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Rep. Jane Harman Focus In Yet Another Warrantless Wiretap Scandal
Many different sources are talking about the latest scandal surrounding the warrantless wiretapping program. Incriminating evidence against California rep. Jane Harman was apparently captured some time ago on a legal NSA wiretap. However, Attorney General Gonzales supposedly intervened to drop the case against her because (and this is where the irony meter explodes) Bush officials wanted her to be able to publicly defend the warrantless wiretap program. "Jane Harman, in the wake of the NSA scandal, became probably the most crucial defender of the Bush warrantless eavesdropping program, using her status as 'the ranking Democratic on the House intelligence committee' to repeatedly praise the NSA program as 'essential to US national security' and 'both necessary and legal.'"
We should boycott all forms of communications!
Rep. Harman should be investigated for treason. AIPAC should be investigated for treason.
I mean, they lost a few years of emails. Getting rid of some inconvenient wiretap can't be far harder.
If nothing else, this Jane Harmon scandal is going to continue to undermine the USA's credibility as an "impartial" mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Regardless of what Jane Harmon may have done, it's rather shocking that AIPAC has enough pull in congress to be able to hold out committee chairmanships as bribes.
Of course this sort of thing goes on all the time.
But there's a less sinister explanation for why Gonzalez didn't prosecute - the wiretap capturing Harman's conversation was illegal. Can't prosecute someone with an illegal wiretap.
Irony alert on many levels.
Is it that Bush blackmailed a Congressman to do his political bidding? As much as I find it detestable, district attorneys do this all the time.
I'll tell everyone I know!
We got that bitch over a barrel, yo! She gonna do *everything* we tell her ass to do!
There is a war going on for your mind.
This is why the warrantless wiretap program should be done away with. When you operate in secret the things found will be used to blackmail. Instead of being used to further the goals of justice it's used to further the goals of those in power.
Both parties working together to do shitty stuff. Yay.
The "irony-makes-head-asplode dept." is funny, but inaccurate.
Irony is when something is the opposite of what you would expect.
Hypocrisy, lies, and hardball intimidation tactics are *exactly* what we would expect from proponents of warrantless wiretapping.
This situation contains no irony. Just corruption. We might say, though, that "Ironically, the new administration was elected in hopes of restoring honor to the Justice Department."
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Using illegally gathered information to effectively blackmail politicians? Ah, that takes me back to the good 'ol days -- J Edgar would be proud.
I wonder how well Robert Mueller pulls off a sun dress...
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
She must be a member of the Democrat Party because they aren't yelling from the roof tops "ITS A REPUBLICAN, ITS A REPUBLICAN!!!".
I don't think anyone would ever think of the US as impartial in that whole mess.
I firmly believe that a public official regardless of office should be held to a higher standard. I'm not a fan of the Patriot Act however I am surprised this isn't viewed as a shocking invasion of privacy.
Man blir trött av att gå och göra ingenting.
Can I ask any more leading question? :)
DoJ had a warrant, apparently it was part of the AIPAC investigation.
No, the fishy part is that the Bush admin apparently blackmailed her into supporting the warrantless program.
Also, you have the Executive branch doing that ot a member of the Legislative.
This could get really interesting...
Best Slashdot Co
The TPM piece on this http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/04/must_read_5.php mentions incidentally that the position in question had almost gone to Alcee Hastings but didn't because Hastings had earlier been removed "from a federal judgeship over bribery allegations." So Harman only had a chance at the position because the other major contender was corrupt. You've got to love the politicians.
As I understand it they went to FISA to get a retroactive warrant. A nice little provision of the law.
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
I find it's becoming much more common for people to incorrectly claim someone else is using "irony" wrong.
How ironic.
Moderators: Before moderating a comment Insightful/Informative, check to see if a child post has already refuted it.
Why?
Many of us see the downslope of American freedom as a bi-partisan circle jerk that has been going on for years and years and under multiple administrations.
As best, I feel the modern Dems could be described as jellyfish opposition. At worst, willing coconspirators.
In either, case, I don't feel the people who fairly won all branches of government did anything brave to stand against this maddness to deserve their positions of power and the ability to implement a new set of very bad ideas.
