Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Help me out here, are they trying to persuade al-Qaeda not to "hate us

host · 01-18-2007, 03:29 AM

Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney have told us, time and again, for more than five years, why our terrorist enemies....hate us:

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresid...p20010916.html
Sept. 16, 2001

.....VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I think he seriously misreads the American people. I think the--I mean, you have to ask yourself, why somebody would do what he does. Why is someone so motivated? Obviously he's filled with hate for the United States and for everything we stand for...

MR. RUSSERT: Why?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: ...freedom and democracy.....

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0010920-8.html
Sept. 20, 2001

THE PRESIDENT: ....Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated. (Applause.)

Americans are asking, why do they hate us? They hate what we see right here in this chamber -- a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.....

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...020415-10.html
April 15, 2002

...The President:.... And I look forward to working with him in the Senate on a lot of issues other than those I've discussed. I want to talk about three issues facing America. The first are homeland security. My most important job is to make sure the enemy doesn't hit us again. My most important job is to protect innocent Americans.

You need to know that the nature of the people we're dealing with, they're cold-blooded killers. They hate us. And you know why they hate us? They hate us because we love freedom. They hate us because love the fact and honor the fact that we worship freely in America. They can't stand the thought of free elections, free press. And they're out there....

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0020501-2.html
May 1, 2002

....THE PRESIDENT:...You just need to know it's still a dangerous period in Afghanistan. There's still a lot of killers roaming around, and they hate America. They hate us because we're free. Then cannot stand the thought that we have freedom of religion in America; that we respect each other based upon our personal religious beliefs. They cannot stand the thought that there's honest political discourse. There's free press -- confident they hate that. They hate us. And so, wherever they try to hide, we're going to get 'em......

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0020822-3.html
Aug. 20, 2002

....THE PRESIDENT:....The more we speak our mind freely, the more they hate us. The more free our press is, the more they hate us. And therefore, since we're not going to yield to our freedoms, since we're not going to yield the values we hold dear, we've got to do everything we can to defend the homeland.....

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0021003-6.html
Oct. 3, 2002

....THE PRESIDENT:....We fight a war against cold-blooded killers who hide in caves and send youngsters to their suicidal death. They do so because -- and they hate us because we love freedom. See, they hate for what we love. <h3>We love our freedoms, and we're not going to relinquish our freedoms. And the stronger we hold on to our freedoms the more they hate us.</h3> (Applause.)

And so we've got to button up our homeland. And I spoke to that earlier today......

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0021004-3.html
Oct. 4, 2002

....THE PRESIDENT:....They hate us because we love political discourse and a free society. They hate us because of our free press. They hate everything about us, because of our freedom.......

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0040505-2.html
May 5, 2004

... THE PRESIDENT: Sure. Do you remember September the 11th, 2001? Al Qaeda attacked the United States. They killed thousands of our citizens. I will never forget what they have done to us. They declared war on us. And the United States will pursue them. And so long as I'm the President, we will be determined, steadfast, and strong as we pursue those people who kill innocent lives because they hate freedom.

And, of course, al Qaeda looks for any excuse. But the truth of the matter is, they hate us, and they hate freedom, and they hate people who embrace freedom.....

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0060104-2.html
Jan. 4, 2006

....THE VICE PRESIDENT:....Wartime conditions are, in every case, a test of military skill and national resolve. But this is especially true in the war on terror. Four years ago, President Bush told Congress and the country that the path ahead would be difficult, that we were heading into a long struggle, unlike any we have ever known. All this has come to pass. We have faced, and are facing today, enemies who hate us, who hate our country, and who hate the liberties for which we stand.....

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0060717-9.html

......THE VICE PRESIDENT:......That effort includes a home front -- and the home front is every bit as important as the battlefields overseas. We are facing enemies who hate us, who hate our country, and hate the liberties for which we stand......

