Article: Our interests as a democracy are not being advanced.

In a democracy you have an open government-no-e-mails of the oligarchy being lost.

The Raw Story article "Court order sought in e-mail" at
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states "A private group told a federal court Thursday the Bush administration made apparently false and misleading statements in court about the White
House e-mail controversy.
The group asked the judge to demand an explanation regarding alleged inconsistencies between testimony at a congressional hearing last week and
what the White House told a federal court in January."This evidence demonstrates defendants' blatant disregard for the truth and the processes of this court," Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington told U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy in court papers.
CREW wants the judge to compel the Executive Office of the President to explain why it should not be held in contempt of court.
In a sworn declaration, White House official Theresa Payton told the court on Jan. 16 that "substantially all" e-mails from 2003 to 2005 should be contained on back-up computer tapes.However, at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Feb. 26, the panel's Democrats released a White House document that called that claim into question.
E-mail was missing from a White House archive for the period of Sept. 30-Oct. 6, 2003 from the office of Vice President Dick Cheney, the White House document states. The backup tape covering that seven-day period was not created until Oct. 21, 2003, raising the possibility that e-mail was missing from the earlier period. That time span was in the earliest days of the Justice Department's probe into whether anyone at the White House leaked the CIA identity of Valerie Plame. Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was eventually convicted by a jury of four felonies in the leak probe."

Where does a president in the good old US of a get off hiding his e-mail-particularly documentation that FOIA declares to be open to all US citizens-especially when it is about crimes the fools have committed? "Tricky Dick" had to hand over the tapes. Big bro 43 can lose e-mails? Archiving e-mails isn't rocket science!
Their own experts are falling over each others' lies!

"The congressional panel also released written statements by a former White House technical supervisor saying that a 15-person team conducted an extensive multi-phase assessment that resulted in a final 250-page analysis on the problem of missing White House e-mail.
In her sworn declaration to the federal court in January, the White House official said she was aware of a chart created by a former employee regarding missing e-mails, but said nothing about the 250-page analysis."

In a tyranny there are big brother monitoring tactics.

The Raw Story article "Officials monitor thousands of letters without warrants"
at
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states "The US postal service approves more than 10,000 requests from US law
enforcement each year to record names, addresses and other information from the
outside of packages, according to information released through a Freedom of
Information Act request.
The warrantless surveillance mail program-as it is known-requires only the approval of the US Postal Inspection Service Director, and not a
judge....
According to USA Today, which filed the request, "In 2004, 2005 and 2006, the
most recent year provided, officials granted at least 99.5% of requests."
"The idea of the government tracking that amount of mail is quite alarming," Director of the American Civil Liberties Union's national security project Jameel Jaffer told the paper. "When you realize that (the figure) does not include national security matters, the numbers are even more alarming."...
In January 2007, the ACLU and Center for National Security Studies filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking information regarding any additional warrantless mail surveillance."

We have all kinds of "warrantless surveillance" problems!

The Raw Story article "Wiretapping focus shifts to email, as firms move data overseas -- Microsoft, Google don't deny participation in NSA program --
Little-noticed comments by a senior Justice Department official suggest Congress' fight over renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act surround interception of email and Internet data." at
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states "At a Monday breakfast sponsored by the American Bar Association, Assistant Attorney General for National Security Kenneth Wainstein remarked that
the fight over the eavesdropping bill actually centers on US interception of email.
"In response to a question at the meeting by David Kris, a former federal prosecutor and a FISA expert, Wainstein said FISA's current strictures did not cover strictly foreign wire and radio communications, even if acquired in the United
States," the Washington Post reported Tuesday.
"The real concern, he said, is primarily e-mail, because "essentially you don't know where the recipient is going to be" and so you would not
know in advance whether the communication is entirely outside the United States."

The more questions that are being asked the more answers that W's stooges divulge-sometimes with horrific restrictions of our civil rights being disclosed as "Director of National Intelligence "Michael McConnell, the serial exaggerator who claims to be a non-political straight shooter, himself kept saying the NSA lost 70 percent of its capabilities after the ruling," Wired blogger Ryan Singer writes. "If that's the case, that means that 70 percent of what the NSA does is collect emails inside United States telecom infrastructure and service providers."If Congress approves immunity for companies that participated in President Bush's warrantless
wiretapping program, these email carriers will get a pass. Though most debate centers around those companies already identified as participants-Verizon, AT&T and Sprint-the Act provides immunity for all companies that complied with
federal orders, provided they had a solid legal foundation."