You can bet it would have been pointed out in the title of the summary and 10 more times in the summary.
How hard is it to put the D after her name? We're not all from California, you know. I had to spend 40 seconds googling it, and another couple minutes typing this. That's time I'll never get back. I might see my potential future children for a few less minutes now (or even worse, they might never be born!). Won't someone PLEASE think of the children and add party affiliation tags after politician names so I'll know ahead of time whether I should hate them or love them!?!
There, somebody posted the usual rant, now the serious ones can be legitimately modded redundant without making the mods feel guilty.
Since when do we mod people troll around here for dropping Star Trek references? This is a geek site after all.....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Thank you. I'm getting sick and tired of hearing people drop the 'T' word without any idea of what it actually means. It's this kind of stupidity that makes me think the Framers were correct to define Treason within the Constitution so it couldn't be used for political purposes.....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
In this case, the underlying article reports that: "What is new is that Harman is said to have been picked up on a court-approved NSA tap directed at alleged Israel covert action operations in Washington." Key words are "court-approved."
The Fourth Amendment states that:
Once the executive branch has convinced a judge that probably cause exists, and the judge has issued the warrant, there is nothing preventing the executive branch from using that information in court.
Now there is a real question as to whether wire tapping a member of congress (who herself was not under investigation) is a good idea, but that's not really the issue. I'm actually somewhat sad to hear about this as Jane Harmon is/was a very competent and thoughtful member of congress -- particularly on port security issues.
I understand the desire to rewrite all instances of "Democrat" as "Democratic" (ostensibly, as one Slashdotter wrote about a year ago, because it's more aesthetic, rings better, and it gives you free positive connotations), but how is 'the ranking Democratic' grammatically correct?
Her office is in an office building Rosecrans and Douglas. You should see a good lineup of protesters out there later today if it is anything like last year! Join in the fun! I just might during lunch.
The article doesn't say very clearly where the wiretapped subjects were, but there's this:
From that it sounds like the tapping was entirely domestic, in terms of where the phone lines were located.
The reason we don't want to have warrantless wiretapping is not for people like you and me; it's for this: if the government can listen in on the opposition, it can blackmail them to fall in line politically. So, this case isn't "ironic", it's what you expect to happen when warrantless wiretaps are tolerated, and it's a really bad sign.
How does your argument prove that warrantless wiretapping is not illegal?
More importantly, why are conservatives so eager to have the government spy on us all? What was the point of defeating the Soviet Union in the Cold War if we're just going to turn ourselves into a bad copy of their government?
Never mind the blackmail. If they are doing something that opens themselves up to blackmail, do we really want them in office anyway?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
One person blackmails another, who blackmails another, who blackmails another, and so on and so forth...
I was under the impression that it was AIPAC that was being tapped and that the tap was the result of a federal investigation, in which case there was a warrant.
Can be found here.
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
It says "the ranking Democratic on the House intelligence committee" right in the summary. Are you that stupid, or just plain dishonest?
Are you a fucking, pig-ignorant, illiterate moran?
No, just the usual dishonest conservative who doesn't want to see reality even when it's right in front of his face.
I think we're all seeing the checks, not so much with the balances...
Democrats? Republicans? Or Both?
So what is or who are the United States? Its' citizens or the government? or both or something else?
What is war?
Who are United States' enemies?
Mods, do your job correctly.
Why would they want to do that? It would require being honest, and it wouldn't falsely make the press look like it was in cahoots with the Democrats.
Since when has false flag specialist Israel really been the US ally, as opposed to treating the US as her bitch, because of traitors like this cretin in the article and other traitors in big business, big media, and big finance and big government? They sure as hell ARE traitors. Just because they claim they aren't doesn't make it so once you look at the real data.
Why the hell should we be supporting a racist apartheid nation? I never supported racist south africa, and nor do I support Israel, they have been a plague and have put the world at peril for nuclear confrontation for decades now, all so that some European settlers can claim land that isn't theirs. If they had a beef with Germany over their particular holocaust, which is just ONE OF MANY that happened during the war, why the hell didn't we demand Germany give up some territory for some new zionist nation? The Germans are the biggest hypocrites out there now about this. Their old biblical claim to "greater zion" is pure hogwash, freaking fantasy land and I can't believe anyone on this forum falls for it.