.....The President also signed the Patriot Act, which is helping us disrupt terrorist activity, break up terror cells within the United States, and protect the lives of Americans. Another vital step the President took in the days after 9/11 was to authorize the National Security Agency to intercept a certain category of terrorist-linked international communications. There are no communications more important to the safety of the United States than those related to al Qaeda that have one end in the United States. If you'll recall, the report of the 9/11 Commission focused criticism on our inability to uncover links between terrorists at home and terrorists abroad. The authorization the President made after September 11th helped address that problem in a manner that is fully consistent with the constitutional responsibilities and the legal authority of the President and with the civil liberties of the American people......

Soooo....they told us why our enemies "hate us".....and when I compare the statements of Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney....with just a few reports of current events, I am wondering if I've figured out what their "grand plan" really is....

Is it possible that Bush and Cheney are trying to lessen, or even remove the main reasons that the "terrorists hate us". Does the Bush/Cheney "GWOT" strategy include ending our "freedom", our "political discourse", and our "democracy", so that the "terrorists" will no longer "hate us" ?

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/18/wa...pagewanted=all
January 18, 2007
Court to Oversee U.S. Wiretapping in Terror Cases
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and DAVID JOHNSTON

WASHINGTON, Jan. 17 — The Bush administration, in a surprise reversal, said on Wednesday that it had agreed to give a secret court jurisdiction over the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program and would end its practice of eavesdropping without warrants on Americans suspected of ties to terrorists.

The Justice Department said it had worked out an “innovative” arrangement with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that provided the “necessary speed and agility” to provide court approval to monitor international communications of people inside the United States without jeopardizing national security.

The decision capped 13 months of bruising national debate over the reach of the president’s wartime authorities and his claims of executive power, and it came as the administration faced legal and political hurdles in its effort to continue the surveillance program.

The new Democratic-led Congress has pledged several investigations. More immediately, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales is expected to face hostile questioning on Thursday from the Senate Judiciary Committee on the program. And an appellate court in Cincinnati is scheduled to hear arguments in two weeks on the government’s appeal of an earlier ruling declaring the program illegal and unconstitutional......

.......President Bush has authorized the continuation of the N.S.A. program every 45 days by executive order to allow the N.S.A. to conduct wiretaps on international communications without a court warrant. When the current order expires, however, President Bush has decided not to reauthorize the program, officials said.

The Justice Department said Wednesday that it had obtained multiple orders, or warrants, a week ago from the FISA court allowing it to monitor international communications in cases where there was probable cause to believe one of the participants was linked to Al Qaeda or an affiliated terrorist group.

“As a result of these orders,” Mr. Gonzales told leaders of Congressional Intelligence and Judiciary Committees in a letter dated Wednesday, “any electronic surveillance that was occurring as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program will now be conducted subject to the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.”

Justice Department officials said that the FISA court orders, which were not made public, were not a broad approval of the surveillance program as a whole, an idea that was proposed last year in Congressional debate over the program. They strongly suggested that the orders secured from the court were for individual targets, but they refused to provide details of the process used to identify targets — or how court approval had been expedited — because they said it remained classified. The senior Justice Department official said that discussing “the mechanics of the orders” could compromise intelligence activities......

.........But senior lawmakers said they were still uncertain Wednesday, even after the administration’s announcement, about how the court would go about approving warrants, how targets would be identified, and whether that process would differ from the court’s practices since 1978.

The administration said it had briefed the full House and Senate Intelligence Committees in closed sessions on its decision.

But Representative Heather A. Wilson, Republican of New Mexico, who serves on the Intelligence committee, disputed that, and some Congressional aides said staff members were briefed Friday without lawmakers present.

Ms. Wilson, who has scrutinized the program for the last year, said she believed the new approach relied on a blanket, “programmatic” approval of the president’s surveillance program, rather than approval of individual warrants.

Administration officials “have convinced a single judge in a secret session, in a nonadversarial session, to issue a court order to cover the president’s terrorism surveillance program,” Ms. Wilson said in a telephone interview. She said Congress needed to investigate further to determine how the program is run......