Big bro 43 has his GOP stooges in one chamber of the Congress acquiescing to his
every demand-be it legal or not! You say why would they do this? They do this for votes. They see themselves riding W's coattail to victory in 2008!

In the country we knew of days gone by, the US of A-the land of the free, these types of big brother type surveillance operations against US citizens didn't exist. That type is thing is an anathema to democracies.

But there is as the article "Bush Presses House for Surveillance Bill" at
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which describes that "President Bush said Monday that telecommunications companies should be thanked, not sued, for helping the government conduct warrantless wiretapping in the U.S. after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The Senate version of a law to make it easier for the government to conduct
domestic eavesdropping on suspected terrorists' phone calls and e-mails provides
retroactive legal protection for telecommunications companies that wiretapped
without court permission. The House version does not.
Bush says he will veto any bill without it, and he has kept up a drumbeat of
events and remarks in recent weeks to press his point."

Bush said there are enough votes in the House to pass the Senate version, but
that "a minority in the House has been holding the bill up."

The GOP wants to portray the Democrats as being weak on national security. It is
all lies though even as is particular piece of this demagoguery about eavesdropping on the citizens he swore an oath to serve is.

"Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas discussing this "did not specifically say whether
the House proposal would mirror the Senate's version.
House Democrats worry that providing retroactive legal immunity would erode
civil liberties protections. They have accused Bush of overstating the threat
from deliberating over new legislation in order to bully them into the bill he
wants updating the 30-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act."

The article "Wiretap Compromise in Works' at
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describes the problems Democrats in Congress are having regarding this as "House and Senate Democratic leaders are headed into talks today that they say
could lead to a breakthrough on legislation to revamp domestic surveillance
powers and grant phone companies some form of immunity for their role in the
administration's warrantless wiretapping program after the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks.
A senior House Democratic aide said a bill could be sent to President Bush as
early as next week. But significant issues remain, including those surrounding
immunity, said Wyndee R. Parker, general counsel of the House Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence.
Parker, who said she hopes the House can take up the compromise legislation as
early as this week, said a resolution has been delayed partly by the need for
all members of the House Judiciary Committee to gain access to the letters and
other relevant documents sent to the phone companies by the administration
requesting their assistance.
House Democratic leaders demanded such access before they would contemplate
immunity, and the administration granted full access last week. Parker spoke at
a breakfast meeting sponsored by the American Bar Association yesterday.
Kenneth Wainstein, assistant attorney general for national security, said at the
same meeting that key issues surrounding the legislation had been hashed out in
a "long and tedious" but "healthy" process, aimed at updating the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
Aides said House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) has been polling his
party's divided caucus the past few days about the immunity issue, with the
liberal camp pushing to do nothing and the moderate wing supporting a provision
in Senate-passed legislation granting immunity for the telecommunications
industry.
Highlighting the party's struggle to heal its internal fractures, today's
meetings will involve Democratic staff from the House and Senate intelligence
and Judiciary committees, the House Democratic leadership, and then the House
Democratic caucus. The dilemma faced by Democrats is that Republicans and the
administration oppose any bill other than the measure passed by the Senate that
includes full retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies.
"This is not amnesty," Wainstein said at the meeting. "This is targeted
immunity" for companies who meet requirements specified in the Senate bill that
include having received an attorney general's certification that their
assistance was determined to be lawful."

Democrats in Congress are rightfully in a bind as "Privacy advocates have raised concerns that the Senate bill contains a provision that would allow the attorney general to erect a new barrier to future privacy cases brought under the nation's foreign intelligence surveillance law.
Contrary to current practice, the Senate bill would halt such lawsuits if the
attorney general certifies that the assistance provided by the telecom carrier
is lawful. The only check on that certification would be a court review as to
whether the attorney general "abused" his discretion, which experts said
yesterday is the lowest possible standard of judicial review.
"This provision is yet another example of the executive branch 'just trust us'
mentality when it comes to intelligence matters," said Kevin Bankston, senior
staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation."

We can't trust big bro 43 with anything. He has broken every law he has been confronted with as his Attorney Generals have been little than front-men for this serial crime committing crew.

The "Operation Iraqi Freedom" scam which has been at the epicenter of many his most heinous crimes is still rearing its ugly head. Is big bro 43 going to reduce forces or not? Something as basic as that can't be answered clearly by the liar who pretended to be a straight talker.

