Constitutional Crises, Anyone? The DOJ More Interested In Defending Criminal Conduct Of The Bush Adm.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007. The House Judiciary Committee convenes a hearing to look into the Justice Department’s handling of allegations of crime involving contractors in Iraq. It started with the case of Jamie Leigh Jones, and we quickly learned that this was just one of a substantial number of cases involving rape and sexual assault. The Justice Department is invited to send a witness to explain its policies and inaction. At the last minute, the Justice Department’s congressional liaison sends a poorly informed letter claiming that the cases the committee will investigate are “under investigation” though, as we learn, the Department of Justice’s “investigation” got launched just about the time the Department learned that Congress was going to take a look. The Justice Department said it would be improper for the Justice Department to respond. Mind you, the Committee’s request was not for the Department to talk about any particular case, but about how it dealt in concept with contractor crimes.

But as became clear from the evidence presented at the hearing, the Department doesn’t deal with crimes involving contractors. It has a policy of official indifference to them. So here we see a clear-cut case where the Justice Department has a law enforcement mandate to deal with serious violent crimes such as murder, assault and rape, and chooses to do nothing. A question of resource allocation, evidently. You see, for the Bush Administration, murder, assault and rape are not as important as other things.

Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey was busy addressing the American Bar Association’s National Security Law Breakfast. He was making an impassioned appeal to the lawyers assembled in that room, quite a few of whom work for him, and most of whom work for President Bush, for acceptance of the Bush Administration’s FISA proposals. And what caused Mukasey to venture out before this hostile audience? He made a pitch for the benefit of the telecommunications industry. To be very specific, he urgently pushed for immunity for telecommunications companies who violated the criminal law by collaborating with the Bush Administration in warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens and residences. So for Mukasey the priorities were clear: protecting telecommunications companies who commit crimes is the core function of the Attorney General, requiring his personal attention. Not enforcing the law to protect contractors who are the subject of rape, assault and false imprisonment.

So let’s get this right. The Department of Justice has no available resources to deal with contractor crimes. It doesn’t even have a warm body to send before a Congressional probe of the matter to state its position. But it is deploying all its available assets to justify criminal conduct, to secure immunity for persons who unapologetically broke the law based on the criminal solicitations of government officers, to cover up official criminality related to the torture and abuse of persons under detention, and to obstruct Congressional investigations into other potentially criminal acts in which it was involved. A person observing this from some detached point in space might well conclude that the function of the Department of Justice under President Bush is not to enforce the law. It is to commit and promote criminal conduct. At this point, it’s clear that breaking the law is the Justice Department’s number one, two and three priority. And law enforcement? That’s disappeared from the scene.

We are seeing the destruction of the rule of law for political purposes under the Bush Administration. The rule of men is diametrically opposed the what this country was founded on and we are letting this happen. It is a travesty that cannot continue if we are to call ourselves a democracy.

Write your Senator and Representative.

Don't let this continue.

via Harpers

Telecom Immunity

updateHarry Reid delays vote because of the amount of amendements brought to the FISA (Telecom) Bill. Yeah!! While this does not mean the battle is over, but it give you more time to contact your Senator.

Glenn Greewald has a great article over at Salon about what a travesty the notion of telecom immunity actuallly is.

Here's the "money quote" that says it all:

More than anything else, what these revelations highlight -- yet again -- is that the U.S. has become precisely the kind of surveillance state that we were always told was the hallmark of tyrannical societies, with literally no limits on the government's ability or willingness to spy on its own citizens and to maintain vast dossiers on those activities. The vast bulk of those on whom the Government spies have never been accused, let alone convicted, of having done anything wrong. One can dismiss those observations as hyperbole if one likes -- people want to believe that their own government is basically benevolent and "tyranny" is something that happens somewhere else -- but publicly available facts simply compel the conclusion that, by definition, we live in a lawless surveillance state, and most of our political officials are indifferent to, if not supportive of, that development.

and:

As Dan Froomkin observed this week: "Historians looking back on the Bush presidency may well wonder if Congress actually existed." In actuality, Congress exists -- as a vital enabling arm of the most extreme abuses of the Bush administration. Could anyone wishing to dispute that depressing fact muster any evidence at all in service of their argument? I don't believe so.

None of the candidates for the Presidency, save Chris Dodd and Ron Paul, have said anything about this truly anti-constitutional, lawless act.

Chris Dodd is going to fillibuster the vote on telecom immunity because he is the only one of the Democratic Presidential candiates that, it would seem, feels our country is not supposed to be run by the rule of men and fear, but by the rule of law.

Send a note to Russ Feingold and Edward Kennedy, the other Democrats that are supporting Dodd's filibuster.

Send you suppot to Senator Dodd at this critical time.

Call you Senator

Read the whole thing

New Slogan: It's The Constitution, Stupid!

update It seems Bush wanted to do this two weeks after entering office

via Andrew Sullvan

Bush's Attempt To "Banana Republic" JAG

And Bush continues to try and complete his insane Banana Repubicking of the United States by making the military's JAG (Judge Advocate General) answerable to politcs, not the law.

One of Haynes' allies on the Bush administration legal team, former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo, recently coauthored a law review article sharply critical of the JAGs' unwillingness to endorse the legality of the administration's treatment of wartime detainees.

Yoo, who wrote a series of controversial legal opinions about the president's power to bypass the Geneva Conventions and antitorture laws before leaving government in 2003, called for some kind of "corrective measures" that would "punish" JAGs who undermine the president's policy preferences.

Read that las part again, "called for some kind of "corrective measures" that would "punish" JAGs who undermine the president's policy preferences."

Basically, the Bushies put policy above law, and anyone that gets in the way of Bush's policy by, gasp, following the law, will be punished. Sickening.

and...

"The message would be clear to every JAG, which is that when you have been told that the general counsel has a view on the law, any time you dare disagree with it, don't expect a promotion," Saltzburg said, adding "I don't think that would be in the best interest of the country. We've seen how important it can be to have the JAGs give their honest opinions when you look at the debates on interrogation techniques and the like."

via The Boston Globe