Quote:

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002357.php
Update: Specter Admits Role in Expanding WH Powers
By Paul Kiel - January 17, 2007, 3:33 PM

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) confirmed that as Judiciary Committee chairman last year he made a last-minute change to a bill that expanded the administration's power to install U.S. Attorneys without Senate approval.

Seizing upon the new authority granted by Congress last March, the White House has pushed out several U.S. Attorneys, and begun to replace them without the Senate's consent.

"I can confirm for you that yes, it was a Specter provision," a spokesperson for the senator wrote to me in an email earlier today, responding to repeated inquiries. <a href="http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002354.php">Earlier</a> we reported that Specter had been fingered for the last-minute change, made in a select Republicans-only meeting after the House and Senate had voted on earlier versions.

Still, a mystery remains: Why Specter wanted the change, which arguably weakened the Senate's role in selecting federal prosecutors.

The senator made no public comment on the provision at the time of the bill's passage. A congressional report which accompanied the final version of the bill said that Specter's change "addresses an inconsistency in the appointment process of United States Attorneys." It's not clear, however, what exactly that inconsistency was.

In her email to me, Specter's aide did not respond to my request for an explanation of why Specter wanted the change.

Quote:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/m...9-1m13lam.html
Lam stays silent about losing job

Law enforcement defends her record
By Kelly Thornton
and Onell R. Soto
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS

January 13, 2007

Amid news reports that she has been asked to step down, U.S. Attorney Carol Lam declined repeated interview requests yesterday and did not address the matter with her staff.

At a weekly managers meeting, Lam was stoic, conducting business as usual and discussing next week's caseload, according to people who attended. She made no mention of a resignation request by the Bush administration, nor did anyone ask about it.

However, she did discuss the matter with at least one law enforcement colleague. Dan Dzwilewski, head of the FBI office in San Diego, said he spoke to Lam several times yesterday and he feels the criticism and the way the situation was handled are unfair.

“I don't think it's the right way to treat anybody. What's the decision based on?” Dzwilewski said. “I don't share the view of whoever's making the decision back there in Washington that they'd like her to resign. I feel Carol has an excellent reputation and has done an excellent job given her limited resources.”

Dzwilewski said he sympathized with Lam on issues of stretching budgets to meet priorities and felt that criticism that she wasn't giving proper attention to smuggling, drugs and gun crimes was off-base. “What do you expect her to do? Let corruption exist?” he said.

Lam's continued employment as U.S. attorney is crucial to the success of multiple ongoing investigations, the FBI chief said.

As for the reason for any pressure to resign, Dzwilewski said: “I can't speak for what's behind all that, what's the driving force behind this or the rationale. I guarantee politics is involved.”

Dzwilewski declined to discuss Lam's demeanor during their conversations, her state of mind, when or if she will resign or her future plans.

“It will be a huge loss from my perspective,” Dzwilewski said. “What she's going to do, my guess is she's still trying to figure that out herself.”

Other members of the law enforcement community also defended Lam.

“She's been by far the most outstanding U.S. attorney we've ever had,” City Attorney Michael Aguirre said. “By far, she's done more to clean up the corruption in this city than anyone else, and she has won a national reputation as one of the top prosecutors in the country.

Sources have told The San Diego Union-Tribune that Lam was asked to step down because she failed to make smuggling and gun cases a priority, choosing instead to focus on fewer cases that she considered more significant, such as public corruption and white-collar crime.

Some lawyers theorized yesterday that it wasn't just misplaced priorities that led to her impending ouster. The Randy “Duke” Cunningham case has spawned other corruption probes of Republicans in Washington, leading to conjecture that politics played a part in the decision to force her out.

However, Johnny Sutton, the U.S. attorney in San Antonio, Texas, said everybody in the position knows it's not a permanent job.

“We go when the president goes and sometimes before,” he said....

