Red Alert: civil liberties on the block

Given the president's statement, just minutes ago, on the apparently foiled U.K.-based terrorism plot, it seems quite clear to your blogstress that this latest turn of events will be used as yet another reason to further concentrate power in the executive branch.

Yesterday we learned that the administration wants to revise the War Crimes Act to exempt the abuse of imprisoned "enemy combatants" from oversight by U.S. courts. We saw how AOL posted online the search history of one its subscribers, and we know that the U.S. is searching such information -- as well as your phone records -- without going to the courts for warrants. And sitting in the Senate is a bill supported by Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter that would officially exempt the administration from obtaining the warrants required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

Hold on to your hats, don't use the phone, your e-mail or travel.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pat Robertson: Earthquake payback for Haiti's 'pact with the Devil'

Cross-posted from AlterNet Every disaster that befalls a nation -- hurricanes, floods, terrorism, earthquakes -- constitutes God's punishment of a people gone astray, according to Pat Robertson, who famously blamed feminists for 9/11 and gays for Hurricanes Katrina and Andrew. In the case of Haiti's devastating earthquake, he blames an ostensible deal that black Haitians made with the Devil in order to win their emancipation and independence from the French colonials who enslaved them. So, in Haiti's case it might not be God who did the nation in, but rather the Devil calling in his chit. "True story," according to Robertson: [S]omething happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French, uh you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the Devil. They said we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True Story. And so the Devil said "Okay,...
Read more

Anti-gay robo-call

Image
Robocall - Tim Wildmon Your blogstress's friends at the American Family Association have been buying airtime from whomever will sell them a bit of that public trust to spread their customary message of hatred of queer folk. Here's a robocall that went out yesterday, presumably to any and all who ever contributed a dime to AFA. Note that the call comes from AFA founder Don Wildmon 's son, Tim . (Ever notice how some of these hate-mongering groups become a sort of full-employment plan for the founder's family?) AFA's special, "Speechless: Silencing the Christians", may soon be coming to a cable channel -- or even broadcast channel -- near you, delivered as "paid programming". If you see it scheduled in your 'hood, you may wish to mobilize against the media outlet that sold the air time to AFA. Here's the text of Brother Tim's message: Hello, this is Tim Wildmon on behalf of your American Family Association, calling to sincerely than...
Read more