Here's just a few references to get you started on some sorely neglected education that you need about those false "allies" who are really the biggest threat to the security of the US, USS Liberty attack-this is called levying war, get it? and don't believe the official dual nation coverup story, listen to the actual survivors and dudes who lived through it. And go ahead and google "9-11, dancing Israelis"-for more levying war, and "khazars" for a little more in depth historical background of what lying toads they are. Shrewd yes, technologically capable, yes, smart yes, but also lying sneaky deceitful skunks and jerks.
People who put the interests of some other nation over their own ARE traitors, fullstop. If they claim to be US citizens but work for another nation-traitors. That includes Israel-firsters, including those loony brainwashed flat earth snake handling Xians who are dreaming of Armageddon and some huge conflagration to bring about the Rapture, and just the normal economic traitors, then those jerk off big businessmen who are China-firsters, and so on.
Traitors. You can't have it both ways, either loyal to your own nation first, or you are a traitor and a liar and a hypocrite.
Israel, history of false flag operations
While I've never agreed with the legal theories that allow most wiretapping, the courts have, and this wiretap was approved by a court.
However, dropping prosecution in return for the Congresscritter actively supporting their political agenda strikes me as somewhere on the spectrum between extortion and at least partisan favoritism.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
In the linked article, it says "Democrat" or "Democratic" no less than seven times. But it never identifies Gonzales or anyone else as a Republican.
Yeah, I think I read about ze evil Jew Illuminati in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Honestly, I thought it was bad enough that slashdotters were willing to share political parties with conspiracy-theory-touting skinheads, but I never thought I'd see Stormfront talking points get +5, Insightful here.
If anything, Israel has been a US proxie in the area for 60 years. Read up about the Yom Kippur war, and the circumscriptions we put on Israel, to our benefit and their detriment (Kissinger's two word command "Don't preempt" and "not one nail" comment).
This whole story gives me associations of George Bush and Jane Harman with Napoleon and Squealer from Animal Farm.
When you are sure of something, you probably are wrong (search for "Unskilled and Unaware of It").
When these were issued, if you'll recall, we were engaged in spy-work against people who killed 3,000 of us.
I'm not aware of a single court case brought by someone 'wiretapped' (not just associated from a call-list) before. If so this would be a first.
Ya know, when "that evil old" George Bush was in office, I didn't mind so much: it was to attack terrorists, and we could still call them terroritsts.
Now, our current president buddies up with leaders who have A HISTORY OF KILLING THEIR OWN PEOPLE, for trade sanctions and following the UN until this point.
And, since everyone who doesn't agree with the "Federalists must control everything without a Constitution" movement, I.E,, me, this is now troubling.
Why'd you guys elect a president that wanted to be king?
Now taking bets on whether anything will come of this. People have become far too complacent seeing these stories and forgetting about them the next day.
At a bare minimum the investigation should continue without political interference. Preferably with Harman stepping down from committees until it concludes.
Neither are the sets disjoint. Obviously Slashdot is just one of thousands of ways you could hear (read) strong objections from the people with regard to warrantless wiretaps, Guantanamo, etc. Your claim that the people were silent in this matter is easily refuted with a simple Google search.
ROTFLMAO Somebody mod this guy +1 funny
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Politicians blow, they lie for career, power, money and we let them get away with it. But calling Israelis 'lying sneaky deceitful skunks and jerks' is kind of general. There are probably some people there that arent.
Quack, quack.
If you think 60 days of Obama is going to fix 9 years of fuck up then you're delusional.
The Bush administration used blackmail to gain political influence in Congress? How are these fuckers still not in prison?
I am rather pleased with myself for correctly parsing this story in 2006. It was clear to some at the time what was really going on.
"In sum total: The FBI has the evidence already. The shape of spy scandals to get exposed depends on who runs the Intelligence committees, and Reyes seems like the only good choice" etc.
--hongpong.com