agents this morning arrested Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich (D) and his chief of staff on conspiracy and bribery charges, including allegations that the governor was seeking to benefit financially from his appointment of a successor to the U.S. Senate seat that was vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.

The arrest of Blagojevich, 51, and his top aide, John Harris, 46, capped a lengthy investigation into public corruption at the highest levels of state government. The two men later appeared in a federal courthouse in Chicago before U.S. Magistrate Judge Nan Nolan, who ordered the governor's release on $4,500 bond.

Blagovich, appearing in court in sweat pants, gym shoes and an athletic shirt, was also ordered to relinquish his passport and his firearm owner's identification card, the Associated Press reported......

i'm not the only one

who thought it odd the three stooges (no offense to the ACTUAL three stooges) were NOT charged with attempted assassination

so just because someone is on drugs they're not capable of murder? c'mon now what up wit dat eid? (original posting)

Denver: In Curious Case, "Authorities" Inexplicably Downplay Obama Assassination Threat by Armed and Ready Meth Heads.

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Meg White

Though one of them is on tape saying he told federal officials his friend planned on assassinating Sen. Barack Obama with a high-powered rifle during the presidential nominee's acceptance speech in Denver this evening, the three men arrested Sunday will not be charged with threatening an assassination.

The plot began to unfurl Sunday morning after a routine traffic stop of Tharin Gartrell, who was found to have weapons, drugs, and other illegal materials in the rented vehicle he was driving. Gartrell then led authorities to hotel rooms where two others implicated in the plot, Shawn Robert Adolf and Nathan Johnson, were also arrested.

After what they call an "intensive" investigation lasting only a couple of days, the FBI and Secret Service say there is no real threat to Obama, and that no related charges will be brought in the case. U.S. Attorney Troy Eid seemed to say that because the men were on drugs, they shouldn't be taken as a serious threat:

"From a legal standpoint, the law recognizes a difference between a true threat and the racist rantings of drug abusers."

So just because these people were drug users means they couldn't possibly have carried out a killing? Seems to me, meth users kill a lot of people. Eid admitted that judgment is impaired in meth users.

"A bunch of meth heads get together, we don't know why they do what they do," Eid said. "People do lots of stupid things on meth."............

again, i sit here and wonder

what WOULD constitute a 'credible' threat. sure it sounds like these dudes were doing their very best three stooges impression. sure they had to be less than mensa members for driving a truck FULL of weapons and wigs and bullet proof vests AND DRUGS (in someone else's name) like you're in the chase scene from the french connection. sure at least ONE of the stooges (and i mean NO offense to the three stooges here. i have a framed pictures of the stooges on my desk at work) said they wanted to kill one of the presidential candidates. but i must wonder if the stooges had the OTHER candidate on their wipe out list would they then be charged with something other than drug possession? what do YOU think?

No assasination charges for 'meth heads' who discussed killing Obama

Nick Juliano
DENVER -- Three men who were in Denver with sniper rifles, camouflage clothing, bullet-proof vest and rental trucks who had talked about killing Barack Obama posed "no credible threat" to the Democratic presidential candidate's life, a federal prosecutor said Tuesday.

US Attorney Troy Eid, who charged the three men this week on lesser weapons and drug charges, described the suspects simply as "meth-heads" whose drug-addled fantasies of killing Obama were merely "aspirational," and he said their actions did not show that they were serious enough about killing the Illinois senator to charge them with attempted assassination of a presidential candidate.

Eid, speaking to reporters during an afternoon press conference at his office here, said numerous federal and local law enforcement agencies, including the Secret Service, FBI and ATF, were continued to do everything they could to keep Obama safe...........

sunday humor

with the big dick.
he seems to have stepped in ALL sorts of shite every where every time, yet his shoes still stay clean! lucy - 'splain that to me please

The Veep’s Pipeline Push

By Michael Isikoff and Tony Hopfinger | NEWSWEEK
A two-year-old letter by Vice President Dick Cheney that pushed a controversial Alaska natural-gas pipeline bill is getting renewed scrutiny because of recently disclosed evidence in the Justice Department's corruption case against Sen. Ted Stevens. In a conversation secretly tape-recorded by the FBI on June 25, 2006, Stevens discussed ways to get a pipeline bill through the Alaska Legislature with Bill Allen, an oil-services executive accused of providing the senator with about $250,000 in undisclosed financial benefits. According to a Justice motion, Stevens told Allen, "I'm gonna try to see if I can get some bigwigs from back here and say, 'Look … you gotta get this done'." Two days later, Cheney wrote a letter to the Alaska Legislature urging members to "promptly enact" a bill to build the pipeline. The letter was considered unusual because the White House rarely contacts state lawmakers about pending legislative matters. It also angered state Democrats, who accused Cheney of pushing oil-company interests. The former executive director of Cheney's energy task force had gone to work as a lobbyist for British Petroleum, one of three firms slated to build the pipeline............

but mommy WHY would you open an investigation

into someone when there is NO clear basis of support?

wouldn't that cost money? wouldn't it be against our constitution?

why mommy why?

New Guidelines Would Give F.B.I. Broader Powers

By ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON — A Justice Department plan would loosen restrictions on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to allow agents to open a national security or criminal investigation against someone without any clear basis for suspicion, Democratic lawmakers briefed on the details said Wednesday.

The plan, which could be made public next month, has already generated intense interest and speculation. Little is known about its precise language, but civil liberties advocates say they fear it could give the government even broader license to open terrorism investigations.

Congressional staff members got a glimpse of some of the details in closed briefings this month, and four Democratic senators told Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey in a letter on Wednesday that they were troubled by what they heard.

The senators said the new guidelines would allow the F.B.I. to open an investigation of an American, conduct surveillance, pry into private records and take other investigative steps “without any basis for suspicion.” The plan “might permit an innocent American to be subjected to such intrusive surveillance based in part on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, or on protected First Amendment activities,” the letter said. It was signed by Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.

As the end of the Bush administration nears, the White House has been seeking to formalize in law and regulation some of the aggressive counterterrorism steps it has already taken in practice since the Sept. 11 attacks.............

hey peeps what happens when a more liberal administration gets in office. eventually a democrat (or 'worse') WILL get there (i think it will happen this november actually). don't you think this kind of thing will backfire on y'all? what if this kind of thing is used against conservatives? to spy unjustly on the good ol' white boy network? will you lay back down peacefully if that happens? i know the answer to that already.