Quote:

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1169028144620
U.S. Attorney Ryan's Departure May Be Part of Bush Administration Purge

Justin Scheck
The Recorder
January 18, 2007

...."It has come to our attention that the Bush Administration is pushing out U.S. Attorneys from across the country under the cloak of secrecy and then appointing indefinite replacements without Senate confirmation," Sen. Dianne Feinstein said in a press statement last week.

She reiterated that sentiment on the Senate floor Tuesday, adding that somewhere between five and 10 U.S. Attorneys are being forced out.

San Diego U.S. Attorney Carol Lam also resigned this week, and on Tuesday, a spokesman for Republican Rep. Darrell Issa told a San Diego paper that Lam had been asked to step down. .....

Quote:

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives...ke_cunningham/
Questions, Concerns Swirl around Politics of Prosecutor's Forced Exit
By Justin Rood - January 13, 2007, 8:38 AM

The head of the FBI's San Diego office and several former federal prosecutors are publicly questioning the politics behind the Bush administration's effort to force Carole Lam to resign as U.S. Attorney for San Diego.

Lam focused her office's efforts on public corruption, including the sprawling Duke Cunningham scandal. That investigation has touched several Republican lawmakers, leading some to speculate that Lam brought political heat down on herself with that probe, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The top FBI official for San Diego said that Lam's dismissal would jeopardize several ongoing investigations. "I guarantee politics is involved," special agent in charge Dan Dzwilewski told the paper. He did not speculate further.

“It will be a huge loss from my perspective,” Dzwilewski said.

Peter Nunez, who held Lam's post from 1982 to 1988, told the North County (Calif.) Times he was "in a state of shock" from hearing the news of Lam's forced ouster. "It's just like nothing I've ever seen before in 35-plus years. To be asked to resign and to be publicly humiliated by leaking this to the press is beyond any bounds of decency and behavior. It shocks me. It really is outrageous.".....

Cunningham Prosecutor Forced Out
By Justin Rood - January 12, 2007, 11:29 AM

The epic Duke Cunningham scandal gets weirder: Carole Lam, the San Diego U.S. Attorney who prosecuted the corrupt former lawmaker, is being quietly pushed out by the Bush administration. Lam's office has recently been troubling the CIA and Capitol Hill by pushing for documents related to the Cunningham investigation.

According to this morning's San Deigo Union-Tribune, the White House's reason for giving her the axe is that she "failed to make smuggling and gun cases a top priority." But most folks the paper talked to -- supporters and detractors -- said that sounded like a load of hooey.

A belated attempt at a cover-up? That doesn't quite fit. It's not like the Cunningham investigation has earned a place in the Great Scandal Prosecutions Hall of Fame. There have been signs of trouble all along. There was the strange decision to throw him in jail before ensuring he told everything he knew, as well as evidence of poor coordination between the numerous federal agencies involved in investigating the fiasco. If the administration for some reason didn't want the truth to come out about what the Cunningham scandal touched -- well, many folks thought all they had to do was sit back and let the probes tangle themselves in knots......

WSJ: CIA Blocking Cunningham Investigation
By Justin Rood - January 9, 2007, 10:01 AM

The CIA is refusing to cooperate with federal prosecutors investigating the Duke Cunningham scandal, the Wall Street Journal's Scott Paltrow reports today......

Quote:

http://www.arktimes.com/Articles/pri...c-7aaa4efa6a3a
Published 12/28/2006

End around

Senators question U.S. attorney appointment.

J. Timothy Griffin was sworn in as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas on Dec. 20, less than a week after his appointment prompted unusual public expressions of outrage from both of the state’s U.S. senators.

The outrage stems from the way Griffin was appointed. Instead of following the normal process, which would involve a presidential nomination and confirmation by the U.S. Senate, the Bush administration utilized a provision in the 2005 reauthorization of the Patriot Act that allows the attorney general to appoint an “interim U.S. attorney” without Senate confirmation. Therefore, Griffin, 38, will serve as interim U.S. attorney until he is formally nominated or replaced by the president.

