I'm inspired by Digby's re-post of some 2006 reflections on why unregulated state surveillance isn't such a great idea, and our president's warning that maitaining the ancient and honorable right of habeus corpus means terrorists might soon be walking Main Streat USA, to re-post a patriotic reminder of my own:
Fascinating AP article about the random combination of circumstances that led to a small group of civil rights lawyers getting a glimpse at the quality of the evidence the post-9/11 National Security State uses to choose its targets for warrantless eavesdropping.
Attorney Jon Eisenberg accidentally got to see a National Security Administration log of calls intercepted between an Islamic charity and its American lawyers, stamped TOP SECRET on every page. It's now stored in a bombproof safe in Washington and viewed only by prosecutors with top secret security clearances and a few select federal judges. It is also, Eisenberg says, relying upon his memory—there isn't allowed be any written record of the document's contents, and even the laptop Erenberg used to write briefs for the case is scheduled to be erased—a joke. "Believe me," Eisenberg says, with what I can only imagine to be a bemused but weary sigh, "if this appeared on the front pages of newspapers, national security would not be jeopardized."
That's not hard to believe. The government's "case" against supposed "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla has been such an embarrassment—the feds have 300,000 taped phone calls, only 21 of which refer to Padilla, and the claim is that on those 21 calls, phrases like “playing football”, “eating cheese” and “zucchini” are supposed to refer to his Dr. Evil-like plots—that the defense attorneys have decided not even to dignify them with a response, resting their case without calling a single witness.
There will come a time, decades hence, when we learn more about the tragicomic incompetents and blackguards among those who affect to be our brave anti-terrorist watchmen; you can only erase so many hard drives and so many consciences. Look what happened when FOIA requests and archival digging starting turning documents of the work of our Keystone anti-Kommunist Kops in a previous generation.
The FBI and CIA went after one enemy of America with particular gusto, as an indefatigable historian learned after years of dogged work getting his security file released. J. Edgar Hoover personally classified his case as a "Security Matter"—the designation reserved for those considered potentially violently dangerous to internal security. They were so determined to neutralize this anti-American that they persisted even after an FBI source advised that the subject "appears to be radically oriented however he does not give the impression he is a true revolutionist since he is constantly under the influence of narcotics."
The subject was, yes, John Lennon—or as the FBI called him, "Lennon formerly with the group known as the Beatles." more »
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