Can't Touch This
Why did the NSA classify 'public' report on wiretaps?

Newsweek Web Exclusive-- by Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball

When Congress passed a landmark electronic-spying bill last summer, the measure included a key provision that ordered the inspectors general of U.S. intelligence agencies to produce the first-ever public report on President Bush's warrantless-surveillance program.

Executive Order: Further Amendments to Executive Orders 12139 and 12949 in Light of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 Amendments Act of 2008

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/10/20081007-7.html

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including sections 104 and 303 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.), as amended by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 Amendments Act of 2008 (Public Law 110-261), it is hereby ordered as follows:

From our friends at DownsizeDC:

My second thought was that the Constitution gives Congress no authority over public safety, except on federal property. This power is left to the states.

WASHINGTON - House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security Subcommittee Chairman Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (D-VA), and Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties Subcommittee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) called on the Department of Justice to postpone the effective date of the consolidated FBI Domestic Operations Guidelines until the new Administration has an opportunity to approve the procedures.

by Declan McCullagh

The U.S. Senate is investigating allegations by two National Security Agency whistleblowers who have described widespread monitoring of innocuous telephone conversations by the Bush administration's clandestine program.

Statement by Kate Martin, Director

Center for National Security Studies

Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

Revisions to the Attorney General Guidelines for FBI Investigations

October 3, 2008

America’s next president will inherit more than a financial catastrophe when he assumes office—he will also inherit a shadow government. In this week’s vodcast, John W.

After reading John W. Whitehead’s new book, The Change Manifesto: Join the Block by Block Movement to Remake America (Sourcebooks, 2008), Nat Hentoff was moved to remark that “John Whitehead is the Tom Paine of our time.” Indeed, in his 30-plus years as a constitutional attorney and author, Whitehead has gained a reputation for being a legal, political and cultural watchdog—sounding the call for integrity, accountability and an adherence to the democratic principles on which this country was founded.