Interim appointments are usually made to fill vacancies, but Griffin was named to the U.S. attorney post on Dec. 15, while it was still occupied by Bud Cummins.

Cummins resigned on Dec. 20.

“Quite frankly, within the legal community in Central Arkansas and even Eastern Arkansas, they felt Bud was being pushed out so Tim could be rewarded with this position he wanted,” said Michael Teague, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor.

U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln said, “Clearly, the president and his administration are aware of the difficulty it would take to get Tim Griffin confirmed through the normal process, and therefore chose to circumvent it in order to name him as interim U.S. attorney. This decision denied the Senate the opportunity to carefully consider and evaluate Mr. Griffin’s qualifications and denied the American people the transparency the standard nomination process provides.”

“The White House worked very hard to get him this job and keep him from going under oath and answer questions about his political life,” Teague added. “We’re not saying there should not be a process to name an interim position, but it should be done in good faith that a permanent replacement will be named at some point. The White House has indicated to the senator that Tim Griffin is their person, so the question is, if he is their person, why not nominate him? It’s an effort to keep him from going under oath.”

Asked to respond to 10 written questions regarding his appointment, Griffin provided the following statement: “As a fifth-generation Arkansan and the spouse of an Arkansas native, I love Arkansas and its people. I am honored to have the opportunity to serve the people of Arkansas as U.S. attorney. The strength of this office lies with the many career professionals who work here. My top priority is to ensure that all Arkansans are treated equally under the law. I look forward to working with federal, state and local law enforcement to make Arkansas a safer place to live.”

Griffin had worked for Cummins as a special assistant since September, after a year of active duty in the U.S. Army — first as a prosecutor at Fort Campbell, Ky., and then as a Judge Advocate General with the 101st Airborne Division in Mosul, Iraq.

Before that, Griffin was deputy director of the White House Political Affairs Office (where he served under Political Affairs Director Karl Rove), and Lincoln and Pryor both suggest that Griffin’s appointment as U.S. attorney is a reward for his service in the Bush administration.

“I do not know Tim Griffin personally,” Lincoln said. “However, I have concerns about his partisan activities over a four-year period under Karl Rove in the White House, which causes me to question his ability to perform the duties of U.S. attorney in a fair and impartial manner.”

“We all know what’s going on here,” Teague said. “He’s being rewarded with this post for his political work.”

That political work includes serving from 1995-96 as an associate independent counsel investigating Henry Cisneros, who was President Bill Clinton’s secretary of housing and urban development; senior investigative counsel to the Republican-controlled House Government Reform Committee’s 1997-99 inquiry into foreign contributions to the Democratic National Committee; deputy research director for the Republican National Committee from 1999-2000; legal adviser to the Bush/Cheney recount team in Florida following the 2000 election; special assistant to Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff from 2001-02; and research director and deputy communications director for the Republican National Committee from 2002-05, after which he joined the White House political affairs office.

The British Broadcasting Corporation unearthed e-mail messages Griffin sent from the RNC in 2004 containing spreadsheet information on thousands of Florida voters. The spreadsheets were titled “caging,” which, according to the BBC, alludes to a voter suppression tactic.

Teague says that episode, and Griffin’s other political work, explains why Griffin won’t submit to the traditional confirmation process.

“Bud had to go through the process,” Teague said. “What makes this guy so special? What are they trying to hide? Why not go under oath and allow the people of Eastern Arkansas to ask questions about his qualifications for the job? His primary professional occupation has been political research and political campaigns.”

Griffin’s legal experience includes a year as a prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office in Little Rock while he worked for Chertoff, but Teague says there were more qualified candidates, and that Griffin will be hindered by the controversy surrounding his appointment.

“No one in the Arkansas legal community knows Tim Griffin,” Teague said. “The people of Eastern Arkansas deserve an all-star attorney and there are a bunch of them in this state. … The decisions he makes there will always be suspect. He won’t have the full weight the office would have if he had gone through the nomination process.”