The article "Bush Plans Further Reduction in Forces" at
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states "President Bush expects to pull more U.S. troops out of Iraq before he leaves
office next January, a senior administration official said yesterday, dismissing
suspicions that a pause in withdrawals this summer would freeze U.S. force
levels until the next president takes office.
The temporary halt in troop reductions now expected this summer would last just
four to six weeks to assess conditions on the ground, the official said, and,
assuming the situation does not deteriorate, would be followed by more
withdrawals later in the year. The official would not predict how many more
troops might be pulled out by the end of Bush's term.
Speaking to reporters at a briefing under ground rules that he not be
identified, the official said of the pause: "This is not a stall tactic. I fully
expect further reductions this year, in '08, and so does the president. It's
just a question of when will the reductions be announced, when will they take
effect . . . and what will be the pace."

W's chief military liar is coming back to betray us some more as "Army Gen.
David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, has proposed a pause after
that to review conditions and see whether the remaining troops can keep violence
down. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said last month that he agreed, seeming
to undercut his previous desire to reduce the U.S. force in Iraq from 158,000
now to 100,000 by the end of 2008.
The idea of a pause has roiled the politics of war in Washington and angered
Democrats who want to accelerate the pullout, not slow it down. Both Democratic
presidential candidates have denounced the idea, and the Senate this week
debated legislation to require troop withdrawals within 120 days and
subsequently limit the missions the remaining forces could conduct.
The Senate debated the bill for three days, with Republicans voting twice to
continue the discussion because of newfound confidence born out of security
gains in Iraq. With fewer than 30 senators publicly backing the measure,
however, it was withdrawn by week's end without a final vote, and Senate
leadership aides do not expect any new action on Iraq until spring.
Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), who sponsored the proposal, chided the
administration for the latest signal regarding forces in Iraq. "Mixed messages
from this administration regarding troop levels are nothing new," he said in a
statement. "Only a clear timetable for when we will be out of Iraq will help
move Iraqi political reconciliation forward and allow us to refocus on
al-Qaeda."

W had an adviser who is happy to "stay the course" as "Retired Army Gen. Jack Keane, who advised the White House on the surge, expressed surprise at the notion of a short pause ending by early October. "The idea that you would continue the troop withdrawal in the face of provincial elections makes no sense."

The Iraqi legal system's problems mirrors ours as the article "Case Is Dropped Against Shiites In Sunni Deaths" at
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indicates stating "Two former high-ranking Shiite government officials charged
with kidnapping and killing scores of Sunnis were ordered released Monday after
prosecutors dropped the case. The abrupt move renewed concerns about the
willingness of Iraq's leaders to act against sectarianism and cast doubts on
U.S. efforts to build an independent judiciary.
The collapse of the trial stunned American and Iraqi officials who had spent
more than a year assembling the case, which they said included a wide array of
evidence.
"This shows that the judicial system in Iraq is horribly broken," said a U.S.
legal adviser who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized
to discuss the case publicly. "And it sends a terrible signal: If you are Shia,
then no worries; you can do whatever you want and nothing is going to happen to
you."

That mirrors Scooter Libby's experience in the US legal system!

Scooter got off because he was Cheney's toady. The Iraqis got off because they were in tight with the most powerful person in Iraq also as "Attorneys for the defendants called a number of witnesses, many Sadrists and current employees of the ministry, who defended Zamili and Shamari and suggested that others were behind the kidnappings and killings. But the judge also read the testimony of witnesses who accused Zamili and Shamari of being sectarian killers.
At the end of a long day Monday, the prosecutor got up and read what Americans
described as a long statement. "The evidence against Hakim and Hamid is not
enough to convict them. I ask to drop these charges and release them right away
unless they are wanted for another case," said the prosecutor, whose name was
not released as a security precaution.
"The bottom line is that we're reserving judgment on the Iraqi court's decision
today," said Nantongo, the U.S. Embassy spokeswoman. "We remain concerned about this case."

In a democracy you have a strong legal system, an open government-no-emails lost, and members of the 4th estate dedicated to finding the truth no matter who
is involved. Our US MSM 4th estate is culpable for big bro 43's crimes because they broadcast W's lies without warning the public what is truth and what is propaganda! How does a stain on a blue dress become a media obsession while W's crimes get overlooked?