What about our civil rights law?

This weekend there were a number of news stories about how our fine federal government will investigate and prosecute any leaks of classified information about the NSA domestic spying program. See THIS LINK as an example.

The new fact is that our esteemed Attorney General will also go after the reporters too, and not just the leaker. Talk about chilling our rights to a free press! Last I checked, the freedom of press is still a protected civil liberty.

I propose this little idea: If the feds prosecute a leaker or reporter, and the federal whistleblower law, or our general constitutional protections, result in their acquital, then that federal prosecutor and any of his/her superiors who ordered the prosectution, should themselves be prosecuted for violations of civil rights under the federal civil rights laws. That would even the playing field a little bit! It is a crime for one or more persons acting under color of law willfully to deprive or conspire to deprive another person of any right protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States. See THIS web site.

Anyone wanting to make a criminal complaint against the Attorney General should go THIS LINK. Ironic, huh?

"Mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans..."

A couple years ago when I was a local prosecutor, there was a previously convicted sex offender who tried to snatch up a young girl in our town. This man was from out of state, and we identified him through his license plate number. We found out that he had a cell phone, and wanted to get his phone records to see if we could corroborate that he was actually in our town at the time of the crime.

I applied to our local district court, and had to swear out a statement setting forth probable cause to believe this man committed a crime before the judge could authorize a court order to obtain his phone records. I had to do this because the phone company told me they would not give us his records without a court order.

Now, the latest revelation of illegal Bush activity is that three major phone companies have apparently turned over wholesale information of ALL their phone records on everyone, to the federal government! USA Today reported on May 11th that AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth telephone companies began turning over records of tens of millions of their customers' phone calls to the National Security Agency program shortly after the September 11, 2001. The report has been essentially confirmed by Senator Trent Lott.

Apparently the NSA wants a massive database of who called who. While this could certainly be useful for tracking terrorist networks, it is a massive invasion of our right to privacy. (A federal right to privacy has been found to be implied in the U.S. Constitution by the Supreme Court).

King George has of course blasted THE LEAK of this inofrmation, and insists he was not "mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans..." However, that is EXACTLY what he allowed the NSA to do.

Our country has functioned quite well for 217 years with constitutional protections for everyone, even suspected sex offenders. If local authorities can work through this system to show 'probable cause' to get needed phone information, and get court orders to make sure privacy rights are honored, the federal government can certainly do the same.

We need to be outraged, and to let our senators and congressmen and congresswomen know that we are mad. This administration needs to stop abusing their power, and follow the constitution. This is another brick in the wall of impeachment.

History DOES repeat itself

Readers of this blog will be aware that I have noted the similarities between Bush's abuse of executive power, and those of Tricky Dick Nixon.

This morning I was listening to an old Chicago song called Dialogue Part 1. The song is basically a discussion between a politically active college student and an average student who wasn't yet active. The lyrics go like this: "Don't it make you angry, where war is dragging on? Well I hope the president knows what he's into, I don't know." Another verse ends with "Well I always thought that everything was fine...."

This song was written in 1972. We were destined to live with Nixon another two years until he resigned in August of 1974, and the Vietnam War didn't end until April 1975.

It seems to me that we are at the point of awakening to the King George absues, like we were in 1972 with Nixon. Witness that the current crop of protest music is coming around: Neil Young's Living With War...etc. Iraq=Vietnam, Domestic spying=Watergate, Valerie Plame outing=Ellsburg burglary, etc.

This goes to prove my favorite quote: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." George Santayana.