Teague says that Pryor will continue to pressure the Bush administration to formally nominate Griffin or someone else.

“The idea that they will go two years and say they can’t find somebody — it’s an insult to Arkansas,” Teague said. “If he goes through the process and wins, then he’s bona fide. The question for Tim and the White House is: Why not do that? Why not be bona fide?”

Griffin is a native of Magnolia. He graduated from Hendrix College and Tulane Law School, and attended graduate school at Oxford University in England. He is married to the former Elizabeth Crain

Quote:

http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/...au/339192.html
Former Bush aide named to U.S. attorney post
Saturday, Dec 16, 2006

By Aaron Sadler
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - A former Republican political operative and top aide to President Bush was named late Friday as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas.

The appointment of Tim Griffin drew criticism from Arkansas senators Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln, both Democrats. Pryor accused the Bush administration of circumventing the traditional nomination process on behalf of a political ally.

The open-ended appointment differs from a normal presidential selection, where Griffin would face Senate hearings and a confirmation vote.

Pryor believes the Senate should be able to quiz Griffin about his qualifications, especially given his background as Bush's deputy director of political affairs under Karl Rove, spokesman Michael Teague said.

Before that, Griffin worked in opposition research for the Republican National Committee.

"We hope it's not the White House's intention to go around the Constitution, go around the nomination process and reward a fellow who's done some political work for them," Teague said.

Rep. John Boozman, R-Rogers, defended the appointment. He said Griffin might face unfair treatment from Senate Democrats because of his political ties.

"There might be a tendency because he did work for the president in that capacity politically to hold that against him and not look at the fact he's very well-qualified," said Boozman, the only Republican in the state's congressional delegation.

"In going before the Senate, there are all kinds of politics," Boozman said.

Griffin, 38, will take over for Bud Cummins, who resigns Wednesday. The Eastern District includes Little Rock and 41 counties in the eastern and north central part of Arkansas.

Griffin on Friday declined to comment on his appointment.

The Magnolia native just completed a year of active duty in the U.S. Army Reserve, including a stint in Iraq. He is a major in the Judge Advocate General's corps.

A graduate of Hendrix College and Tulane University law school, he worked as a special assistant U.S. attorney in the eastern district in 2001-02.

The interim selection leaves open the possibility for Bush to officially appoint Griffin or someone else to the post sometime in the future.

Conceivably, Griffin could serve as interim U.S. attorney indefinitely.

Teague said Pryor hopes the president makes a permanent selection - subject to Senate confirmation - after Congress reconvenes in January.

If Bush acts on a nomination before Congress returns, the appointee would serve as a "recess appointment" and Senate confirmation would not be required until the next congressional session in two years.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and White House Counsel Harriet Miers gave Pryor no time frame for when Bush might select a permanent replacement, Teague said.

Teague said Pryor was not available to comment because he was at the hospital visiting Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., who underwent brain surgery this week.

Pryor supports full Senate hearings for the next U.S. attorney and did not rule out support for Griffin.

"He very well may be the person," qualified to serve, Teague said, but "he should have to go through the normal nomination process."

Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., said in a statement that she was impressed by Cummins' work and his service.

Lincoln said she also would expect Bush to replace Cummins through the normal Senate confirmation process.

Teague said the timing of the announcement late Friday afternoon gave the appearance that the administration was attempting to keep the appointment quiet.

"His actions are always going to be suspect if you're not going to do this in the right way and in an open manner," Teague said. "It's hard to say if you're going to support or not support someone if you don't go through the process of who they are."

A report by the BBC in 2004 connected Griffin to a possible effort to disenfranchise black voters in Florida. The report said an e-mailed list of 1,886 names was to be used to challenge residents' voting status.

In a November 2000 Time magazine report, Griffin was depicted as a zealous researcher who sought to discredit Democratic candidate Al Gore at any opportunity.

