Republicans and Democrats are championing bills to further militarize the prosecution of terrorists, beyond anything even President George W. Bush proposed.

They want Americans to believe the legislation will keep the country safer. In fact, these bills could end up tying the hands of F.B.I. agents and other law enforcement officials trying to disrupt terrorist plots. They are likely to deprive prosecutors of their most powerful weapons in bringing terrorists to justice. And they come perilously close to upending the prohibition, which dates back to Reconstruction, against the military’s operating as a police force within the United States.

There is no sign that the White House tried to stop the House from passing a particularly awful version of these bills, which would move most, if not all, terrorism cases from civilian courts to military tribunals. And there is no sign the White House tried to stop the Senate Armed Services Committee from approving only a slightly better one.

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The Obama administration has long been bumbling along in the footsteps of its predecessor when it comes to sacrificing Americans’ basic rights and liberties under the false flag of fighting terrorism. Now the Obama team seems ready to lurch even farther down that dismal road than George W. Bush did.

Instead of tightening the relaxed rules for F.B.I. investigations — not just of terrorism suspects but of pretty much anyone — that were put in place in the Bush years, President Obama’s Justice Department is getting ready to push the proper bounds of privacy even further.

Attorney General John Ashcroft began weakening rights protections after 9/11. Three years ago, his successor, Michael Mukasey, issued rules changes that permit agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to use highly intrusive methods — including lengthy physical surveillance and covert infiltration of lawful groups — even when there is no firm basis for suspecting any wrongdoing.

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By Allan Lengel

Under the category of “not very surprising”, Dick Cheney was fuming when President Bush refused to pardon vice presidential aide I “Scooter” Libby after he was convicted of lying in the leak  investigation into the identity of CIA spy Valerie Plalme.

Appearing in an interview on NBC’s Today Show, said ex- George W. Bush said Cheney confronted him about his decision to commute Libby’s 30-month sentence, but not pardon him.

Bush, who is promoting his memoir, “Decision Points”, writes that  a furious Cheney told him: “I can’t believe you’re going to leave a soldier on the battlefield,” according to the Associated Press.

Bush said he was concerned the decision would damage his friendship with Cheney.

“I’m pleased to report we are friends today,” he said.

President Bush

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com

The Secret Service relying on a psychic?

That’s the claim in a new book by Ronald Kessler “In The President’s Secret Service”.

The Washington Post’s Reliable Source column by Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts reports that the Secret Service once changed a motorcade route for President George H.W. Bush in 1992 in Enid, Okla.

The column says the book reported that state law enforcement urged agent Norm Jarvis to talk to a psychic who “told Jarvis she’d had a vision of the president being shot as the motorcade neared an overpass. Her vision made little sense — she saw Bush sitting on the left (he always sat on the right) and wearing an open-neck shirt and light jacket instead of the suit and tie planned for this trip”.

The column went on to say: “But then she accurately predicted which airport hangars housed the presidential limo and helicopter. And then the president stepped off Air Force One in an open-neck shirt and light jacket . . . and THEN slid over to the limo’s left side!

“Kessler writes that the team “decided the psychic could not be ignored,” and rerouted the motorcade away from overpasses. A Secret Service rep told CQ that Kessler’s story “doesn’t make sense” but conceded that Jarvis might have told it.”

OTHER STORIES OF INTEREST

U.S. Atty. Diane Humetewa

Diane Humetewa, the nation’s first female Native American U.S. Attorney, will step down Aug. 2, the  Phoenix Business Journal reported.

The move comes as no surprise since Dennis Burke has already been tapped as her replacement.

Humetewa, a  member of the Hopi Indian Tribe,  began serving in  December 2007.

At the time of her appointment by President Bush,  Indian Country Today newspaper wrote that “Indian country found big reason to celebrate.”

photo-stanford.edu

Saddam Hussein was the master of illusion. With all the intelligence the world had, he still was able to give everyone, including the U.S., the impression he had weapons of mass destruction.  While captive, he let down his guard while talking to FBI agent George Pero, who even gave Hussein some of his mother’s baked goods. I heard Pero speak one day and he said his mother wasn’t so happy when she heard Hussein was the recipient of those goodies.

By James Gordon Meek
New York Daily News
WASHINGTON - Saddam Hussein feared Iran’s arsenal more than a U.S. attack, and even considered asking ex-President George W. Bush “to protect” Iraq from its neighbor, once secret FBI files show.

The FBI interrogations of the toppled tyrant – codename “Desert Spider” – were declassified after a Freedom of Information Act request.

The records show Saddam happily boasted of duping the world about stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. And he consistently denied cooperating with Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda.

Of all his enemies, Iraq’s ex-president – who insisted he still held office during captivity – hated Iran most.

For Full Story

Read 2004 FBI File