The magazine said a poster hanging behind Griffin's desk said: "On my command - unleash hell on Al."....

Quote:

http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/a...=.jsp&c_id=mlb
01/18/2007 1:38 AM ET
Federal prosecutor in probe resigns
Associated Press

...U.S. attorney spokesman Luke Macaulay said Tuesday that Ryan reached a "mutually agreeable decision with Washington" to step down.

Ryan is one of 11 top federal prosecutors who have resigned or announced their resignations since an obscure provision in the USA Patriot Act reauthorization last year enabled the U.S. attorney general to appoint replacements without Senate confirmation.

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, complained on the Senate floor Tuesday that the White House is using the provision to oust Ryan and other federal prosecutors and replace them with Republican allies.

"The Bush administration is pushing out U.S. attorneys from across the country under the cloak of secrecy and then appointing indefinite replacements," Feinstein said.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales denied the claim, saying administration officials "in no way politicize these decisions."

Macaulay declined to say whether President Bush had asked Ryan to resign....

Quote:

http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6403133.html
Library Journal
ALA Criticizes DoJ's Stance on Libraries and Privacy
— January 2, 2007
The American Library Association is criticizing the Department of Justice for "fail[ing] to comprehend the role of libraries and the importance of privacy in the United States."

The American Library Association (ALA) is criticizing the Department of Justice (DoJ) for "fail[ing] to comprehend the role of libraries and the importance of privacy in the United States." ALA President Leslie Burger pointed to a written response to the U.S. Senate from Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Robert S. Mueller regarding whether libraries should be subject to National Security Letters (NSLs). The issue is essentially a dispute about interpretation; read literally, as the FBI does, the reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act encompasses libraries as "electronic communication services." However, the intention of leading Senators voting for the reauthorization was to exempt libraries.....

.....as for dissent.....for the notion of free speech:

Quote:

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/b...way_to_dissent
Gregory To Tony Snow: "What's An Appropriate Way To Dissent"?
By Greg Sargent | bio

In today's press briefing, David Gregory pointed out that Dems opposing this or that aspect of President Bush's war policies have long been painted by the White House as friends of the enemy. He then asks the key follow-up question: "What's an appropriate way to dissent?" It's a good question, and Snow has a fair amount of trouble coming up with an answer to it -- at first he appears to start denying that this charge has ever been lodged at Dems before cutting himself off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPALpNaEzR8&eurl=

So whaddya think ?? The Bush administration, constantly touting the notion, for more than five years, that we are at war with Islamic Fascist terrorists who hate us because of our freedom and democracy.....

How does a secret warrantless, domestic eavesdropping program, approved by the POTUS, in violation of articles in the bill of rights in the constitution, the insertion of secret clause in the Patriot Act revision bill, during a conference of both congressional branches that barred one political party's participation, that resulted in the purge of US Attorneys around the country, intended to eliminate the senate's former authority to rule on the appropriateness of presidential appointments, make our country more "free" or more "democratic"? The fallout from this recent, in a long series of deliberate compromising of our former "freedom and democracy" by Bush, Cheney, and loyal republicans in congress, has so far resulted in the appointment of one of Karl Rove's political "dirt" researcher, the rabidly partisan (judging from his "career" benchmarks), Tim Griffin, as the new US Attorney for Arkansas, with the former ability of the senate to question and to decide whether to confirm his appointment, removed.....and the compromising of the investigation of corruption and possible treason...during wartime....of Rep. Jerry Lewis, former #3 at CIA Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, and proven briber of convicted Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, Brett Wilkes, Foggo's best friend....

Mr. Bush....and Mr. Cheney.....I don't feel any more free, or that my government under your "leadership" is more democratic, despite what you've said that you will do to preserve and strengthen the "freedom and democracy" for which you said we "stand".....but I do feel safer, thank you....because thanks to the "hard work" of you guys, there is less and less "freedom and democracy" for the "Islamic Fascist Butcher Killers" to hate us for.....isn't there?